wow...it's really a long way from beijing to moscow

during the trip we made up the 4 hours we'd lost. we pulled into moscow only about 1/2 hour late. there are i think 6 big train stations in moscow, and 5 airports. it's not a real convenient city to go in and out of. luckily, it warmed up as we got closer to moscow. we stopped in one city that had some really old churches in it and it was very warm there, so i was glad to be getting out of siberia finally. oh, at the 1777 km from moscow mark is a notice showing that we were passing into europe from asia. so now i'm on my third continent of my trip, after australia and asia.

a guy picked us all up at the train station, part of the package deal we'd booked. some people were staying in one hotel, and the welsh couple and an english guy were staying at the same place as me. the van driver showed me the american embassy. he said they get very few american tourists that he sees, mostly just europeans. the hotel is ok, but i'm glad i'd already had it all paid for. moscow is a ridiculously expensive city. way overpriced. food, hotels, taxis, whatever. the subway is the best deal...very cheap, but old like new york in the 60's or something. but it's cheap and extensive. however, the cyrillic alphabet gets really confusing. i got lost on the subway, then got lost trying to get myself unlost. it's hard for me to get disoriented, but i sure did it tonight. tomorrow i'll see red square and the kremlin and maybe lenin's body (they say it's fake, like a wax statue). i also hope to see gorky park (i remember a good movie from the 80's with william hurt called gorky park), and maybe take a trip on the moscow river. moscow is huge with 9 million people, but very spread out. i've seen no modern downtown, just a lot of imperial-aged buildings and even more soviet-era buildings. at least the weather is good.