Moscow - Day 3

Today we woke up just in time for breakfast (unlike yesterday) and made our way down stairs to the restaurant. A rather odd selection of items where on offer including, and in no particular order... hot dogs, boiled eggs, omelets, potato salad (or at least that's what it looked like), pancakes, olives, salami, ham, cheese, baked apples (whole), jam roly poly, yoghurt, cereal, and cakes amongst many other baked specialties with unidentifiable ingredients.

After wasting 2 hours of my life waiting for Ali to post some newspapers back home (our experience with the Russian post office is almost worth writing a book about but can't upset myself trying to recall the events right now) we walk to the Architectural Museum's photography exhibition called Mockba XXI. After buying our tickets from a woman sitting at a small desk hidden away in the corner of what looked like a large banqueting hall, we were escorted out through the back of the building to a courtyard with clusters of old architectural artifacts and pieces of baroque facade from old buildings. She pointed to the cool looking graphics on a huge angled board that advertised the special event. We walked through the board into the old building and up the dilapidated stairs. Passed walls that had been stripped of their plaster down to the bare wooden lattice and limestone base. I could feel drafts from the glassless windows as I reached the exhibition room. As incredible as the work itself, was the environment in which it was exhibited - the great work of Luigi Filetici (an Italian photographer who I hadn't heard of before today) was suspended from the beams above following a walkway around the gallery. The walkway consisted of wooden decking placed over the curvy brick work that formed the arched ceiling of the first floor below. The exhibition was a photographic journey through 21 years of architecture in Moscow and rarely do I get excited or as emotional about someone's work as I did today - it was inspiring and such a great experience for me.

After the exhibition I somehow managed to get into trouble with an old Russian lady. I was sitting on the steps leading up to the post office (yes, we were there again) minding my own business, when I was told by this old lady to get off the stairs. I couldn't understand a word she was shouting but it became obvious when she vigorously tapped her behind and then pointed at mine. Language difficulties have reached an all time high. It's frustrating when we can't get what we want, or even see what's on offer for that matter. We have really struggled to communicate throughout the past few days and it seems only the young and well educated Russians speak some English. We are at least able to speak a few simple words to express gratitude which helps. Overall, our experience with the Russian locals hasn't been very friendly or welcoming. I can't help but sense bitterness amongst them. Maybe it's because they themselves are unable to travel and therefore don't take too kindly to people visiting their country. Or maybe we have just been very unfortunate and met the more unapproachable half of the population.

We bought our food supply for the start of our Trans-Siberian journey at a place that can only be described as a Russian reasonably priced Harrod's. This shop stocked everything the average grocery store would have at normal prices except the interior itself was far from what you would expect. The building used to be a palace belonging to the princess of a tzar. After the revolution, the building was bought by a company who subsequently converted the grand space into a food store. We spent a while looking at all the different food stuffs on offer and compared prices. After we purchased everything we needed for our long train ride, we headed back to the hotel where we met our driver who then took us to the train station.

The great Trans-Siberian rail routes await us...