Sunday, September 20, 2009

From the Red Train to the RED SQUARE

There's something about trains and boys. The anticipation of getting on the night train from St. Petersburg to Moscow is energy filled. We have a sleeper car but you wouldn't know it from the ticket, actually you wouldn't know what anything on the ticket, the train station wall or the arrival departure board said because every symbol might as well have been from something on the Egyptian sarcophagus at the wing of the Hermitage. Imagine looking out to a crowded train station and walking up and asking 50 people "Do you speak English?"and "Is this the right train to Mockba? That was our last 1.5 hours in St. Petersburg. Someone said "It will be the red train" Is that a joke, I ask myself. We wind up on Platform 5 and the train is RED with a green Engine and the unmistakable Red Star on the locomotive.

Our sleeper car is simple yet effective. The family is split between 2 cars. Ann and Pearse wind up together with 2 other young girls. Pearse said "Eamon, I can handle it; you stay here with the smelly feet!" Eamon, Seamus and I bunked with a Russian. What a difference a couple of decades make. He was a well travelled train veteran and "showed us the ropes", literally the ones that hold the top bunks in place. We managed to communicate and I am confident that he took pity on me, the dad, managing 2 teenagers on the train each full of energy and an 8 hr ride to Moscow. We Americans laughed, guffawed and traded jokes as the 26 car train left the platform. Our hope is that in 8hrs the rail system of Russia will deliver us to the capital of Russia so we can mix with the 12 million folks that call Moscow their home.

Success is ours. We arrived at Moscow at 8:00 AM sharp. Our day is one of hotel check in and getting ourselves to Red Square and a short visit to the world famous Kremlin for a quick look see. As you can see from the pictures we had a successful day.

Life is good as long as I don't have to spell in Cyrillic!

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