MOSCOW!!!!

Of course, like every trip of mine, it started out dramatic. Jessica and I planned on meeting at 11:45 in front of the metro because the metro closes at 12 every night/morning. I left later than I thought I was going to and arrived at the metro at about 11:55. Jessica was no where to be found. I called her twice, no answer. Being myself, I panicked. I then called up Brian, because I didn't even know where the actual train station was (I always let Jessica take care of the directions, she actually knows the difference between east and west). Brian told me at least where to go, but had no clue where she was either. According to him, Jessica left the apartment 30 minutes prior. I, of course, freaked him out. And while I was on the phone with him, couldn't get him off of the phone, Jessica called me. She actually was alive...

Apparently, Jessica's elevator in the dorms decided to go demonic. What it did, for like 15 minutes, was ride up and down between two floor. Althought this doesn't seem too bad it also decided not to actually open up its doors in this demonic state. Because of this, Jessica couldn't jump out. Also, because she was in the elevator she didn't have service to keep me updated. Nothing like scaring the bejeebies out of me.

The train, my home for 9 hours, was horror-like. First off, the train wasn't anything like "Eurotrip". We are assigned beds to sleep on and that is it. For those Americans that don't know there are 3 parts to a train. First class is closed off and each room has two beds, second class is also closed off but each room as four beds, and finally third class is open and each cart has about 50 beds. There are beds/bunks everywhere. Freaking tables flip over into beds. The way the cart was set up was that although it was open there were compartments. In each like section there was 4 beds and the “hall way” had another two beds. Jessica and I both had top bunks right next to each other, under us were these two old ladies.

How bad is a top bunk? Well it is like hell. On top of our bunks were little storage area, and the area between this storage area and the bed is so tiny that only a contortionist can comfortably lay in the bed. You cannot sit up, and it is almost impossible to get down once you are up. Also, being scared about scary men that steal your stuff at night I had my purse next to me and my traveling bad by my feet. You see the beds are also as narrow as narrow can be. Two of these beds (if not more) make up the dorm beds at Stetson. It is THAT tiny. So I was quite uncomfortable while I “tried” to sleep.

Anywho, enough about that, On with Moscow. We arrive in Moscow and were immediately met by Lisa, works for SRAS. She is quite wonderful, and does not seem anything like her voice. She has her eyebrow pierced and looks like she is in her mid 20s.
She took us to the hostel right away.

The hostel is pretty nice. It has all Ikea furniture. As soon as Lisa went in, obviously has been here before, she started talking in English. Not what I expected. I always hear that Moscow is more Russian than St. Pete., which to me means that no one speaks English. WRONG. Jessica and I both take showers to get the train smell off of us and then we headed out a walking tour of Moscow.

Josh, who works with Lisa, was out walking tour guide. It first started with a talk about Politics. Learned a lot. Then we started walking around Moscow. We went to the cutest bridge ever. The bridge has these cute little Christmas like tree and on these trees are about a bazillion (and that is no exaggeration) locks. It all started in France where they started a tradition on putting locks (somewhere) after a wedding. The Russians then took to this tradition and started going to this bridge right after they got married and attached a lock to the side of the bridge. After a while Engineers started to get worried about the frame of the bridge and added trees to the center of the bridge so everything was centered. Aywho, I thought it was cute. Then we went to a couple other places like Red Square and ended up at old Arbask. Red Square is just as pretty as I imagined. I now can say that I will choose the Church on/0f Spilt Blood over St. Basil's. I am probably going to get shot for saying that. After Red Square, it started to snow. I think I am the only one that is still taken aback by this. Usually there is a forewarning when it comes to a huge downpour but nope, there is no warning about when it is going to snow, it just does.

Josh had to leave us at Old Arbask to go to a meeting so we decided to walk in Old Arbask because we had a dinner that was planned right afterwards right near by. So Old Arbask, I really can't explain it, and it really isn't too exciting. It is just a path that has a lot of Starbucks, restaurants, and all that jazz. It is quite gorgeous walking in it while it snows, but I think that is true for anything.

I must randomly put here now I love Jessica's ability to just know where we are. We walked away from Arbask to just explore around the area and still ended up at our destination. It was of course a Georgian Restaurant. SRAS organized a huge seminar about living and working in Russia. Josh, Lisa, the SRAS students in Moscow, and random Americans who work in Moscow were tjere. It was very educational. There was this lady who works for the foreign relations embassy (place) in Moscow. Talked about how you get into foreign affairs and the test you must take, there was a game designer who had the biggest sense of humor ever. Very entertaining to listen to. Josh spoke about his time in Moscow thus far, and how it is living in Moscow with a Russian wife, and some other guy was there who just talked about his stay as well. I learned a lot from them but it also scared me. Apparently it is almost impossible to get a work Visa. It usually takes about a year to move to Russia which means I need to start getting cracking on this if I want to live here right after I graduate. Or I can just cheat the system and go as a student and then work under that visa. Regardless, I fear for my life. Random side note: I drank Georgian Wine. This is actually an accomplishment because Russia has a ban Georgian Wine. The only reason we were allowed to drink it was because it was brewed right in the restaurant. After the seminar Jessica and I hung out with the MGU kids. They are beyond amazing. I think this would be one of the only reason that I would choose to go to MGU over SPbU.

