Journey to Moscow Russia!

Greetings! This is some pictures and ramblings on a small journey in Russia. I’m travelling with my sister Lindsay, we are doing a 12 day Intrepid tour, Russia Highlights-New Years. So if you look to the map below, we flew from Calgary AB Canada, changed planes in London England, then to Moscow Russia. So we will be working our way up from Moscow to St.Petersburg.

We had had a bit of a rocky start. We got to Moscow Dec 27. After a couple planes rides of no sleep, screaming babies for 8 hours straight, me getting all vomitty, lost luggage for 2 days, hotel not having our reservation the first night and no available rooms at midnight, no airport pick up etc, I’m happy to say we have our stuff, found someone with English to help us and things worked out. I’ve never been so happy to see my bag.

Moscow hands down wins with its Christmas lights display. Very big and grand and everywhere. My pics do it no justice. Russians don’t really celebrate Christmas the way many of us do. Only the hardcore religious celebrate Dec 25 Christmas, except Dec 25 is just a normal day and this is celebrated on Jan 7 based on old calendar systems. The biggest holiday of the year is Dec 31-Jan 8. On dec 31, Grandfather Frost delivers presents and everyone celebrates the New Year. This is not religious based. So everywhere is very Christmas like and beautiful around here. Lots of outdoor Christmas markets, skating rinks, lots of people walking around and enjoying the holiday season. It’s been quite safe to walk around at night, it’s all brightly lit up and people just doing their own thing.

There’s also a lot of history here too of course. Moscow the biggest European city and lots of history. We toured the Red Square, Kremlin and St.Basils Cathedral.

I have really enjoyed the Russian food. Wasn’t sure if I would. Not into spice or curry, thank god, and everything comes with sour cream. Lots of potatoes, dumplings, pork, chicken, beets. I was never a fan of borscht soup in Canada, but here in the motherland, it’s so delicious! We had a few shots of vodka with a lunch, pretty sure that killed off some stomach bug I had brewing because I had been feeling sick, then felt amazing after. At the bottom is a kids placemat to colour on, with Russia’s Winnie the Pooh!

Russian McDonalds and Starbucks!

Not much English here!

Another interesting point is their metro system. Quite large, most people use it, and during rush hour, the trains come every 90 seconds! Most of the stops are quite interesting. Lots of different art and dedications to different peoples and countries. On one stop you rub statues on certain spots for luck. You can see on the dog where people rub.