Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Claire & Dave's Big Adventure
Добро пожал
86;вать в Росси 02; товар
80;ща.
Нам нрави 90;ся ролик 86;вых коньк 72;х и съест 00; выпеч 82;у. Вам понра 74;ится наш язык и гораз 76;о лучше алфав 80;т. Желае 84; вам прият 85;ого отдых 72;.
There you go now it's your turn...
Months ago when planning this trip we read several pieces of advice recommending that it is a very good idea and incredibly useful to learn the basics of the cryllic (or acrylic - David Robinson) alphabet. Of course being British however, we ignored this advice assuming that, like most places in the world there would be English translations for either everything, or at least most of the important stuff. Oh how wrong we were! Every single word is in this mish-mash of backward letters and upside down numbers. This has taken some getting used to over the last couple of days but now, as we leave, we feel we have learnt some essential words
кофе - coffee
24 часа - 24 hours
газир 86;ванна& #1103; вода - sparkling water
без газир 86;ванна& #1103; вода - non sparkling water
These are the only few words we have learnt due to the copious amounts of 'Starbucksy' type coffee shops on every corner offering 24 hour coffee. And because we keep buying sparkling water by accident.
So how has Moscow been?
Well, it started off with a shock. Due to the depiction of Russia and its towns from the many Blockbuster movies we have seen, we always assumed that Moscow would be cold, grey, grim, and possibly even have snow. Again, how wrong we were. We stepped off the plane and walked straight into blazing hot sunshine (33 degrees). This was surely the wrong country - a possible diversion to Egypt? Nope this was Moscow in the summer. A pleasant surprise.
Surprisingly, despite our sudden loss of the ability to read we managed very well. Passport control felt a little intimidating where they quite harshly greeted us with the word 'Manchester' (imagine a strong Russian accent when saying this), followed by a very hard unsmiling stare as they checked our passports and visas. We then, impressively, were able to find the train that took us to Paveletskaya (Павел 077;цкая) station in Moscow centre.
Our first little mission - find our hotel. To do this, we bought a map for approximately 5pounds. However, 2minutes and 20seconds later we threw the map in the bin as it was unreadable (crylic again). Luckily enough we managed to find some free wifi, and ta-dah google maps came to the rescue.
Fortunately it looked like we were only a short walk to the hotel, so ignoring the constant 'Taxi' Taxi' Taxi' and the honking of horns outside the station we set off in the beating hot sun, in jeans, hoodies and of course our 20kg backpacks (its a good job that back in the UK Claire took out those 2 pairs of socks to make it lighter), for our short walk...
You won't believe this next part...we made it! Claire actually managed to carry her own backpack all the way (approx 500metres) to the hotel! This means that compared to our trip 6 years ago Claire has already doubled the entire distance she has walked when carrying her backpack! All that walking the rounds on the Ward must have paid off!
Over the following 2 days we have had a couple of walks into the city to see the main sights of Moscow. We weren't expecting too much to be honest, as we had only ever really seen this part of our trip as a place to jump on the train to Beijing. However what we have seen, has been quite impressive - St Basils cathedral is immediately eye catching, popping up in the middle of the city with it's brightly coloured domes and unique architecture. Red square was unfortunately covered in some building works and Lenin's mausoleum was closed so that was a bit disappointing. We never ventured into the Kremlin as money is tight.
We watched the changing of the guard, who were keeping a watchful eye over the 'Tomb of the Unknown Solider' (To which David couldn't stop whistling The Doors song). How the guards wore all that uniform in this baking heat and not pass out is a mystery. More than just a tourist attraction though - one old lady climbed over the fence and tried to lay a rose on the tomb but one of the guards soon came running over blowing his whistle demanding her to stop. They then manhandled her round the back of the wall of the Kremlin where we then heard a gunshot - Russians don't mess about (Русск 080;й Шутка)!
We have also spent an afternoon catching the sun because we 'followed the muskva, down to Gorky Park, listening to the winds of change' (another song David couldn't get out his head). Gorky park was once an old run down theme park which has now been totally renovated to become a beautiful landscaped area, with beach volley ball courts, cafes, giant bean bags, bicycles, and hundreds of rollerbladers flying round.
Russian food is... ok. It's pretty pricey and everything is very stodgy that we've tried. As we so soon in our trip refuse to give in and go to McDonalds, Subway, KFC and Burger King we have been eating a lot from local shops, bakeries and self-serve cafeteria type places. We smile and speak in English to the servers, they unimpressively glare at us, answer in Russian, and we just simply laugh and nod back, not knowing at all what we are saying yes too. They however carry on glaring at us, so in order to make it easier for both sides we started playing food roulette - all we do is simply say hello (in English as we dont know what it is in Russian) and then smile (to obviously not appear too rude) and then point at things that we want with the hope that it tastes nice. Shockingly, our tactics have so far worked and we have been successful in buying food that is edible - everything seems to taste like a sausage roll, apart from the cheese crisps - which taste like soggy pieces of dairylee.
All in all we've enjoyed Moscow, it was much more pleasent than we'd expected. Perhaps we could have researched it a bit more before we left, but as said before it was always supposed to be a starting point for our train journey which we have now started stocking up for - plenty of peanuts, dried fruit and of course VODKA. Now, onto our 101 hour train journey.
Things we've learned -
Russian people do actually look 'hard'
The rollerblade is still a very popular form of transport in Moscow.
The Lada is still a very popular form of transport in Moscow.
Claire's shoulders still get sunburnt, even in Moscow.
