17th May - Moscow

17th May - Moscow here we come :O)

 

 

First glimpse of Moscow, green and lots of skyscrapers!

Population of Moscow was estimated at 20 million, wowcha!!

 

Well we have touched down in Moscow and need to take the bus to the terminal building.  Oh yeah there are a few different letters Colly but we can figure that the bus says Airport, just wait!!!

 

Oh yeah I can really see the similarities with the Russian and English translation, eh NOT!!  Good that lots of things have got English next to them or else we wouldn’t have a clue!!

 

This has got to be the highest escalator we have ever been on, eeek just don’t look down!!

 

What were we worrying about here are all our suitcases named Sebastopol, Delsey Blu, Nelly and Amy’s case she has called Constance or Connie for short!! 

Worrying over now about the suitcases we now just to tackle how to get to the hotel next!!

We were due to arrive at 1745 but we arrived after 6pm due to the non-flyer, then had to go through passport control where the man didn’t like our passport holders and told us to take them off, Colin doesn’t like them either so he really liked the guy ha ha but I will put them back on once we are out of Moscow don’t you worry Col!!  By the time we get our suitcases which felt like they took forever to come we were nearly at 8pm!  So we manage to find the exit and find the information desk to ask where the trains are and how much it would cost.  The guy was so quiet we were struggling to hear him and then we got a loud Taxi man telling us that we needed to get a taxi as it was cheaper than public transport!  Wow it was hard trying to speak to each other with these conversations going on around us.  One saying one thing and the other saying another, now our heads are goosed and all of us just want to get to the hotel as we haven’t had our tea yet either!  So the taxi fare went from 1800 Rubles to 1500 and they reckon the train will be 1200 plus metro and the train times are every 40 minutes.  So we give in with the taxi as it will take 40minutes driving to our hotel for 1500 Rubles which is about £26, we did save all that money by walking this morning!  Well we jump in the taxi and wow they drive like maniacs we are tanking along at 80mph with 6 lanes with the taxi man dodging between the lanes and up people’s backsides as he is trying to find our hotel on google maps, hey dude just watch the road Mr!!!  We did think we would be able to see a few sights on the way in but we are flying by them at a fair rate of knots that they would even come out blurry on the camera!!!

 

Fair play to the guy we have arrived to the right hotel and in one piece J 

That’s the dude dumping us at the roadside we will get the train back to the airport thanks very much!!

 

 

Next we check in and we arrive in room 525 and it is a smoking room ewh!!!  Really weird thinking now that people used to smoke in public areas and have non-smoking and smoking rooms in a hotel.  Anyway this isn’t right and there isn’t a bed for Amy either, oh dear Moscow you haven’t got off to a good start with us!!

 

So I went to complain thankfully they speak good English at reception the hotel is fully booked it is Saturday night!  So she has offered us to put an Ioniser in the room and she says that will completely get rid of the smell, mmm I’m not convinced!!  Amy’s bed is sorted by the time I get back up to the troops!  And give the girl at reception her due the smoke smell has gone with the Ioniser so we are now staying put!!!  Colin and Amy sorting out the safe!

 

Our lovely couple of Orlando took us to their cabin or should I say suite on the cruise ship and Bill made me very jealous as they had a bath but here we are we have a BATH woop woop!!  Last bath we had was in Barcelona and Amy quite rightly reminded me that we didn’t have a plug in it at Barcelona so we couldn’t call it a true bath!!  The bath has my name on it for later!!

 

So we head out for tea we spied a Burger King from the taxi so that will do and we come across this beautiful church, absolutely beautiful and the water fountains are constantly changing too!

 

Ok so bearing in mind Colin said only a few letters different we had fun trying to order from Burger King hee hee!!!

 

Yummy chicken nuggets!! 

 

The menu was interesting!!!  So we thought we had ordered a meal with chips but then Amy  and I’s meal came without chips so the guy spoke to the manager and we got chips for free, that was a bonus!!  This was the first time we had seen Beer being served in a Burger King too!!!

 

Next task is to get breakfast from the supermarket!!  This is going to be fun but I still have cornflakes from Berlin so I just need a yoghurt and some fruit as I would hate to think what gluten free was in Russian!! 

 

 

Colin found a 750ml can of Russian beer, no proof on it but we think it would be STRONG!!  There was a can of beer that was 8.1%, wow!

 

Look what I have found and this went in the basket rather than back in the fridge!  Yummy Irn Bru!!!!

 

 

Shopping done that’s us back to the hotel, night night!!

So Colin has read on our map of Moscow that there are rumours that Moscow is a dangerous city but it says that it is no different or any more dangerous than Paris or London.  The next sentence says that a police man can stop you at any time and ask to see your passport, never heard that before but okay we will take them with us!!  We are all looking forward to seeing the Kremlin, Red Square and St Basil’s Cathedral!!!  Tired bunnies off to bed busy day ahead!