Moscow: 04-04-2016 // 05-04-2016

Monday the 4th of April, time to start our journey. So excited to discover the world but also a bit nervous; what are we going to do coming year? The hardest part of this Monday was to say ‘goodbye’ to my mom. But as soon as we ended our hugging and dried our tears, I was ready to go! After a few hours we were airborn from Amsterdam to Moscow.

We booked the first part of our trip with Tiara Tours, it was easier to book the Trans Mongolia Express with an organisation as Tiara. They’ve arranged everything for us; transfers, hostels, excursions, the train, the stop in Mongolia and our VISA. The hotel they booked for the first night was Maxima Hotels. A hotel 20 minutes from the city center of Moscow. Clean, not to big and the rooms were fine – it had everything you need.

Tuesday the 5th of April we explored Moscow with our guide. She took us with the metro to the heart of Moscow. I truly recommend to travel by metro when you are in Moscow. Due to the 11 million (!) inhabitants there are always traffic jams and it will take you hours to get to your destination. The metros in Moscow go every minute – seriously – and besides it is easier, it’s also very beautiful. The metro stations all look like musea – made by Jozef Stalin to impress the world after World War 2. Also to show the citizens a bright future – marble walls, beautiful chandeliers and golden decorations.

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The guide – Elena – showed us the Historical museum, the red square, the Kremlin, the St. Basil’s Cathedral and the lovely shoppingcentre GUM. The red square was absolutely impressive and I loved all the colors of the St. Basil’s Cathedral. We had lunch in the GUM, which you should visit if you are in Moscow. Besides those must-sees this city is a museum itself. The buildings are build in Barok style but all in different shapes and pastel colors.

One of the most impressive things today was passing the side where Boris Nemtsov – a very important Russian politician and criticaster of Putin – was murdered. The reason behind his dead is still not revealed. These moments makes you realize you are just a small ant in the big world.

While we were impressed by the city, we didn’t really like the people. They have a very closed personality and nobody smiled.

After dinner at the hotel we relaxed a bit and at 11.45 pm it was time to take the train. Honestly – I was a bit nervous, something we wanted to do so badly, but how will we actually experience it?