Man Bags and Lost Luggage
I haven't managed to get near the blog for a while but here I am in glorious Moscow. What can you say about a city so steeped in history and beauty. I could use all the adjectives under the sun but really I should just tell you some stories.
When your plane lands at Moscow airport, it secretly goes through a time warp, so when you get off the plane you find yourself back in the 80s, complete with hair band music and rah rah skirts. I kid you not. Every man has a man bag which Kel would rivial (apologies to those who haven't seen Kath and Kym) and every young woman seems to have a skirt shorter than their knees, this includes the immigration officials at the ariport. Its weird, in the shops they are even selling the dreaded bubble gum and rah rah skirts. People have "Final Countdown" tuned into their mobile phones as their ring and there are many hair styles that I haven't seen since Countdown. On TV they show all the old 80s american crap sitcoms, including the very bad Charles in Charge which I used to watch when I was 12.
Jo and I arrived on different flights, mine was okay, on time and no problems with immigration. Jo's however was a different story. At Moscow airport there is a big TV screen just outside the arrivals terminal where you can watch people collect their baggage (security is virtually non existent) so I watched Jo wander around for about an hour trying to find the luggage which Air France had so convinently lost, hers and 30 other bags. So our holiday did not start well, luckily Jo and her Dad can speak French and we spent the first two days ringing the airline. Thankfully they found it and we began to fell okay about things.
How little did we know that a nice innocent visit to a Novodicacy Cemetary and Monastary would turn into a complete nightmare. The place is beautiful but I managed to somehow lose our only guidebook for Moscow. Don't ask me how, we are now calling Moscow, Lostcow. We have been pouncing on anyone who has a lonely planet guide and furiously writing down tips. Luckily we have a guide to St Petersberg. You don't know how hassly it is to lose a guide book in Russia, because no one speaks english and there are pretty much no english language bookshops like other cities aroudn teh world.
Still apart from all the drama we have managed to see the incredible Red Square (we stood where the tanks stood), the Bolshoi Theatre, lots of art galleries and Metro stations (which are art galleries in themselves, celebrating the glory of the revolution), Jo has been to see Lenin and I'll go later. We went to see teh Russian State Ballet in their very minimalist version of Don Quiote, complete with pre-recorded music and lasting a whole 35 minutes. Still atleast we went to see it. We have also been to the All Russian Exhibition Centre which is an incredible collection of buildings Stalin built to glorify the revolution. They are not pretty and now with the embracement of capitalism, are full of expensive shops like most of Moscow. We did however, go to a great Yuri Grogorin and Space Museum, complete with the first dog who went into space stuffed for properity.
We are doing okay with the language, we have learnt how to say I don't understand and am using it alot. Its amazing how when you tell people you don't understand they persist on talking Russian to you like you might instantly learn the language.
We are off to St Petersberg on Monday night. We were going to go to the Golden Ring but after our experience at the train station today we have decided to stick to the 2 major cities. I don't need to tell you about it, I'll leave it to your imagination.
More from St Petersberg.
I haven't managed to get near the blog for a while but here I am in glorious Moscow. What can you say about a city so steeped in history and beauty. I could use all the adjectives under the sun but really I should just tell you some stories.
When your plane lands at Moscow airport, it secretly goes through a time warp, so when you get off the plane you find yourself back in the 80s, complete with hair band music and rah rah skirts. I kid you not. Every man has a man bag which Kel would rivial (apologies to those who haven't seen Kath and Kym) and every young woman seems to have a skirt shorter than their knees, this includes the immigration officials at the ariport. Its weird, in the shops they are even selling the dreaded bubble gum and rah rah skirts. People have "Final Countdown" tuned into their mobile phones as their ring and there are many hair styles that I haven't seen since Countdown. On TV they show all the old 80s american crap sitcoms, including the very bad Charles in Charge which I used to watch when I was 12.
Jo and I arrived on different flights, mine was okay, on time and no problems with immigration. Jo's however was a different story. At Moscow airport there is a big TV screen just outside the arrivals terminal where you can watch people collect their baggage (security is virtually non existent) so I watched Jo wander around for about an hour trying to find the luggage which Air France had so convinently lost, hers and 30 other bags. So our holiday did not start well, luckily Jo and her Dad can speak French and we spent the first two days ringing the airline. Thankfully they found it and we began to fell okay about things.
How little did we know that a nice innocent visit to a Novodicacy Cemetary and Monastary would turn into a complete nightmare. The place is beautiful but I managed to somehow lose our only guidebook for Moscow. Don't ask me how, we are now calling Moscow, Lostcow. We have been pouncing on anyone who has a lonely planet guide and furiously writing down tips. Luckily we have a guide to St Petersberg. You don't know how hassly it is to lose a guide book in Russia, because no one speaks english and there are pretty much no english language bookshops like other cities aroudn teh world.
Still apart from all the drama we have managed to see the incredible Red Square (we stood where the tanks stood), the Bolshoi Theatre, lots of art galleries and Metro stations (which are art galleries in themselves, celebrating the glory of the revolution), Jo has been to see Lenin and I'll go later. We went to see teh Russian State Ballet in their very minimalist version of Don Quiote, complete with pre-recorded music and lasting a whole 35 minutes. Still atleast we went to see it. We have also been to the All Russian Exhibition Centre which is an incredible collection of buildings Stalin built to glorify the revolution. They are not pretty and now with the embracement of capitalism, are full of expensive shops like most of Moscow. We did however, go to a great Yuri Grogorin and Space Museum, complete with the first dog who went into space stuffed for properity.
We are doing okay with the language, we have learnt how to say I don't understand and am using it alot. Its amazing how when you tell people you don't understand they persist on talking Russian to you like you might instantly learn the language.
We are off to St Petersberg on Monday night. We were going to go to the Golden Ring but after our experience at the train station today we have decided to stick to the 2 major cities. I don't need to tell you about it, I'll leave it to your imagination.
More from St Petersberg.
posted by Paula at
10:07 AM
