Moscow, a city we never thought we’d visit. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we weren’t really sure how to. This past week we had the opportunity to do just that. Alex had to go for work so I went too (unfortunately, it was too late to get any World Cup tickets).
We left on Monday morning. We noticed at the last minute that Alex had an hour earlier train time (train to Frankfurt, flight from there) than me. In typical German fashion, there was nobody we could talk to about changing the train. I decided to go on his train anyways and luckily we made it to Frankfurt together without issue. After that minor hiccup, our flight was an hour late, then once we landed in Moscow we had to sit on the plane for a bit while someone came around to check our body temperature. What?! She brought around a body temperature reader (looked like a digital camera) and waved it over everyone – Welcome to Russia I guess! Apparently, everyone passed and we were able to get off. We slowly got through customs, then an almost two hour train ride (train, metro, train) and we finally made it to the hotel around 10pm. Sheesh.
The next morning we got going early. Our first stop was of course, the Red Square. I was so excited to see St. Basil’s cathedral that when I caught a glimpse of it in the background, I was immediately drawn to it. We stood back and admired it for a while, taking lots of pictures. It really was amazing. Then we got a drink on the square. We walked through a park deciding not to tour the Kremlin (very long line because of the World Cup visitors) and took the rest of the day to walk around Moscow. It’s a really big city so most places we had to take the metro, which is a sight in itself. The metros, which are really deep underground (extremely long escalators!) are very intricately decorated with different statues and paintings. It was fun to see the differences in metro stops. We had a final drink plus a sipping shot of vodka (very smooth) in a very hip area before heading back to the hotel.
The next day, Alex had to go to a trade show all day so Alex’s bosses wife and I went into the city together. She’s Ukrainian which was very helpful when navigating the difficult language and metro. We walked around the city for a while, stopping in souvenir shops along the way. Eventually, the guys met us in the city and we found a bar to watch the Germany World Cup game. We grabbed a drink and pulled up a seat alongside people from all over the world (a lot of Brazilians). We all know how it ended with Germany losing the game and ending their World Cup chances. We cheered ourselves up by going again to see St. Basil’s cathedral. It was just so beautiful to look at, I needed to see it again.
The next day, when the men finished working, we decided to go outside the city a little to a market place called Izmayloo Kremlin. This place was huge! It had everything inside of it you would need. But what I had my sights on, was the rows and rows of souvenirs stands, sold at a much cheaper price. It was actually a bit overwhelming trying to decide which matryoshka doll (Russian nesting doll) we liked best. How big? How many pieces inside? What color? Do we want one with Trump’s face? Haha. Once we found the one we liked, we haggled with the seller until he gave it to us for a great price. We decided on a hand painted, medium sized, 10 piece (the 10th piece is so tiny!) doll. Afterwards, everyone headed back but Alex and I went into the city one last time for a drink. The next morning we headed out for a long day of traveling home. Train-metro-train-plane-plane-train-metro-metro. Making it back to Cologne at 11pm.
Moscow was great! The sights were beautiful, the people were friendly and the vodka was tasty. It opened our eyes to even more travel possibilities. Who knows, we might go back to Russia someday. Now on to our crazy July schedule.
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I can see why you would want to see Saint Basil again, quite a sight! Really glad you got to go, what an interesting trip. Good job Sunny, your story telling and pictures are great!
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