Down and Out in Moscow
If you haven't heard, I made it back safely to the land of taco bell and
gigantic 24-hour grocery stores. Now if only they had apple mentos around
here somewhere... I'll finish off my updates in several parts as I get
around to writing them.
----------------------------
When we last left our hero, he was Moscow bound. Since we were not
Russians, we had to pay the foreigner's fare for a second class sleeper
instead of third, fourth or fifth class (no joke, they have em!).
Neil, Sara and I were joined by a Russian who spoke limited English. It
wasn't long before he whipped out a bottle of vodka and we were obliged to
sample his distillation masterpiece. We didn't go blind and Neil took to
improving his Russian by using our little phrase book. By time the bottle
was finished, Neil was quite adept at saying "I look forward to a mutually
beneficial business relationship" in Russian. Sara and I pointed out that
we might be better aided by more useful phrases like "where is the
toilet", but Neil wasn't in the condition to care.
Neil conversing with our Russian compartment-mate.
After my first, last and only night train sleeping on an actual bed, we
arrived at Moscow. The Russian woman taking care of our car seemed quite
irate from our very arrival. I waited patiently while Sara carefully
packed all her gear, tied her shoelaces, adjusted her hat, and generally
took a long bloody time. By time Neil and Sara cleared the compartment,
the Russian woman was growing even more agitated. Yeah yeah, I'm on my
way. After I wrestled my pack from the bin, I took the first pack out to
the platform and headed back for the second. Boy this Russian woman just
won't shut up. Hey wait, why is the train moving. Oh shazbam! I grabbed
the remaining gear, and made a flying leap from the moving train to the
platform. The destination is indeed sometimes the byproduct of the
journey...
We checked into our hostel and headed back into town. We split, Neil and
Sara went to buy train tickets while I plugged the cash machines for 1.5
million rubles to pay for a flight to Berlin (about $200). Armed with my
wallet full of rubles, no guidebook, no map, and my impeccable sense of
direction, I set out to return to the hostel travel agency. About two
hours later, I finally found the hostel again just in time to wait an hour
for them to generate my ticket, the Russian machinery running in high
gear.
Close-up of St. Basil's cathedral.
After negotiating the rat maze exits from the metro, I met Neil and Sara
again. We paid the ten dollars to get into the Kremlin grounds and
buildings (Russians pay two). If you like religious icons you'd be in
nirvana here. The best part was watching the policemen blow there
whistles any time I tourist stepped out of the designated areas.
Gate leading into red square.
We went to red square, it is quite a big and impressive place, Kremlin on
one side, St. Basil's cathedral (you know the one with all the onion domes)
on another. You can also go and see the pickled body of Lenin, he looks
strange like some sort of doll.
Neil are Sara making pigs of themselves.
It was dinner time and since we hadn't had breakfast or lunch yet, it was
time to eat big. What better place than Russia's first McDonalds. It is
huge, maybe 30 checkout lines. We paid US prices, got huge fries and
drink, and got served in 30 seconds (2 kilometer queues and big macs
selling on the black market are ancient history). So that was lunch
right? Time for dinner, value meal round two, oh baby.
Looking cool in front of St. Basil's.
I finally managed to get my visa registered. It cost 235,000 rubles
($40) for the stamp of approval saying I had been a good little American
tourist. Better than risking the stiff fine at the airport though.
We took a trip to the top of the Moscow TV tower for a view of
functionalism as it approaches infinity. We had to show our visas and
passports twice before they let us up the tower. I still managed to plant
a listening device to send quality Russian soap operas direct to the NSA
for analysis and entertainment.
I parted with Neil and Sara on the subway in Moscow, vi ses absolut! I
was now solo for the remainder of my travels. Without too many extra
subway transfers, I managed to get to the Ruskin Fine Arts museum. They
had a good collection of Monet's, Picasso's and Van Gouhgh's, who would
have thought it?
Only the Russians could design an airport that requires five queues to
actually get onto the aircraft, but I made it. In three short hours I was
teleported back to the west, Berlin.
Return to home page
Return to Trip Reports