Better late than never, more on Moscow

Danielle gives us her thoughts on the arrival in Moscow.

Final day in St. Petersburg..... Hydrofoil time

Just a quick note while Danielle is checking us out of the Nord Hostel here in St. Petersburg. First, the hostel is a large improvement over what we had in Moscow (I would not recommend Sweet Moscow Hostel to any other traveler), friendly staff, a free breakfast (as much as you can eat), and hot showers. However it could be cleaner, the bathrooms were very clean the day we arrived, but now they leave something to be desired. We are looking forward to a night on the Red Arrow train back to Moscow tonight as it is very nice, and a great nights sleep.

So whats planned for today? Well we are leaving our bags in a locker at the hostel and heading down to the river to catch a hydrofoil out of the city to Peterhof (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterhof), where we plan to spend most of the day. Later this afternoon we may visit the university and then back on the train to Moscow.

Tomorrow we plan to spend the day exploring the Kremlin, and the fly to Budapest.

Moscow, Russia. Comming to you from a starbucks because it is raining outside.

Let me start by saying the 10 hour flight to Moscow felt way longer than it was. We tried a new sleeping pill to help pass the time, it worked, but had the side affect of making me queezy and causing Danielle to throw up into a zip lock bag on the train into the city from the airport. So not a good start to the day. Our next challange was to navigate Moscow metro, which is easier said than done because all the signs are in Russian alphabet Russian, and the maps are in English alphabet Russian. We found an English speaking women who helped us find our way. Subsequently we have developed a system using a printout we got from the hostel and the first 4 letters of the station name.

When we arrived at the hostel we were greeted with an ice cold shower because of some plumbing issues. However shortly afterward we had found our way to Red Square and were blown away by this beautiful spot and the scale! The square is surrounded by the Kremlin on one side, a beautiful merchantile building on the other side and St. Basils cathedral on one end. We took a stroll across the bridge over the Moscow river for a better view of the Kremlin which is just massive. We plan to spend the day in the Kremlin on our return to Moscow on Wednesday.

Today was very cool. It was a national holiday of sorts celebrating the paratroopers, so we were treated to a miltary parade in Red Square. I will post vide and pics when we get to St. Petersburg. We spent the rest of the day walking the gardens outside the Kremlin, visiting the Pushkin Museum and Church of Christ the savior.

Shortly we will be heading to the train station to catch on overnight train to St. Petersburg.