pre-Siberian update (original email)

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Hey there folks (it's my turn to type this time ...gmt)

Well, we've been here in Moscow for 4 days now and we're still alive and kicking.

Here's an interesting adventure that happened to us yesterday though. We were sitting around in the Metro station waiting for a surprise rain-storm to subside when a Police Officer approached us and asked to see our Passports. This was the second time that a policeman had made such a request during the course of the afternoon (We thought some murder had been committed by a foreigner or something). Of course, we generally don't walk around with our Passports and valuables on our person so when we showed him our photocopies he didn't seem too impressed and he brought us over to talk to his other police-type buddies. Of course, nobody spoke English and suffice it to say that our Russian isn't up to snuff for this type of conversation (or any type of conversation) ... and nowhere in the Lonely Planet does it say how to pronounce "I'm innocent". Some more heated discussions amongst officers and we were shuffled of to the Police Station in a Police Jeep (a first for us) and we met several more non-English-speaking officers who seemed to have made several jokes at our expense. One in-charge-type officer looked at us and asked one officer why they'd brought us in and laughed at the response by telling us to "good-bye" (we didn't bother to correct his grammatical use of good-bye as a verb) ... so, we quickly left in the rain and managed to get suitably drenched before we made it back to the hostel ... hmmm ... we still don't know why they brought us in there in the first place but we now have photocopies of our passports and recently registered visa documents so hopefully the next police-type people might be more inclined to just let us go home.

Moscow itself is quite beautiful really (although not nearly as nice as St. Petersburg). We've been to the Kremlin, Red Square, the original McDonalds, the Russian White House, several cathedrals and we've seen one dead body of Lenin (he winked at me though).

So, we ate a McDonalds (it had to be done) and while there we were amazed at the sheer velocity of the place. We've never seen every cash-register being operated in any McDonalds and here there were about 30 all being used by two employees (one taking orders and the other getting food). The place was a model of efficiency in a country where efficiency generally isn't in the top 3 of priorities. We took pictures (and I got one with Ronald).

Next on the list for us is a train eastward to the Ural Mountains. We'll be stopping in Yekaterinburg(sp?), 18 kilometres inside Asia (wahoo) and only a mere 29 hours from Moscow. We don't really know anything about the place so we'll probably be surprised at what we find. From Yekaterinburg another 22 hour train ride will bring us to Novosibirsk and then another 12 to Krasnoyarsk before hitting Irkutsk (yes, the Irkutsk from RISK ... We hope this RISK related fame has created a technology hub and introduced internet cafe's or something ... send us messages and we'll get them eventually). Then, on to Mongolia (for which we now have a 30 day visa) to get some inner peace. (Eric is waiting until we get to Nepal to get his inner peace but I think I'll like the Mongolian product better). We hear they sell it in the streets. Our route following China may now go through Tibet, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar (ya know, Burma), Thailand, etc. We keep getting these great ideas from other travellers we meet.



Personal Stuff:

REF - The XOXO's are definitely for you too.

MSB - Had really good time at the wedding ... I was there for the open bar not to see you anyways - epd 😊 ... we'd like to drop by Baltimore that would mean leaving the ground (and that's not allowed) ... say hi to Catherine for us and tell her U.S. health care sucks.

Bob - it sounds like you're getting your feet planted firmly on the ground (I'm proud of ya - gmt). Too bad about those shoe-wearin rude Tennessee types (I think it's written into the US constitution that they don't have to remove footwear ... right after the right to bear arms crap).

MJV - Loop, Loop

Nalini - ask mom & dad to check my chequing account balance to make sure it's at least $500 ... I think I'm withdrawing from my VISA but I'm not always sure ... Canada direct doesn't work from here and it's expensive to send faxes ($10 / page) so I'll only be able to send messages through you or Lloyd till we get to China. How did Mom get her stuff stolen? Oh yeah, now that our trip goes through fro Nepal hopefully, we'll be able to get Vietnam visas in Thailand and any others that we need cause we'll be there first.

Kimmy - Just leave my letters and stuff in Ann's room ... she'll handle the stuff. Oh, and have Ted call her to ask about any of the car stuff (she has all the info) ... we'll take pictures of lots of cute boys for you.

Deaner - you can put all this stuff on the web if you want ... that'd be pretty cool actually ... we won't really be able to update it with pictures I don't think because we've had difficulty enough just finding places that we can use for an hour to send/receive messages.

ZXK - That formula you sent us is far too complicated to comprehend when you're battling the type of hangover that I have today ... let's just say we're ahead right now (we'll work out the time zone thing and the net worth thing later). If you're in a time zone with both regular and daylight savings time does that count twice ?

Natasha - We are bribing as many honest Russians as we can with our little Canada pins (it seems to be working because people on trains keep feeding us and the Provodnitsa's take care of us).

DLA - Ginsbert & Kerouac? See ZXK comments above. Say hi to Rachel for us. Give this address to Molly and it would be excellent to get hers.

GHD - We hear through the grapevine that the powers that be have started increasing the stability factor in CBD moving map-averse-married-with-kids-people into the high-flight jobs after learning that maps on walls are as dangerous as head-hunters.



That's it for now. We'd say more but it's cutting into our Friday night drinking time (not like we need a weekend to drink though). We're very impressed by the quantity and quality of all your messages ... it's great to hear good ole Canadian sarcasm at its finest.

Love Gerry & Eric (or Eric & Gerry)

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XO <-- this one's for Roy

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