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This morning my noise reducing headphones ran out of power and after hearing Todd for a while I got up, had a shower and went for a walk for an hour. After breakfast, we had some time before catching our train To Moscow, so I spent the time catching up with TripAdviser, managing to complete 14 reviews. The walk to the station really didn’t take very long and the hardest part was navigating through the renovation work to find the correct platform and train. After a small mishap of reading the ticket and looking for car 25 when it was supposed to be 2C (which being in Cyrillic was a bit hard to read) meant walking up and down almost the entire length of the platform.
Our ride to Moscow took about 4 hours, travelling at an average speed of 200km/h with only 2 stops. We got served a drink, and then lunch on the train, being in business class, and arrived in Moscow around 5pm. Our driver picked us up and I don’t think he spoke any English as he didn’t say a word to us (he simply held out a form with my surname on it). The drive through Moscow wasn’t too bad with the traffic, as we drove past Bulgari, Omega, Pierre Cardin and such. We arrived at the Metropol and as we got out of the car could see the towers of St Basil’s Cathedral from the car park. The Metropol is a blast from the past, being built in 1905 and deserving of its 5 stars. As you walk through the metal detector and past the guards you are met with a very tasteful amalgamation of marble and wood, with no less than 5 staff available to help you reach the reception desk. All impeccably dressed and looking stunning. Ben and I managed to get a suite for ourselves with a double bed each, with the others having to put up with singles.
We settled on the restaurant Lavkalavka for dinner, about a 1( minutes walk from the hotel and on the way got accosted by a group of guys dressed as Bugs Bunny and Tom. They grabbed Fran and insisted on a photo with her. As we walked off they grabbed me and tried to insist that I pay them 500 Roubles each. I refused and only gave them 500 in total and walked briskly to catch up with the others. The restaurant was down a small alley and fairly well hidden. Without Ben and his Google Maps we wouldn’t have found it. The restaurant used a lot of local farms and businesses and had a number of interesting items on the menu. We decided on a honey beer for Ben, Charlie and myself with Fran and Todd having a Russian lager and John having a quite nice herbal tea. I had the chicken which had been cooked to perfection and shared some baked cauliflower with Fran. Afterwards Ben and I tried a ‘nut’ coffee which was quite pleasant. Todd, Ben and myself sat in the hotel bar after we got back, and despite the fact that Ben and I had 500mls of beer each, Todd’s latte was the most expensive at $11AU.
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