Scoping out the walk to the Bolshoi Theatre.

We just finished the day with a performance of the ballet Coppelia at the Bolshoi Theatre.  It was fantastic.  Everything thing was beautiful, even the tickets.

The performance was so much fun!  This particular ballet is a comedy about a young love -- more specifically a man who falls in love with a girl, forsakes her to fall in love with a doll, realizes he was an idiot to fall in love with a doll and reconciles with the girl.  

Mom pretending to be a ballering with the tickets

The colors of the costumes were so vibrant and the music depicted the story perfectly.  The dancers were exquisite and there were clearly some favorites. We observed the audience response upon their entrances.  

Bolshoi Theatre

One of the things we have noticed here in Russia is that the audience tends to applaud in unison - people here have a fantastic sense of rhythm.  

Bonus:  There were seats in the theatre so Mom got to sit for two and a half hours!

Before the theatre, we took a walk in search of The Perlov Tea House.  Perlov remodeled his tea house when he heard that a representative of the Chinese Emperor would be visiting Moscow in hopes that would stop by.  He never did, but now they have a really neat building to show for it.  (Note -- there was no where to sit and  have have a cup of tea and buying tea to take with us was a bit confusing).  The neighborhood was a bit different from the ones we had been in and was quite beautiful.  

Perlov Tea House

 On the way to Tea House we passed by the former KGB headquarters!

Former KGB Building

The morning included a visit to another beautiful Russian Cathedral.  This one was the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer.  It was originally completed in late 1800's but was blown up by Stalin in 1931. It then became the worlds largest swimming pool.  In 1994 the cathedral was rebuilt.  The walls and floors are made of beautiful marble and granite slabs and the cathedral had amazing icons and other various treasures.  It was rebuilt, not surprisingly,  at a cost of over $200M.

We then returned to Arbat street for a second round of souvenir shopping.  After finding a great little cafe we meandered down the pedestrian street, stopping at shops, and visiting with authors along they way.

Arbat street - Statue of Pushkin and his wife (yes and Sarah too)

We also stopped in a pet store because we needed a fix (missing our crew) and saw these unusual cats:

Overall another amazing day in Moscow and a little bit of sun to top it off!