Got up early and ate breakfast then set off to the airport to try and collect our bags. We got to the train station at 11.10am and had just missed the train and the next one wasn’t until 1.50pm so we decided to go to red square and see some of the sights. I managed to pick up some Moscow postcards which I promised I would send to mum and aunty, also bought some Russian dolls as a souvenir (when in Rome and all that). We waited for about an hour in the cold to visit Lenin's tomb and see him lay in a glass casket (not particularly riveting but you have to do these things lol).
We got to the airport at 2.50pm and made our way to the baggage claim area where there was a queue of people but nobody seemed to be leaving with any bags. We handed our form to the woman when we eventually got to the front and was told “WAIT” and shown back outside the room. Russian people started to get annoyed after an hour or so and began to yell at the woman in the baggage room and seemed to then get sorted with their bags. After about 2.5 hours Phils bag appeared but not mine. I explained to one of the woman that we had two not one as nobody seemed to be doing anything. As it got later and later I was starting to panic as we would soon have to set off back to the hotel to be picked up to go on the trans-Siberian railway.
Eventually, I’d had enough as I had visions of not having any of my stuff for the whole trip which would of just ruined things for me, so I started kicking off with one of the woman who again just kept saying “wait”, so I grabbed another woman and told her I’d been “waiting” for 3hours and everyone else seemed to have got their bags and gone. She made another call to the other baggage area where the bags seemed to be coming from and then told me “5 minutes”. As it happened it was only 5 minutes and my bag appeared.
We then had to faff about with customs form but it was written in Russian so I explained I couldn’t understand it so she huffed and filled it in for me (which kina makes a farce of the whole thing as she had no idea what was in my bag and made it up. In the end and with great relief we were given our bags.
We made our way back to the train station and bought some local vodka and beer for the trip. While we waited for our lift to the train we got chatting to a young English couple called Haiden and Tracey. They are doing the same trip as us to Beijing so at least we know we will have two people we can talk to if nobody else ends up being English on board.
We both couldn't wait to get changed into some new CLEAN clothes. I've never been so happy to see my clothes :-)
We were picked up at the hotel at 10pm and taken to the train station for the trans sib. When we first got on the 'coupe' that we were in looked tiny. There was a top and bottom bunk on either side of the carriage and you could store your bags either under the bottom bed or above where the door was. Phil took the top one as I wouldn’t be able to reach the top one and I tool the bottom one. We were sharing with a Russian guy called Victor who spoke no English at all.
Pretty soon after getting settled we set off and just went to bed as it had been a long day.