End of the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian/Ural/ / / ///// also sidenote: moscow

We got the Moscow and checked into the Hotel Gamma, largest hotel in Europe. It was built for the Olympics and had something like 8000 rooms! We kicked back for a bit and hit the nearby market in the evening where Jon got his Malboro racing jacket after a frightening negotiation with the evil Turkish stall merchant. Picked up a couple of pirated dvds and watched them in our sky high rooms.

Next day we went out to the city center by 12:30 and missed Lenin. You have to queue up for him and they close off the line around 12:30. So we went to the Kremlin and with the misty rain and the armory mix up which had us waiting in line forever only to not be let in, it was a sorry affair until we realized all the stuff we thought was closed was actually open from the not so apparent entrance around the sides. We finally got into the armory which had an amazing collection of…. Well, everything, including lots of gold…. Lots and lots of gold.

Afterwards we went to a bar/club called Woodstock and turned in for the night. Next day we got up late for Lenin again and had to pay off some guy to let us in. Lenin was pretty cool, it’s a very somber atmosphere and the guards are very no nonsense. (word of advice, don’t do anything stupid in the mausoleum like try streaking unless you want to do our trip to Siberia in reverse, and only one way for good.) Lenin was a bit wax like and pretty short and slight.
We went along the kremlin walls and saw a bunch of tombs and graves for people like stalin and yuri gregorin (first man in space, take that Glen!) We hung out in Red Square after they opened it (it stays closed in the mornings while Lenin is out to check out) which was amazing, it’s crazy to think about what was going on here two decades ago. The highlight of the area being of course St. Basil’s cathedral. It’s impossible to look at it without humming the tetris theme song. We went inside and then went to Arbat street, a really cool artisan pedestrian street. After some sushi (yup,
very Russian) we headed to the circus to see all the crazy Russians doing the same crazy stunts as the Chinese in China but without the safety wires for the particularly insane tricks. Oh yeah, and a bear riding a motorcycle. Oh god jes.
We wound down the day at a 5 story bar/club/eating area called B-2 with some pool and a few drinks.