Sayani Moscow

... the next morning. The receptionist wrote us a note for us to present to the ticket office, to ensure that we got the exact tickets that we wanted. We all went to bed a bit anxious that night, as it could be a possibility that all tickets would be gone the next day.

10/11 - We waited around until 11am to make sure that the cheaper online tickets were out of the question before heading to the train station to buy the 10,000 ruble ones. Together with the stress ...

... for a while longer, picking up some food for the road, grabbed our big bags from the hostel, and walked off slowly, stoicly. We had over an hour to get to Leningradskaya station. Or so we thought. We got there with time to spare, and we looked on the departures board for a platform number. There was none. There was no train. We went up to information. “Where's our train?” Showing her the ticket for effect. “Kurskaya – Fyutty”, she whistled as she ...

... our luggage (near the very cool aquarium counter), we discovered that we'd misunderstood the weight limits and several of us were well over the limts. (We thought it was 40KG per bag--it's 40KG per passenger!) We wound up having to pay a few fines and then we booked it to our gate, managing to get turned around once and finally hopping on the bus that took us to our beautiful ...

... the soldiers in numbers heading our way.Oh now. I warned them both and like a young child, they dropped the coins not yet in their pockets.

Jessica and I talked about the sights as Alan snapped pictures. We wanted to walk alittle further then the square, but the entire square was bordered with soldiers. We stayed put and waited for the group.

Our group leader raced us thru the mall and into the subway. She asked us to ...

... Arbat, ki je znana kot ulica ulicnih umetnikov, ulicnih predstav ter vseh mogocih trgovin s spominki. Najino potovanje se je tako zakljucilo. Kot zivljenjska izkusnja z nestetimi spomini ter zal na koncu tudi bolecim grlom. Naslednji zapisi bodo namenjeni bolj zemljevidu na tem blogu kot pa zgodbam z najinih prestopov na razlicnih zelezniskih postajah. Zadnji zapis pa si le prosim se oglejte, saj je v njem vabilo na najino prvo potopisno predavanje o tej poti.

... it, B and V are swapped like in Spanish, a back to front N is 'i' and so on. Some letters are even the same! Our first task was to procure some tickets for the Metro. We'd already worked out that there was a flat fare and that we needed to buy a pre-loaded card, a bit like a disposable Oyster card. For just 300 roubles (about 6 pounds) we each had 10 journeys anywhere on the network, that's 30p a trip! Beat that Boris! We descended into the palatial ...

... Then we wandered up past Lenin's Mausoleum and up to and into the Orthodox Church at the top of Red Square (I don't know its name) where a service was taking place. This was interesting to watch for a brief time. From there we walked to the Bolshoy Theatre which is closed for restorations at the moment & into the theatre next to it for the Ballet. Seeing the opening night of 'Giselle' was very special and while we ...

... marker posts at the side of the tracks, and there are also landmarks to look out for. There's the obelisk marking the Europe-Asia border for example (which we passed at 3 o'clock in the morning while we were asleep), or the "obelisk" marking the half-way point between Moscow and Beijing - this turned out to be nothing more than a big stick. Time is another thing to get your head round on the train. Russia spans 11 time zones and the train crosses them ...

... plaque identifying the subject so I could be wrong. After our brief detour it was on to the Metro for WEVA. After lunch we took our queue from stream three and had the afternoon off, heading back to the Izmailovsky Markets. We did at last find the markets and they lived up to expectations. They were in two parts, an outer precinct where you could buy clothing, DVDs and other domestic items and an inner precinct with a five rouble ...

Days 31-34 Moscow The best nights sleep I've had in weeks, the gentle rhythm of the train and the sturdy mattress on the bunk are a winning combination. I'm mortified to find out later that that my cabin mates look a lot less rested because I kept them up all night snoring, I had told them to wake me if I did but they were to polite to do so. Our new Honcho is called Anastasia and is the most experienced and also the the best honcho we ...