Is this the way?

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Myself, Claire, Liisa and Tamzin set off from the obshezhitie at 10.30 this morning. When we got to the train station there was no elektrichka to Moscow until 2 o'clock, so we had lunch in a café until it was time to leave.

The elektrichka was the same one that I took two weeks ago; a sort of long prison van with uncomfortable metal chairs, dirty windows and an untraceable damp smell. While they are travelling some Russians take the opportunity to sell things to other passengers. Every twenty minutes or so a person would come through the doors of our carriage - an open suitcase in their hand and a money belt around their waist - and make a loud sales pitch for their mobile phone holders, chocolate bars, portable torches or newspapers. They would then move from the front of the carriage along the aisle, collecting money from anyone who was interested in buying something. After that they would walk through to the next compartment, and soon someone new would take their place in ours.

We arrived in Moscow at about 4. We pushed through the crowd at Leningradskii, Yaroslavskii and Kazanskii platforms trying to find a kassa to get tickets for the 4.20 train to the next town, but didn't manage to. One woman in the street lied to us and sent us the opposite way, and once we found the right desk a man barged in front of me as I was waiting to buy our tickets, killing any chance of making our connection. In the middle of the panic - with all of us in a very bad mood - Claire's friend Orphais from Quebec met up with us. He has been studying in Moscow since the autumn but hasn't seen much of Russia apart from the capital.

At the front of the queue for tickets my heart started to pump even faster. Speaking in a loud building, and through a thick piece of glass to a deaf and rude woman in your second language is a tough communication barrier, and one that still makes me very uneasy. Somehow I got my point across and bought the tickets, but we would have to wait three hours for the next train.

There was a pizza restaurant not far from the station. We chatted to Orphais and his Canadian charm helped all of us to relax. I even spoke to him and Claire in French for a while. We bought some beer and snacks from a supermarket and hurried back to the station to get on the 7.05 train.

It was a stuffy and boring four and a half hours. We were on a sleeper train, so we were surrounded by people jostling for room to lie down.

At 11.30 we stepped off the train, onto a cold and frosty platform that was new to everyone apart from me.

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