The first in a series of (probably boring) recollections of our trip to Moscow/St Petersburg/Riga/Stockholm, written more for my benefit than anything else.
The trip started with alarm clocks going off at 4AM, which was pleasant. We were staying in a hotel near the airport in Seattle, and managed to wake up enough to catch the shuttle to the airport and get on our flight to New York. Sleeping on the flight was fairly easy for once.
The layover in New York was fairly short, so we didn’t have to spend much time sitting around. The only highlight was watching the Russian lady trying to get onto the plane with Moscow with 5 carry on items argue with the gate agents.
After arriving at the Moscow airport, getting through customs was surprisingly easy compared to the huge hassle of getting the tourist visa’s. Once the customs guy realized we didn’t speak any Russian he just looked at our papers and waved us through. We met up with Roman who’d been having a good time hanging around the airport for 5 or 6 hours (our flight was delayed), and caught an aeroexpress train into Moscow.
Once we arrived in Moscow we managed to figure out how to buy a pass for the Metro, and then how to navigate it to a stop near our hotel. The lack of sleep must have finally caught up with us at that point, as we walked off in the wrong direction for awhile, but eventually found our way to the hotel.
After we were settled, we went to cafe mumu, which is a strangely decorated fast food/cafeteria place. Had meat pancakes, strudel and soup, which was pretty good and relatively cheap. After eating, we walked over to red square and wandered around a bit, checking out the kremlin and St Basils cathedral. Some people were having wedding pictures taken in the square (which is apparently common?) and kept dropping and breaking their champagne glasses. We walked around in GUM (a fancy department store next to the square) for a little while, then went for dinner at il patio (which I think is a chain), where I had the first of many carbonaras on the trip. After dinner we made it back to the hotel and went to bed while it was still light out.