After a somewhat sleepless night, I spent the morning before checking out looking for a hostel that was cheap to crash at for a few days. There was a fair few but actually the cheapest one was a place down the road, maybe only a mile away, so I booked myself there for 4 days.
I survived Moscow's crazy traffic and got there in no time. In fact I got there around 1130 (the check in time on booking.com's app said 12) but then could not find the damn place. I must have spent a good 15 minutes around the back of the building before heading to the front again where the concierge of the building shouted “hostel?".
After what an observer would possibly see as some sort of bizarre ‘Mime-off' between the two of us I was able to discern that the hostel was number 22 on the 6th floor and that I was able to use the lift for my bike ('Velo' in russian) and baggage.
Up on the sixth floor the hostel door was unmarked and also unremarkable compared to its opposite number. How anyone would know that place even existed was beyond me. I'd left my bike downstairs with the concierge and took the essentials with me, rang the door bell and the door opened automatically. I was greeted to the most miserable looking man I have ever met. He looked like I had crapped on his shoes, he was that bad. No English was spoken, but this guy had Google translate so we were both able to use the app on our respective phones to converse. Supposedly the check in time was at 1300 but I was ok to start bringing bags up. As always, the problem of where to store the bike was a mild concern, but I was able to put it in the rear stairwell what they used as a smoking area. By the time I'd brought everything up and locked my bike to some very rickety railings it was past 1300, so all was good.
The WiFi worked best in the main passageway of the hostel so I sat out there and contacted friends and family to let them know I was ok. As I was doing this a Chinese looking guy was asking the hostel guy for something, I can't remember what, in English and to no avail. He gave up and was putting on his boots to go out. I don't know what made me ask because I was literally going to just stay in the hostel and sulk for a few days, but I asked the guy where was heading and if he wanted any company. His practically jumped at the chance to hang out with someone and I was taken aback by his enthusiasm.
And so began the adventures of Kelvin and the Gog.
We both decided it would be prudent to go and get our bearings of the city, so we found our local metro stop and headed off to Red Oktober. I was really amazed with how deep the subway went. I had only ever been on a subway in Rome and that was just down one short flight of stairs. Me and Kelvin had gone down two massive escalators and it felt we were in the bowels of the city. I was surprised with how it didn't feel claustrophobic at all. The station stops were massive, and beautiful. I'm not even joking, the walls were all crimson marble and the ceilings were ornately decorated. It really wasn't what I expected (to be fair though I didn't really know what to expect but this wasn't it).
At Red Oktober, the two of us got lost in the under-road pedestrian crossings that snaked the whole area but eventually got out on the right side of the road and were greeted with the outer walls of the red square.
As you would imagine with somewhere touristy like this, there were tonnes of souvenir merchants pedaling things from the old Russian Dolls that everyone loves to bright pink Russian military hats. I don't know why but I really wanted get one for my Dad. I'm not entirely sure he would have wanted a bright pink one though.
When we got through the walls we could see the iconic sight of St. Basil's cathedral. It was absolutely breath taking. Or it would have been of not for the god awful scaffolding that was being put up in front of it. It turns out they were using the square for the morning ceremony for the Winter Olympics and the scaffolding would eventually look like a stage although I would leave Moscow before I get to see it complete.
We walked around the scaffolded area and made our way to the cathedral to take photos and the two of us agreed that everyone that was taking photos with tablet computers looked bloody ridiculous!
We went to get food at a soviet style cafe. It was really good (I had a chicken kiev) and really cheap too. Afterwards we walked around for a while longer before heading back and settling in for the night.
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