I havent been writing for a long long time now. The reason is simple: I've been traveling. Well, not really traveling, rather a short city trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg.
I really needed this trip and I feel how much energy it gave me again. Even tho I was yesterday and am today just sitting around I feel how this one week filled up my batteries a bit. It was good to meet new people again and have good conversations to them.
I left Ekenäs, where I'm staying with A and her parents right now, on the 5th, so last Saturday. I went to Helsinki and took the night train to Moscow. I had really nice cabin mates, brother and sister, both Russian. They came from an AC/DC concert in Stockholm. I was lucky, since they spoke English and we were talking the whole evening. It was funny, because the guy, Ivan, bought beer on the ship as he explained it with a thick Russian accent:
"On boat I came downstairs in shop. I saw Koff 24 beer, I saw cheap price, I bought. Now have to drink, but it is too much. You help me."
While saying that he poured me the first drink into my glass. I thanked him and drank it. When my glass was empty he took my glass and said again:
"Too much beer. We have to finish!"
and filled up my glass. This went on and on until late in the night and left me quite tipsy.
When the train arrived in Moscow the next morning I had a slight headache. I was picked up from the train station by K., a Russian girl, who I knew from university in Helsinki. I had contacted her before, just to have a local contact. But since she was scared of me being alone in Moscow for the first time and not speaking a word of Russian, she agreed to meet up and to be my private tour guide.
We went first to the hostel, so I could leave my luggage. Then we made our way down to the Kremlin and the red square, the attraction, that shout more than anything "Russia". I felt bad that K. used her day off to take care of me and so I paid her coffee and entrance fees. After half a day she said goodbye and I realized, that, since I paid everything twice, my budget for the day was nearly used up. Later that day, when I went to the supermarket my money was just enough to buy water and dry bread.
After the goodbye I was strolling around the city alone and was amazed how many people considered me one of them. A lot of people were asking me stuff in Russian and were totally disappointed when they realized I didnt understand a word of what they were saying nor could answer them in a way they would understand. In the evening this changed. My hostel, which didn't had water or electricity, was mainly used by Germans. I talked to them and they agreed, that we could do something together during the next couple of days. 
The most important thing was, that we were helping each other to cope with the situation of the hostel not having water or electricity. Next to the hostel was a construction ground and in a talk to one of administrators of the hostel I found out, that the hostel was standing on extremely valuable ground and that the construction workers did cut the utilities off, so they hostel-owners would finally give in onto the buying offer of their neighbors. According to the guy I was talking to it was pure anarchy and everybody could and would do things like this to get what they want.It was however not such a bad situation as it might appears. The owners had another hostel just five minutes away and we were able to shower and use the toilet there. Even tho it was not that convenient it was working and to be honest, I was anyways just sleeping in the hostel and during that time I dont need running water nor electricity.
During the next days I was walking through the city with the four Germans I met. We visited the Museum of modern Arts, a very impressive graveyard of Moscow and went to the university of Moscow, which is located a little bit outside on a small hill, in order to get a good view over the city. But when we came there we could not enter.
Since the terror attacks a couple of months ago the whole city and especially important buildings were secured by police, military and security companies. This however gave a safe and controlled feeling in this rather hectic and intimidating city. Although a lot of weird people were on the streets, even in the night it felt safe. Therefore we decided to go one night to a classical concert in the Tshaikovski Concert Hall, which is one of the biggest classical theaters in Russia.
The three days in the city passed like nothing, especially because of the good company and the many sights to see. It was really nice and I was a bit sad to leave and was envying M. & L., for whom Moscow was just the first station of there 3-months trip through Russia, Mongolia and China. After the three days together I wished them good luck for the rest of their trip and took my plane to St. Petersburg.~M~
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