80 mph on the subway?

Today, I ran toward town from the hostel.  It’s amazing how close things are—esp. when you are running.  Going down 2.5 minutes on an escalator it seems like we are descending deep into the earth’s rock mantle.  In the sub-terrain, the metro whisks passengers away
at what seems to be 80 miles an hour and it feels like miles and miles are covered.  The actual distance from one station to another, above ground, often turns out to be quite short.
I ran down a major street, crossed a huge, 10-lane street in an underground passageway, and along the New Square and through the Old Square.  I thought I might raise an alarm when I calmly used a man-sized doorway to jog through a 4-meter high stern fence.  The buildings inside were massively intimidating and dripping with self-importance.  I read one placard in imposing, black marble:  The Office of the President of the Russian Federation. I thought that was in the Kremlin—I wasn’t near the Kremlin.  As it was, no one took special notice of me and the only part that seemed different inside the fence was the fact that there were fewer people and more military people.
Another benefit of running in a new environment is that everything is new—buildings, trees, dogs, people, streets, alleyways.  And since it takes me several glances to read the signs—I have to decipher the sometimes indecipherable font to figure out the letters.  Then I have to put the letters into words, then to words into something that might convey meaning…  I have to admit that I don’t have time to comprehend everything.  It’s a lot like playing Ultimate Frisbee—there is so much else going on that I don’t have time to worry about the pain.