Russian Sights.

Here's some photos from our adventures as of late.

We went to a Ринок (rinok, market) where they sold pretty much everything.  

On the one hand, it made me wish our food was less processed and removed from the actual idea of food.  We only see meat if it's packaged unrecognizably in neat little styrofoam containers.  Here, we saw whole pig carcasses strung up, while others were hacking at sides of beef.  

On the other hand, sanitation is nice too.  Just saying.  Go USA.

Fish...eww.  But pretty, right??

Their vegetables....I could diiiiiiie.  

They all look so beautiful.  Obviously, not all of them are local (hello, watermelon and bananas), but they do such a neat job of displaying all of them.  I wish I could have taken more pictures of the spices, the dried fruits, the honeys, the pickled things, but Tim said it wasn't a good place to get out my phone.  Wish you were here.  :(

Our spoils from the Ринок: Armenian cherries.  

Another Ринок purchase: homegrown beefsteak tomatoes, deep red all the way through--not like the fake, tasteless pink tomatoes we have in the States.  Yuck.  

This market was suuuuper expensive, though.  Those tomatoes were absolutely amazing, but we only got three big ones and it cost us around $7! 

(!!!!!!)

We'll come back when we're rich.

Tim and I in a blurry picture on a Saturday night stroll at a park across the street.  This picture was taken around 9 PM.  It stays light so late!

A heart installation sculpture at the park.  I bet it looks awesome at night.

Man, Russians sure know how to do parks.  It was sooo much fun.  There were paddle boats, a skate park, a dancing square, a live concert, fountains, vendors selling balloons, cotton candy, and corn on the cob, barbecue...it was so cool.  

Not to mention...

GIANT INFLATABLE BEAN BAGS.

YOU CAN SIT ON THEM.

LOOK HOW COOL THEY ARE.

You are jealous, just admit it.  American parks are lame in comparison.

A beautiful apartment building on our way back from the market.

Not all apartment buildings are so pretty--here's another one that is more typical.

We were invited over to the Senior Missionaries' apartment for dinner.  This is the view from their apartment.

Entry to a Russian apartment building.

Tiny golden church peeping out amongst the trees and city!

A ride up a looooooooong escalator in the Metro.

More prettiness on the wall in the Metro stop.

Look how cool these lights are! I love it. 

This is the backside of our apartment building.  I love the patterns on the bottom of the balconies.

It's been rainy all this past week, but I'm hoping the weather starts getting nicer so we can go out and explore even more!