7th Sept - Bike round Moscow and train to St Petersburg

I was up early again because my body has still not adjusted to the time difference. As Dma went to bed late as he was on the computer in the living room (where I was sleeping) I did not get enough sleep but had time to faff online in the morning. Dma got up about midday and suggested that he bike with me to get my train tickets for the over night train to St Petersburg tonight.

It was a lovely sunny day today and we had a fun ride across town for 10km to the train station only to find out that the only ticket that were left were from another station, second class (£40ish) and on a much slower train that left at 8.20 rather than 11ish. We biked to the other station to get tickets for my luggage and see where the train left from. It was very nice of Dma to take the time to do this with me as it would have been difficult to translate this information without his help.



I was really hungry by the time we had finished faffing with tickets and so we went to Subway and ordered a huge sandwich! Dma then took me on a tour of the city by bike. It was nice to see Moscow in the sunshine rather than raining and gray as on Sunday when I had seen it with Asida. This time the concert in Red square had finished and so I got a chance to see the famous sights close up. The architecture in the center of the city is really lovely. Many Russians I had spoken too did not like Moscow but I thought that it was OK. It was very much like many other European cities. The traffic was OK and not too aggressive.



Red Square and the Ex-Soviet Shopping center.


I had a lovely afternoon with Dma. It is so much better to see a city with a person that lives there rather than just using a travel guide. Couch Surfing is such a fab organisation for this. Dma would not talk to me in English for the first few days as he thought his English was not good enough and was shy. After a drink or two last night though he really opened up and it turned out that his English is fluent! It was good to hear his take on Russian society etc.


This is one to Stalin's Skyscrappers.



There was even a time machine in the middle of the city.....


We got back with just enough time for me to go for a quick jog (I have been ill and done no exercise for about 1 week and my legs were telling me to use them!), pack and bike to the train station. I made good time and stopped of for a take-away sushi to eat on the train! What a treat :-)

I had the normal problems of getting my bike on a train again. This time because I could only get 2nd class tickets (rather than 3rd class as I wanted), there was no 3rd level rack for luggage storage above the 2nd level bunk! It meant that my bike had to be stored in the corridor for a while, much to the anger of the other passengers. I was allowed to move it to the area between the carriages once we got going.

I have to say that I preferred the atmosphere and the open space of the 3rd class carriages when traveling from Siberia. The 2nd class ones give each person more bed space but as the doors are shut to each room it feels very claustrophobic.

It took a while to get my bike sorted, get changed, sort out my luggage, eat diner and wait for the other people in my cabin to go to sleep and so I did not manage to get my head down until past 11 - not great when I had to be up at 4.30am....