Contact In Red Square

Who would win in a Tianamen Square v Red Square showdown? For those of you who have been wondering, the answer is firmly Red Square which is freakin awesome!!!

Yes people. I am in Moscow. Where is is sunny, warm and beautiful. I kid you not. I am wandering around in jeans and a hoodie. Very similar attire to our indie rock loving, lead guitarist Honcho on this leg of the tour. He's cool. He gave me a badge.

Anyway - I have many stories to regale you all with. Except Mum and Dad. Tune out now. Seriously.

STORY ONE
The train to get from Irkutsk to Moscow took 4 days. Yes people, 4 days on a train. Interesting. I am tempted to write a long and stream of conciousness piece about finding your essence when gazing into a Siberian wilderness and feeling the timelessness of the landscape and the harshness of the winter. Instead, I think I'll go straight to the Vodka.

We went to the dining carriage for dinner on night 2 of our trip after I asserted firmly and loudly that I would not be eating another pot noodle (especially since I accidentally bought Chilli noodles because I can't read Cyrillic). So Matt, Claire, Soey (not a typo) and I went to the dinign cart. Everythign was going swimmingly.

Until the two Russians at the next table bought us a bottle of vodka. The waitress arrived with it, pointed at them and they raised their vodka (shot) glasses at us in salute. 10 minutes later the whole bottle was gone. You can't refuse because it is seen as excessively impolite. I think they just wanted to see how funny it would be to get the Australians drunk. Anyway, we were all good. It was only 4 shots. Then the Russians got up to have a smoke. Just as we were about to leave, the waitress arrived at the table. The Russians had bought us another bottle of vodka. We considered escaping but instead, we stayed, did one shot and headed back to our carriage for the Quiz Adam had made.

My cabin won the quiz (of course).

BUT THEN we may have had a few more drinks. I ended up in a random cabin with 4 German boys and 2 Russians eating dried fish on a skewer. Which they added an excessive amount of salt to even though it was SALTED fish. And the German's names were things like Klaus and Wolfgang which I found to be hilarious.

That's not all. Peter (Irish lad) has a rather booming voice and was more than a little drunk. So it wasn't all that much of a surprise when the train police arrived to quieten everyone down. But more specifically, quiten Peter down. He was a hairs breadth from handcuffs and being abandoned at the nearest platform. I kid you not.

STORY TWO
This is really the story of two nights in Moscow. I have had a combined total of 6 hours sleep over the two nights. The night we got here there was a disaster with the hotel. Total disaster. They're still building the damned thing. I've got photos. People are sleeping on the floor. I am sharing a double bed with Sue.

Anyway. What does one do in these situations? Drink.

We went to this really cool bar that was underneath red square. It was a basement with graffiti scrawled everwhere and it looked a bit like a bunker. We sat there and drank vodka shots and cheap beer until 2am until we decided that the best possible thing we could do was to head to a club. We negotiated a fare with a passing cab driver (200 roubles or about 10 AUD) and spent the rest of the night listening to Michael Jackson in an almost abandoned hotel/club thing.

THEN last night, after a day of sight seeing(Kremlin = Awesome, Red Square is amazing) we went to the Bolshoi Ballet which was AMAZING. SO beautiful. It was a Soviet piece that celebrated farming and the arts etc. I really couldn't believe that I was drinking champagne (the 200 Rouble excessively sweet glass, not the 1600 rouble Moet) at the Bolshoi theatre. It blew my mind.

Headed back to the hostel, went to a pub called the Elephant where they gave us free nachos and bowls of snacks because we are such beautiful people. Then we decided to head out. We had met a Scotsman called David and he arrived with the girl from the hostel just before the bar closed. So we all got into cabs and headed to a place called Cult. I went with David and the Russian but our cabdriver got lost. I was worried I would never find my group again. Fortunately, Peter is 6 foot 5 and I found him out the window while we were driving past.

Cult was fun - more a pub than club. That was where we made the fatal mistake. We headed to a nightclub called 'Sorry Babooshka'. Which was an all out nightclub. The boys loved it because Moscow women seem to be genetically engineered to be gorgeous. I rolled my eyes.

At 5am Matt, Dave, Noel, Peter and I decided to leave (Will and Charlie stayed on to go to Propaganda which had been our original destination). In order to get back to the hostel, we entered into negotiations with an unlicesed cab driver who agreed to take us home for 500 roubles. All 5 of us. It turned out his car was older than Rom's, possible smaller and in worse condition. I spent the whole drive back with Dave's arse in my face. Delightful.

If you asked me 3 months ago if I would have got into an unlicensed Russian cab completely drunk and tired I would have said no. I still don't think it was the best idea in the world. But it was funny. And we were desperate. Sarah - pick mum up off the floor and tell her to calm down. I am fine.

STORY THREE
I don't want anyone to think I am just drinking my way across 3 countries and 2 continents. The things we are seeing are awe inspiring. This morning we went and saw Lenin's tomb. The guards grumbled at us for having our hands in our pockets. There were military trucks in Red Square. There were soldiers everywhere. And Lenin looked small and insignificant and waxy and eerily familiar. Apparently he wanted to be buried next to his Mother in St Petersburg. I think perhaps it is time to let that happen (apparently it costs a million dollars a year to keep him refrigerated etc). The Metro system here is also amazing and needs to be seen to be believed. It is deep underground, made of marble and totally ornate. There are chandeliers in the trains stations!

And today I went to the flea market on the outskirts of Moscow and bought a Chess set from a man who let me negotiate a discount if I gave him my one and only Australian coin - a $1. He was lovely.

Other things of interst:
Mullets are everywhere in moscow.
Vodka is cheap.
The McDonalds we went too was meant to be the biggest but I think busiest might be more accurate.