Hello from Moscow! we arrived yesterday morning on the train, the hostel is very nice, bit of a walk to the tube station though . . . the moscow underground system takes a degree in map reading to understand. . . so we are constantly lost!

Today we went to the Kremlin to see the military parrade (lots of silly marching - think john cleese!) at 12:00 and walk arround the churches. They were all very impressive, lots of gold everywhere. we saw the tomb of Ivan the Terrible!)

After spending most of the afternoon in the Kremlin we walked round into Red Square. Its not as big as i imagined, but the big St Basils Cathedral at the end was just as awesome as the pictures i had seen. We did the tourist thing and took some pickies.

Oddly there was a Top Gear live show going on at the far end of the square where they bungee jumped a car! No Richard Hammond though so bit disapointed.

Also its about 30 degrees here . . . I have lugged 2 bloody jumpers all the way here expecting the cold . . . grrr.

Tommorrow we are off to find Moscow's bigest craft market! Chris is already crying into his credit card.

Mrs P

P.s - This is specifically for Steve Taylor, sorry we didnt see your note about the chess club untill we were already here, I believe it was in St Petersburg. I found it on the map but unfortunately we failed the challenge. Its a bit of a way to go back and take a photo now! sorry!