Anywho the next day Jessica and I slept in and then met Lisa for lunch. I think we were at a Lebanese restaurant. It was buffet style, but you could only go once to the buffet. HOW GAY. Anywho, it was delicious and I recommend it to anyone. Especially their tea. I think it was the first time that in Russia I actually had Russian black tea and not Liptons. After that we had a tour of the Kremlin. The tour guide wasn't bad. He was very nice, just had no personality and the tour was 3 hours. So towards the end I started to fall asleep, yes while standing up. I felt bad for him if he noticed, but I couldn't control myself. The Kremlin, for those who don't know, is like a citadel, just a political one. Most state things go on in here now and this is where a lot of the kings (back in the day) used to live. There isn't anything too amazing about the place, minus the history and such. Like I said, I started to fall asleep.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. Jessica and I had nothing to do so we decided to just walk around, take pictures of places. A little side note again: it was an ex soviet holiday on this day (November 7th). So unfortunately, red square was closed for the whole day and night. According to our tour guide, this isn't due to the fact that they are afraid that something would happen, they just don't want people there. Makes no sense, but it upset me. Red Square is beyond gorgeous at night! I just had to look at it from a gate while an angry Russian military man stared at me. After that Jessica and I were like "what to do now, how about we ride the Metro." So we took the brown line (which is just a huge circle that runs around the main center of Moscow). I think the every metro station in Moscow is open, unlike St. Pete so its like an awesome concept. You just sit in the train and watch the pretty metros go by. And by pretty I mean there are chandeliers, painting, statues, its just too much to handle.

On Sunday we also had a free day, more or less. Jessica and I decided to wake up early and go to a market place before a tour we had to go to. Jessica heard about this place from one of the MGU kids, Kate. Kate said go towards Disneyland. How hilarious. It isn't named Disneyland, nor does it look like Disneyland, but it looks like it could be a subset of Disney, like yesteryear or something. The buildings around the marketplace are all like glorified fake buildings that look like doll houses. I really can't explain it. Anyways it cost 10 rubles to get in, and once you are in you can buy really cheap things. the marketplace has everything imaginable. It quite awesome. I bought a few things and got very upset. Why can't St. Pete be this cool at times?

After the amazing marketplace Jess and I went to the tour of a i believe Novodevichy. It is more or less a famous monastery/convent. We also went on the tour with all the MGU kids. It was amazing! They are all so nice and friendly. Also, this time around the tour guide was like the cutest thing ever. She was this yippy happy old Russian lady. She was priceless! I didn't fall asleep this time. Anywho She repeated a lot of what the other tour guide said so I was very happy. I felt all smart inside. I also found out random things like 1) what Red White and Blue stand for (Blood of Christ, purity/chastity, and piety/humility). 2) the number of domes on top of a Russian church actually stand for things (1-Jesus 3-Holy Trinity etc.) 3) the Russians do the cross over the body/heart (?) with 3 fingers representing the holy trinity 4) There are 3 forms of the Virgin Mary in painting in the Russian religion first: Our lady of tenderness second: our lady pulling away third: don't know. very interesting...huh?

The grave site was interesting to say the least. It was an ex soviet grave site and one of the highest ranked places to be buried. Random thing to be noted here: there were a lot of clowns and circus people buried here. I wish we gloried them like the Russians do. And their graves were freaking amazing. I also saw Gorbachev's wife's grave (she died 2 years ago), Yeltsin memorial site. I don't know if he was buried there. Russian have this thing were you must erect a monument a year after a person dies. His monument was a huge marble Russian flag. Very pretty, kinda gaudy. I also saw Gogol's grave as well as Chekhov's. Bet you are jealous, and just as disturbed as me.

After that we hung out with the MGU people, ate, and then went back to the hostel to pick up our stuff and head back home. I have to say that it is the weirdest experience going on vacation while you are on vacation (more or less). Its like you feel like you are finally going home, home and you wind up back in vacation spot number 1. It isn't depressing, or upsetting, it just feels weird.

The trip home was quite fantastic. I think, but am not certain, that the person getting us our tickets couldn't get 3rd class tickets so we were put into 2nd class. Let me tell you right now that I would tell anyone and everyone that you SHOULD pay the extra money for 2nd class. There is that much of a different. It is like Titanic. Jack is like 3rd class and Kate Winslet is like 2nd class. And no there aren't any amazing parties in 3rd class just a whole bunch of crampness. We also were put into a room with a very rich (seemingly) Russian who was quite fluent in English. We talked to her for awhile. I learned random things from her too. Like the fact that there are two types of passports in Russia. Because no one really drives (like they do in the States) there is a national passport. This pretty much has the same information as a driver's license would. The other one is a foreign passport. This is the one you use when going abroad obviously. Sleeping was much better in this bed too. I woke up once and was in St. Pete. What a wonderful concept. So that was my trip to Moscow in a nutshell.