Dave's Transport stats so far:
Planes used - 1
Buses used - 1
Trains used - 1
Metros used - 1
Нам нрави 90;ся ролик 86;вых коньк 72;х и съест 00; выпеч 82;у. Вам понра 74;ится наш язык и гораз 76;о лучше алфав 80;т. Желае 84; вам прият 85;ого отдых 72;.
There you go now it's your turn...
Months ago when planning this trip we read several pieces of advice recommending that it is a very good idea and incredibly useful to learn the basics of the cryllic (or acrylic - David Robinson) alphabet. Of course being British however, we ignored this advice assuming that, like most places in the world there would be English translations for either everything, or at least most of the important stuff. Oh how wrong we were! Every single word is in this mish-mash of backward letters and upside down numbers. This has taken some getting used to over the last couple of days but now, as we leave, we feel we have learnt some essential words
кофе - coffee
24 часа - 24 hours
газир 86;ванна& #1103; вода - sparkling water
без газир 86;ванна& #1103; вода - non sparkling water
These are the only few words we have learnt due to the copious amounts of 'Starbucksy' type coffee shops on every corner offering 24 hour coffee. And because we keep buying sparkling water by accident.
So how has Moscow been?
Well, it started off with a shock. Due to the depiction of Russia and its towns from the many Blockbuster movies we have seen, we always assumed that Moscow would be cold, grey, grim, and possibly even have snow. Again, how wrong we were. We stepped off the plane and walked straight into blazing hot sunshine (33 degrees). This was surely the wrong country - a possible diversion to Egypt? Nope this was Moscow in the summer. A pleasant surprise.
Surprisingly, despite our sudden loss of the ability to read we managed very well. Passport control felt a little intimidating where they quite harshly greeted us with the word 'Manchester' (imagine a strong Russian accent when saying this), followed by a very hard unsmiling stare as they checked our passports and visas. We then, impressively, were able to find the train that took us to Paveletskaya (Павел 077;цкая) station in Moscow centre.
Our first little mission - find our hotel. To do this, we bought a map for approximately 5pounds. However, 2minutes and 20seconds later we threw the map in the bin as it was unreadable (crylic again). Luckily enough we managed to find some free wifi, and ta-dah google maps came to the rescue.
Fortunately it looked like we were only a short walk to the hotel, so ignoring the constant 'Taxi' Taxi' Taxi' and the honking of horns outside the station we set off in the beating hot sun, in jeans, hoodies and of course our 20kg backpacks (its a good job that back in the UK Claire took out those 2 pairs of socks to make it lighter), for our short walk...
You won't believe this next part...we made it! Claire actually managed to carry her own backpack all the way (approx 500metres) to the hotel! This means that compared to our trip 6 years ago Claire has already doubled the entire distance she has walked when carrying her backpack! All that walking the rounds on the Ward must have paid off!
Over the following 2 days we have had a couple of walks into the city to see the main sights of Moscow. We weren't expecting too much to be honest, as we had only ever really seen this part of our trip as a place to jump on the train to Beijing. However what we have seen, has been quite impressive - St Basils cathedral is immediately eye catching, popping up in the middle of the city with it's brightly coloured domes and unique architecture. Red square was unfortunately covered in some building works and Lenin's mausoleum was closed so that was a bit disappointing. We never ventured into the Kremlin as money is tight.
We watched the changing of the guard, who were keeping a watchful eye over the 'Tomb of the Unknown Solider' (To which David couldn't stop whistling The Doors song). How the guards wore all that uniform in this baking heat and not pass out is a mystery. More than just a tourist attraction though - one old lady climbed over the fence and tried to lay a rose on the tomb but one of the guards soon came running over blowing his whistle demanding her to stop. They then manhandled her round the back of the wall of the Kremlin where we then heard a gunshot - Russians don't mess about (Русск 080;й Шутка)!
We have also spent an afternoon catching the sun because we 'followed the muskva, down to Gorky Park, listening to the winds of change' (another song David couldn't get out his head). Gorky park was once an old run down theme park which has now been totally renovated to become a beautiful landscaped area, with beach volley ball courts, cafes, giant bean bags, bicycles, and hundreds of rollerbladers flying round.
Russian food is... ok. It's pretty pricey and everything is very stodgy that we've tried. As we so soon in our trip refuse to give in and go to McDonalds, Subway, KFC and Burger King we have been eating a lot from local shops, bakeries and self-serve cafeteria type places. We smile and speak in English to the servers, they unimpressively glare at us, answer in Russian, and we just simply laugh and nod back, not knowing at all what we are saying yes too. They however carry on glaring at us, so in order to make it easier for both sides we started playing food roulette - all we do is simply say hello (in English as we dont know what it is in Russian) and then smile (to obviously not appear too rude) and then point at things that we want with the hope that it tastes nice. Shockingly, our tactics have so far worked and we have been successful in buying food that is edible - everything seems to taste like a sausage roll, apart from the cheese crisps - which taste like soggy pieces of dairylee.
All in all we've enjoyed Moscow, it was much more pleasent than we'd expected. Perhaps we could have researched it a bit more before we left, but as said before it was always supposed to be a starting point for our train journey which we have now started stocking up for - plenty of peanuts, dried fruit and of course VODKA. Now, onto our 101 hour train journey.
Things we've learned -
Russian people do actually look 'hard'
The rollerblade is still a very popular form of transport in Moscow.
The Lada is still a very popular form of transport in Moscow.
Claire's shoulders still get sunburnt, even in Moscow.
Dave's Transport stats so far:
Planes used - 1
Buses used - 1
Trains used - 1
Metros used - 1
- comments