First taste of winter

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I arrived into Moscow early afternoon and had to endure a crammed 2 hour bus ride to the Renaissance Hotel. I couldn't get over how cold it was, especially after coming from winter in Dubai which is usually around 30 degrees to winter in Moscow where it was about minus 10 degrees! It was a bit of a shock to the system! Moscow seems like a really big city, i couldn't believe how grey everything was. The sky was grey, the buildings were grey, even the snow looked grey. Ventured off into town with one of the other cabin crew, poor wee thing could not handle the cold at all, she didn't last long before she had to go back to the hotel. The traffic in town was unbelieveble, we were crawling along at a snails pace. It probably would have been much quicker to walk, but at least we were warm sitting in the bus.

Got off at Pushkin Square and walked 15 mins down the main road to Red Square. The Square was absoulutely stunning, with all the buildings lit up, including a giant christmas tree. It was bigger than i had expected with St Basil the Blessed Cathedral down one end, the Historical Musesum building down the other and the walls of the Kremlin running alongside. It was so nice to be walking in snow again...but bloody cold!!! When i lost all feeling in my fingers, i thought it would be a good idea to go indoors. Went into a souvenir shop which had several animal heads hanging from the walls and lots of russian dolls. I had always wanted one of these dolls, some of them having up to 20 dolls inside of each other.

I then went to catch a train to Akademicheskaya to try and find a shop that sells a particular brand of clothing ive been trying to buy. So i thought "no worries how hard can the tube be"??? Well i guess i didn't think that there wouldn't be any english translations, and i also didn't realise that the russian alphabet used in the stations consists of characters as opposed to letters. So im there with my tube map trying to translate words with triangles into something that resembles the name of the station. So next thing you know i finally manage to get on the right line but little did i know i was going in the wrong direction!!! Aaaah it was such a relief when i finally made it to this shop to only discover they didn't have what i was looking for in the first place!

Took a train back to the hotel, by this stage i was starving as i hadn't had time to eat so i was extremely pleased when i saw the golden arches as i was coming out of the train station. Afterward i was standing outside waiting for a taxi but there were none in sight. The security guard was ever so helpful although he didn't understand a word of english...bless him! Next thing you know hes flagging down any old motorist passing by to give me a lift. After hearing that Russia has the second highest kidnap rate in the world i decided it probably wasn't a good idea getting a ride with a random stranger, so decided to brave the snow and find my own way back.

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Comments

[SleekSailor]

Sweden
Hi Rachel, Have you ever been to the Scandanavian countries, Oslo, Stockholm, Kalmar,Helsinki? Do you read/write any other languages, obviously not Russian.....so true- gray everywhere!