Postcard from Almaty

We took a quick taxi across the border to Kazakhstan (three hours) to the former capital of Almaty. We didn't really have any reason we wanted to visit here except that it is a convenient place to catch the train to Moscow. There are a couple of museums and things but we didn't really get around to seeing them since we were only there for a day and a half. We did wander around the central shopping area a couple of times which is mostly remarkable for its large number of guys sitting around drinking beer on park benches. Not the most friendly of places.

We caught the train up to Moscow which is aruond 80 hours or over three full days. Needless to say by the time we arrived we were quite tired. We had a good time relaxing, reflecting and trying to talk with the people in our car. We did successfully ward off the friendly lady trying to get us to marry her daughter for a couple of hours. Everyone was very nice and often shared food and hung out talking although most of the time we couldn't follow what was being said. We eventually did arrive in Moscow and spent about 4 hours walking around tying to find a specific hostel but apparently I wrote down the address wrong. We walked for another 3 hours trying to find another one and eventually succeeded in finding a full hostel but they were nice enough to let us sleep in the laundry room. This turned out to be a huge blessing as we were both exhausted and most of the rest of the hostel was filled with a group of Germans who were in town for a football (soccer) match. They spent most of the night partying loudly and no one else got any sleep. Next step is to explore Moscow then on the 24th we'll take the overnight train up to St. Petersburgh.