We arrived into Moscow after taking an overnight train to the Leningradsky Station, and we all had slept horribly that night. It was way too hot in our wagon car, and we needed to keep the door open just to get a breeze to come inside. It also didn't help that we all had these giant blankets to keep us warm, and no way to open the room window. The trip there was not as fun as it could have been.
After we left our things at the hostel, we went down to breakfast not too far from there. Unfortunately, the food was inadequate, and only served to leave us needing more, and I was quite ready to just go off and search for food on my own. Luckily, I was already breaking off from the group to do my own thing anyways.
I went down to Park Pobedy to meet an old penpal of mine, Dasha, with whom I have been in communication for what it seems about 5 years now. It became a moment of getting to know each other then, due to our scarce communication within the last few years, but this trip had a way of rectifying that. We walked around Park Pobedy, and there was an event occurring in celebration of the Day of Victory Weekend, and the whole city was going crazy for it. We walked around the area for a while, but since I wanted to go see more, Dasha led me to the Novodevichy Convent.
At the convent, we went into the cemetery, and much to my surprise, it was free. Dasha's comment? "Of course it's free, it's a cemetery." I am just used to having to pay to go see the Tikhvin Cemetery in Petersburg, since many famous people are buried there, and to just have this one open to the public seemed amazing. At the cemetery, we ran into the likes of Gogol, Mayakovsky, Shalyapin (an Opera singer), Prokofiev, Skryabin, Rubinstein, and Khrushchev. I was quite content in having been able to see Gogol, thus leaving only Tolstoy and Pushkin for me to visit. (They're both buried on there estates quite far from both SPb and Moscow.)
After walking around the cemetery, I parted from Dasha, since I made plans to meet another friend, and I also had a horrible need to shower, because of not being able to check in until 2 pm that day. we left, and I headed back to Godzilla's Hostel.
After coming back from the Hostel, I headed to meet my friend Svetlana. I had recently just started talking to her, but it was nice to meet here all the same. We tried looking for the KGB building, but we both had no clue where it was, and ended up getting lost. It wasn't so bad, since we essentially just returned to where we had started (near my hostel), and went down a different path, and came upon an acapella contest going on within the city, and a man with such a lovely voice was singing soviet war songs.
We departed after watching him and singing along for a bit, and went to the State Historical Museum. I have no clue what the building used to be, but it was quite beautiful, and it had artifacts dating back to the stone age, up until 1917, with the end of the empire. We walked around, got lost a few times trying to see if there was more, and then left, and wandered around the courtyard. It was at around this time that my stomach had started to growl, and I looked at the time, seeing that it was almost time for dinner, and bid my farewell, hoping to see her once again that weekend. That did not happen. I went down to dinner, where a teaspoon of rice, and a small slice of fish was served. I was still quite famished, left after the dessert of a croissant, and got burger king. After returning to the hostel,
I met up with my friend Will, with whom I went to the Starlite Diner not so far away from the hostel. I thought I had had a good milkshake and burger in SPb up until I came to this place. The food was so American, and I was about to cry over how good it was. The milkshake was just so sugary, that I somehow later that night went into a drunken state because of the sugar, and woke up with a headache the following morning.
May 7th, 2017
As stated, I woke up with a headache, and had to take two painkillers, and drink a massive amount of water to help it subside. I got ready for the day, played on my tablet, and waited for the time to roll around to go get breakfast. We went to this Ukrainian restaurant, and I can quite happily say that I overate, because I absolutely enjoyed everything.
Soon after departing, we all took a trip to Kolomenskoye, which was the residence of the Grand Princes and the Tsars until the movement of the capital to SPb. Our tour guide reminded me of a professor due to his age and his humor, but everything he had to say was quite interesting, and man, could the man walk quickly. Most of us had trouble keeping up with him half the time. The views were amazing, and there was so much greenery, which is something I hadn't seen in Russia in quite a while.
After the trip, we went to another restaurant, I had my fill of Grecha, and I proceeded to go spend my free time with Will once again. We went to the Tolstoy museum (only getting lost once), and enjoyed it immensely. Inside there was several illustrations of his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and I really liked being able to see how Tolstoy assumed his characters to look, and not just try to translate it in my head. It was a bit of a depressing museum, but it had its charm to it of course.
We took the bus to the Gogol museum, and ended up getting on the bus going the opposite way, before correcting ourselves and heading back the correct way. We didn't manage to make it to the hotel before it closed, but the area around it was very nice and beautiful, and then we took a bus back to the metro near our hostel. We ate at burger king, and they went to the Circus program, and I went off to Sparrow Hills to meet up with Dasha once again.
We met up at the Metro, and took this ungodly steep road up to location where you can see Moscow, but my legs were about to give in from the amount of walking I had done that day. The walk was harsh, and Dasha seemed unfazed, but I was ready to fall for sure. We then walked down to the Moscow State University campus, where she told me that she ran a 10Km race around the campus, which is why she seemed so relaxed and not heaving. I don't miss hills at all. It was getting pretty late, so we decided to return home, but there was no metro station close by other than the one we came from, and we had to go downhill once again, and we ran into some of the Smolny Students who came on the trip with me, which I thought was hilarious, because how often is it that you run into people you know in Moscow?
May 8th, 2017
What a horrible day! The day started out rainy, and ended on a rainy note! Breakfast was a bit rushed, but I did go to Krispy Kreme and had a few donuts, so that did brighten up my day some. We went to the restaurant that we first went to when we arrived, and the food was considerably better. I was quite content, and ate away at everything. I overate, and I had no idea how I could walk.
We then went to the Kremlin, and the forces of the rain only grew stronger. I didn't have an umbrella, so taking pictures this day proved near impossible. I manage to take the few picture I could under the protection of some sort of wall or roof around me. We did the normal Kremlin tour, which I had done before, and then went our merry way to the Archangel Cathedral,were the princes and the Tsars before SPb were buried. I was really excited to go see Ivan the Terrible, but apparently, he had his own burial chamber built within the cathedral away from public eye, so it was not possible at all. Strike 1 on this horrible day.
Afterwards, I departed from the group to head to the Romanov Chambers, since I really wanted to go see how the Romanov dynasty lived before they became an imperial family, and much to my chagrin, it was closed for renovation. Strike 2.
I rushed back to the restaurant where everyone was eating, met up with Will, and after eating some Cordon Bleu (I ignored the rice, it was horrible), we went out to go see Stalin's Bunker. We walked through the rain and snow for over 30 minutes to reach the location, and upon our arrival, we were told that we needed to phone ahead and make an excursion. Strike 3.
At this point, I was becoming aggravated, since I had not been able to see any museum I had wanted to see that last day, and I was completely wet from falling into puddles several times. We went down to a Tatar supermarket, where I bought somethings that I missed from Kazan', and from there, we went to the Starlite Diner once again. We spent an hour or so in there, returned to the hostel, relaxed, and then made our way to the train station, and back home.
The trip itself was amazing, save for the last day when nothing was successful. С днём победы!!
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