Mission to Moscow
Arrived in Moscow a bit too late for the formal meeting, which was apparently set up for 18:00, but when the tour says "arrive at any time during the day", I think it should be okay anyway. Wasn't like I missed much anyway, and both meeting two I guessed was on the tour in the elevator as well as my roommate, I did get all the information I needed which was basically - we'll meet up in 15minutes to go out to eat.
The halfway uncomfortable dinner was russian style, and I got several of the party on board with my "say yes to everything, unless you have a very good reason why not" mantra. Which both ended up in one of them ordering some cheap caviar which does not taste as pleasant as the more expensive ones to say it in a nice way. It also meant that my day ended up at the local bingo where we got to drink for free while we played - and with the cost of a play being about the same as a beer, I think we got a decent deal here. As well as a night that was probably a lot more fun than just going back to the hotel to sleep.
Day two in Moscow started with a gathering of whomever wanted to go with the group to the city centre. Although I did hold a ticket for the Bolshoi theatre, I didn't see any reason to not join them, and thus I did.
A small stroll through lots of security blockades took us up to the Kremlin, where I through I'd rather make my way to the theatre instead of joining them for a short time. Even more blockades had been put up, so it was the right choice.
About a month before I left I got some offers on mail for tickets to the theatre, for about 3-4x the cost of what the website of the theatre offered themselves - awesome offers in other words, but I still opted for buying my ticket directly.
The ballet was on vacation, but the opera was still in play and their performance of Carmen was spectacular. It did however not stop me from falling asleep, but that was probably the cost of getting my bags in the middle of the night the other day.
After the show was over the weather had declined, but the parade or whatever they held on the red quare, but it was still packed with people, and just getting to St Basil's Cathedral was a halfday trip itself.
On my way back to the mainstreet it started raining and I found a resturant that adviced me that the pasta I ordered was very hot. Apparetly their definition is very different for our regarding hot food as it was mostly pretty boring, but I got to enjoy two swedes who barely spoke anything else that a very broad dialect of swedish getting through their meal and paying for it.
WIth a late departure from Moscow by train, I still wanted to get as much as possible from my day there, but the rain did make it more difficult. Their subway stations are however worth a look as well, so I stopped shortly on some of them on my way back home.
Back at the hotel, mosts of the group had already gathered, but there's always a need to get to know them better, and a few hours just talking can do miracles.
Placing everyone in their rooms on the train was also done before we left, and the rain had gotten even heavier by the time we went to the trainstation. A massive rainfall on the quite long walk/run from the trainstation to our wagon which left us soaked wet at the start of the main journey - but after this we didn't see more rain for the entire trip, so I would say we were lucky with that.
