Day 1 - Saturday, 5/13

We have arrived!

We landed around 8:00 on Saturday and waited for about 45 min to get through customs. Apparently what little English the Aeroflot stewardess knew didn't include the right information about our immigration cards. Dave and I waited in line and when Dave got up to passport check-in they told him he needed to fill out the form that the stewardess told him he didn't need to. Crap! We were both tired and just wanted to get to our hostel. By the time we finished the form the line had died down and we breezed through.

Ran passed the taxi drivers wanting our business to take us into Moscow and went to the Mashrut which is a shuttle bus. $1 later we were on our way. I talked to a guy on the bus who knew a little English and he gave me some info along the way. He wanted to know about Atlanta and he remembered the Olympics. Nice guy. He helped us find the Metro stop after the bus dropped us off.

We navigated the Metro pretty well. The closer to the center of the city you got the more ornate the stops. A lot of stone work and marble tiles. Some of the stops are pretty cool. The cars themselves look like they are straight out of the 40s/50s.

It took us a little while to find our hostel - we took a wrong turn out of the Metro stop. I was a little worried when we walked into the foyer of the place. Pretty dingy and dark and the elevator barely had room for Dave, me and our bags.

We met Nastia, the manager of Sweet Moscow at the door to the hostel and we filled out the paperwork and got the key. We were both feeling nasty at this point so we each took showers before we headed out to find something to eat. As sad as it sounds, we were both so tired and not in the mood to do a lot of searching for food at 11 at night so we just went across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe and had a hamburger. Aside from the fact that I think we each inhaled a pack of cigarettes while eating, the food and beer were good.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and hit the sack. Slept like a rock.

B