Trans-Siberian & Lenin

Writing this from the first of our Trans-Siberian Express trains (though obv no interweb here so you'll be reading this a few days after the event...) and having prepared ourselves for the worst - based on what our honchos told us ("this is the WORST train") - the train is actually very pleasant. A little old and faded but pretty much the same facilities as the St P-Moscow "modern" train and certainly more character-full. We boarded the train for our 4-day stretch at about 1.30pm today and now, a time zone later, it is officially 10:12pm and the time has passed pretty quickly so far! Activities used to pass the time have thus far included crosswords, Scrabble (though we have yet to finish the game we began at home before we left), audio books, real-life books, buying cheese at the station (we bought some in the supermarket last night and left it in the hostel fridge this morning - we are clever) and, well, drinking beer... Actually, the highlight has probably been at about the 4th station when a Russian lady came into our cabin (George and I were occupying 2 of 4 bunks, the other 2 being occupied by various Russians who seem to be clever enough not to stay on the train for 4 days like us!), fired a stream of unintelligible Russian at me (not that there was anything wrong with her Russian of course - more to do with my complete inadequacies in that department...) and then grabbed my hand and led/dragged me down the carriage into another cabin occupied by an old (Russian) dude. Through a series of hand gestures and charades I slowly began to understand that she wanted us to swap cabins with them as they wanted to be in a 4 cabin with her gymnast protegé/daughter (currently still unclear as to which) - leaving us the only 2-bunk cabin on the train. Result! We proceeded to move our thousands of bags that we'd spread about the cabin into our new luxury, romance cabin and set about making house. What fun we had! We even hosted an opening drinks reception for our new friends (you can buy beer in 2.5L fizzy pop bottles on the stations here) which was fun, if a little cosy!

The excitement soon got the better of us and we've since invested in a few beers from the very friendly trolley lady.

The clocks change tonight so we need to add another hour to our watches which means it's really terribly late  but we have no shortage of time for sleeping and I'm pretty sure the novelty value will have worn off a bit tomorrow so we can snooze...!

One final excitement to tell you about today from this morning - we rose early and jumped on the metro back to Red Square to visit Lenin. The mausoleum opened at 10am and we were in the queue 20 mins earlier. By about 10:30 be were being ushered through the weirdly calm tomb, being shushed and moved along by armed Russian guards - we must have been in there for all of 30 seconds and while it was a pretty awesome/weird thing to have the chance to see, if I'm completely honest he looked like he could have been a waxwork... But still, probably one of the coolest things to do in Moscow... Tick!

OK, enough for me for today, expect tomorrow's entry to be a bit less excited...
M


I've just spent the last about an hour talking to Louie (18yr old GtShelfordian) about music and have realised that not only am I old but rather patronising.  I've been wittering on about 4x4 beats and being such a douche that I can only confess it here.  Sorry Louie.
Mel seems to have already written a very comprehensive email about our activities so I thought I would share with you the best joke so far today in dialogue form:
(Louie returning from the train samovar with a cup of hot)
George:  Nice cup of tea, no milk.  You like black tea?
Louie:  No, it's lady grey (pauses unsure of admitted gayness)
George: I know the lady, like the earl but a bit more lemony (clearly comfortable with his gayness)
Louie: Yes more citrus flavour but without milk the best option
George: I have UHT
Louie: Is that special type of tea? (BOOM BOOM)

So the train is pretty entertaining.....