Little bit sad as today was my last day in Moscow, a city which despite its rather grumpy population I have really come to love and think of as home. It has also been a day where I have lost some really fun people from my tour like Tim and Louise. That's one of the awful parts of my job, you meet these really awesome people and the you have to put up with losing them and potentially never seeing them again.

This morning our first order of business after breakfast was to go shopping for our epic three day train journey to Irkutsk. We went over to the shopping centre and bought a lot of random crap. I think the only decent thing I managed to find was a can of spam and some bread, the rest was a combination of two minute noodles and other various forms of junk food.

At 1pm it was time to take the group down to the Bolshoi theatre to meet Helen for their city tour, which everyone opted to do. I had done this one last time around so there was pretty much nothing new for me, except a couple of metro stations we hadn't see last time.

The city tour didn't finish until about 7:30pm at which point I said my final goodbye to Helen and took the group back to the hotel and then to the Russian restaurant for our goodbye dinner. The staff at the Russian restaurant really outdid themselves this time, two hours we waited for our food. I nervously watched the clock as I not only had to leave to get the train at 10:30pm but I now had a problem to sort out before we left also. The incompetent staff were saying one of the passengers didn't have a booking for that night. So I almost got into a screaming match with one of the front desk staff when I got back. I finally sorted it out by paying for the extra room night, Tucan can sort it out with ASTA travel, I just didn't have the time. I had to get the group on that train, if you miss it you're screwed as it's a weekly service.

I fixed the problem and gave the group time to say goodbye to those staying in Moscow. I gave everyone a hug that was leaving, some I would really have liked to take with me on the Trans-Mongolian, most of all Tim who I think really would have had a fun and would have been fun to have around.

I walked the group into the metro and got the train to Yaroslavsky, which was a distinctly simpler process now it was 10:30pm at night and there were not many pushy Russians to get in our way. I got everyone onto the Trans-Mongolian with no problems, I am sharing cabin with Andy, Paul and Colin, I have a feeling this three days is going to be a blast. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing now that my only duty for the next three days was to make sure no one gets left behind at any of the stops along the way.