Moscow

I've had fun staying in a mix dorm with 7 other people but plastic bags should not be allowed before 9am. One guy has so many and rummages every morning around 7am and wakes every body up!

We had a massive lunch today of soup and stew, lots of bread the kind of food we thought we would find here. We then went on the hunt for the photography museum. On our way we had our photo taken with Lenin and a Royal look a like, Lenin said ''embrace me'' as i sat on his knee! They were great fun!
We couldn't find the museum we asked so many people and walked up and down the streets, it seems it had just disappeared and they had failed to inform the lonely planet guide.

We went instead to Gorky House museum. It is amazing all designed in the art nouveau theme. The interior is truly breathtaking.
We had to put on funny felt shoes over our outdoor ones as they have kept all the original carpets and it also protects the wood.
The staircase is the most amazing piece in the house, it looks like dripping candle wax, made from stone. All the doors are beautifully engraved, all the ceilings are decorated with birds, flowers and the door handles are exquisite. Richard got some really good phtotos of this place.

After we went and sat in the park and watch the bad fashion of Russia wonder by. The mullets, the heels, bad permed hair, the makeup, the stone washed jeans slightly too short there is too much to take in! We walked by Lenin's mausoleum, it was closed, not sure if I really would like to see him though!

Once again we have McDonalds for dinner, I have had to take out more money as I didn't expect Moscow to be so expensive.
The hostel were really nice and let us keep our stuff in the lockers and room for the day at no extra cost. The staff were kind of friendly, it depended who was working. If you can hold off registering your visa until you get to a different city do it. It's very expensive in Moscow.

www.napoleonhostel.ru

We decided to save money on a taxi to the train station and take the metro instead. We only had to go on one tube train Kitay-Gorod to Komsomolskaya. It was our first time on the metro and it was so confusing. Everything is written in Russian so we were trying to match up letters to where we needed to go. Also our packs were so heavy it just made the experience worse. No body came up to us to help even though it was obvious we needed help, we asked a nice looking lady who showed us the way.

We waiting at the departures in Komsomolskaya train station. We met some people from the hostel, they had got a taxi which I think if we had had the money we would of done. But the train was R19 - 50p or a cab R550 - £14.

We drank beer while we waited for the platform of our train to be announced. Richard went off and brought a fake watch for about £2, it's so tin and rubbish but he will wear it instead of his tag. Our train 20 was leaving from platform 4. I did get very stressed at Richard as the train platform was not easy to find in the dark and I had heard stories of people walking for 20 minutes trying to find there carriage. Anyway all was forgiven and we made it into our first class cabin we drunk our cheap £2.50 champagne and are wondering if our female train guard is friendly.

Our cabin is small and has two fold down beds, a small table, tv which doesn't work, it all smells extremely new and its very very clean. This is home for the next 4 days.

I am glad we have left Moscow, I never really felt safe there, the people weren't very friendly, no famous landmarks were sign posted and people would say they didn't speak English and then would answer you perfectly. Not sure if I will ever go back to Moscow. No love lost!