From russia with love!

---

Arriving in russia was an absolute nightmare. Andy and i arrived at the airport and were shocked at how difficult it was to understand what was going on. Obviously our russian leaves a little to be desired and no one speaks english also there is a lengthy, pretty un-recognisable alphabet which makes guessing out of the question. These russian scallys basically tried to rip us off for a taxi by trying to charge us 50quid. Being a yorkshire gal and proud of my frugality i wasnt happy. Eventually after several attempts at doing the wheels on the bus type hand gestures, being very nearly run over and a near miss with a large swinging boulder we managed to find a bus stop. Eventually one bus, several metros, one dramatic fall onto my back like a beetle with my rucksack and about 4 hours later we arrived at the hostel....exhausted. Yeh, but we did the whole lot for a quid. England one Russia nil.

Staying in the Napolean hostel which is great fun and centrally located. Our hosts are really friendly and helpful and gave us loads of great tips. I can however, safely say that they are the only russians that have been remotely pleasant to us. Im sure there are thousands of genuine lovely kind russians but we have not met any of them. Everyone else has been rude, unpleasant and just generally horrid!we have been shouted at in an array of day to day situations like attempting to pick up some tickets from a ticket office....how dare we!? Im assurred by fellow travellers that many Russians are lovely and luckily we have met very nice american, english and german people to keep us company!

Parts of moscow are super glam it has more millionaires than new york so weve been watching the array of pimped out cars and have been intrigued by the fabulous selection of mullets and leopard print leggings!Have been admiring the sites - the red square and the Kremlin are beautiful and the russian history really interesting. Visited museums, churches, the moscow state circus, parks etc but more importantly...we're enjoying the dirt cheap vodka. Visited Lenins musoleum which was very surreal (google it ladies and pretend you know about russian history). yes they like to immortilise their figures of historical importance here in russia, the secret recipe (only known ingredient parafin wax) to keep your dead body in tip top condition is for sale at a not so bargain price.. Its a real experience. anyway a huge culture shock and we have not even reached mongolia yet!


Andy unfortunately had a brush with the law in the red square. Its all pretty confusing as sections are cornered off and reopened to the public at different times of the day. We had heard the red square was pretty at night, so we went down to get photos without the crowds. Andy was taking photos in the wrong place when three stacked out, gun carrying officers of the law swarmed in and snatched his camera. They were being really aggressive and shouting in russian right up to andys face. After about half an hour of passport and photo showing we managed to make a hasty exit after Andy had kicked all their asses. The officers were trying to get a bribe from us, but luckily he was not the brightest spark and had forgotten the word for money in english! we played dumb too and managed to save ourselves a few bob. but that was definitely the end of our night out in moscow!!!

Trans siberian railway next, im so excited. on the train for 5 days so plenty of chilling, reading ipod and no doubt more vodka. Met some nice people already who will be on our train!

---