8.3 I got up early in order to avoid too much of the line to visit Lenin's mausoleum. This was quite the interesting visit. Lots of soldiers everywhere. High security. Then you walk down into the very cold (ahh!) tomb area and you can see him. He looks as though he probably did the day he died. Quite erie really. I've now seen ho chi minh and lenin embalmed and I guess the next is Mao in Beijing. The funny and ironic thing to me is that Lenin sits there in his mausoleum facing a huge fancy and expensive shopping mall. Some of captitalist at it's best and then old Lenin right there. After visiting the tomb, I went into the Kremlin, which is now the major government area, but used to house the tsars and princes and all that. The Kremlin is surrounded by a huge red wall with turrets and there are some palaces and government buildings inside as well as some very fancy churches, many holding the remaisn of past tsars and leaders.
In the late afternoon at the hostel I met a very international group of 3 nice girls who had just arrived on the trans siberia doing the trip in reverse to me. Xena (who had a mainly american accent) is Swiss (and attending med school in zurich), but spent many years in the New York with her parents, but grew up in Luxembourg. Doro, who is Polish, but is a med student and germany and lives in England. And Mafee who is irish, but grew up in Luxembrourg next door to Xena and met Doro in India about 3 years ago. So they were all travelling together and all somehow knew each other. They were quite fun and we decided to go out to some outdoor bar on the other side of moscow. They were quite happy to have me along showing them the sights and leading them there as they had just arrived, but I have come to know moscow quite well.
They made a comment while walking if russian girls jsut have long legs or if it is the fact that they have huge high heels and the shortest shorts and skirts. So then we were all laughing about russian city fashion. I am glad I wasn't the only one who had noticed. The girls here really dress so fancy, like they are always ready for a night club, even if they are just touring around. And they wear such tiny and revealing clothes. Often fairly see through, and sometimes thy are just walking aruond basically with only a bra on and no shirt. Quite crazy, but yet it is all very stylish and fancy here.
We eventually found the cool bar we were looking for and met up with a czech/french couple they had met up on the train. We also met two finnish guys at the bar who nearly ruined our night by telling us that they had an aircon hostel for the same price as ours! I just had a couple of beers at the place, but the girls all ordered steaks and salmon bc they had just been on the train for 4 straight days and were missing real food as well as being in china and mongolia where it is mainly rice.
After saying goodbye to everyone, me and the 3 girls went out to see some of the city at night. Last night was by far the worst for pollution and you could really smell the smoke and it was just nasty to breathe. It was so thick you couldn't see much in front of you and almost felt like a boise inversion, except it was also hot. I showed them where the market was to buy the big 5L water bottles and they were playing Lady Gaga in the store, so I was dancing around. They kept saying they liked me more and more (bc throughout the night I had been singing michael jackson and other such things and telling them stories about the american wilds) (Doro had actually travelled through the cali, az, and ut wildnerness for a bit, and she had a funny story of how she made the mistake of being at yosemite on the 4th of july and looking for a campsite...competely impossible, but some firefighters on a fire there invited her to their camp, so she stayed the weekend with a bunch of firefighters...couldn't help but wonder if lucas was among the mix), and wished I could keep travelling with them. I too was thinking the same thing, that I wished they were going the other way. Bc it was just one of those groups that really meshed. They were really funny and quite adventurous (they told me lots of cool stories and gave me ideas about mongolia, so I am getting quite excited about the wildnerness of kublai khan). That night we played the "vegetable" game and finished of their last bit of vodka from their train trip.
8.4 The 3 girls laughed at my little breakfast of toast and yoghurt, so they made me pancakes and some swiss cheese thing, which was quite tasty! But I had to say goodbye to them shortly after as they were heading off to see the kremlin and I needed to get ready for my train and then head off. Oh well, they gave me some great recommendations and I will hope to meet some more enthusiastic and adventurous travelers along the way.
Today I take the train to vladamir and then the bus to suzdal, a little town in the golden ring)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment