well now i am in germany. for all of my worrying about my russian visa, it all turned out fine (although the immigration officer at the moscow airport was giving my passport a few strange looks) and now i find myself thinking back to those days of german lessons in primary school and wishing i had paid attention. im suprised at how much i can remember and a can understand a few things which is nice for a change.
moscow was a pretty impressive city. it certianly feels like the soviet days are now a distant memory and it has embraced capitolism with great enthusiasm. the streets around red square and around the remlin are full of the biggest sames in business - from top fashion designers to mcdonalds and TGI fridays.
on our first night we visited red square, it something that none of us were expecting happened - all that we could hear were bagpipes. there was a massive concert in a few nights time which seemed to be something of a tattoo whith military bands from all over the world. but after they stopped there was some real russian music playing and it added to the atmosphere a bit more.
buskers in australia certainly need to lift their game a bit - in one of the many undergroud walkways we went through was a full 12 piece orchestra who could have been playing on a stage anywhere in the world!
The next day we visited the kremlin in the morning, and i have to say that i was a little underwhelmed by it. it all looked very pretty and it felt strange standing inside "the kremlin" but it got a little bit boring and same same after a while. it is still the seat of government and a big motorcade with a limo and many great big black hummers went past a few times so we think putin may have been coming or going, as his office is in there.
after lunch in a undergroud cafe in a little back lane we visited some markets via the "undergroud museum" (subway) some of the stations are absolutley spectacular and feel like a museum or palace. they are also so deep - at least twice as deep as the sydney stations, as they were built as nuclear bomb shelters.
the markets were a little dull, but i think that half of the stock there had arrived on our train the previous day. although there was no sign of the mongolians. however next we went to the vodka museum and "tasted" many different flavours of local vodka. they were so nice that I had to have six. i think.....
the next day i spent the morning fretting as i still hadnt found anywhere to stay in hamburg that night, but after an extencive search on the net i found "Pension Helga Schmidt!" I just loved the name, but it was convenient and more importantly available, so thats where I ended up. Staying with Helga Schmidt.
Hamburg is a very nice city, but I dont really want to be here, plus there doesnt seem to be all that much to do. I went for a walk to the bus station thismorning, and all that i could see were casinos and sex shops. how many sex shops does one need? i mean really, they are more like supermarkets here.
Anyway, tomorrow morning i'm heading to Berlin for a few nights, then hopefully heading east. the euro is killing me!
