Fruit and Meat Market

Yesterday the girls and I went to the neatest place- a fresh fruit/meat market.  A little background on this place.  I have been hearing about the Tushkinaya market since before we moved here.  It is about a 20 minute walk from our neighborhood and close to the Metro station.  All of the women rave about this place- the fruit is cheap and it is much better quality than what you can get at the grocery store.  And since I have to rely on our driver to get to the supermarket, this is a place one can go when you don't have the driver, or you need a good walk.  I was sold on the idea.
So, back to the market.  Yesterday morning I went to a PTO coffee at Colin's school.  If you know me well, you know that I really did not want to go because the thought of a room full of strangers is horrifying.  But, as I have told Colin, we have to be more friendly here and just put ourselves out there.  So I found a table with some nice ladies and just plopped myself down.  (So unusual for me but I know my mom and sisters are very happy to hear this).  Anyways, one of the ladies invited me to go shopping at this market with her and a friend.  So I thought, "why not", went home and grabbed the girls and the stroller and we set off.  It was also a lovely sunny day and I knew the exercise would be good for all of us.
I guess you could describe this place as an indoor farmer's market in the US.  Fresh fruit everywhere and it all looked so good.  I found some blueberries (yeah!) and some spinach lettuce.  (On Monday I had gone to the grocery store looking for lettuce and accidentally bought cabbage.  Not a great salad that night.)  There was this whole pickle aisle with everything from regular pickles, pickled tomatoes, to these interesting pickled eggplants.  I think I will try the pickled eggplants next time, but I did buy some garlic pickles for the family and they were delicious.   
As we were meandering around the fruit Amalie said to me "look at the man chopping wood".  Wood chopping?- in a fruit market?  I had to see.  Well, he was not chopping wood, but very large pieces of meat.  Turned my stomach quite a bit, but the girls were fascinated.  Then Amalie found a pig's head and she was so excited.  "Look at the pig's head! Where is his body?"  Then Kathleen found a rather large collection of pig's feet for sale and was yelling out "ooooh, pig boots, pig boots".  As I said, a bit disgusting, but I was rather impressed that the girls were interested instead of being traumatized.
I love bringing the girls with me to new places and I so enjoy seeing the interest in their little faces.  But I may not be able to bring them back to this place.  Russians really do not bring children to stores and my kids like to touch everything.  Especially Kathleen.  Kathleen kept on touching the fruit and I thought some of the female workers there were going to have a stroke.  And some lady yelled at me in Russian because the stroller was blocking the aisle.  She was about the size of a small house, so I think she was taking up quite alot of room too.  Advantage to her though, because a scolding in Russian is alot scarier than one in English.  Must be the way they pronounce their words.
Tonight Jesy and I have a date on the Moscow River!  We are taking a riverboat cruise that shows you all of the sights of Moscow from your nice little indoor seat.  It's rainy today and baby boy slows me down at times, so sitting for this activity will be nice.  Will let you know how it goes!