Day 43: Russia Part 2, Moscow

 Early on Day 43, our overnight train arrived in Russia's capital, Moscow. We were met at the train station by our local guide with a mini bus and taken out to our hotel. Unfortunatley, the sign-in process at the hotel took about two hours, eating into our one day in Moscow big time! And after all that we didn't even get our rooms, and had to put our bags in storage for the day til we could get in that afternoon.

When we were finally cut loose we rode the metro into the city centre and Russia's quintessential must-see, Red Square! Red  Square is bordered by the Kremlin, the Lenin Mausoleum, St. Basil's Cathedral (another candy church), the State Historical Museum and the GUM store (large department store).

With no time to waste, we immediately made a bee-line for Saint Basil's Cathedral, only stopping briefly so I could snap some pictures out the front.

The inside is a maze of rooms, all considered seperate churches, around a central core. The rooms are octagonal in shape and decorated in amazing murals with tapestries, books and artwork on display.

 

Next we explored the Kremlin, Russian's version of the White House, the residence of the President. With only limited time, we just paid basic entry allowing us into the grounds but not the museums and churches. As it was though, it took us a good couple of hours to cover just that, the grounds are massive.

 

Since we only had a few hours in Moscow we'd made the tough decision to bypass the Lenin Mausoleum, the line was enourmas! However after we left the Kremlin we ended up folding and joined the end of the 300m long line, stocking up from a near by McDonalds walk-thru (yep they've got that in Russia) we settled in to wait the hour or so wait, after all... how many times are you in Moscow!? We knew at least Ben would regret it if we didn't make the effort after coming all this way.

 

I can't quite tell you it was worth the wait, but it was definately a very 'Russian' experience. When you eventually reach the front, they let you inside in small groups, after you've checked all electronic items into a cloak room. And don't think you can sneak your little iphone in because as you file in you pass armed security guards where you're frisked and every thing you carry in with you is inspected. Once inside, you're marched in single file through a dimly lit corridor and into the main chamber of the mausoleum, where Lenin's embalmed body lays behind glass. There's no stopping to take it in though, the line files through at a slow but steady pace, past six to eight armed guards who'll reprimand you for a whisper, or, as I discovered, for just putting your hands in your pockets! Then, before you know it, you're out the other side. All that wait for a short glimpse at what looks like a Madame Tussauds waxwork!

 

From Red Square we rode the train back out to the Izmailovsky markets near our hotel, for some last minute shopping. I picked up a traditional Russian matryoshka (nesting) doll and some cute Russian Christmas ornaments.

 

Day 40 - 42: Russia Part 1, St Petersburg

We arrived in St Petersburg in Russia exhausted. Travelling for about six weeks across twelve countries so far with another two and a half weeks and three counties to go. And so, we made an easy decision on Day 40 to have, what we referred to as, an 'admin' day. We lucked out in that decision since it was raining, so we didn't miss much.

Our admin day consisted of a sleep in, blog updates, several episodes of Game of Thrones season three, and laundry. A LOT of laundry. Our hotel was kind enough to lend us their laundry facilities including a washer and dryer, however after experiencing several shirt shrinkages on our last laundry stop using a dryer, I was adamant everything would be air dried. This was made somewhat difficult due to the dreary wet conditions and pretty soon our room looked, smelled and felt like a chinese laundry with clothes racks everywhere and additional shirts and underwear hanging off every bedpost, chair leg and wardrobe door handle, the air a musty humid haze with the heater turned up full ball to try and dry our stubbornly damp clothes!

That afternoon, I amused myself browsing the nearby shops and adding more to my ever growing, soon to be overflowing backpack. We finished the day with a greasy delicious meal of Carls Jnr, one of our American favourties we discovered was also franchised in Russia!

Day 41 was officially the first day of our Trans-Mongolian G Adventures tour. Tour members were supposed to arrive throughout the day and embark on their own activities before the first meeting that evening.

Rested and refreshed, after an early run, we set out to explore. First stop, via train ride was island citadel, St Peter and Paul Fortress.

 

From there we wandered up to one of my favourite sites in the world, 'The Church of the Spilled Blood', a spectacular Russian Orthodox church, the churches I like to call 'candy churches'. Words cannot describe it, so here is a picture and there'll be more further down, cause we went back again the next day to see it in the sun!

  

We strolled around town and checked out the markets then had an early dinner and headed back to the hotel to meet the tour group.

 

After the tiny group we had in Egypt, we were shocked to see we were two of fifteen on this tour! After a meeting with our tour guide we went out for a group dinner (dessert for us) and some drinks to break the ice.

 

Our first priority on Day 42 was the rugby. On the other side of the world, the Brumbies were playing in the Super 14 Grand Final, and Ben wasn't about to let 15,000 kilometres and seven hours time difference stop him from watching it! We'd done our research the previous day and scoped out a number of Irish Pubs that might be showing the game. We lucked out on the second try and settled in with a platter of chips, onion rings, calamari and spring rolls (just your standard morning tea snack) and a couple of beers and watched as the Brumbies (and Ben's) dreams were crushed as the lost 27-22 to the Chiefs.

