Back in the USSR – Russia

Back in the USSR
Russia

July 18
I returned to G and R Hostel in Moscow. I took the overnight train and was able to sleep on this one but was still worn out from food poisoning. My travel book suggested buying all four beds in the compartment for safety reasons, but that’s not really necessary. I wanted to make sure I saw the inside of St. Basil, which I did. The outside is more impressive than the inside however. I went north of the Kremlin to Tverskaya Ulitsa; they call it Moscow’s Fifth Avenue because of all the shops. It also has the first McDonald’s in Russia. I went through the English Club; it’s a modern history of Russia and has a lot of Stalin and World War II. It was in Russian, so I couldn’t understand everything, but I got the idea.

The Dom dominates Cologne, Germany

There’s no laundry mats in Russia and I haven’t done laundry yet, so actually right now I’m hand washing in the bathtub so it’s not real laundry. It’s just that it’s so hot and it’s going to take forever to dry. Even up in St. Petersburg, it’s hot. The white nights in St. Petersburg were cool as the nights are not really white or clear, but it’s hazy like dusk the whole night.

July 19
The area around Moscow is called the Golden Ring. One city in the ring, Posad, is about 90 minutes from Moscow; it’s somewhat of a religious pilgrimage for the Eastern Orthodox peoples. I had the front office of my hostel write a couple things in Russian like, “I need a round trip ticket to Posad” and “When do I get off?” Posad is the 35th stop. I got there, and was told to take bus 30. Apparently I took the wrong one, and ended up going out to the country on some dirt road. Someone spoke enough English, a young woman, and got me back to where I wanted to go. I looked at a couple of churches and saw the Eastern Orthodox people. There was a dress code, the women had to wear something over their head, and men were supposed to wear pants going into church at least. They had an Assumption Cathedral there at Posad, which mimicked the one at the Kremlin.

July 20
I went to the Arbat, which is one of the pedestrian malls. There are two of them, one’s more for Russians, it’s clothing and things like that, and the other is more of a tourist-walking mall. I walked up and down there a few times, and bought some souvenirs. Old Communist items are popular souvenirs as is crystal and Faberge eggs.

A look out of the city fortress of Luxembourg City

One of the impressions of Russia is all the bureaucracy. There’s still a lot of uniforms, blue for police, green for military, orange for swimming pool security as well as all the stamps and cards for everybody. Further, there’s a big difference between young and old people. Also, the Irish would come up and talk with you and make fun of themselves, where Russians are more serious and stoic, but they’re still nice. The subways are pretty amazing, as they go down hundreds of feet. They double as bomb shelters. I saw lots of McDonald’s; the one at the end of the Arbat was crazy, just tons of people there. Then I saw things like Gucci, Christian Dior at the Red Square shopping mall, the GUM. But there are no laundry mats, there are brooms that are just made of sticks, and people have to manually change electricity on the trams by rope.

July 21
I left my hostel at about 6:30, and arrived at the airport about 7:45. My flight was at 11:25. They started checking in people at quarter to nine, and the whole time was basically standing in three different lines: one for security, one for checking-in and one for passport control. Basically I sat in line for 2.5 hours before getting on the flight, so a really inefficient system. There were only two people doing passport control and at least a couple hundred people trying to get through, so it was pretty crazy. I got on the flight, which was delayed half an hour, which wasn’t too bad for Aeroflot. I made it into Heathrow and went to Waterloo Station, for the Eurostar over to Brussels. I walked around for an hour at the central Grand Palace, just a great place. I visited Brussels before during the day, but not at night. At night, the square was really a happening place.

July 22
The train to Luxembourg was my first experience with train splitting. It splits to save money as some are going to southern Belgium and others to Luxembourg. At first I was in the wrong spot of the train, but luckily I figured it out. I made it to Luxembourg and found my youth hostel. It’s really a nice youth hostel, but it’s in a valley, it’s hard to find, but there are a lot of beautiful hills surrounding it. Luxembourg looks like it’s an affluent place; one of the things that struck me was all the nice cars. It is a very peaceful place, which I do need after my Russian experience. I went to the city fortress that they made in one of the hills and then went to the city center.

July 23

Posad is one of the cities that are located around Moscow, called the Golden Ring

Today I moved from Luxembourg to Cologne. The train had a couple connections, one was Trier and one was Koblenz in Germany. They have it pretty easily laid out here in Germany, usually your connection is directly across the track from where the original train ends. I stayed at another youth hostel and the main thing to look at here is the Dom, which is a huge cathedral. I went up the stairwell to the steeple; it’s about 109 steps. It was the highest point in Europe until they built the Eiffel Tower and I looked out at the city. The city also has the old remains from when the Romans built a colony here in 50 AD. I saw more German things like a Glockenspiel and churches located right on the Rhine River, where there’s a lot of people hanging out.

July 24
I visited Bonn and Dusseldorf. They’re both about 20 minutes away from Cologne but in different directions. Bonn was the capital until re-unification with the main things to look at located around the center area. There was a university and I looked at where Beethoven was born. He actually only lived there a couple of years and then moved, but this was where he was born. Then I moved up to Dusseldorf and went down the K�; it’s a street with a lot of expensive shops with the Hoff Garden at the end of it. I am trying to get caught up on sleep. If possible, I will be going to Amsterdam tomorrow.