Moscow

We were completely exhausted and terribly sweaty from four days on a train when we got to the hotel. The hotel was part of three massive buildings on the out skirts of Moscow. From what we picked up they were built for the Olympics. They were all about the same size (our hotel building being 30 floors). It took the guy about 45 minutes to check us in but it was half five in the morning so that is forgivable. By the time we had showered and sorted our stuff out it was eight. We couldn't sleep because we would never get up again and we had a train to catch the next day. So we paid the quite high price for breakfast in the hotel and had a really amazing buffet. It was filled with fruit and veg done exceptionally well. It also had cheeses and breads and spring rolls and dessert and some really random other things. Then we headed out to see the Red Square and the Kremlin building. We explored the air and wandered the markets which were much more reasonably priced than Irkutsk and Lake Baikal. I suppose Moscow does good business with tourists so they don't have such high prices. Our energy drained away pretty quickly and we gave up on the sight seeing completely exhausted. Moscow seems quite nice though there isn't a lot to do but we really didn't get a chance to see much. Russian food is really good and the country is really nice. You get the occasional person who can't stand foreigners and ignores you or tries to get you to go away but you can one or two of those everywhere. Getting your visa registered everywhere can be a real pain though and the paperwork to get into the country is fairly excessive.