Moscow Nights!

Moscow was a short-lived but REALLY fun trip. We left on a sleeper train for Moscow on Friday night. It was really nice although we all had trouble sleeping. We felt like we were in a Harry Potter movie, lol. We arrived at about 8am and continued with a full day of sight-seeing. We started off with Red Square (St. Basils Cathedral, Gum, Kremlin, etc.) - it was of course awesome. We were able to see the changing of the guards (looks like a clip out of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks) and LENIN!!! It was unreal. It was some of the strictist security I've gone through and the whole experience was slightly sureal. He looks fake, but of course it's his real body. After the Red Square, we went to a really famous graveyard (can't remember the name) and we saw MANY famous people's grave-stones, including Boris Yeltsin and Shostakovich! From there we went to the hotel to check in. It was a long metro ride. The hotel we stayed in is a part of this tourist hotel complex. They're really nice. I was SO happy for a nice hot shower and a real bed! After a little down-time, we went back to the Red Square, this time to get a full tour of the Kremlin. We saw the largest bell in the world, the largest canon in the world, the presidents quarters and offices, and of course MANY cathedrals. It's a beautiful place with a lot of rich history. After a nice dinner, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the night. We pre-gamed in the hotel and left to go out dancing at Hard Rock Cafe (aparently it's also a dance-club there). Unfortunately the entire city (and country) was stopped for the football game (Russia vs. Holand) and there was no dancing anywhere. After buying some t-shirts anyways, we found a nice cafe to sit and watch the game. Russia won and everyone went crazy (of course)! Overall, it was a REALLY fun night. On Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel, which was really nice. We toured an AMAZING art gallery (Tretskoye I think it was called) lead by a really sweet old lady. Then we went back to the hotel area for the souvenir shopping trip of a lifetime. We were staying by the biggest open-air souvenir market in the country and bought a lot of really awesome things. The weekend was extremely exhausting so most of us stayed around the area for dinner and to get ready to leave. We took another overnight train back to St. Petersburg (much crappier than the first, which sucked). Some people partied but our cabin pretty much went straight to bed because we're cool like that. We got back around 8am this morning (about 8:30 to our home stays) and had to be at school at 10am, which sucked. There were 3 people there, including me, who actually made it on time. School was ok, but we were all VERY tired. I went to a cafe after school and went to a laundromat with a friend after that. You pay to have people do your laundry here, it's not really self-service. So, I'm currently waiting for my laundry to get done. Tonight we're all staying in because we're all so exhausted. Overall, Moscow was awesome and we all had a great weekend. Less than one week left, then on to Europe!!!