Moscow

Its so great to visit a country/city filled with so many stereotypes and see how they really compare with real life (yes Russians really do love vodka, no its not filled with boring grey buildings and sad people). We had a direct flight from Berlin to Moscow. We knew it was going to be an interesting trip when we thought FOR SURE we missed our plane not once, but THREE times!!!

1. We got a late start and left for the airport not 30 minutes before departure.
   
2. The security line was longer and slower than I have ever saw.
   
3. Ingrid has issues with her passport and got escorted to some sort of police office before realizing everything was just mix up.

If you want to see some picture from my trip, click on the one below. To keep this short, I’ll just tell you the highlights/lowlights.

Highlights
Russian Anna. Having a Muscovite on the inside is an invaluable asset. From giving us a place to stay, taking us to restaurants where you have to know a ‘secret password’ to get in, and experiencing dinner with a typical Russian family, I can not thank Anna enough for all her help

Lenin. Unable to make to see Lenin’s embalmed body on Red Square the first time I was in Moscow, this was the #1 I wanted to do this time around. After getting a late start, we arrived at the mausoleum 20 minutes before close to find a line of over 200 people. Realizing it wasn’t going to see the great communist revolutionary, I was deeply saddened. As always, my red-hot Latina girlfriend was NOT going to let me down. I am still fuzzy on the details, but somehow Ingrid approached a shady character and after some negotiation, lots of arm waving, and a few Rubles to smooth the transaction we were escorted to the front of the line and hurried past numerous armed guards literally seconds before they turned the rest of the line away.

Lowlights
Metro. The subway stations were entirely marble, have the stature of a museum, and the transportation came every minute and a half. However once inside, along with their great speed came great noise allowing you to scream the national anthem yet your neighbor sitting all to close to you wouldn’t hear a word.

АБГs (ABCs). The Russian alphabet takes some getting use to. Trying to remember that H is pronounced like N, P is really R, and π is no longer 3.14159 is difficult under pressure. As a result, we ended up taking pictures with our digital camera of the word on the menu and showed it to the cashier. More than once they got a chuckle outta it.