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Published: October 22nd 2006
Arrived in Moscow and found our hostel, Godzillas. Hostel ok but got eaten alive by mosquitoes on our first night - welcome to travelling!!
We'd been up at 5 in the morning to catch our flight from Heathrow, so were obviously delighted when the party people and the customary guitar-player were in the kitchen (next door to our room) until 6 the next morning! Orla asked for a new room the next day but was told it was a one off and wouldn't happen on the Saturday night.
Saturday 9th, we got up late and made our way to Red Square to take in the sights. Also visited GUM shopping arcade alongside the Square. It's full of designer shops (way out of our league now!!) Lots of fur shops - mink coats ranging from 4k to 10k. Mad!
Saturday night, party kicked off again. Couldn't take the lack of sleep so Orla sent in at 2am to sort them out! They had no chance, and quickly moved to a new room!! Very wise!
Sunday, we visited Lenin's Mausoleum. It was a bit strange. He looks like a waxwork and was a very short man. We also visited
the Kremlin. That was really interesting and we took plenty of photos. We then walked to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It looks old but was only built in about 1997. Was lovely from the outside but there was a huge queue to get in, so we decided to search for the Irish pub instead!! Never did find it. Met another couple later on who had done same hunt, so it's either well-hidden or now closed down.
On Monday, we went to Novodevichy Convent, a little way out of town on the metro. That was very peaceful. We moved onto Muzeon Arts Park which has some weird statues. Onto Ul Arbat - a real touristy shopping area and haggled for some Russian badges to sow onto our backpacks. The guy wanted to charge us 9 quid a badge!! Steve knocked him down to 5 pounds for 2 so we were well-pleased with ourselves (although, no doubt still ripped off!)
Collecting our trans-mongolian train tickets proved a bit of an adventure. We struggled to find the correct station, then the office was closed! We decided to hang around for a while and luckily it re-opened. When it did,
the assistant (who spoke French to us!), told us the tickets weren't ready. This was Friday, he told us to come back 17:00 Monday (train on Tuesday). Arrived Monday, office shut again!! Thankfully, after more waiting around, a different man turned up and we got our tickets with no further problems.
On Tuesday, we went to the main post office to post Orla's Russian doll souvenir back home. The lady said "Nyet" (no), wrote something in Russian on a post-it note and waved us out of the post office! We tried another place - what a palava!! We had the address written out, with "UK" written in Russian but the woman went ballistic!! She was shouting at us in Russian and made Orla fill in 3 identical forms (written in French and Russian). Took half an hour and was not at all convinced it would leave the country.
Whilst we had a good time in Moscow, we were both relieved to be leaving. Overall impressions were that it's 1 huge, expensive building site, grey and dusty. The majority of people are unfriendly, and the metro is as hot as the London underground in summer!! Lets hope the train
is better!! (??).....
We've attached some photos of the good bits. A bit all over the place - haven't quite sussed out this blog business yet (and can't get them to rotate)!!
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