Moscow!

Day 25 - 19/06/2010 - 20:11 - Moscow, Russia

So we've had another 2 days in Moscow, and we've done a fair bit, but certainly not as much as we would have like to have done.

Yesterday we spent the morning in the Kremlin, looking at the main sights - the cathedrals, bell towers, gardens as well as the palaces and the oversized cannons and bells! We stayed there to about 2pm where we made our way back to the food court, albeit this time trying somewhere much nicer, so much we went back there today!

In the afternoon (well the rest of it) we went to an Internet cafe, tried to find a post office (no success) and then made our way to the main station to try and get some tickets to Sergiev Posad - a town 1 hour away from Moscow, which has it's own Kremlin and is supposed to be beautfiul. We were going to go today, but we couldn't find the right place to buy the tickets - the station is like a zoo, it's mental.

We are now hoping to go on Monday (21st), after we've deposited our bags in the lockers and we're ready to move onto Yekaterinburg. We can leave early and come back in the early evening, before our train at 10:55pm. That's the plan anyway, we may just end up exploring further afield in Moscow - if we can't master the maze. We couldn't even deduce the station we need to leave from on Monday either - there are 3 main stations within 100 metres of eachother, 2 on the same road - one we arrived at, one we are leaving from - the problem is the one we are leaving from isn't a regular station - all the platforms are round the back of the station, outside of the main building! Very confusing! There is also a set of platforms (are they the ones we saw?!) where just the regional trains run from! Argh! I'm very much looking forward to Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Ulaanbaatar - only one station to worry about!!

So today, we were planning on going to Lenins Mausoleum - his preserved body from his death in the 1920's. Problem is there was no electronics allowed in there, esepcially cameras. They didn't let me in because of my phone having one... back we go tomorrow - it's only open 3 hours a day! As well as that, we tried to get into the armoury chambers - a museum which includes a large collection of Faberge eggs. Problem is, you need to queue 45 mins before the scheduled tour to get in. We got there 15 minutes before the 45 min window began, we got there 10 minutes after they went on sale (to the front of the queue) and they had already sold out. Trying again tomorrow.... Yay.

So we spent part of the rest of the day looking round the Gym (pronounced Goom) - an old state department store which has been converted into a very very posh shopping mall - all designer shops. We couldn't afford anything, obviously - but the building itself is well worth the visit, it's beautiful inside.

We then went to a cafe which had free, fast Wifi! Yay! Now we're back at the hotel, chilling and watching the football, when it's on. Just caught the last 20 mins of Australia-Ghana. We've been eating our main meals in the day, and getting snacks for tea. We've been stopping at a food stall just outside the metro station (there are loads of different market type stalls selling different things) where the guy sells Russian/Turkish cuisine - he speaks a bit of English, told me that he speaks fluent German as well as Russian. Nice bloke. I might try something else tomorrow. The last couple of days I've had this doughy bread thing with lamb and onion in it - very nice but Laura had this pork samosa today which was amazing!