Well this has proved fun!!!

So yesterday morning we woke up all relaxed and refreshed after going to the ballet. Claire was snoozing and I was looking through the paperwork for the train. When she was awake I remarked how I was surprised that the train to Perm only took 3 hours. She said I think not - it takes a day at least...

I pointed out how we were getting the train at 12:30 (just after midnight) on the 20th and that we were due to arrive at 3am (mosow time) on the 20th. Thats when I realised that the ticket said 12:30 on the 19th (about 10 hours before we were having this discussion).

So we had missed the train - what insued was much panic, crying, more panicing and swearing! So at 11am I had to phone real russia in moscow and try to get anther train ticket to Perm. Real Russia were fantastic, as they have been all the way through (If anyone is reading this blog and planning to go on the trans siberian I can not recommend this company enough!!!)

So within 30 minutes we had tickets on another train leaving that afternoon at 4pm. Unfortunately we had lost the money on the first train - but then I was the one at fault so what would you expect?

The journey here was brilliant - we saw lots of interesting sights - including the town Mendeleevo (one for the chemist geeks). Unfortunately most of them rushed by before we could take a picture.

We arrived at 4pm and got on the local bus. Despite knowing no russian and the bus driver no english; we got most of the bus involved in translating and got dropped of at the right stop and didn't even have to pay either.

It was a short walk to the hotel/hostel. With a nice security guard pointed us in the right direction.

The hotel is very nice; we even have our own bathroom - believe me that is a luxury now!!!

We went to dinner at a nice local restaurant, again no english, they got another customer to try and translate. But now I know spa-see-ba which means thank you. And that one word has won me some mega brownie points here.

Now back at the hotel at 10:20pm with some Peeva (beer) - rare as I'm sure you can imagine, and it's still daylight outside.

As always we hope everyone is well. Thanks to Janet for the photos of the mutt.

Mr P