Moscow: 8-10 Jan 2011
Arrived without issue; negotiated passport control (slow), the airport express train (easy) and the Moscow underground (not so easy); fortunately the one year of Russian Dan did at school and some helpful locals got us to our stop near the hotel - a big Soviet number where the heating is permanently on and we slept with the window open.
Once we sussed the underground (and got a map with both the cyrillic and english station names on), the city is an easy place to get around and the stations are filled with marble, statues and chandeliers and at 50p for a single journey a great way to get about. No taxis yet - we're adjusting to living on a budget (although we still dropped £350 at Heathrow on a waterproof camera and Prada sunglasses (guess who bought which?!), but have been stocking up on sachets of salt and pepper from the restaurants/cafes (to flavour the cup-a-soups on the trans-siberian), so that must even the score..
Covered a lot of ground yesterday - saw Red Square (but didn't queue to see Lenin), the GUM department store, Gorky Park and the Cathedral of Christ our Saviour. Gorky Park was great - a good number of the paths become an ice-rink in the winter and the ice-sculptures are out in force building mini Colloseums and the like. Speaking of winter, it's pretty cold - should be interesting walking around Irkutsk in a few days where the temperatures another 20 C lower..
Went back to the Kremlin today and took in the cathedrals now that the weekend queues have gone and checked out Red Square in the dark when everything is lit up and the GUM store has Harrods-esq lighting, with a bit of window shopping in between.
Sat in the hotel now (checked out this morning but left the bags here) - the first leg of the trans-Siberian leaves just after midnight tonight so we've got a couple of hours to kill (trying to steer clear of the Vodka before spending 3 days on the train!). Next stop Irkutsk.
Hope everyone is well.