Allo. I'll try and condense this email like juice. This place is seedy and my stomach clock just rang.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last email, which is an important mommento (i.e. an alcholic landmark), is that I drank fermented horse milk in Mongolia! Smelt like off watermelon and tasted like it came from the wrong pipe (bladder that is!!) it is not something you would drink at the local pub. Served with mangie old curd and sloppy butter, it is one vomit concoction that was hard to keep down. Plus imagining how a horse is milked whilst drinking this acidic thingy juice doesn't paint the merry drinking spirit in the mind.

Anyway, now in Moscow. Founded by a cow with moss grown over it. Maybe not. It took 76 hours by train from Irkutsk in Siberia to Moscow. Physical activity on the old 70's train was kept at a bare minimum, with only a short stroll (two carriages) to the dining cart to grab a strogonoff, a beer and some dirty looks. A station stop came every 3 to 4 hours and proved to be a highlight of the day. More to the point that the beers on the train were served warm, and we had to dig holes in the snow on the platform to chill them.

Babooshka's (russian for 'old women') would surround you like flies at each station to offload some homestyle slops at supercheap prices. Some stuff even the dog wouldn't eat, but other's were homecook geniuses.

Entertainment came from a deck of cards and Vodka. Need I say more.

Anyway, like I said...in Moscow. Awsome place. The architecture is ancient, anything mechanical was made in the 70's (woodgrain lives on here), but the electronics are ultra modern. This is a really funky place.

Our tour leader is a chick uni student (young, cool and best to date). In under a few hours from arriving last night at 5pm, we have eaten in funky old bomb shelters, checked out some cool bars ('white russian' tastes great) and visited the Kremlin and Red Square.

Tomorrow we go to a Bunja. You go 'free-balling' in a sauna, get wiped with branches from a russian chick (maybe a babooshka) then jump in a cold pool with a hundred other naked russians. Sounds a bit gay...but...in rome do what the romans do.

Talk about gayness, I am going to the famous ballet tonight. (lads, it's ok, I'm not bating for the other team).

Time's up again...

Thanks for the emails...

cheers, hatton