Woke up this morning at 7am feeling knackered. The room was really hot when we arrived as the radiator had been on ages so we slept with the window open for a bit but it was arctic outside. To add to it Phil snores like a hog lol. Went to breakfast and ate loads as we were that hungry and then following Phil’s tips we stocked up on food for lunch (boiled eggs, bread rolls, jams etc). Our bags were meant to be coming to the airport on the 12:05 flight so we asked reception to keep trying to get through while we went into the centre of Moscow to do a tour of the city.
To cheer myself up I thought I would make light of the lost bags situation and do a little video in the Style of one of Catherine Tates Characters (if you know you know).
Our tour guide Jenya came to the hotel at 10am and took one look at me in my hoody with no gloves and scarf or hat and shook her head with a worried expression. Luckily she spoke very good English so when we explain we had no bags or clothes due to the Airline leaving them in Helsinki she told us she would take us first to a second-hand shop that was close by. Phil had packed his hat and gloves in his hand baggage so just needed a fleece. While we were in reception two British girls arrived and we were explaining our situation so they went to their room and unpacked and brought down a hat and gloves for me, bless em. We went to the second-hand shop and I managed to get a navy blue fleece and a lovely coat that Roy Cropper would have been proud of lol (well at least I wouldn’t freeze).
We took the tube to Red Square with our guide and she showed us all the main things to see so we could visit them inside when we wanted to spend more time there. The stations looked very impressive and Jenya highlighted a few “must-see” stations on our map. It was so cold though I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to take pictures. The tour finished at about 12pm and we decided to head back to the hotel and check on the baggage situation and thaw out for a bit.
We set off back to the centre of Moscow at about 8pm for something to eat as Jenya had told us about a nice Russian restaurant called Yalki Polki that served good food and was reasonably priced. Before going to the restaurant we got some really nice pictures or Red Square by night. There were lots of different huge Christmas trees brightly lit and a lot of the buildings were highlighted with lights. We both had the all-you-can-eat salad bar as she had recommended this due to the number of different foods we would be able to try. We were that hungry we had 3 plates full each and tried almost everything. They seem to like beetroot a lot here as a few of the dishes were beetroot based. I tried a local vodka drink with cranberry which was okay and Phil had one of the local beers.
We got back to the hotel about midnight hoping that our bags would have been delivered, NO SUCH LUCK !!!
Observation:- Get some spare camera batteries in Beijing and charge them all when we get a chance in case we don’t have access to power for a while.
Mood:- Naffed off as tomorrow will be DAY 3 without our luggage, clean clothes or any of the stuff we packed being organised but it’s of no use to us. Tomorrow night we get picked up to go on the trans-Siberian railway so how the hell we will explain where to send our bags I have no idea.