Hi All,
We returned to the hostel and decided to watch a video with a Dutch couple. I didn't know they were Dutch and asked about the accent. The yellow polar fleece clogs on his feet should have been a give a way. While waiting Vanessa and I were watching survival food which covered eating all kinds of raw animal flesh and cringing. The Dutch girl was pretending not to watch but like a car crash couldn't help it. We saw the gag reflex.
The only catch with the video was that the manager got to choose it and we ended up watching a 'go america' war movie with the highlight being the ending or perhaps the cameo appearance of Guy Pierce. He was American and ex military.
Finally we got to the Kremlin. The weather was cold sitting at about -20 deg C and there were ice crystals in the air even though it was blue sky. We had been waiting all week for the change of guard parade on Saturday at 2pm which lonely planet had indicated happened all year round but in the end, after drawing an image of a horse and rider on a piece of paper, that triggered understanding in one of the russian museum attendants, it just didn't happen. Too cold was the answer. But before this happened we had visited the the armoury chamber museum and a view of some of the tzars amazing treasures including a handful of Fabergé eggs. Such excess. The size of the gemstones in the religious outfits and books was extraordinary. We didn't visit the diamond museum but it holds the worlds largest gold nugget and largest sapphire. Then we headed off to have a look at some of the churches and cathedrals which had some nice frescos. Inside the Kremlin is also the largest bell in the world, the tzars bell, weighing in at about 200 tonnes but it was never rung as a piece broke off of it during the fire of 1737.
We needed some supplies and asked the staff at the hostel where we could find a big supermarket. It was on the other side of town but we were up for the challenge. So about 30min later on the metro and a long way from the centre of town we found the SUPER market and it was huge and a battle field. The Russians hold no prisoners when in supermarkets and it could be fatal if you were to fall over as you would be run over multiple times and probably only discovered at closing time. We only had a carry basket but had more collisions in that supermarket than it all supermarkets we had ever previously visited. It was chaos. Imagine post Christmas sales and multiple it by 10.It was intimidating. We just grabbed a few items and then got into line only to find that the person ahead had managed to fit the maximum number of items possible into a trolley. It was impressive to us but not us for the checkout chick who looked far from impressed as she piled the goods up at the end of the checkout. Then the lady in front of us showed that a pram can be turned into a tardis when called upon and can also hold an impressive number of items 4 large turkeys ,5 chickens,nappies and so on and so forth as long as there is no baby insitu. We had our outdoor clothing on while waiting and were running close to having heat stroke by the time we got to the checkout. We were defeated.
So no real food from the supermarket. We decided to go to a local food place to look at the menu but somehow ended up at a table. It was clear that this was a family place with lots of kids running around and we managed to read pizza on the menu. Luckily there was a waitress who spoke a few words of broken english so we managed to order a simple pizza and a Russian beer for me. It was one of the basic food groups of the traveller and filled the spot.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
