FROM MOSCOW

It's Sunday morning and I'm laying in bed in our six-person hotel in Moscow. Fortunately I'm the only single male in our tour group, so I keep getting my own room. It's rough being me.

In a couple hours we head to the train station to begin our adventure on the Trans-Siberian railroad. This first portion starts at 1:30pm today and ends on Thursday morning. I love trains, but this is a LONG time for me to be without a shower, access to the internet or warm food. Of course, after a quick shopping trip last night, I WILL be travelling with three tubes of Pringles, multiple Snickers and Twix, heaps of cashews, plenty of Evian (yes, I know, naive backwards), several bananas and four yogurts.

I'm definitely looking forward to the scenery, a chance to do lots of reading and the opportunity to get to know the others on the tour a bit better.

As for Russia, I hate to say it, but I think I've been a bit disappointed by St. Petersburg, Suzdal and Moscow. I suppose it's mostly my fault for having had greater expectations for what the cities would look like.

The big tourist attractions (Hermitage, Kremlin, Red Square, Winter Palace, Lenin's Tomb) have been lovely, but outside of those tiny areas I've found the cities gray and drab and depressing. In addition, the residents also seem less than giddy. Not a whole lot of smiling from them.

The infrastructure is just insanely bad in the cities and I've not (even in Egypt) ever seen so many folks "working" jobs where workers weren't actually needed!

I will say there are LOTS of McDonald's here.

Having said all this, the Hermitage was, literally, among the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen and visiting Lenin's Tomb was so insanely peculiar that all I could do was laugh when I came to the revered body.

Well, I should drag myself out of bed and into my final shower of the week!

Likely will be out of contact for a bit as I test Amtrak's notion that "There's Something About a Train".



Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry