Moscow

Yesterday evening we arrived in Moscow. Believe it or not, Moscow looks a lot like Los Angeles. We arrived to a major traffic jam on the freeway and about 30 minutes in, our bus was pulled over by the Moscow Police (with no PC). We were told before we entered Russia that the Police here will extort you for fines whenever possible. Our bus driver ended up losing about 40 Euro in order to get us back on the road. The only thing that made the stop faster was that our Tour Manager told the Police we were on our way to the EuroVision Pop Music contest (previous winners include ABBA).

This morning we went on a tour of the Moscow Metro Subway system. The Metro is crazy and I think we saw all 15 million of the population of this city underground. Next we went to a Military museum before heading to Red Square. Unfortunately it was raining a lot today, but that didn't spoil our 'WOW' moment when first seeing St. Basil's Cathedral, GUM Department Store, and the Kremlin.

It was pouring rain today when we went to have lunch and ended up at, of all places, McDonalds. It was comforting to be there, but we were a little worried when we went to order and had no idea how to accomplish that. Luckily Big Mac is known worldwide, so we went with that. Russian food is pretty disgusting, so McDonalds was a welcome site.

After lunch we went to see Gorky Park (we only saw the entrance) and Statue Park, where they retire a lot of the old statues that don't go along with the current political situation. We had a traditional Russian dinner and ended the night at a bar called 'Sorry Babushka' which translates to 'Sorry Grandma'.