While on My Way to the Post Office in Moscow... — Russia 2010 - Day 20

First three pictures of the slideshow... Bob Barker needs to get his butt to Moscow... You cannot move 20 feet without seeing homeless/feral dogs running around. It is so sad, and often, as the dog in the first picture, they have some form of disability (she had a broken leg). On a lighter note of this topic, visit the Webpage titled "Smartest Dogs: Moscow Stray Dogs" to see how smart these dogs are... they are truly survivors!

Today I needed to exchange some American money for some Rubles so I tagged along with Sergey as he needed to go to a post office one Metro stop away. Here comes my lesson for the day: On the way, we saw a roadside booth, which I have used them in previous years, that had a real good rate of 29.2 Rubles/$1... most other places are in the high 28s. Here is the hitch, they charge a 3% commission, which is not posted on the huge digital sign outside, but on a tiny little slip of paper on the window in the booth. I was going to be charged 500 Rubles (roughly $17) just to exchange $500. Needless to say, I learned my lesson before taking the exchange and later we went to Sergey's favorite location and only paid 10 Rubles commission (.33 cents) for the whole transaction and still got 29 Rubles/Dollar. Lesson learned... stay away from the roadside exchange booths (note picture in slideshow).

OK... post office people! I have the solution to your problems. Get Hallmark to put cards in your post offices for sale. See the pictures when Sergey and I are in the post office. I have been fascinated for years how the main place to buy greetings cards in Russia is at the post office (but they do not screw you on prices like the Hallmark stores)... and the cards are beautiful.

Also, Sergey needed an envelope so we went next door to the Telegraph office... yes, Telegraph office. These stores were used for years to pay to use the phone, send telegraphs, etc. Today, you can go to get a catalog from Otto inside of the Telegraph office and the pay to use the phone booth to order items from the catalog. You can also pay to use the Internet at this store and finally, get passport pictures. Be sure to watch the slideshow a couple of times to see the pictures and they will now make sense after reading this... all five people that read this. By the way, Thank You! I love sharing the fascinating things this country has to offer and hopefully change mindsets created from years of silly propaganda. So often, when recruiting students from Clemson to participate in this program, it is the parents that are a real pain that keep their children from coming here, as they are still biased from the past... so many of them are my age... frustrating! End the ignorance!

Oh yeah, on the last picture of the slideshow, you will see a neat-looking bread-like pastry called "Khachapuri," or Georgian Cheese bread. Learn more about Khachapuri from the Wikipedia entry.