heyhey so Berlin has come and gone and we're now in Moscow, which is big and expensive and full of people who don't speak English and don't seem too bothered about this fact. I keep trying to tell them the Cold War is over and they don't need to fear me anymore but they don't seem to want to listen. Ah well. So ya got in last night and despite the lonely planet estimated cost of a taxi being 100R ($4) the first guy was gonna charge us $50 so we pursued the metro situation where we found a queue of literally 100+ people. So back out onto the street we finally found a taxi to take us for the amazing bargain of $20 + 200R. Though there were at least 3 moments during the trip I could've sworn we were going to die which would probably have made the $20+200R poor value since I don't think funeral services were included ;-)
Saw the cool cathedrals and soviet govt buildings in the Kremlin this morning which was good fun. I wanted to ask a guard if he would pose with me for a photo but I wasn't sure the US Embassy was open on weekends to bail me out of jail so thought better not. In general things here seem to be geared towards the very top echelons of society (not unlike NY or London I suppose) and people aren't particularly friendly but I'm hoping the 5 and a half days on the Trans-Siberian will hold for us nicer Russians :-) the hardest thing I would say is navigating since my map has the street names in the roman alphabet whereas all the street signs are in cyrillic ;-(
anyway, will post photos and stuff soon! xx
2 comments:
I say you should just always carry a couple of bottles of vodka around to get yourself out of a sticky situation/barter for services.
Great to hear from you the other night. Enjoy the trains and if you get a chance try the economy becuase ti really is quite an experience and at least here the passport controls are a lot less frequent - when you are in the normal class they come round like clockwork but in econcmy only once... but then you do have to put up with people sitting on your bed while you are sleepign in it and having to kick them off...also a tip I picked up is toilets are the front of the carriage are so much better than at the back ... why? People go for a fag and toilet together and the smokoing place is at the back... and toilets at the front are pristine!
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