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sarahblackMade it to Moscow in one piece!
Travel was okay. I didn't have time to hang around much. Less waiting is always a good thing, but I would not have wanted to have less time between my landing in London and my take-off to Moscow.
I met a really nice American guy on the plane to Moscow. He helped me learn some cyrilic letters and was generally helpful and cool. He even waited while I went through immigration in case I needed an interpreter (he spoke flawless Russian). Immigration was okay, though. But the Russians really liked my passport. They looked at it under UV light and passed it around like it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. (Or possibly they were just suspicious that it was fake...)
Flying over Moscow was kind of surreal. I saw a lot of huge manor-type buildings at the outskirts of the city, and some huge (enormous!) apartment blocks that were clearly left over from Soviet times.
The ride to my hostel was interesting too. I constantly felt like I was passing the same shopping mall, but I could see they were all different. And maybe they weren't shopping malls. I have no idea. I was trying to read the cyrilic signs, and I had some luck with it. I think I'm getting the hang of the letters.
At my hostel I met Finn (Irish), Amber (Aussie) and Jon (English). They're all going on the same train tour as I am. We've been getting along great, and today we explored Moscow together. We went to the Red Square and took a bunch of pictures, we also went into a big Catholic cathedral. (Not Basil's cathedral - we just took a bunch of pictures of it.) The cathedral we went into had a golden roof, and it was called the Cathedral of Jesus Christ the Savior or something like that. It was really beautiful, but had a souvineer shop inside, and some lit up signs! Very sacred and
holy.
I went inside the Kremlin and looked at the Armoury... Wow, the stuff they have in there is amazing! I wished Thorri had been there with me. It was like going inside the Tower of London to see the crown jewels, except there were so many more jewels! And thrones! And dresses! And carriages! And silver artifacts! And suits of armour! And swords! And guns! It was crazy.
I liked the dresses and the carriages the most. You should have seen how tiny the waists of some of the gowns were! And the carriages were just the must stunningly beautiful things. Carvings and paintings, mother of pearl, fancy types of wood... You name it! I kind of wanted to take the summer carriage with me. It looked like the historical equivalent of a convertible.
I wasn't allowed to take pictures in there, so you'll just have to imagine.
Speaking of pictures - I have a meeting I have to get to know, but I might try to figure out a way to upload some pictures later. We'll see how it goes.
Hope you're all doing well and that you had a good weekend!
P.S. The weather is amazing! Just under 20 degrees Celsius and alternatively cloudy and sunny. I did get caugth in one drizzle of rain, though. But it stopped as soon as it started.
Travel was okay. I didn't have time to hang around much. Less waiting is always a good thing, but I would not have wanted to have less time between my landing in London and my take-off to Moscow.
I met a really nice American guy on the plane to Moscow. He helped me learn some cyrilic letters and was generally helpful and cool. He even waited while I went through immigration in case I needed an interpreter (he spoke flawless Russian). Immigration was okay, though. But the Russians really liked my passport. They looked at it under UV light and passed it around like it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. (Or possibly they were just suspicious that it was fake...)
Flying over Moscow was kind of surreal. I saw a lot of huge manor-type buildings at the outskirts of the city, and some huge (enormous!) apartment blocks that were clearly left over from Soviet times.
The ride to my hostel was interesting too. I constantly felt like I was passing the same shopping mall, but I could see they were all different. And maybe they weren't shopping malls. I have no idea. I was trying to read the cyrilic signs, and I had some luck with it. I think I'm getting the hang of the letters.
At my hostel I met Finn (Irish), Amber (Aussie) and Jon (English). They're all going on the same train tour as I am. We've been getting along great, and today we explored Moscow together. We went to the Red Square and took a bunch of pictures, we also went into a big Catholic cathedral. (Not Basil's cathedral - we just took a bunch of pictures of it.) The cathedral we went into had a golden roof, and it was called the Cathedral of Jesus Christ the Savior or something like that. It was really beautiful, but had a souvineer shop inside, and some lit up signs! Very sacred and
holy.
I went inside the Kremlin and looked at the Armoury... Wow, the stuff they have in there is amazing! I wished Thorri had been there with me. It was like going inside the Tower of London to see the crown jewels, except there were so many more jewels! And thrones! And dresses! And carriages! And silver artifacts! And suits of armour! And swords! And guns! It was crazy.
I liked the dresses and the carriages the most. You should have seen how tiny the waists of some of the gowns were! And the carriages were just the must stunningly beautiful things. Carvings and paintings, mother of pearl, fancy types of wood... You name it! I kind of wanted to take the summer carriage with me. It looked like the historical equivalent of a convertible.
I wasn't allowed to take pictures in there, so you'll just have to imagine.
Speaking of pictures - I have a meeting I have to get to know, but I might try to figure out a way to upload some pictures later. We'll see how it goes.
Hope you're all doing well and that you had a good weekend!
P.S. The weather is amazing! Just under 20 degrees Celsius and alternatively cloudy and sunny. I did get caugth in one drizzle of rain, though. But it stopped as soon as it started.
