С днём рождения

Not many people would pick Moscow as the destination to ring in their 30th birthday, but then again, I am a bit of a wild card.

I will admit that my primary reason to go to Moscow stemmed from my desire to attend a ballet at the world famous Bolshoi Theater. I probably would have picked somewhere warm with a sunny beach for my birthday celebration, but after discovering that there are not really any feasible warm-weather weekend destinations in December (what the hell, Greece?), I was at a loss. Ryan and I had discussed going to Moscow before, and I knew he wasn't thrilled with the idea of going to the ballet. Therefore, I saw this as an opportunity to force his attendance; how could he say no if it was my birthday present?

Quick side note before I get into the trip: Russia is not the easiest country to travel to. It took us four trips to the Russian Consulate in Munich to finally obtain our Visas. This is mostly our fault, but we didn't want to get ripped off or screw it up. Also, the Visas cost about as much as our plane tickets (cheap plane tickets and expensive Visas).

We arrived in Moscow on Thursday evening and somehow managed to not get lost on our way to the hotel which involved navigating a huge, complicated, and under-construction airport, taking a train to the city, switching to the metro, and then walking to our hotel, all while reading signs in Cyrillic. In typical fashion, after checking in to the hotel, we started on our quest for food. We found a very tasty little pizza joint, where I had a cheese pizza (good, but not as good as Milan) and Ryan had a delicious seafood risotto. I certainly never expected to love the food in Moscow, but we were off to a great start.

Before we had arrived, Ryan had warned me about how expensive the city was. Even as recently as 2013, Moscow was rated as one of the most expensive cities in the world for tourists to visit. Much to our surprise, however, we immediately noticed how reasonably priced everything was, even at the heavy tourist areas. Other areas were downright cheap. Apparently, the EU and US economic sanctions had put the Russian Ruble in a complete tailspin; it lost over 40% of its value just since the start of 2014 and decreased even more significantly after we left. While the Russians we met were none too pleased about this, it was definitely nice for us.

The majority of the three day weekend consisted of sleeping in (so late that I am embarrassed to tell you what hour we got up, and this applies to all three days), exploring the many Moscow Christmas markets in the freezing cold, subsequently warming up in the shopping malls, relaxing at the hotel's 24-hour hot tub and pool, eating lots of delicious food (somehow we managed to order a risotto dish every night), and, of course, lots of drinking.

Bolshoi Theater. Christmas markets would open the next day.

St Basil's Cathedral

Looking out at Red Square from inside the cathedral.

Christmas market!

Ornaments galore.

Warming up in the mall.

Santa IS real!

On my birthday, we went ice skating in Red Square with St. Basil's Cathedral in the background. This was a completely perfect experience as there was snow falling and all of the buildings were covered in lights. Ryan was able to impress me with his ice skating skills for the first time, and while he could not successfully convince me to try a hockey stop, I did manage to not fall down and (kind of) keep up with him.

Stilted dancers and singers in the Christmas market. The man with the mic was so hilariously animated, it made Ryan giddy with glee.

After skating, we had drinks overlooking the remarkable Bolshoi Theater and then attended the ballet. We saw a performance of Onegin, a Russian novel turned opera turned ballet (and in 1999, a probably-mediocre-at-best movie). The theater, dancing, sets, and live music made for a magical experience. The people watching was also exceptional, and I have concluded, from my limited experience, that Russian people love to get their picture taken. I have never seen so many people pose for solo photos, and don't even get me started on their poses. Russians also love fur coats and sometimes even boots with the fur.

Outside the Bolshoi Theater.

Killer boots, man.

View from our seats.

An incredible theater.

#selfie

We explored the many rooms of the theater during the two intermissions.

A wonderful treat was waiting for us back in our room after the show. Thanks, Marriott!

In short, everything was spectacular, and Moscow greatly exceeded my expectations. I turned 30 in a wintery, Christmasy wonderland, and it was everything I had hoped it would be (besides these damn hangovers and wrinkles).

Until the next post!

xoxo,
L & R

tegernsee

In November, I had a chance to reunite with a former coworker of mine from Portland. Cynthia and her husband, Josh, moved to Germany several years ago. Cynthia, who still works for EY, just happened to be auditing a company that is literally across the courtyard from my office, so, after some Facebook messaging, we grabbed lunch together to catch up. After hearing that they were spending the weekend in Munich (they live on base outside of Nuremberg), we decided to also meet up for dinner on Friday night and go for a hike on Saturday.

On Saturday morning, we met at the Munich Hauptbahnhof. We grabbed a few beers for the train ride (since when did the time of day ever stop us from having a beer?), picked a nice four-square on the train (yes, near the toilet again), and headed out for Tegernsee. Tegernsee is a beautiful town surrounded by the Alps, conveniently located on a lake also named Tegernsee (remember: see means lake) with a brewery called Tegernseer. Great beer, by the way. Lake, Alps, Beer... we couldn't miss.

