Wandering for Something Who's Not There

I've been looking online to see if I could find any Rinoks (outdoor markets).

I found some online, so I thought I'd venture out and take a gander,

and see if I could find one of them...Instead, I came upon this:
So I had my picture taken with an old man I met,

who just happened to be connected to the bench.

And then INSIDE I found a pirate ship! So I sailed around for a bit...

Then I decided to climb to the Crow's Nest to take a peak...
Unfortunately, the main mast was a bit wobbly (plus
I don't think I was SUPPOSED to be climbing it,
which of course made me want to do it
that much more), so I just went
up part way...I love being a
PIRATE!
365 Reasons to celebrate, and thus DRINK...
One for each day: December 3rd (my birthday):
In the year 1795 (or something like that) is the day that
Europeans brought potatoes to Russia...
or something ridiculous. This sign was just outisde of the
Vodka Museum...go russia...

World Beach Volleyball tournament here in Moscow! This is the US Men's team
playing against, and DESTROYING Germany. And guess who we sat in
front of? Misty May and her new partner (didn't catch her name)
ps, I watched Misty and her previous partner Carrie play
together at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We got a group
picture on someone else's camera, hopefully it'll
make it to facebook. I'm going to try to watch
the US Women's team play tomorrow.

This is also at the Volleyball tournament, and yes, you guessed right.
This is me with the China Women's team. I asked them, in Chinese
of course, if I could get my picture taken with them. They both
stared at me wide-eyed, and with big smiles on their faces
said yes...you'd think they'd be used to tall, DASHING, blond boys
in Moscow talk to them in Chinese...
All in all, it was a marvelous day. I've found that the more I travel around on my own, the more my Russian improves because I'm forced to use it more, and try out new things, and I'm not surrounded by English speakers. :) I didn't get to travel on my own much today, but I plan on doing so more in the future. It'll be BRILLIANT!

Oh yeah, so the reason for the Title of this blog post is this: I looked online to find where this "rinok" was to be found. I found the quiant lil village thingy above. But that is NOT a rinok. I asked a lady inside (who was selling the Russian dolls for pretty cheap-but she claims it's NOT a rinok...maybe 'cause it's too nice inside or something), but she said that the rinok I was looking for had been closed for a long while...I guess that's what happens when you go off of information posted 4 years ago online about a little place...but, it turned out pretty swell still!