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Published: April 11th 2008
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Well as usual when I start, I can’t stop, so last night I managed to find a 24hr supermarket and get more supplies and get drunk. I think I went to bed around 2am.
This morning I woke up with a hangover but this did have two benefits, firstly I managed to get to sleep without really noticing the absolutely loudest snoring I have ever heard keeping me awake for to long, I usually don’t mind people snoring when the make consistent repetitive sounds but this guy made different sounds every time he breathed, it was like he had a furry golf ball in his mouth.
The second benefit was that I managed to have a nice lye-in, to be honest the hangover wasn’t to bad, the Russians must take there brewing lessons from the Dutch who seem to resist adding chemicals in there beer and hence give you a more pleasant hangover (if any such thing exists)..
Anyway I managed to get into the single shower room in the hostel without to much waiting, I was really impressed when I saw the shower it was one of those things that has body jets however someone obviously didn’t
read the instructions that you need 2bar of pressure to get more than a dribble out of it.
I wanted to visit the Soviet Army museum today, it’s quite away out of town but you know how I like to look at things about humans trying to kill other humans and what they use to do it. However the museum website said that it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays so there is no chance to see it before I leave. I decided instead to go to a place called Victory Park, it was build to represent the great soviet victory over the Germans in WW2 and had lots big open spaces and a huge spear which had dioramas of various Soviet/German battles (where the Soviets won), the height of it was meant to correspond to the length of the war (10cm for each day of the war). One thing that got me was that their war started in 1941 rather than 1939, don’t know why I found it was weird but seeing 1941-1945 when for most of Europe it will always be 1939-1945.
They also had various weapons from the WW2 to today, it was in a
fenced off park that was obviously closed ( I think all museums are closed on Mon/Tues) but I could see various artefacts such as a MIG-21, MIG-29 and various T34 tanks, they also a American Sherman and Dakota decked out with the Soviet red star which was obviously some of the equipment that the Americans gave/donated the Russians before the Americans got heavily involved. They also had some T-72’s on the public path which people could climb all over which I thought was very cool, I was going to straddle the barrel of the main gun but I thought better of it (anyway there would be no one to take the photo).
Again I was amazed at the Russians ability to drink where ever and when ever, although beer seemed to be the drink of choice. To give you some idea of how what it’s like, imagine all the people with bottled water in summer in London and replace that with (warm)beer.
I also managed to get the metro to Victory Park ,all I can say is that the metro is absolutely stunning (just look at the photos), not all stations were grand but at least 70% of
the ones I saw are, it was reliable and fast and although I always though that the escalator at Angel was impressively long, now I know better. It was also the only place where I didn’t see anyone with alcohol, there must be some kind of rule and with the amount of militia around I am not surprised that people didn’t want to break it (they stop people for ID all the time - luckily I didn’t take my daypack today so I looked a lot less like a dumb tourist). Talking of the militia/army I was stunned by the amount there are around Moscow, I know the Moscow has been attacked by Chechen Separatists a number of times but men patrolling in military uniforms makes me jumpy rather than safe. I am always of the thought that if terrorists want to attack something they can and will. They best way to stop them is to try and restrict their ability to get hold of materials that allow them to do it, but what do I know. Anyway enough of that.
After spending the afternoon at Victory Park it was getting late so I headed back, I didn’t really
want to eat out tonight so I went to the supermarket and bought some ham,a baguette, cheese etc. I usually enjoy walking around foreign supermarkets as they give me a taste of the locals but on this occasion I wasn’t that bothered, I think I was just tired and wanted to eat.
Nothing really happened one I got back at the hostel, I ate, went on the web to talk to my honey, watched TV and then tried to sleep while someone attempted to swallow a furry golf ball. If I was staying one more night I would have asked him what time he was going to go to bed and gone a half hour before.
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