2003-07-15
Sergey picks us up at 10 AM to drive us to the airport a few kilometers away. Leaving us at the departures terminal he hands over a gift from Alina and a greeting saying that she hopes to see HJ soon again. Lucky guy! The Moscow flight, in an Ilyushin 86, is not an Aeroflot plane, but some code sharer, but we take off at the scheduled time. The plane is almost empty so we're all able to lie down on a row of seats. In Moscow there is a seemingly infinite queue to get out of the airport through the secutiry check. Nydda gets a bit irritated on the Russian queue system, where the one with the sharpest elbows comes first out, so he stars yelling "Transit Sheremetevo dva!, Transit!, Transit!". Maybe Nydda is a decendant of Moses, because the sea of people parts and lets us through! Our transit flight to Stockholm leaves in 15 hours, but we act like we're in a hurry... The 15 hours we aim to spend in downtown Moscow so we leave our luggage at Sheremetevo 2 and take a very crowded bus into town. After an extremely hot ride we get of by a subway station and go to the McDonalds branch by the Kremlin. Satisfied and with quenched thirst we buy some paper bags from a fashion store to use them as matresses for some well needed rest in the park. The park is filled with people enjoying a beautiful summer day in the city. We try to get a few hours of rest since we need to be awake until our plane leaves early tomorrow morning. Finding it hard to relax in the busy park we go to a posh Irish pub to use the bathroom and have a coke. Having no specific plans for this day we randomly selects a subway line leading north west. One of Stalins seven sisters (a set of seven sky scrapers with a red star at the top scattered around Moscow) happen to be just outside the station we choose to go to. After walking around a bit we find a cafe where we have some beers and a bottle of vodka. The cafe owner, of turkish decent, recommends a night club somewhere in Moscow, and arranges a taxi to take us there. The club is in three floors with a good selection of different russian dance music, no westerner place, we are probably the only non-Russians among the five hundred or so guests. On the roof there is an open air bar. Sande & Nydda shoot some pool, while Hobbe talks to the Swedish speaking Nikolaj. Hobbe later goes down to the dance floor and orders (25 roubles) "Leningrad dotschka ru" from the DJ. The crowd gets excited by this song as usual, and Hobbe joins in the wild dancing. The hours run by pretty fast and at 5 AM Nydda & Sande (being the more sober ones this night) manages to get the others to realize that it is time to get to the airport. We hail a privateer and offers him 900 roubles (23 euros) hoping on maybe getting away with a thousand after the customary bargaining, which we think would be a good deal. We are quite surprised when the elderly driver says "Njet, njet - 500 is more than enough"! At the airport we have a pizza slice breakfast, visit the Tax free shops and spend an hour playing poker dice before it's time to board the Boeing to Stockholm.
Sergey picks us up at 10 AM to drive us to the airport a few kilometers away. Leaving us at the departures terminal he hands over a gift from Alina and a greeting saying that she hopes to see HJ soon again. Lucky guy! The Moscow flight, in an Ilyushin 86, is not an Aeroflot plane, but some code sharer, but we take off at the scheduled time. The plane is almost empty so we're all able to lie down on a row of seats. In Moscow there is a seemingly infinite queue to get out of the airport through the secutiry check. Nydda gets a bit irritated on the Russian queue system, where the one with the sharpest elbows comes first out, so he stars yelling "Transit Sheremetevo dva!, Transit!, Transit!". Maybe Nydda is a decendant of Moses, because the sea of people parts and lets us through! Our transit flight to Stockholm leaves in 15 hours, but we act like we're in a hurry... The 15 hours we aim to spend in downtown Moscow so we leave our luggage at Sheremetevo 2 and take a very crowded bus into town. After an extremely hot ride we get of by a subway station and go to the McDonalds branch by the Kremlin. Satisfied and with quenched thirst we buy some paper bags from a fashion store to use them as matresses for some well needed rest in the park. The park is filled with people enjoying a beautiful summer day in the city. We try to get a few hours of rest since we need to be awake until our plane leaves early tomorrow morning. Finding it hard to relax in the busy park we go to a posh Irish pub to use the bathroom and have a coke. Having no specific plans for this day we randomly selects a subway line leading north west. One of Stalins seven sisters (a set of seven sky scrapers with a red star at the top scattered around Moscow) happen to be just outside the station we choose to go to. After walking around a bit we find a cafe where we have some beers and a bottle of vodka. The cafe owner, of turkish decent, recommends a night club somewhere in Moscow, and arranges a taxi to take us there. The club is in three floors with a good selection of different russian dance music, no westerner place, we are probably the only non-Russians among the five hundred or so guests. On the roof there is an open air bar. Sande & Nydda shoot some pool, while Hobbe talks to the Swedish speaking Nikolaj. Hobbe later goes down to the dance floor and orders (25 roubles) "Leningrad dotschka ru" from the DJ. The crowd gets excited by this song as usual, and Hobbe joins in the wild dancing. The hours run by pretty fast and at 5 AM Nydda & Sande (being the more sober ones this night) manages to get the others to realize that it is time to get to the airport. We hail a privateer and offers him 900 roubles (23 euros) hoping on maybe getting away with a thousand after the customary bargaining, which we think would be a good deal. We are quite surprised when the elderly driver says "Njet, njet - 500 is more than enough"! At the airport we have a pizza slice breakfast, visit the Tax free shops and spend an hour playing poker dice before it's time to board the Boeing to Stockholm.