Roots, Trunks & Branches: Moo Moo and a Circus

Max and his Moo Moo breakfast.

My, My. For some reason the clever name of this Russian restaurant stuck with me. In the Cyrillic alphabet, the 'y' in Russian produces the Latin alphabet's 'long u' sound. Thus (Moo, Moo). This restaurant has a big buffet stocked with lots of Russian foods, is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and is decorated nicely in a rustic motif with lots of wood. Chairs throughout the restaurant and sporadically painted in the black and white "cow theme." Each location has a GIANT cow sitting out front as a landmark and if the patrons are lucky, they end up with a cow-skin printed balloon. (we missed out on the balloons, unfortunately) Every meal comes with a yummy piece of candy, no matter if it's breakfast or not. Pure sugar... yum. This is where we began our day for a late morning breakfast. We always end up ordering a little bit of a lot of things and sharing, just for curiosity's sake. Max ordered a pierogi, Evan ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and mashed potatoes, Jose ordered a meat patty with a fried egg sitting upon it with a side of fried potatoes, and my order consisted of a meat patty with sauteed onions and mushrooms on top, all smothered in a delicious white creamy sauce which Jose thinks was mayo and cheese mixed together. I don't know, but it was good. Oh, and it came with a side of delicious rice which had lots of diced up carrots cooked with it. Let's not forget about the "pancake" (more of a crepe) with chocolate and raisins folded up inside and two cappuccinos to get us parents moving. I know it sounds like a strange breakfast. Originally we went in because we read the word "omelet" on the menu posted outside the front door. When we asked for omelettes, we were directed down the line to another part of the buffet, never really saw anything resembling omelettes nor anyone making them and finally decided to let ourselves be sidetracked by everything we saw.

Meat Patty with cream sauce and Rice on the Side

Evan & Max riding Moo Moo

Notice the Clemson Tiger Paw in the second row?

After breakfast, we continued down Old Arbat Street again, this time stopping in lots of the shops and checking out all the Matryoshka dolls. Would you believe Jose found a Clemson-themed matryoshka?! Who would have thunk it? Crazy. Those tourist shops will stop at no length to get the American Tourists to drop some $$.

By the time we returned to the apartment, Maxim had fallen asleep in the stroller, so we just transferred him to the bed and he continued snoozing. What we've learned in our 15 days with him regarding naps... if we want him to lay down and take a nap, NYET, he's not having it. If he's in a car or rolling along smoothly in a stroller, the movement will lull him to sleep. He had been sleeping nearly an hour and 1/2 when we decided it was time to wake him or our afternoon plans would be shot.

We decided, since we're in Russia, we should go see one of those famous Russian circuses... With the help of the internet, we located two here in Moscow. The Old Moscow (Nikulin) Circus and the Balshoi Circus (Balshoi means big or grand). We opted for the Balshoi as the website gave us the impression that it was more acrobats than animal acts and the Old Moscow Circus seemed to be more animal acts. Also, the Balshoi Circus had a show at 5:00 pm and the Old Moscow Circus wasn't until 7:00. We weren't sure if the boys would last through the 7:00 show. They're still jet-lagged.

While Max was still sleeping, we searched the internet for a Moscow Metro map so we could figure out how to get ourselves there. We utilized Google Translate to assist in hand-writing our circus ticket order in Russian Cyrillic letters on a little slip we would pass to the cashier at the ticket window. Then we attempted to wake Max so we'd have time to give him and Evan a snack before our departure for our Subway and Circus Adventure. Not fun. Little man Max did NOT want to wake up. Nor did he want pizza, yogurt, fruit, water, or juice. Nor did he want to put his shoes on, or go Peeset (pee pee), or sit in the stroller, or go out the door, or down the hallway, or into the elevator, or out of the building, walking, or sitting, or his Mommy pushing him, or ANYTHING! He just wanted to scream and cry. We attempted to tell him we were going to the Circus in Russian, but he didn't want to hear anything. Who knows if he even knew what the circus was before today. He wasn't having any of it. He screamed and cried for about five blocks of walking and didn't finally stop until we got into the Metro station and headed down the enormously long escalator to the trains. When that boy starts his wailing, it's as if someone shuts his ears off. End of story. Maybe, you're thinking, we should have just turned back to the apartment since we weren't necessarily providing a "calm" situation at this point which all those adoption books recommend. We opted to continue, our aim was to show Max that he's just going to have to trust us that we're not taking him anywhere bad.

So finally, he realized that the train station was A LOT more interesting than his wailing. The route to the Bolshoi Circus included two trains. We're patting ourselves on the back for reading the signs correctly. Surprisingly, even in Moscow, the subway signs only have words written in the Cyrillic alphabet. While we do see more signs written in phonetic latin alphabet around town, the subway sign makers didn't get that assignment from the local tourism department. Maybe before the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World, someone could take on that assignment.

Home of the Bolshoi Circus.

The subway was great, the trains ran very frequently and it works here just like in any other modernized country in the world. (except for the signage) We exited the subway at Университет (University) and saw the big circus building kitty-corner across the intersection. We crossed safely with all the other pedestrians and bicycle riders and made our way to the entrance along the flower and fountain lined walk. It was really pretty. There were about a half-dozen carnival rides out front for the little kids, we by-passed those to get into the theater in time. When we approached the door, we only saw ticket-takers and hadn't seen yet the box-office window which is normally easy to find in the States. I asked the first employee I saw, in my best Russian of course, "билет?" (bilet? — which, by the way, is very similar to the Spanish word for ticket — billete) I have no idea what she said, I just attempted to pay attention to the direction she was pointing. We attempted another door sort of in that direction and asked the same question again... we were homing in our our target. It's not the most direct way to locate your destination, but it works in any language. It's sort of like playing that kids game where the player is told that they're hotter or colder based on how close they are in proximity to the item they are trying to find. It works.

Finally we found the ticket window after wandering back up a portion of the flower-lined path, around a corner, down the stairs and into the box office. We presented our well-written order to the nice lady behind the glass (I'm patting myself on the back, here) and received our tickets for exactly the price point we wanted to pay. She crossed out the portion that listed our boys' ages, signifying that adult and children's tickets were the same price. We understood perfectly, paid in rubles and got some great seats for the show. Getting into our seats presented another challenge. When we presented our tickets to the usher, it was already quite dark in the theatre as the show had just begun. We hadn't paid attention to the row or seat numbers printed on the tickets yet (we assumed they would take us there), but the usher just pointed in the direction and assumed we would go. (We couldn't see a thing and I wasn't ready to tumble down the staircase and into the center ring) I told her "Ya ni panimayu" (I don't understand) and she gave me a frustrated look and took another look at our tickets. She then pointed and told us in Russian that we should go back out the entry point to the next doors down and enter there. (at least that's what we thought she said) So we went to the next entry point and the nice lady there proceeded to tell us that we should go back to our original entry point. I told her as well, "ya ni panimayu." Finally she walked us next back to the first usher-lady and told her sternly that we should be entering at the first gate. First usher lady tries to seat us in the closest row to us, but even in the dark, I could tell that there were only three seats, not four. I turned around and told her "tree" (three) while pointing at the seats and then pointed at my family and said "chiteery." (four) She then asked the lady who was sitting in, what we thought, our fourth seat to move over. We sat down. Until -

One minute later, we were being asked to move since apparently we were sitting in someone else's seats. I finally went to Usher Lady and said forcefully, "Goodyay, pajalustah?!" (Where, PLEASE?!) handing our tickets to her. She then realized that someone else was sitting in our seats, one row back, (she finally asked them to move) and we finally got to sit down. Keep in mind we were operating in a dark theater, that was very loud as the show had already begun. Usher Lady had no flashlight. Once we were in our seats, we LOVED the show... and so did the boys. Max was smiling from ear to ear. No more tears.

The show was exceptional, except that the theatre smelled old, musty and I swore it smelled like safari animals. The only reason I have a memory of that smell is because Jose and I spent a week watching wild animals on a camera safari in South Africa on our honeymoon. It's a smell you never forget. We saw clowns, (not your standard painted ones like at American circuses), acrobats, magicians, dogs, monkeys, bears, dancers. At the end, was an honest-to-goodness lion tamer, complete with seven or eight full-grown, full-maned, loudly roaring lions. They did exactly what he gently but firmly asked them to do during this 30 minute segment of the show. I couldn't help but think about Siegfried and Roy the entire time. He ended the show by even sticking his head in one of the lion's mouths. They were beautiful, scary, and awe inspiring. I'm not an proponent of wild animals being used for our entertainment, but I have to admit, it was impressive. I snuck in one photo of the lions before the camera police lady tried to yell at me.

At the end of the show, about 7:00 pm, the boys were tired, happy and hungry. And the carnival rides in front of the circus theater were closed for the night. Boys were sad, we were secretly glad. We got back to the apartment having avoided the usual arguments about wanting "just one more ride, please!"