This time our room was on the 11th floor. We got a two-room suite. The bedroom was separate from the other room. It made it nice to put Jason in his hotel-provided crib in a room we could close off from the bedroom. The best way to describe it was that it was like a Residence Inn type room, but Soviet style. We felt like we had advanced as Party members since the last trip!!!
Daytime view of the top section of the building.
The tulips all over the city have been blooming. The center garden in the park area in front of the hotel had yellow tulips.
Here's the four about to be parents on the way to Pinocchio's with red tulips in the background.
Also on the way to Pinocchio's is this building, which I have concluded houses the web camera that is trained on the hotel.
This is the side of the building facing Kutozovksky Prospect. At night this is a glaring blue and yellow neon sign. Everybody thinks it is tacky, but I have a soft spot for it. Yeah, I do. In a shocking development we saw workmen removing the bulbs while we were there! Would the neon be gone for good, I wonder???
Have no fear! This web cam image from yesterday clearly shows the bluish glow of the neon. I am somewhat relieved, Wendy and the others want to see it go. 
One morning I woke up to see that the building next to the Russian White House had been totally covered with a billboard of a bikini-babe laying out on a boat. This is a clear sign work is going on inside the building. All the construction sites we saw in Moscow get covered with large signs to block the construction. I guess seeing a big ad is better than construction work? Depends on the ad I guess.
Another morning I woke to see that the dudes who spend so much of their waking lives in winter shovelling snow are now mowing grass. They are doing it old school with push mowers and no bags. They rake the clippings into piles to be bagged later. Talk about inefficient!!!
You may recall the infamous first picture I posted from Russia on the first trip. It is the one where Wendy wasn't wearing a hat. The statue in the background was unreachable due to the heavy snow, so we were unable to figure out his name. Now that spring has sprung the name is now visible. It's Shevchenko, the Ukrainian poet laureate.
This view cracked me up. It looks like the babe and the poet are checking each other out. The big G and flame sign on top of the building is for the Gazprom company.
On the way to the grocery store was the courtyard area with statues if you remember the pictures from trip #2. The fountains are now flowing. It looks like a nice place for people to hang out. On Friday night it's occupied by lots of teenagers. Must be the Russian equivalent of mall-rats.
Notice the apartment building in the background. It's big! Must be hundreds of units I suspect. I wonder how big they are? From what I hear they are often pretty small. Probably around 600-900 square feet I bet. We had one that size in California. 
This statue was featured with the Hotel Ukraina in the background in a trip #2 post. The modest fountain beneath it is running.
And this must be a cousin of the golden girl. I am not really sure what is going on here, but the gobbledygook behind her reminds me of the funky clock in the clinic we visited for the 8 doctor medical. 
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