At the Hotel Mir, we unloaded and freshened up a bit and then we headed to Red Square. It was snowing like crazy & windy. People were celebrating the holiday called Maslanitsa - it is the pancake holiday and there was a festival set up for it behind St. Basil's cathedral.

It was tough trudging through all that snow and across the brick pavement. We took some pictures but not too many because it was snowing so hard my cameras were getting very wet and I didn't want them to be ruined. But we had to get the mandatory St. Basil's shot with D. The last time she was there, she was 11 months old and it was covered up with refurbishing nets. We took a quickie tour of St. Basils. It was so cold inside the building that we could blow smoke!

D could have cared less that she was standing right in front of the famous structure, all she was interested in was the snow and making a snow ball and a snow angel!

After St. Basils we walked to the park area with the monument to the unknown soldier and saw the guards standing in the freezing cold. Next we walked over to the underground mall and went to the internet cafe. D needed to go potty, so we paid the 12 rubles each for she and I to use the facilities. This was our first experience with coming out of all the coats, mittens, scarves, hats just to put them right back on! We sent our e-mails and then the overwhelming tiredness really crashed in. We had been up and at 'em for over 24 hours at this point.

We decided we would just get something to eat back at the hotel and head to bed. We ordered a bowl of soup each from room service. While we were waiting for it to be delivered, I remembered that this was the hotel we stayed at on our last visit to Moscow and it didn't have any electrical plugs we could use! It has the type of outlets that were in America in the 60's where both prongs are the same size. There was only one Russian style plug in the whole room and the TV was in it and it was too deep and my converter/adapter thing was too shallow. So now I realize I am not going to be able to cook D's oatymeal or warm her milk (yes, she's a picky eater). I was near tears, I couldn't feed my child or wash my hair!! I cried to hubby, "let's just go to the Marriott!" We decided we'd ask our translator, Nadia, to take us the next day to go buy a hair dryer with a Russian style plug. We did manage to get D's oatymeal made by getting a pot of boiling water from the floor attendant. I just fluffed my hair as best I could and it was a good thing I needed to wear my hat most of the next day anyhow.

We met Nadia at 11 a.m. and went to Detsky Mir. This was D's big dream to see the huge toy store we had seen and heard about on the internet. It is set up in different sections, one for books, another section for music and movies, one section for clothing and baby supplies/furniture etc. and another huge area with toys. There is an old carousel in the middle of the toy part, but sadly it doesn't work. D got a stuffed lion she named Laney and another My Little Pony, number 12 for her herd. After our little toy shopping expedition, we trudged back through the snow to Igor's van and we drove to McDonald's. It was extremely crowded. We learned that lunch time in Moscow is 1 p.m. instead of our usual 12 p.m. So we were right in the thick of it. We finally found a place for all of us to sit and a lady came to our table with a little tablet with pictures of the items in English. We made our choices and she checked them off on the pad. Then hubby went and stood in line to order with this little slip. The hamburger tasted pretty much the same it does at home but was much bigger. The fries tasted exactly the same as they do at home. The Happy Meal was mostly in English and had a Kim Possible toy.

After McDonald's we drove to change some dollars to rubles. Then we drove and drove and finally ended up at a little store that was tiny but had all sorts of items for sale. They had hardware, housewares, school supplies, gardening supplies. Sort of a tiny Russian Wal-Mart :o)

While we were looking at the hair dryers, we noticed some power strip type things with four outlets and a long pronged regular Russian plug. We decided to buy that instead of the hairdryer because we could run all our electrical stuff on it. It only cost 65 rubles too! That's equivalent to about $2.60! Much cheaper than a new blow dryer and much, MUCH cheaper than staying at the Moscow Marriott!

After our little shopping adventure we stopped by and bought tickets for the circus the next night. They cost $25 each but we were to sit only 4 rows from the center ring!

We went back to the hotel and rested a bit, took a shower and I finally got to wash my hair - it was wonderful!

My fingers are about to fall off, so I'll post more in a bit!

Till later . . .