don't leave home without a guidebook!

we are about to go skating in gorky park having just about survived our first full day in moscow.  we are basically illiterate here, but *did* thankfully manage to find a lonely planet guide this afternoon in a russian bookstore after carefully showing the sales assistant the words 'travel' and 'book' in a russian-english dictionary!  food is dreadful, but as we can only point to cakes and ice creams in the menu, unlikely to lose any weight at this rate! :(

anyhow back to getting here... it was like a scene from 'midnight express'.  there is little effort to make foreigners feel understood or welcome, but thankfully we got through customs relatively unharmed.  we were greeted with a mute taxi driver who quite literally said no more than '100 metres' and nodded a couple of times for the entire hour that we were with him!  even more scarily, the taxi was pulled over unexpectedly on a russian highway by the surliest police (in fluffy hats) waving a flourescent baton.  they circled the car stared at us (who probably looked like stunned mullets in the back seat) suspiciously then let us go. phew! so first impressions... hard exterior but we are sure they have a soft center!

it was like a scene from 'midnight express'

oh and we forgot to mention the glaswegian conspiracy theorist we met at stockholm airport en route here! :)  he was telling us all about serial killers dressed as priests, psychotic border guards (he was right on that one!) and money scams whilst we were waiting for the flight, which certainly helped set the mood for arrival! :)  needless to say we shook him off at the airport for fear of further paranoia setting in!

back to today... we successfully navigated the underground system and the kremlin rocks!  the architecture is awesome and the interior of the cathedrals are quite breathtaking.  although the soviet republic is no longer in tact (cam took a great deal of pleasure in getting photos in front of red stars and hammer and sickles!),  a lot of the russians still have a penchant for military style uniforms and badges wherever possible!

that's us for today.  don't know when we will get a chance to update this, although apparently there may be an internet cafe in yekaterinburg... we have half a day here tomorrow before boarding the first leg of the trans-sib and we hope to visit the red square and lenin's mausoleum.  we're off the skating now (cam's first time ever on ice!) - hope we don't break any fingers or cocyx bones - cause that would be a pain in the arse - no threat to torvill and dean!