Naptime brought a heavy downpour, and a pretty steady drizzle for about 2 hours. By 5:00, we were all about as bored as you can get.






We needed to get out, and the rain seemed to have slacked up by that time, so we decided to try out the Mexican restaurant just down the street from here. We loaded the little one up, put his jacket on and headed out. By the time we made it downstairs, the drizzle had picked back up an we almost resigned ourselves to cheap room service. But we decided to wait the drizzle out – we figured that if Little I had a hood on, and we had the umbrella…a little wetness wouldn’t hurt anyone (we just couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the hotel room, and we thought that Little I would’ve agreed, had we asked him!).

Once the drizzle had slowed considerably (almost stopped) we headed out. The restaurant is only a 5 minute walk for us – and amazingly, we only had to get the umbrella out once!

Okay, if you ever end up staying at the Holiday Inn Sokolniki, I recommend this restaurant. It was surprisingly good! They had a Spanish/Russian/English menu – the pictures in the menu indicated that the food would be pretty similar to “American Mexican” food. There was one waitress who spoke enough English for us to get by. Nathan and I both got the beef burrito…and little one got a cheese quesadilla. There was no such thing as a refried bean…though our burritos both had kidney beans on them. It really was a very good meal!! And Little I really enjoyed his quesadilla!




After dinner, we decided to go back to Sokolniki Park. Since we’re not really sure what the rest of our time will be like, we didn’t want to miss out on it. So we headed back that way. It is HUGE. You can read up on it by clicking on my link in the previous post, but it is a really neat park. There were a lot of people out – singing, dancing, walking, talking. It doesn’t cost to get into the park (or it didn’t today), and you can purchase tickets to go on any of the rides. There are vendors selling food & drink every where. Oh yes, and birds. There are birds. Everywhere. Capitalizing on both the remains of leftover food and the food that is thrown to them by people who don’t mind being swarmed by 50 birds at once.

Here is a quick slideshow of some of the sights in the park.


And a few pics I thought should just stand alone.

Little I, fascinated with some of the rides:


And here is Little I, having his first taste of popcorn (he loved it):


Riding on dad’s shoulders…a much more comfy alternative (for child & parents) than riding on hips:


That is it for today! Tomorrow, we will go to church here…I think it’s about an hour drive, and the service starts at 11:00. We’ve been told that it can go until 1:00 or 2:00, so I’m not sure how that will go, keeping Little I occupied/quiet. But it falls in his naptime, so we’re going to take some heavy snacks and hope he’ll take a nap at some point. That should keep him still! :) I will definitely let you know how it goes.

I think that’s it for now. I’m still a little jet-lagged, so I’m about to hit the hay.

Good night!