The Easter Bunny has been ripping me off for years...(posting from the road)

The Kremlin is huge, and only a small portion of it is open to the public. The main attraction on the grounds is the Armoury museum and touring the Armouy Museum reminded me of my mother. My mother will keep every gift that was ever given to her or anything that she ever purchased and display them all in an attractive way in the living room.The Russians too have kept every gift from a foreign dignitary or element of everyday life and they now display them in the Armoury museum. Jewels, clothing, suits of armour, carriages and massive collections of silver and gold fill the 9 rooms open to the public. Mom - maybe you could charge admission? (side note - my Mom does not have as impressive of an alarm system...I simply leaned in slightly to get a look at one of the carriages...next thing I know there is a wail of an alarm and a voice from above tells me, in several languages to "step back from the artifact". Gave me a bit of a fright, but I am impressed that I did panic and either run away or try and jump in the carriage...I simply stepped back and blended in with the crowd)

There were a few churches open for a tour, and they too were impressive, but the highlight is when one lady tried to get in without a ticket and was denied, she then turned to the tickettaker, wagged her finger and started yelling "I'm going to file a complaint agaist you". I thought about this for a bit...would she file a complaint with the Orthadox Church or the Kremlin? She then left yelling "stupid, I hope they know what stupid means in Russian!" I felt bad for her husband...poor man, his whole day was going to know be comsumed with his wife's plans to write an angry damming letter to the leaders of Moscow after being legitimately denised entry into what was, in all honestly, a rather mediocre church. I spotted them a few other times that day...he looked miserable.

I did enjoy a special exhibition tour of creations of the Fabrege company - with the Easter eggs obviously being the highlight. I think we used to get candy inside of our eggs - this is what hs lead me to believe that the Easter Bunny must like Russians better. Their eggs held intircate music boxes, a working replica of a miniature Trans-Siberian train, gold flowers etc. and the outside of our eggs were plastic, or maybe, if your were lucky, chocolate. Now obviously chocolate is a delicious treat but I think even as a child I would have realized the value of getting an egg encrusted with diamonds. I wish I could show you a photo of some of these brilliant creations but there was a clear no photo policy and place...when I ultimately do go to prision I would like it to be for a more noble cause then photographing an Easter Egg.

We spent the rest of our "Kremlin time" wandering the impressive gardens that are on site and watching the guards whistle at tourists. Dear tourist, I am assuming that if you can afford to travel to Russia and stay in Moscow, one of the most expensive cities in the world, then you probably have some degree of common sense that allows you to earn an income to support this venture. Why is is then as soon as you travel all common sense is gone? I ask this after watching several tourists walk off the clearly marked sidewalks and attempt to enter gardens, buildings and walkways that have only obvious military people present. The initial warning came in the form of a whistle blow. When this was enivitably ignored, it progressed on to wild arm gesticulating followed by an approach. I am sad to say that I never had a chance to see what the next step in the Russian Line of defense against tourists at the Kremlin was...I imagine shooting their kneecap wasn't too much further down the line.

So to sum up...I made it out of the Kremlin without being detained, despite one near miss with that alarm violation...toured impressive buildings and churches...had a chance to see idiot tourists from around the globe in action...and learnt that the Easter Bunny has been ripping me off for years...

p.s. sorry there are no actual photos of anything I really wrote about...President Medvedev has not relaxed that 'no photos or priceless artifacts rule' yet - sorry. I did steal that photo of the train egg from a random website. The top photo are my travel mates - minus young Pete, who you will hear about later, but that is (from the left) Sarah, Will, Fiona and Tricia)