Moscow, Moscow

We must be getting close to civilisation. We were woken at 6:30 by both our phones going off with a message from a local phone company welcoming us to their service - in English.

My faith in humanity has been partially restored. At Nizhny Novgorod the girl in the kiosk actually smiled at me, and pointed at a few things until she figured out what we wanted - a cappuccino, and a new passenger smiled and joked with our Provodnitsa. Normally they just turn away and completely ignore you, which is a really odd feeling. Anyway, the cappuccino was nice, but quite different to what we are used to. Even though it came out of a Nescafe vending machine, it tasted very like Turkish coffee - strong and almost burnt.

I'd love to have the blue paint concession in Russia. Royal blue abounds. Regardless of what colour a house is (if anything), it will have royal blue doors, window frames, fences, gates, roof and pipes - at least in the country. All stations are white with blue signs, fences, roofs and trim. All pipes are blue, as are railway trucks. They are laying about 100 km of short wire fencing along part of the line, and they are painting the top and bottom rails blue. I even saw one poor guy, paintbrush and paint tin in hand, trying to paint the length of the fence blue.

Well after 7 1/2 days we finally got to Moscow. The last few hours were fairly slow as we got into the traffic with other Moscow trains. I must say I'm impressed with the Russian railways. For 7 1/2 days we left every station and arrived at every station to the minute. I can't even do that in Melbourne in a 30 minute commute. Also great kudos to a wonderful guide book - Trans Siberian Handbook by Bryn Thomas. We saw a number of them as we travelled across the country, and everybody swears by it.

Upon arriving in Moscow it took us a few minutes to find an ATM, without burly guys loitering, to extract enough money to pay cash for our hostel, then a frustrating half hour trying to find an entrance to the Metro. There were plenty of exits, but the entrance turned out to be along the road and down some stairs. Its one way in, and another way out.

Finally got to our hostel, and found we were actually in a nearby property (more stairs to lug bags up). Its a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 other couples in. Lovely. Went down to the corner store to get copies of our passports for Russian registration, and found a supermarket to buy tea. The evening was spent blogging, cleaning, and recharging batteries.

I must say it seems a little surreal to be here. Dissidents were still being exiled to parts of Russia in 1996, and I had wondered if I'd ever get to visit freely.