An End Has a Start

Tuesday February 26th- Wednesday February 27th

And so it came to be that we were in our last city of the trip with just a couple of nights to go. As we stepped off the train there was a definite feeling of anti-climax in that it felt like we should then be getting on the plane to go home rather than spending time in another city and I think that actually clouded our experience of Moscow. We only had the one full day there and made sure that we walked to Red Square to see St. Basil's Cathedral, such a strange building, and then walked around the outside of the Kremlin and along the river. To be honest though once we'd done this we'd had enough of the rudeness of Moskovites and the cost of the place as well. Moscow is unbelievably expensive and although you hear about all the nouveau riche thanks to the gas and oil you can't quite relate that to Russia, but then you arrive and it's in your face. There are all manner of expensive shopping malls and there are so many big, expensive cars it's silly. 50% of the cars are Ladas and the other 50% are huge BMWs, Mercedes, Porsche and Range Rovers.

I think that given the amount of effort we'd gone to get the visas and then get invited into Russia and then getting the visas registered we'd hoped to be a bit more enthused about being there but sadly we weren't. We can tick Moscow off cities visited but we certainly didn't feel like we'd seen the best of it in our couple of days there.

So when it came to getting to the airport for our flight back to the UK we were more than happy and spent the time in the airport stalking James May of Top Gear fame. I think Rach really wanted to give him her details so he could pass them on to Richard Hammond but I kept her at a safe distance!


Landing back in Heathrow certainly gave us mixed feelings. Glad to be home and have the chance to catch up with friends and family but sad not to be able to carry on seeing the world. The trouble, in a good way, with heading off for these sorts of trips is that it doesn't quell your desires to travel but increases them as you see other places and also speak to people about other places that you should go and see. Instead of your wish list getting shorter it gets much longer. We need to get some money first before we think about doing this again but it certainly isn't out of the question that we will be off on our travels again. A lot of people have said about it being a trip of a lifetime and some aspects of it may be a once in a lifetime opportunity but then we certainly want to be in New Zealand again at some point and Canada.

We took this trip as a chance to have a look at ourselves and try and work out what it was that we wanted from life and to some extents we have worked a few things out but in others we're no clearer now than 6 months ago, I think another holiday is needed for that! I hope that the blog has been a vaguely entertaining read and has helped to give an idea of what we've been up to. It's been fun writing it but that as they say is that. Next stop...work!

Big Trip...Done!