the mountain of old jewelry and icons comes to mohammed

Images of the Paris flea market can-canned through my brain when I heard there was an antique fair in town. Wow, I thought, that's something I'd really like to do! Peter's not home and I can get lost on the wrong side of the metro station, with Russians not helping me, and 100-letter street names and I'll end up crying and I'll drag in late and kids will be like, "Where's dinner?" 

Last December is fresh in my mind, yes, but I need to stretch myself!

Plus,I really want a chandelier. Or old Easter postcards or something. Forget Port Clingoncourt, I miss Goodwill! The directions to the fair are complicated, strange metro stops and Big Gryushyaski Street is not the same as Gryushyaski Street but I really need to get out of my well-worn comfort zone and explore this huge, weird city!

Wait, the fair is only one metro stop away. So much for exploring a new part of town, but that's cool, not as overwhelming. I carefully map out the unfamiliar-named streets in Cyrillic. Maybe I can walk, see something different, explore some new spots.

According to the website, the antique fair is right off of a park I go to all the time for our farmer's market/grocery store run–I've been there a million times. I never noticed a hall for an antique market; I hope I can find the building.

I don't know why anyone would take the metro, I walk to the park, it's maybe half a mile away. I don't see an exhibition hall or a sign or anything, which is not surprising. This is Moscow, you have to know someone to find out anything, and guess what? I don't know anyone! I wander through the farmer's market–wouldn't it be stupid if the flea market were here in the park? But no, it's not. I cross the street and wander the blocks around the park. I find a building with a banner, I crunch ice underfoot through an alley, a parking lot looks promising, but nothing. 
 
In Niger they say WAAW: West Africa Always Wins, and now I haven't found the antiques fair but I have made up a new acronym: RAW.
 
Well, I figured, since I'm here I might as well get bananas at the grocery store. Over the grocery store entrance is a banner that looks like the banner from the antiques fair web site. 

The antiques fair is in the mall where I go the grocery store nearly every weekend.