Travelog for: Penny

Hello mummy!
Today I was in the heart of Moscow and Russia - Red Square!

Quote:

Red Square is a city square in Moscow. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod. As major streets of Moscow radiate from here in all directions, being promoted to major highways outside the city, Red Square is often considered the central square of Moscow and all of Russia.

I saw GUM department store, Kremnlin Towers and St. Basil`s Cathedral, which I liked the most!!!

Hello mummy!
Today I was at the exhibition. The place is named "Garage" - The Center for Contemporary Culture Moscow. It was a real garage:

Quote:

Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage was a public bus garage in Moscow, designed in 1926 by Konstantin Melnikov (floorplan concept and architectural design) and Vladimir Shukhov (structural engineering). The building, completed in 1927, was an example of applying avant-garde architectural methods to an industrial facility. Neglected for decades and nearly condemned to demolition, it was restored in 2007–2008 and reopened in September 2008 as a gallery of modern art.

We hadn`t known, but it was forbidden to make photos inside the building, so I have photos only with big mushrooms which were funny, and I didn`t like the rest of the exhibition, so I`m not upset of the photos.

And at the way back home I made a picture in Moscow underground. I liked it more than exhibition, so may be I`ll try to make more photos next time.

Hello dear mummy!
I visited Yaroslavl`!

Quote:

Yaroslavl (Russian: Яросла́вль is a city in Russia, the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, located 250 kilometers (155 mi) north-east of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. The city has many Russian Orthodox churches, one Russian Old Believers church, one Baptist church, one Lutheran church, one mosque and one synagogue.

We traveled there by car and it took 4 hours.
And it was the first time I was inside the gun!
Maria promised me and my friends that soon we`ll visit the special place with many guns! 

Hello dear mummy!
Maria is working in the center of Moscow, so I could make some interesting pictures. First is the building of bank where Maria spends her days instead of having fun with us. And the second - very nice and narrow street. There are many such streets in the center.

Hello mummy!
This time I`ll upload only one photo which I took walking along Taganskaya street.

Hello mummy!
Suddenly I noticed that after all my travelings I look very durty and even licking myself can`t help me!
Fortunately maria has special cat`s bathroom! I took my chance and cleaned myself with soap!
Now you can see me - clean and smell like wild rose relaxing at the sofa

Hello mummy!
On Sunday we were at All-Russia Exhibition Centre.

Quote:

It occupies 2,375,000 square metres of which 266,000 square metres are used for indoor exhibits. The territory of VVC is greater than that of the Principality of Monaco and has approximately 400 buildings. Currently, the larger international exhibitions are mostly held at the new facilities of Moscow Expo Center.

You can see people swimming in the fountain with golden statues. Police doesn`t forbid this, because it is really hot like in Hell and nobody can stop people.

Hi Mum,

I have arrived in Canada . I had to wait a few days at the post office as smaug was out of town, but today I felt someone picking up my parcel and a bit later a lot of excitement around it .



As I came out I found two TVs ready to welcome me : Dean is from the US like me, while sammino is a stay-at-home TV. They both appreciated a lot the card and chocolate that I brought with me from Russia .



I wanted to tell them all about my trips and hear about their own but I was really tired after the long trip so tales will have to wait until tomorrow.

Hi Mum,

Today was Dean’s birthday, so this morning we all sang happy birthday for him .



Later sammino wanted to get him a typical horse meal, but being short of fresh hay in the house he settled for some delicious chocolate biscuits .



Later we spent the afternoon chatting and checking TV updates....with the occasional bite at those biscuits .

Hi Mum,

Today it was nice and warm so we went for a nice hike on the mountains . We spent a couple of hours between the trees but at one point we could see this little peak and thought that it might have been our destination, but smaug said that it was just about halfway to where we wanted to go .



A bit higher up the view became quite nice .





Some sections were a bit steep .



Eventually we had a glimpse of our destination in the distance and, guess what, there was snow at the top .



Once we reached the top we found a survey point...



...but we forgot quickly about it and looked at the landscape.




We could see the ridge that we walked up from and far down the valley where we left the car.



Back in the distance we saw the Bow Valley...



....and Kananaskis Valley on the opposite side of the mountain.



What a nice day !

Hi Mum,

Today was warm again , although not exactly sunny , and smaug said that we had to make the most of this nice weather before it starts snowing around here , so he took us again up the mountains. The first challenge of the day was fording the Elbow river which is fairly wide but at this location flows mostly underground (at least at this time of the year), so I got my paws only a bit wet .



Later we headed into the trees and didn’t see much for a while. But we occasionally had views of the valley from where we started.



A  bit further on we saw where we were going.



Once we reached the top the view was nice as always .



We could see the Elbow Valley both west...



...and east.



Someone built this massive cairn right at the top of the trail. It seemed about to collapse any time soon, but probably it was faring much better than we did in the wind .



Eventually smaug pointed out that those clouds looked like trouble so we hastily made our way downhill.

Hi Mum,

Today it was a nice sunny day, so we went for short walk along the river . No mountains this week: I think that, with winter approaching, smaug’s getting a bit lazy and, just like bears, he’d be ready for spending a few months sleeping .



At one point, getting very close to the shore we could almost see downtown.



By crossing the river (luckily we didn’t need to wade through it ) we gained a better viewpoint, before going back home to warm up a bit.

Hi Mum,

Over the whole month we have been several times in Vancouver with smaug for short working trip and he never took a single picture of us , so this week we made it clear that, no matter how busy he was, we wanted the camera to be used .



Well, I can’t say that we have been very successful: we just got a few out of focus shots tonight at Vancouver Airport . In the international departures hall...



...and later waiting to board the plane.




Still it was kind of an improvement

Hi Mum,

We have seen very little of smaug over the last couple of weeks as he was always busy at work. But it doesn’t mean I have been idle: in his absence the task of keeping the house habitable fell on us TVs and the responsibility for all the chores were on our shoulders. We had to take care of sweeping the dust...



...ironing...



...and doing the washing up.



We even had to cook our own meals...but, considering the type of supplies available, that wasn’t a very challenging task .

Hi Mum,

Look what came to Calgary this week!



Can’t see anything, can you ? Well, that was a window covered with ice! Let’s try with this one. It’s snow ! It’s been snowing all week and temperatures have been consistently deep in the minus teens or even twenties since Tuesday .



sammino told us that he had been waiting for this kind of weather eagerly as he wanted us to experience some proper Canadian winter, so I put on my most enthusiastic face and prayed that it didn’t betray the fact that I didn’t really share the same eagerness on the matter . Anyway, today we went out for a walk to enjoy this true Canadian experience. Unsurprisingly (I dare say) there was hardly anyone on this footpath.



As you can see the river here wasn’t frozen yet. Apparently it hasn’t been cold long enough yet , so here there was just a sludgy mix of water and ice.



While here the current is much slower, so there was already plenty of ice around.



Luckily this exploration tour didn’t last long enough to turn my paws into ice blocks themselves and, even better, once home we got a nice hot chocolate to warm us up .