yesterday i went to Tretyakovsky, though apparently there's a New, and an Old, and I think i was in the New, but i saw everything i wanted to see. Although, ideally i'd go back and see more again, because i got all poopy and tired by the time i go around to the things i was really interested in, like Vrubel (amazing amazing. I love the scale, ie Huge. although some of the later stuff gets to be a bit like badly done photoshop sci-fi illustrations.. okay, and you know the painting "Swan Princess" --you do. its the girl with the big big dark eyes looking over her shoulder with lots of pearls on her fancy headdress and she's billowing white and you think "is that wings, or a dress?"-- its actually a very very dark picture, i don't think there's any pure white in it.)

i don't know much about icons, and i'm not religious, so i don't really appreciate them. But i looked at the Rublyov icons, and the others as well.

Today I slept way too much because I slept poorly on the train, and then I woke up with a headache. so instead of going and being cultural at the Pushkin museum, I spent all day shopping. And purchasing nothing. I saw lots and lots of pretty wool coats though. I generally find shopping discouraging at best - a reminder of all my body's flaws. So its gorazdo harder to shop in a country where you're 10% larger than anyone your age.

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and my shoulders are seriously furcked. I don't know why. I think they've been working their way up to this for a couple of weeks now, but i dont' know what their problem is. I should probably go swimming. I imagine that a good mile or so of crawl would work them out.

I met a slightly sketchy, but very helpful guy on the train yesterday, and had a very hard time shaking him off politely. but now he's in Riga and i can rest peacefully. unfortunately he lives in Voronezh, so imagine that won't be the last I'll be seeing of him.

shite.