Всё закончиться- It all ends

IF YOU SAY HARRY POTTER HERE IN RUSSIA PEOPLE LOOK AT YOU FUNNY. IT'S GARY POTTER OUT HERE WHICH REALLY DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT AT ALL.

My friend Alexei and his son Kiril invited me to go see Гарри Поттер и дары смерти часть 2 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) They call him Gary Potter out here in Russia which I actually thought was quite funny. For those of you who haven't seen it I'll just say that I really really enjoyed it. The only downside for me was we had to pay a little extra to see it in 3-D which sucks for me because I am colorblind and cannot see 3-D. All it looks like to me is that they blurr the screen and then make you pay 200 rubles extra to wear goofy glasses that make it normal again.

The hardest part for me was not the Russian itself, I felt like I understood 80-90 percent. The hardest part was knowing what their real voices sounded like and having to hear a Russian dub over voice. The worst character was Severus Snape, they didn't even come close to what he really sounds like. Voldomort had that raspy voice in Russian also. Hermoine was way off also. Oh yeah and their names are all off too. Hermoine is Germiniya, and He who shall not be named is Voldendomort. I can't understand why they mess with the names seeing as some of them are created names so why does the Russian need to change it? I couldn't figure this out. 

FOR THE MOST PART ONCE YOUR INSIDE THE THEATER THEY ARE IDENTICAL TO AMERICAN. ONLY THAT EVERYTHING IS IN RUSSIAN.

This was my first time going to a Russian movie theater. I think you might find a few little facts about Russian theaters interesting. The first is that the price of the tickets fluctuate depending on a few things: popularity of the film, opening weekend, and where your seat is in the theater. That is right you don't just buy a ticket you buy an actual seat, much like a baseball game, ballet, or something like this. So we tried to sit in different spots at first and about 5 minutes later this guy came up to us like they do on airplanes and said "Это место моё" (eto mesto moyo - that is my seat) so we had to get up and move to our assigned spots which was a little worse.

After the film we drove to a place called смотровкая плошадка (smotrovnaya ploshadka- the looking square) This place provides the best view of the whole city of Moscow. Since Russia is pretty flat they take advantage of any little hill they've got, which is what this place was, just a big hill. It is a pretty amazing place though because when you look one way you see this...

 THIS IS THE MOSCOW CITY-SCAPE. THE STADIUM IS FOR THE MOSCOW FUTBOL TEAM. AND YOU CAN SEE OTHER REALLY BIG BUILDINGS FROM HERE ALSO.

But then when you turn 180 degrees around you see this...

This is МГУ (Московский Государственый Университет) Moscow State University. It is the equivalent of America's Harvard or Yale. Tuition here is around  1,000,000 rubles a year (40,000 dollars) and it is next to impossible to enroll. Everyone tells me you need to know someone who knows someone just to get on a list of maybe. This is the main building on campus but there were many other like it.