Moscow breakfast No 1

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This morning, found a lovely little cafe to have breakfast in. I was accompanied by two from the hostel, a german called Tobias and a Canadian called Pete. Tobias speak russian and works it at every opportunity. He also knows ludicrous and highly debatable stories about everything. An excellent companion (in short doses).

We went inside once Tobias had agreed that the coffee, whilst not cheap, was not expensive (which took several minutes). Inside we found a cavernous little grotto and slunk down at a corner table. The place was on the bohemian side for Muscovite culture; dreadlocked people with yellow wellies populated one table. The menu was excellent and I ordered a cherry, espresso and yoghurt smoothie, and hazelnut latte. Pete ordered a spinach pie which came out like a half pie/half pancake, with pine nuts and delicious pastry. I took a picture of the menu because it was all in russian and looked really nice scribbled on the large blackboard. Then heaven ended and the previously friendly man making my smoothie demanded to have my camera and made me delete the photo I took of the menu. It was a fantastic smoothie selection admittedly, but I felt his need to protect it was slightly overzealous. He was shouting and everything. Talk about not blending in with the surroundings. I stiffened myself and picked up my bag, readying myself for the imminent iron grip round the back of my neck and the obligatory kicking out onto the street. He gesticulated a lot and made me feel very scared, then Tobias asked if we were about to get kicked out (which I thought was obvious at this point), and the man said no, and told us to sit down in no uncertain terms. I've never had a breakfast like it. The smoothie was excellent, thank god. I would have hated to have some kind of complaint (and probably would not have left able-bodied).

Afterwards we headed to Red Square, which was within sight behind a small church. Despite this Tobias asked every russian that walked past for directions. Hilariously everyone was non-russian and answered in english. You could almost see the steam coming out of Tobias's ears. Eventually he found a russian lady on the steps of the metro and talked to her for 10 minutes about her family. By the time we got to Red Square I was exhausted. And we had only moved 100 metres.