Day 6: Moscow

Market near our hotel...
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Day 6: Moscow

I woke up an hour away from Moscow eager to search the streets. We arrived on time and took Moscows unofficial taxies to our 1980 Olimpic hotel (the biggist in Europe) Later we searched the area and found there was a huge market near our hotel. It sold a lot of cool stuff such as Russians dolls, Russian hats ect. The maket out side the official market was more intense and had a Turkish feel to it. Also we saw dancing bears which was horrific. An e-mail home and a cold bath took me to bed.

there is a lot to explore if you just walk around city and you see things you dont see in guid books

Lenin's tomb
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Day 7: Moscow

We needed to make it to The central Telegraph near Red Square to pick up our Trans-Siberian train tickets. We took the increadable Moscow metro system which is worldwide famous. It is complete with statues and marbal flooring. The trains are just as packed though and shake more then a blender. We were standing on Red Square where the Soviet Union had their marches. They still have the lines on the square for the tanks! St basils is a lot smaller then you may think, but still very impressive. There are 3 other building one  is Gum a huge communist shopping center which used to be just one big shop and Lenin's tomb which we didnt go in but we got a picture.

St. Basils
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we arrived at the Central Telegraph Office and we were given our tickets. the lady who gave us our our tickets was very negative and told us how we were going to be robbed and things (a bit of anexaggeration we found out). For the rest of the day we walked the streets of Moscow, the city was intreaging and generally safe. I would also like to piont out that there is a lot to explore if you just walk around city and you see things you dont see in guid books. To end the day we took a boat down the river and explored the city from a boat. We saw many famous building such as the Russian white house! A game of bowling and 10 strikes later we called it a night.

Kremlin
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Day 8 Moscow

By the end of the day we would be on the longest train rout on the planet which was enough to get me out of bed. The day started well with a good buffet breakfast. We had the morning to do some more walking around the center, this was fun and we saw some interisting sights. Also Moscow had loads of McDonalds and they are all packed out of the door (maybe they are just getting a bit sick of cabbage every day).

It was late at night and we were waiting in our hotel for a shared taxi to take us Yaroslovsky station. So here is was the 116 hour train ride to Irkutsk. For 5 days we were stuck in one carrage. Our long blue train arrived and we boaded carrage 10. The 2 berth cart was nice with a free Mars Bar! in 5 days we would arrive in Irkutsk the capital of Siberia but until then there was no time and no hurry!