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.

More trains... this time in New Zealand

So how are we going to get around New Zealand you ask? Well there is a cool train network called the TRANZ SCENIC RAIL NETWORK. We will take a train from Auckland to Wellington, a Ferry from Wellington to Picton on the South Island, followed by a train to Christchurch. Finally we hop on the The TranzAlpine – Christchurch to Greymouth, rated one of the world’s great scenic railway journeys!

Check it out: http://www.tranzscenic.co.nz/

And by the way, super easy to book, no one trying to rip you off, and electronic tickets!!!!

Trains, so many trains

So, you will not believe how difficult it is to buy train tickets in Russia. Its not so much difficult as it is frustrating. Every service out there is basically ripping you off with prices 100 - 150% more than the cost of the actual ticket and that does not include the price of shipping the tickets to you. If not you will need to hop a taxi in Moscow and try and find this agents office. Finally after trying to book directly on the official rail website with no luck (website: www.rzd.ru note, the site is in Russian so you will need a friend that can read/speak Russian, I fortunately did), I found the following woman who helps out struggling travelers for a fee. http://www.russiangirlfriday.com/, she is charging $65 for her trouble. We wired her the money, and she has purchased our tickets. Now lets just wait and see if we get them when we get to Moscow.... if not that was an expensive experiment :-)