From Russia, with lurrrve

The snowy domes of St Basil's Cathedral in Red Square

The wall surrounding the Kremlin

Moscow city view

"It's Norman,... he took out life insurance"

Or, "Mom, I'm in Red Square!!"

Hallo! We had a great time in Moscow - I could have stayed another week.

What an amazing city. I really liked it there, more so than St Petersburg, I think.

We arrived late afternoon on Friday, dropped off our bags, and headed to Red Square. We got there just as the sun was setting, and wandered around Moscow for a few hours, and got dinner.

Saturday, we had a 3 hour tour of the Kremlin, which was really cool. We saw Faberge eggs, and lots of treasures, and walked all around the grounds and gardens of the Kremlin. We also went to see Lenin's tomb - creepy! He looked very waxy and pickled and very scary!

Sunday we did a tour of the Metro - the stations are amazing and have chandeliers, marble pillars, gold leaf, stained glass, and mosaics. Put the TTC and London Underground to shame! We tried to go to the Cosmonaut museum, but it was closed for renovations. We did get to a local market, which was fun. And finally, we headed back to the Kremlin to do a seperate tour of all the diamonds that used to be owned by the Tsars. There were thousands of diamonds, and some of the biggest rubies, sapphires, and emeralds I've ever seen. They made the English crown jewels look like gumball machine prizes! The nicest collection of bling in the world, I'm sure.

Monday we headed to Gorky Park. Then we went to the Red October Chocolate Factory, which was in the middle of a canal on a funny island. Then we went to a big famous cathedral, complete with gold onion domes. We headed back to the hotel through the pedestrianised shopping district and got some cheesy communist party souvenir t-shirts, and then hit the road to catch our flight at 5:05pm.

Traffic in Moscow is terrible, and we almost missed our flight after being told by the hotel it would take 1.5 hours to get to the airport - it took over 2 hours, and we got there with 30 minutes before our gate closed! Cutting it a bit close. Our taxi driver was a total star, and even ran red lights for us! Pretty cool, but not so great considering my seat belt didn't work - he didn't speak a word of English, and the only Russian word I know is 'thank you!'. We gave him a giant tip after his daredevil driving.

So, we're back in St Albans, and are pretty weary! It's about a 4 hour flight from here, but it was 3 hours ahead in Moscow, so we were just getting adjusted to the time change, and my body is saying it's bedtime!

Hope you all had a great Easter!