Taking a breather in Moscow
on Mel and Steve in Nepal (Nepal), 25/Feb/2008 16:35, 34 days ago
We are about to spend our third night in Moscow having had a relievingly smooth journey so far.On our way from London, we stopped for a quick tour of Berlin. On the way we had experienced our first sleeper. Luckily, none of the 6 sleepers (well 5 sleepers plus me - Steve) snored too loudly.Our whistle stop tour of Berlin included: Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate (where East and West Berlin met during the cold war). We also had a tour of the Holocaust memorial.We had to quickly learn some Russian on the 24 hour, next leg of our journey to Moscow, as all 3 of our carriage attendants spoke only Russian. We were amazed when we walked into our cabin as we thought that we had accidentally walked into a wardrobe! Eventually, we worked out that the 3 beds folded down from the wall and covered the seats. We were very relieved to have brought some snacks as no food was available on the train (althoughbabushkaspulled out frozen fish and squashy gherkins at one of the stops in Belorus).We were rudely awakened at 5 am by Belorussian border guards who handed us some important looking, but impossible for us to read, forms and took our passports away. This seemed like a good time to get to know the people in the next-door cabin. Luckily one of these spoke English and had even visited Wimbledon.There was further excitement when the train had to be lifted onto a different set of wheels (the tracks in Russia being a different size to stop invaders).Eventually, we arrived, tired but enthusiastic and then had to cross Moscow by Metro with signs only in Russian. Since then we have been enjoying: practising our Russian, visiting Red Square and the Kremlin and sleeping in real beds.More adventures to follow soon. We couldn't work out how to put the images in this time. Please see our albums and slide show.