Russian Love?

We had a funny incident upon arrival (11pm) where we realised we had no roubles (Russian currency) for the next day. How were we going to get some water (we were parched by this late stage) or a metro ticket for that matter when no banks were open nor would any be open when we needed to be on the metro early in the morning taking our bags to the train station storage lockers at 8 am.

So.... 2 girls walking around the streets of Moscow first attempted the ATM method, but of course they were located inside a locked bank weren't they... go figure!?!?!

Then Do tried her own special way at exchanging some euros with a waitress in a local resturant (she basically played pictionary with the girl to explain what she wanted) whilst i went red from embarrassment upon realising it was quite an expensive "well to do" restaurant!

We had a laugh as we walked out with some roubles and smiles on our faces.
We then discovered an ATM near our hostel about 1/2 an hour later.... but we had more fun Do's way, i must say.

Well........... what can i say? The Russians are an extremely pushy lot! They push each other, they pushed us and it's not a city for the faint hearted!

We were ignored, screamed at (for not speaking russian!)and pushed around the whole day and our excitement to board the train grew with every minute. We started our day with a tour of the metro underground which are museums in themselves, but after delaing with being pushed/squeezed around for a few stations, we son grew tired of the D.I.Y tour and headed above ground to see the sights.

St Basils was a beautiful building, The Kremlin was closed as was Lenin's tomb at te hour that we were there. We weren't so into seeing an embalmed Lenin anyway..... and so we went and had some borsht (without the vodka or the tears!!)

The best thing we decided about Moscow was the easy access to Caviar in the supermarkets at ultra low prices! Yummy. So of course we stocked up on some for our trans-mongolian train ride which i ahve to be honest, was polished off on the first night of the train trip.






This was for 3 apparent reasons.....

1. It was so delicious!!!
2. There is no means of refrigeration on the trans train
3. We washed it down with vodka and couldn't stop ourselves :) The video is funny but you'll have to wait for that one til after we get home (special audiences only!)

Looking back on our day in Moscow, we were shocked with the way the Russians treated each other and the difference between the classes there. We witnessed a woman beating homeless people and setting her german shephard upon them for sleeping in the waiting hall of the train station and that was more than shocking to us but seemed normal to the Russians waiting in the hall.

We have set about this trip to witness other cultures and to remain open, and although Moscow was only always only stopover for us.... we enjoyed it as best we could by taking in the sights and lovely old buildings but also with excitement in our steps that we were leaving that very night.

We were happy to have our lonely planet with us, though being it in English and all street signs/metro station signs/every sign! being in cyrillic, we had a funny time walking up and down and around a few times sometimes.

We walked through the famous Arbat and resisted buying tacky tourist souvenirs though admittedly i thought twice about a Matrioshka doll but my pack was already packed to the brim.

We both decided Russia was not hot on our "we have to return there" list but here are a few pics from the day anyway!