Spent the morning reading Gulliver’s Travels, staring out the window and playing scrabble with Ruan. We arrived in Moscow at 6pm. There were so many people it was a bit overwhelming.



The difference between Irkutsk and Moscow is night and day. Irkutsk is a back-water country town where exiles were sent. That can still be felt. Moscow is a huge, bustling, “cool” city (although it is a bit scary and very dirty). We took the Metro to our hostel, Sweet Moscow, very conveniently located on Arbat Street, across from Hard Rock Café and surrounded by a million restaurants. Our first time in a dorm with other people on this trip. We met Mike (from our Baikal trip) and a guy named Will from England and all went to Happy Hour at the Hard Rock.