Some very suspicious people

We went to Moscow over the easter weekend, it really was an interesting visit. There were 8 of us all together, including some of my mates and my Sarah. As usual Rob has written a pretty good email about it so I will post that instead of writing one of my own.

With the Easter break providing a window of 4-days, we departed London early on Good Friday. The time difference meant that we lost 3 hours, and then the phenomenon known as Moscow traffic meant that we lost another 2, so after checking into our hotel, we had little time to do more on our first day than find a restaurant for dinner and plan our next days' excurisons.

Before getting on to the trip details, one of the highlights for me was our hotel - Hotel Ukraina. Built by the river, the 30-storey building is one of 7 built by Stalin in the style of "Soviet classicism". It certainly was a classic soviet-style experience - each room had period furniture from the 1960s, the marbled lobby included a ceiling mural of workers, farmers and soldiers waving red banners and, with over 1,000 rooms to administer, the staff seemed to be made up of communist-era public servants......... The hotel even had its own observation deck with wonderful 360 degree views of the city and came complete with its own secret service cronie to prevent you from taking photos of various important government buildings dotted along the cityscape.

On a rainy and cold Saturday we were met by our university student guides who took us on a tour through the city. We walked around the gardens and chapels of the Kremlin, past Red Square to St. Basil's Cathedral. In the evening we trekked out to the suburbs to watch the Moscow State Circus which was a very impressive show. It included some very talented trapeze and rope artists, acrobats and jugglers, animal acts, Cossack daredevil horsemen and, at one stage, the floor was even recessed to give way to an ice-rink with acrobatic skaters........

On Sunday we queued at Red Square to see the embalmed body of "Grandfather" Lenin and view the tombs of various other communist leaders buried outside the Kremlin walls. We then went on a walk through Moscow's inner city suburbs, up the main shopping street to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. On Monday, we had the good fortune of stepping out the front door of our hotel to see a speeding motorcade taking President [Boot Scootin'] Putin to work - again, this came complete with secret service cronies ensuring that no bystanders were snapping away photos which may breach security protocol. With the day turning out to be particularly nice and sunny, we ventured back to Red Square and St. Basil's to take some brighter pictures. After a lunch of yummy borshch, vareniki and pelmeni, it was time to collect our luggage and make our way out to the airport.

The trip to the airport must be one of the cheapest excursions to any airport anywhere in the world! A remnant of Soviet pride is the massive Moscow Metro system. Each station is designed in grand Soviet style with statues, murals and mosaics of happy workers and soldiers being greeted by important figures such as Lenin and Stalin and bas reliefs still depicting the hammer and sickle. But with trains arriving each minute on a network combining more than 260km of track, this is the largest mass transit system in the world - It carries more passengers per day than the London Tube, Paris Metro and NY Subway put together! Meaning that the airport, in remote woodland some 40km outside of the city, can be reached efficiently for a fare of just £0.35......

Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". To me, I did not find it that strange - it seemed very much like a large industrialised city slowly emerging from its communist past. The way of life still seemed very regimented and basic, with unnecessary levels of security and administration. The city itself was generally dirty and emotionless and, humorously, the people's fashion and grooming senses seemed very much rooted in the 80s. But overall it was a great experience and a very interesting destination. Travel was not easy and I must say a special thank you to JC, whose mastery of the Cyrillic alphabet meant that we always got where we were trying to get to and remained well fed. Having seen the massive development and flood of tourists to former-Eastern Bloc countries like Czech Republic and Hungary, I was pleased to experience a city which seemed to have drawn the Iron Curtains, but had only just begun to open the window to allow capitalist culture to waft in.

Farcenal Part Deux

I don't know whether I want the Arse to beat Juve tonight. I do admit to being glad they beat Madrid, but I still hate them. Obviously I don't want them to win the competition, as the FA have already said that if they do and finish outside the top 4 then they will qualify for next year at the expense of the fourth place team, which I am hoping will be Spurs (but will in all likelyhood be Arsenal anyway)

There is something inside me that says I should support the only remaining English team, but fuck that, they aren't even an English team. The only thing about them that makes them English is that they play their games in England. There hasn't been an English player in the team for ages. I play for Kiwi FC, the team is entirely made up of New Zealand born players, we play our games in England - we are not an English team. There are more English players playing for Real Madrid than there are playing for Arsenal.

Fuck em - Go Juve

Back into the swing

Well it’s all back to normal in London town, it’s hard to get straight back into it after having had 3 fabulous weeks off – which is why I am writing this and not working at the moment.

Sydney was brilliant, it was so wonderful to see my family again, they are certainly living in a fantastic place. Was great to introduce Sarah to everyone and show her around my home town; did loads of things together that I just wouldn’t have done if I was there alone. Oportos just isn’t what it used to be, although I still ate plenty of it, we have a great zoo, and everyone should do the Bridge Climb – tourist or not. I have fallen in love with my city again.

Had a good few days in Hong Kong on the way back – the place smells of dried fish, urine, pollution and sweat. I had a great time pissing off electronics sellers buy suggesting ridiculously low prices for their goods, and every night I felt like I was in the movie Blade Runner.

So it’s back into the swing of things here, I am still slightly on Hong Kong time. I’ve got a mountain of work to get through but the hardest thing is getting back up to date and working out what has been going on while I was away. I haven’t caught up with many people just yet because they were all watching the boat race which I regard as the most over-hyped and pointless sporting event on the British calendar, and as such I avoided it.

Once the workload dies down a little I will do my best to blog regularly but for now I will make a parting comment with regards to that old Sydney v Melbourne thing that Melbournites like to call a rivalry. The calibre of the two cities can be summed up as such:

Melbourne: Commonwealth Games

Sydney: Olympic Games