We promised when we concluded Part One that there would be a second part to our tale of our second full day spent together in Moscow--the day we ventured to Red Square. However, other events in our lives seem to keep demanding blog posts and much time has passed.
We still want to recount the day. What an amazing gift from God to be able to see Red Square together, with it's world famous sites, when you've just become a family! (For the first part of the story, see XXXXX--I'll get help from my teens with this tomorrow--Mrs. Beaver.)
As it turns out, this retelling is going to take at least three posts. Here's a bit more of our adventure:
We started our second full day again with family Bible time. The next step was some study of tour books and maps.
Speedy and Jaynie learning about the captial of the country of their birth.
Cassandra, Alexander and Princess Bink studying the map of Moscow.
After becoming a bit more informed, we bundled up for the trek to Red Square. Our hearts overflowed with gratitude to the Lord to have the opportunity to see one of the world's great cities--the great city of our nine Russian adoptees--together as a family.
As we left our flats (remember we had to have five flats in two high rises because each flat slept only two or three), we considered using the Metro. This Metro station was the closest to our flats and is shaped like the Soviet star.
This was a common sight near high pedestrian traffic areas in Moscow like Metro stations--a little old woman curled into a ball, begging. A Russian Orthodox icon is in her cup. Speedy had just dropped some coins into her receptacle. The temperature was probaby only about 35 degrees.
As we considered using the Metro and our newness to being a clan of 14, combined with the crowds inherent to the Metro, our choice was easy -- we would walk the 1.7 miles instead. Plus, the walk provided opportunities to build relationships.
We frequently walked in pairs to avoid being in the way of other pedestrians. Can you imagine--our family now makes up SEVEN pairs?!?
On our approach to Red Square we passed by the Russian State Library. A giant statue of the prolific writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) sits in front of the angular building. It's hard to get perspective on Dostoevsky's size here, but the building is easily four stories tall.
However, the mammoth statue was almost concealed by our dozen children.
"Red Square, parts 3 and 4" are coming!
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