Hello all,

Me again! The internet in this hostel is free so we have been hogging it a bit! All my photos are now up to date on facebook and so I also have enough time to update you of our adventures since the last time I wrote!

Since the last blog we went out to dinner for the last time in St Petersburg. The girl behind reception in our hostel recommended an English pub called 'Dickens'! We arrived and it was very traditional even down to the wallpaper.....only difference was that smoking was still allowed which annoyed us all! I think we were all pleased to see some dishes such as fish and chips and cottage pie on the menu! The major bonus for the boys was that the Premiership football was being shown! Back at the hostel, we arrived to a party! Everyone was in the communal area, drinking....this was such a contrast to the previous night where about 2 people had been watching a russian dvd! As we had to hang around a few hours for the train we went and took a seat and after a while were comfronted by a couple of kiwis - Erin and Alex. They were really friendly and overly enthusiastic about talking to everyone, but we got some good tips off them about New Zealand and also the Trans-Siberian Express as they have done it in the opposite direction. They suggested taking a big stash of vodka as it seems to be the done thing to drink copious amounts with the locals onboard! We were all sad to be leaving that night in the end as it would have been a good night, but as it happens as we were leaving early it meant the kiwis could stay that night, as we had both mis-calculated accomodation in accordance with the train times.

The train tickets we had booked to Moscow ended up being really good! We were in coupe class which is the highest really and is a 4 berth cabin. It was comfy and if that was a sign of things to come on the trans-sib we would all be happy! The extra person in our cabin ended up being a Russian woman. Her husband seemed to be in the cabin next door but when she looked in and saw 3 brits all ready for bed (almost 1am) she went into the other cabin and none of us heard her come in! Arriving in Moscow, again, we couldnt find the metro! They dont seem to be well signposted! Got to the hostel and much like St Pertersburg we were wandering around for at least 30 minutes in the vicinity before actually finding it! It wasnt signposted at all and was in a really random corner of an appartment building! Whilst searching we bumped into 2 guys from Singapore and Hong Kong. Once we all checked in we all went for breakfast together across the road. The rest of that day was really spent updating photos on the internet as well as washing! This hostel has a washing machine and tumble dryer so having only managed to do some hand washing we saw this as a huge luxury and did a load each!!!! We gave in and had a McDonalds at lunch (late at 4.30) then headed down to Red Square which is just down the road. By this time it was getting dark and looked beautiful. The Kremlin, St Basils and a huge shopping mall which translates as the goom were all lit up. It was absolutely freezing by this point tho and none of us were really wrapped up that well as it had just been washed! Back at the hostel I fell asleep for a while and when I woke up Sam and Karl said they were going on a walk. After being so cold before I declined in favour of more surfing the net and chilling out. How glad I am I did! After about an hour and a half (they said they would be an hour max) they arrived back at the hostel flustered and looking very pissed off! Turns out they had been pulled over by the Russian Police and fined 50 pounds each. For what I am not sure and there is a bit of a grey area with regards to whether we should have registered our visas yet or not but the conclusion was from the hostel people that basically they shouldnt have fined them. We have heard loads of stories similar to this and I think its just a case of corruption. Needless to say it put a bit of a downer on the evening so we popped over the road for a light dinner then came back and went straight to bed.

Today we made it priority to get our visas registered. The rule is to register within 3 working days of arrival, so as we arrived 11pm thursday our 2nd working day was today. We seem to have (fingers crossed) sorted that via the hostel owners and will hopefully get that back tomorrow morning. Apart from that we have been down to Red Square again only to find it was cordened off. We walked round the outside and went inside the Kremlin but only saw the Cathedral Exhibitions. We wanted to see the armoury too but there was some confusion and the language barrier was a big problem! Despite having student cards the lady behind the desk refused to give us a ticket and we are still not sure why! We will hopefully go back in the next couple of days once we have joined our tour for the Trans-Siberian Express. After getting some lunch in the goom we went to St Basils which to me just looks like the Disney Castle! Inside was not what we expected at all and was just a series of some very small rooms. We bought some postcards and turns out they have freshly painted the Kremlin at least once which explains why it looks so unrealistic! Up close all the brickwork has been painted over and even the mortar lines are painted in.

We are now back at the hostel chilling before checking out tomorrow morning to move to our hotel for the start of the tour. We are actually in Moscow another 2 days but I am not sure we will see any more sights that we havent already apart from maybe the Cathedral (pictured above). Overall impressions so far - attraction wise I prefer Moscow to St Petersburg and I get a better vibe here than I did there but that could just be down to getting used to the Russian way of life. Following their police experience I think Sam and Karl are pretty fed up with Moscow and the not being allowed into the armoury earlier was the icing on the cake for them! I think it's safe to say they prefer St Petersburg!

Once on the tour we get the train to Ekaterinburg and Irkutsk (& Lake Baikal) all in Russia before heading on toward Mongolia. I know I have said it before but beyond Moscow I am not sure of interent coverage .....there will definately be none on board the trains so blogs from now on may be few and far between but I will try and update you all as much as possible! Don't let that be an excuse to stop messaging/emailing me though! I like to hear how you all are!

Lots of love Clem x