Blogs from Moscow, Northwest, Russia, Europe - page 76

I promised myself I would put an end to this arriving at stations at obscene hours in the morning without a room reservation. But, once again, Gerry and I found ourselves at Moscow Station at 4 am. We huddled in a corner of the station with our bags, avoiding eye contact with all the city "riff-raff" that wondered in - most of which consisted of men smelling of vodka and body odor with freshly bruised faces. When we finally discoverd that we COULD enter the restricted station waiting room we were cold, tired and hungry. We had to step around strange pools of blood to get to the chairs. Whwn we found two open seats we sat there for almost 4 hours verociously reading our guidebooks - waiting for first light and the metro to open. ... read more

'Leningrad' is one of the biggest nightclubs in the city. The music was a lot better than Joy Party and the people are in a much better mood. Every hour or so the DJ would stop the music and six people would come up on stage for a 'konkurs', more often than not a game of strip musical chairs. I almost went up myself - I didn't quite understand what Anya was inviting me to do! Myself and Ana stayed on the dancefloor until half past 3, then left her to her crazy dancing and found a sofa to collapse on. When we weren't dancing it was interesting to see how differently young Moscow people act and dress. They (especially Anya) have a lot of energy and smile more. She found us at 4 to bring ... read more

I woke up at ten and had breakfast with Ana, Lena and Valera. I was nervous talking to Valera to begin with because I have almost never had a conversation with a Russian man. All my teachers apart from one are women, all of my friends are girls and in general there are much fewer men than women in Russia. He drew us a map of how to find things in Moscow, wrote down his mobile number for us if we needed his help and he talked to me about his work. He's quite a successful businessman, and wanted to know how I was planning my career. We ate biscuits in the kitchen while Lena and Ana put on their make-up, and he told me jokes. He and Lena are in their early thirties and have ... read more

This is another try at adding some photos. They will include shots from Moscow where we visited Bea (a former student) and her husband Vasily. There will be a few from Meteora, Greece. This is the site of many 17th century monasteries. Our trip concluded in Switzerland and you will see some of our favorite mountain locations.... read more

Creo que fuimos los ultimos en llegar a nuestro vagon, me sorprendio un poco el hecho de que las guias hablan de trenes rusos y que el restaurante cambia dependiendo del pais, pero este tren era de Mongolia. Teniamos dos "camareras" en el vagon o prodvonistas (o algo asi), una de ellas parecia simpatiquilla pero la otra daba la sensacion de ser de aqui te espero (por las miradas que echaba), me dio muy mala espina, no la mejor manera de espezar un viaje que duraria 107 horas.A los cinco minutos conocimos a una pareja de holandeses que estaban en la cabina de al lado nuestra Huub y Karin y se convirtieron en nuestros companyeros de viaje, junto con otra pareja suiza, Wernie y Andrea.El viaje comenzo sin problemas, solo unas cuantas formalidades con el pasaporte, ... read more