It seemed like such a good idea to get an overnight flight, leave at 9.30pm, arrive at 5.30am, have a little sleep on the plane, brilliant. Oh but wait, there's a time difference. The flight isn't really long enough to have a sleep (instead I'll watch a film with Robert Redford on his own for 90 minutes, not speaking, on a boat). And my brain is going to be at 1.30am when I arrive. And Moscow is going to be dark. And cold.

genius. well done.

On the plus side it all goes pretty smooth when I arrive. I follow my instructions to the letter, getting airport train, then metro train, then other metro train, then walking down some wierd little pathway past a quite palacial Venezualan Embassy (I'm supposing they are politics buddies), and to my hostel! Which is closed. And I have to wrong door code. And nobody is answering the door. I go and get a coffee, which costs me about a fiver.

Some musings from my journey......

Everything seems to have a slightly yellow tint so far in Russia. It could be because everyone seems to smoke.....or maybe I need some sleep.

The Moscow Metro is nicer than the London one. Much more marbley, if thats a word. It also took me less time to work out, despite everything being written in letters which aren't always letters (my favourite one is the six-leg spider/candle holder).

People seemed pretty sullen, but given that it was 7am, minus something degrees, and they were probably going to work, I'll forgive them. I wasn't feeling that huggy anyway.

Despite it being dark and quiet and a bit eerie, I didn't feel at all unsafe at any point in my search for the hostel (which I've now been let into, by the way). Which is good.

Moscow is very clean.

So there you go. I'm going to find Gorky Park, because I read a book called Gorky Park once. There were murders there, in the book.