 

One of the solo tour group participants, a 19 year old from the UK, joined us, also being an avid rugby fan. Much to Ben's delight he had someone to discuss the game with who actually knew what he was talking about. I was just happy to munch away on the endless supply of snacks that continued to appear before me!

 

After the boys comiserated their loss over a few more beers we left the pub and Ben and I set out on our own once more to see some more of the city. With the sun out, we wandered back to the Church of the Spilled Blood and strolled along the canal where I could snap some pictures.

 

 

 

We ended up at a little market behind the church and bought some presents for friends back home. We found the Bridge of Four Lions and then checked out the Hermitage museum, stopping to watch a BMX competition in the square out the front.

Russia was one of my picks for the trip. Ever since I can remember I've wanted to go to Russia. (I think it might have initially had something to do with my favourite Captain Planet character, Linka, who was from the USSR!) Although thoroughly impressed with the city I wasn't so impressed with its people! We had been warned the country wasn't very 'tourist friendly', with our first experience in that before we left home jumping through numerous hoops just to gain a visa for entry! However I wasn't prepared for what we discovered.

As you may be aware, Russia uses cyrillic, however tourist maps are printed in English, so you couldn't even match the cyrcillic writing on the wall with the writing on the maps, since they were different languages. Instead we quickly resorted to counting train station stops in each directions and taking photos of the train station names on the wall so we knew how to get home and what station we needed to find our way back to if we did get turned around!

The people MIGHT have spoke English, but if they did, they sure weren't bothering to help us out considering our extreme lack of Russian. Instead we were generally ignored and given up on as soon as it was discovered we were foreign, this included clothing stores, restaurants, everywhere! Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those ignorant American (sorry Davis family) tourists who expects everyone to speak English as a second language and accomodate us when we're in their homeland, but even if I were to speak a second language, I highly doubt it would be Russian. And with the number of countries we were travelling through on this trip, it wasn't even plausable to learn the basic phrases in all of them! I know when I worked in the retail and food industries, I made an effort to accomodate foreigners, I would never just shrug and walk away without a backward glance like one girl did to me when I politely tried to ask for a different size in a clothes store.

We did encounter some lovely people though, including one lady in the markets who spoke quite good English and bent over backwards to find the items we wanted to buy. Ensuring my Russian stacking Christmas ornaments weren't chipped and the paintwork was perfect, and finding Ben the perfect metal and leather shot glass to add to his collection. She got a lot of business out of us that day!

That night, all packed and ready to go, we trooped afew kilometres on foot through the streets of down town St Petersburg to the train station for the first leg of our Trans-Mongolian adventure. We boarded the train and crammed ourselves into our tiny four sleeper cabin with our room mates for the night, Sasha and Claire, two solo travellers. As we drifted off to sleep we were whisked away on our way to Moscow!



Day 37 - 39: Helsinki, Finland

After arriving late the previous night, we were up and about early on Day 37.

Our hotel in Helsinki was awesome, it was built in an old jail that had been fitted out as a hotel. All the rooms were two cells merged together, the hallways still had the metal walkways and staircases and the dining room was in the basement, complete with metal cups and plates.

For our first day in Helsinki we bought tickets on the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus, departing from Helsinki Cathedral - a huge white church in the centre of town.

From there we rode the bus around town past all the sights, hopping on and off as we pleased. We stopped at the Uspenski Orthodox Church and the impressive Rock Church - built out of rock that creates awesome accoustics.

On the other side of town we visited the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Stadium. We checked out the complex and went up in the tower for a view from the top across the city.

 

 



We wandered the shops that evening and finished the day with an all-you-can-eat buffet of pizza, pasta, salad and dessert! Yum!

Day 38 was Ben's birthday! After an early run we set off on the ferry for his birthday choices of sightseeing - Suomenlinna Fortress and the Helsinki Zoo.

Suomenlinna  is a maritime fortress built back in the 18th century. You can explore the original fortress walls, tunnels, cannons, or check out all the museums, including an old submarine. The naval academy is also out on the island and we watched them welcoming in a Japanese ship with artillery fire.

A short ferry ride later and we arrived at Helsinki Zoo, also on an island. Here Ben's life was made complete when he saw an ibex! I'm not quite sure why this was his 'unicorn' in life, but it was. We've searched zoos near and far, all across the globe to no avail, until we ended up stumbling across them unexpectantly at Helsinki Zoo.

 

That night, Ben's birthday dinner was at Hard Rock Cafe, Helsinki.

Day 39 we treated ourselves to a sleep in and late breakfast. We lazed around and packed our things then left Helsink aboard the train bound for Russia!

One thing of note throughout all the eastern European countries (as well as some of the Western ones and middle east) - bring change for toilets, you have to pay everywhere! Even in high class shopping malls in Helsinki, it costs to get through the boom gates into the public toilets.