What a send off we had from Southbourne Station. Two of our children, Jo (with grandson Reuben) and Ben, came to wave us off along with Sue and Dave and Margaret and Alan. As much as we were looking forward to going it was all rather emotional, six months seems a long time. I have never been away from my family at Christmas before and I know that it is going to be a milestone.
The trip to London was uneventful and we embarked on the Eurostar to Brussels without a hitch, what a wonderful smooth ride that train is. The train from Brussels to Cologne was late, the one train I thought would be on time knowing German efficiency but I think we made this up. I am already feeling a bit nostalgic for Eurostar trains as the train from Cologne to Moscow was not quite so cushioned, it was however a truly interesting journey as we moved into Autumn which has only just commenced back home. The cabins on the train are small but perfectly adequate once you have decided where you are going to stow away your things. There is a water boiler at the end of each carriage so you can make hot drinks. I would advise anyone doing that journey to take along food, ready to eat or reconstitute with hot water, as the train food seemed expensive and not particularly nice. All the passengers in our carriage seemed to have their own provisions so it is common practice to take your own.
There are washing facilities in the carriages and there is a steward who keeps the loos clean and generally looks after things, so quite a pleasant environment all in all. One complaint is that he wouldn't let me put my bottle of wine in his fridge which I thought was a bit mean until I realised that he also sold cans of beer so was hoping for a sale of something cold.
The highlight of the trip for John was when we got to the Belarus border and the track changed to a larger gauge. The carriage had to be jacked up and the wheels removed and others put in place, there was a lot of shunting back and forth and we were there for ages. I got rather bored but John was in his element. When the Belarus border control came round it was serious stuff, they looked under seats, examined our passports, stamped them with enthusiasm, made us fill in forms and were clearly enjoying their job in a rather po-faced manner. Quite a contrast when we arrived in Moscow as nobody has even looked at our passports, I thought it would be the other way round.
On arrival in Moscow we decided we were not going to be weak and get a taxi to the hotel, we were going to start as we intended to continue and be intrepid travellers. A Russian woman on the train told us the Metro was easy and straight forward, we should not have believed her. It is not only indecipherable but there are stairs all over the place. Handy hints to travellers to Moscow, first download a Metro map from the internet and study this, once you have the hang of that, it is not so bad. Do remember though, most of the stations do not display their name so you have to count how many stops you need from where you got on to where you get off. We did the journey in almost total silence as we were worried about missing out a station. Second tip; take a light bag, those stairs are a killer!! You could always take a cab and not tell anyone - very tempting.
Our hotel is fine if a little bland, we are in what feels like the budget section (which it is). There is a posh section at a posh cost, we gaze as we go past. A major draw-back everywhere is that everybody smokes so the place reeks of cigarettes. We had to wait to check-in to get a non smoking room on a non smoking floor as nearly all the floors in all the hotels are smoking which is common everwhere in Moscow apparently.
After settling ourselves in and having some coffee we went out and found this amazing place, very Disneyesque, where nothing was as it seemed, including many of the Icons in the Flea Market we came across but the whole place had a real buzz and was fun. We met a lovely Japanese couple who were just at the beginning of a two year posting to the Japanese Embassy in Moscow. They helped us decide some of the 'must do' things in our few days here. Will let you know later how we get on with the tourist bit.
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