This morning after a rather chaotic breakfast, as the Gamma Delta hotel was at capacity, I took my group on their orientation tour of Moscow. I began by taking them outside the hotel into the sunshine and explaining the history of Moscow, I then explained that while we were on the tour I would give out a few facts on the sights we were passing but by no means am I a guide and if I get caught guiding with out a license I could be arrested. So I wouldn't be speaking loudly, at length or repeating myself. The relevance of this will become apparent in a moment.

We set out and got on the metro and made one change and got off at the Church of the Savior. I walked up to the end of the street and pointed out about three museums and outlined the history of the magnificent church. As soon as I had done this, one particular passenger came up to me and said, So where are we? I almost said, You've go to be kidding. It had been the same passenger doing this to me for basically the entire tour, all the way from China. I refused to repeat myself.

We then walked across the bridge over the Moscova river and I pointed out the Kremlin, which we will be visiting tomorrow and the ugly statue of Peter the Great. I then walked all the way down to the Tetrakov gallery and then back across the river to Red Square. After that I went into the Gum centre to mind every ones bags, while they went into Lenin's mausoleum to view the embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin. Which I still haven't seen. After they got back I told them their time was now their own, but that after lunch I would be giving a quiet guided tour of the Ancient treasures wing of the Puskin Museum if anyone wanted to join me.

I went off and had lunch in Mc Donalds and then came back to meet the people who wanted to go to the museum outside the Kazan church. Almost full attendance, really hadn't expected that. Everyone bar about three people joined me at the museum, most of them didn't really follow me around but came up and asked questions of me. Kate and Gen, closely followed by Moy, stuck to me like glue, getting me to explain the history of everything we were looking at. They really enjoyed my guiding and I really enjoyed seeing people getting something out of something I love so much. It made me remember why I love my job so much, but also remember how much I love archaeology and that is where I should probably be. If only life were that simple. The highlight for me and the reason I went to the Puskin in the first place, was the treasures of Troy, found by Henrich Schliemann at the site of Troy in Turkey. I had wanted to see these for about ten years and I couldn't believe I was standing in front of them at last. They treasure was two head dresses, made entirely of gold, I examined them closely and saw that the gold leaves were held on with tiny little gold chain links. Not bad for a piece of jewelry which is almost as old as the pyramids.

The museum and the way things were displayed fascinated me. The items were displayed in such a way, that the place was more like a giant brag book than a museum. Usually, a label for an ancient piece displays the object's name, time period, material and place and time in which it was found. The treasures of Troy however, were displayed with the calibre of gold they were made out of also…making it seem more like a jewelry shop than a museum display.

After the museum I went back to the hotel and got changed for the group dinner at the traditional Russian restaurant across the road. I think the group really liked it, Tom even tried beef tongue, I had stroganoff again. After dinner and thoroughly exhausted I went off to bed to prepare for another big day tomorrow.