Moscow, but first...

Geneva!

Somehow I never realized that our flight from Zurich to Moscow made a stop in Geneva. How did I miss that? Would it have been cheaper to fly to Geneva, not Zurich? I can't even bear to look. About 20 people were on the plane when we took off from Zurich. I thought, "Wow. I guess not many people fly to Moscow from here." Wrong.

After a half hour flight to Geneva (more chocolate, but no drinks or snacks. But chocolate!), we were told to stay on the plane while more people boarded for the continuing on to Moscow. It was me, Big Boy, and about three other people who stayed. Then the plane filled up. We got good food again, this time veggie quiche and croissants. Big Boy slept a lot on this flight and I knitted socks (got the heel flap done, the heel turned, picked up stitches for the gusset and then could not concentrate on the easy parts) until I got too sleepy and drifted off.

I filled out the registration forms for our visas and apparently everything was alright, because the rather grim lady at customs just looked something up on the computer, looked at my form, stamped it, stamped my visa, and handed my passport back to me. Same procedure for Big Boy. He said he asked her what she was looking up and she said to make sure the visa was good.

Domodedovo airport was recently remodeled. It has signs in Russian with English subtitles. And woohoo! I can read them both. We changed some money to rubles and went to find the express train into the city. We ran the gauntlet of taxi-pushers with a few well-placed "нет"s (that would be "nyet"s) and I got to be the first one to try to get myself into trouble in Russian. After conferring with my co-traveller, we decided on a plan of attack and I got us two tickets into the city. It cost 300 rubles (~25 rubles to the dollar) for a 45 minute train ride.

The scenery was familiar but still foreign. Lots of birch trees. Lots of trees, period. Then some industrial stuff, power transformers, etc. Then new suburbs (farther out from the city, more modern construction). Then old suburbs (think soviet concrete). Then I think jet lag hit and I don't remember. Jet lag comes in waves. More on that later.

I was text msg'ing with Olyesa who had bought our overnight train tickets to St. Petersburg. We were to meet at the Paveletskaya metro station, on the green line, in the middle of the platform. We had no problem finding the metro, per se, but we had some fun trying to find Olyesa. After more text msg'ing and then an actual phone call, she found us. Never underestimate my talent for spatial-relations disaster (or my imperfect ability to relate spatially) or how much a lost foreigner sticks out in a crowd.

On to Belorusskaya station, where we were to meet Tara, our new friend courtesy of Kerstin. After a somewhat less harrowing meet & greet, we walked back to Tara's apartment where she not only let us shower (one of the first things I told her is that we smelled like goats, charming, I know), but do a load of laundry and play with her cat, Sasha. We went for Georgian food across the street, and then in a fit of indecisiveness, caught a taxi to Red Square. I told Big Boy to enjoy it, cuz it was a ride! Holy cats, they drive like crazy in Moscow.

We took some pictures, walked some more, pointedly ignored Dead Lenin, strolled through ГУМ (GUM), and then Tara took a taxi back to her place while Big Boy and I walked back along Tverskaya. We saw lots of crazy driving, some statues, many places to change money, lots of women in very high heels, all sorts of people in really tight pants (we'll never look like natives in that respect), found a perekhod (переход) and navigated it all on our own. A perekhod is an underground walkway lined with teeny tiny shops that sell all sorts of things. I guess they're good for ducking out of winter cold, but mostly they're good for letting humans cross the road and get to the other side. We found our way back to Tara's place and then fell unconscious for some unknown amount of time.

As it's a holiday weekend here (the holiday is Tuesday, so to have a 3 day weekend, everyone had to work Saturday, then they'd have Sun, Mon & Tues off. this explains the completely sold out trains!), the taxis were three times the price they usually are, so we took the metro to the train station. Although we were warned that it's a seedy and dangerous area, it didn't look much worse than the east side Rainbow on a Saturday night, just way more busy. We found the Ленинградский вокзал (Leningradski Vokzal, Leningrad train station), found the platform for our train, bought some bottled water, and boarded our car. After reading about Russian trains, particularly the seating only sections, I was a little apprehensive. Ha! The car was nicer than Amtrak coach seating (the only drawback is that people are allowed to smoke in the area between the cars and of course, it wafts in whenever the doors open). 2 seats on one side, 1 on the other, large reclining seat w/foot rest, eyemask, earplugs, headset (with little disposable paper covers), and... food service.