It was a brisk sunny day and we hiked up to the top of Neureuth, a mountain rising up directly behind the town. It was a steep hike through the forest with hilarious company, stunning views, a delicious meal, and tasty beers at the top.

Goat friend.

Always a beer garden.

Cuffed pants. Good look.

Some snow at the top. It was freezing when we weren't moving.

Enjoying beers and delicious food at the top, whilst freezing our asses off.

Steep hike down.

Despite desperately needing to pee, I couldn't resist a picture with the bell-wearing cows.

Finished the hike with some beers at the Tegernseer brewery, down near the lake.

Hopefully we will be able to spend more time with Cynthia and Josh before they move back to the US in mid-2015! 

Until the next post!

xoxo,

L & R

there is more to milan than fashion

The weekend before Thanksgiving, we took a weekend trip to Milan. The flights were so cheap (under $100 each), it was a no-brainer. We had heard less-than-stellar reviews about the city -- dirty, small, few sights to see, and our friends' car was broken into in Milan. However, there were a couple of big draws that made it seem worthwhile to us, including Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper and the Duomo. Plus, we are big fans of Italian food and wine, so if all else failed, we'd eat and drink our way through this weekend and still call it a win.

After a quick 45 minute flight on Friday evening, we took a painfully slow bus into the city (I had started to forget what rush hour traffic was like), navigated the subway system, dropped our bags at the hotel, and were ready to stuff our faces. Being the planner that I am, I had done some research about the best restaurants in Milan. There were a handful of very highly rated restaurants about 10 minutes walk from our hotel, so we headed that direction. After finding that my two top picks were fully booked, and awkwardly entering a private, very fancy, and slightly geriatric dinner party, I let Ryan choose a hole-in-the-wall looking pizza place across the street. Ryan is proving to be the best food chooser in the world. I can only describe this pizza as the kind that I used to dream about from watching cartoons. For some reason, the cartoon Doug particularly comes to mind. The kind where the cheese is so abundant, and the pizza comes out so piping hot, that it literally oozes off of the slices. YUM.

On Saturday, we packed in some tourist attractions. We started the day by viewing The Last Supper mural, which is hard to get tickets for. Luckily, since we were there during the off season, I was able to grab the last appointment available for the weekend when I looked for tickets a couple weeks prior. Each appointment group is corralled through a few glass chambers before entering the room for 15 minutes only. I didn't think I'd ever want to study a single painting for longer than this amount of time, but I was proved wrong. It was highly fascinating and well worth the trip.

No photos inside, but this is the church where The Last Supper mural resides.

Next, we joined a free walking tour to learn about the city of Milan. I will let the tour unfold through photos.

Our first glimpse of the Duomo from the back.

Inside the world's first shopping mall!

Spinning circles with your heel in this divot brings good luck.

Probably learning about the Milan coat of arms or some other tile art on the floor of the mall.

The castle grounds.

The Duomo

What would a trip to Milan be without a little shopping (and window-shopping)? After the tour, we spent a couple of hours admiring the expensive shops, and then went to the budget stores for the real shopping. One such store was so crowded that there were two security guards, a rope, and a line to get in the store. Once inside, everyone kind of filed around in a line because it was impossible to deviate from the movement of the crowd. It was the Walmart of the fashion world.

On Saturday night, we had reserved a table at the restaurant I had wanted to go to the previous evening. We slowly walked through the neighborhood with some beers and stopped in to an antique store on our way. We found a very cool, slightly damaged world globe and asked the shopkeeper how much it cost. Speaking no English, this little Italian woman held up four fingers and then a zero. We spent the next five minutes contemplating if we wanted to purchase this globe, inspecting the damage, etc. After we decided to pull the trigger and walked up to the cash register, we were more than a little surprised when she held up a calculator and asked for 400 Euros. If I could read her mind, I'd imagine she was thinking, who do these drunk Americans think they are? In our minds, we couldn't imagine anyone wanting to buy a damaged globe for 400 Euros! Well, if anyone is still contemplating a birthday or Christmas gift for me, I now have high interest in procuring an antique globe.

By the way, the dinner and wine were divine. Interesting how we thought the food and wine would be the saving grace of our trip, and it really ended up being an afterthought. A very delicious afterthought.

On Sunday, we climbed the Duomo stairs and walked around on the rooftops of the cathedral. The architecture was stunning and provided some great photo ops.

Interior of the cathedral

Moral of the story: haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate, but shake it off, and then visit Milan.

Until the next post!

xoxo,
L & R