Donstroy is over the river and through the brambles--not inviting

Date	Celsius ° (C*9/5)+32=F	Place of run	Duration	start time	5 laps around the circle	One lap	Escalator	weather
3 Mar	≈ -1	Nizhenskaya,Moscow, Russia	≈	09:31		1:28.10	47.21 46.60	overcast

Words:  544

My first run at the new place.  I didn’t add the duration above because I ran many places while I was out.  I bought some toilet paper and a pomelo, I added money to the internet account, and I went to a clothes repair shop that didn’t open even though their times were posted.  First I tried to run to Donstroy, the company that builds luxury apartments; this is where I have lessons with the employees two days per week. 

I’ve recently figured out (in general) how to use the map function on my iPhone.  I went running down one street and noticed that my blue dot was not going in the direction I intended, so I turned and backtracked for a bit.  The dot behaved as expected and all was well.  The point is that it will take some walking around before I know which way is up around here. Then I looked up and saw in front of me the super-tall, round Donstroy apartment buildings with blue lights on top.  I began running to them. 

           

Pretty soon I saw a Second Hand shop—my favorite store in Moscow.  Then along the street, over the railroad tracks, and down into the valley.  In front of me were brush, weeds, and brambles.  Running over the crusty, thin covering of snow was not difficult, but snaking my way through the thorns and burrs was a bit of a problem.  After several minutes, even though my blue dot was moving closer and closer to my goal, the vegetation was getting thicker and thicker, too.  I said, “This is pointless.”  At least now I know that it is impossible to walk to Donstroy directly.  I have to take the road over the river.  So even though on the map, I am now a Frisbee throw from my lessons, it is not very close.

About the escalator at Marina Roscha: the last two times I ran up, I made new records for trips while carrying a bag.  47.21 and 46.60 are terrific results.  The only time I achieved better was once when I ran empty-handed—I made it in under 46 seconds that time.  (I can’t check the exact time because I don’t have internet here yet—yes, I added money, but…). 

A bit of an addition to the last writing.  I DO have the internet here, and I DID when I wrote that I didn’t. The thing is that a representative of the internet provider came to my apartment and checked to see why my machine was not getting the internet.  He looked for about 30 seconds and said, “It’s your internet card.” 

I took it to a local repair man, who sent it to his boss, who sent it to the ‘master,’ who looked at it for five days (actually, he HAD it for five days, over a holiday weekend—probably looked at it for 5 minutes), and found nothing wrong.  I took it home and again, I couldn’t get it to work.  I left the cable in and made some food.  When I came back, I saw that the boys were on Skype!  That meant that the internet was working!  Ooo-Rah!!!  Now, every time I turn it on again, I have to have it automatically adjust something.  I’ll have to figure that out,