All my travel documents were ready, my visa was glued in to my passport and I was at Toulouse Blagnac Airport ready for my transfer flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle - business class! As I boarded the plane I thought 'I wonder if she's been telling me the whole truth, after all you do hear stories?'.
The transfer went smoothly at Roissy (hint: if you want to impress a French person, don't call it Charles de Gaulle Airport, call it Roissy). I sat at the front of the plane and I was the only one in business class, after everyone had boarded I took what I thought was the best seat, at the front in the middle, by the door - loads of leg room. Just as they closed the door to the aircraft I had a call from Olga, the flight attendant was lightning fast and ordered me to turn off my phone. I sneaked a quick text to say 'sorry just leaving Paris, flight about to take off, I have to turn my phone off, see you at Shermetyevo x'. Olga had kindly offered to meet me at Shermetyevo Airport and take me to my hotel.The flight went well, so comfortable was my seat that I promptly fell asleep. I awoke to the sound of rattling trays as the lunch was cleared away - damn it, I was going to have to wait until Moscow to get food. Never mind.
As we went further east the landscape changed and ground turned to white. I had done a little research in to the weather in Moscow in April and that research had told me that the days would be cold and probably dry, what I hadn't figured on was the amount of snow that remained.
On landing I filled in a plethora of forms, which took me a good 30 minutes. These were then promptly ignored as I went through border control and customs. I rang Olga to find out where I should meet her at the airport. She told me that the reason she had called me earlier was that she was ill and wasn't able to make it to the airport, but she'd meet me at the hotel at 6pm, we could then go for dinner. I was a seasoned traveller by this point in my life, having spent a six month period, fairly recently being in a different country every week, so how difficult could it be to get a taxi in to the centre of Moscow?
Quite difficult actually! I had currency (in Europe or the US I never bother getting currency before I travel, I just get it at the airport when I arrive, but I did get some Rubles and some US Dollars before I arrived in Moscow, having done a little research), I had the address of the hotel, what more could I possibly need? After queuing for 15 minutes at minus 20, I eventually reached the head of the queue. I was told I needed a voucher from inside the terminal building. Back I went to the terminal building and got myself a pre-paid voucher (about £50 from memory). The queue had dissipated, thankfully and I jumped in to the next cab.
As we drove in to Moscow I looked at row after row of social housing flats, lining the massive road. It was a grey day and I'm sure it all looked a lot worse without sunlight, but it was pretty depressing. Moscovites drive like absolute maniacs (not quite as bad as when I was in Shanghai, the year before, but pretty close).
Arriving at the hotel was actually very pleasant and the room I had was massive, with a great view of the city. I could just make out the Kremlin from my room. I called Olga and she said she'd come to the hotel at 6. I put my suit on and went down to reception at 5.50 to wait for her. I was pretty nervous by this stage, the first date I'd been on in 10 years and it was about to happen! I kept looking at my watch in anticipation. At a minute to six my hands went clammy (my hands never go clammy) and I was inspecting every single woman that came in to the busy reception area to see if it was Olga.
Six pm came and went. At twenty past six I rang Olga to see where she was, no answer. She eventually arrived at 7.00pm. We kissed on the cheek and I asked her if there were traffic problems. She replied that there weren't and that it was alright because I had had to wait inside, it wasn't as if I had to wait in the cold outside. I put that down to cultural differences and decided to keep quiet about her being one hour late and not doing what she had said at the airport. We had a bit of idle chit chat and the she told me off for not answering the phone whilst I was on the ground at Toulouse - 'if I call you, it is because it is important, you should take my call, I wanted to tell you I couldn't come to the Airport as I was ill'. I explained about the thoroughly efficient flight attendant. She tutted, shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, at the same time looking thoroughly disappointed in me. I should mention that her photos were somewhat more flattering than the reality of what stood before me.
At his point, these days, I would probably say 'do you know what, I don't think this is going to work', but given I was a few thousand miles from home and had nothing else to do for the next few days, I thought better of that. A few 'never minds' later and we headed off in to the centre of Moscow. We caught the underground from near the hotel to somewhere near Red Square. Growing up during the cold war, this was pretty exciting for me to see Red Square and the Kremlin. She asked my what type of food I wanted to eat and I said something typically Russian. We went to a restaurant, which was more like a theme park than a restaurant with Gypsies prancing around. The food was foul. We had a few shots of vodka and that seemed to make the whole thing a lot more acceptable.
We talked about her time in Paris in London and I got the distinct impression, from the fact she couldn't remember where she had lived in Paris that she may not have been telling the complete truth about that part of her story. Anyway, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. At the end of the evening we took a taxi. In the taxi, her hand touched mine and she said, did I know what the large building was we were passing. It was dark, it was a new city, I didn't have a clue. She leant over and whispered in my ear 'It's the FSB, what used to be the KGB'. Now, you may be thinking 'so what'? You have to remember at this point in time that I hadn't had any degree of intimacy with a woman for months, if not years, so that actually made me quite excited.
We arrived at the hotel. I paid (as I had done for the meal) and she said she would get a cab. I said 'what's wrong with the one we were just in?'. Apparently the one we had been in was for rich people and tourists, the way everyday Muscovites move around is to hail any old car down and offer them some money. This didn't seem terribly safe to me, so I offered her the taxi fare. She declined and went on her way.
She had things to do the next day, so she couldn't meet me until the evening. It was Sunday, it was a crisp sunny day. So I got myself a map and walked in to the centre of Moscow.
This is one of Stalin's Seven Sisters (bureaucratic offices), near the hotel:
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| My first Internet Date - One of Stalin's Seven Sisters, near the hotel in which I stayed |
The tour of the Kremlin was really interesting. Here are some of the photos:
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| On my first internet date - the cannon balls were actually larger than the bore of the cannon! |
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| Didn't Lenin ban religion? |
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| The Russian Federation flag flying above the his main residence meant that Vladimir Putin was at home. |
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| Famous bell within the Kremlin. |
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| Then when you get around the other side of the bell... |
Here's some pictures of me and Red Square:
