so it begins... again

there now follows a daily diary that i kept on a trip across to the other side of the world that i did.

a new pen, it should help. one of life's great mysteries. like why a four-fingered kitkat tastes better than a chunky kitkat. why triangular sandwiches are better than rectangular ones. just better for some reason.

i am in moscow. i have been here for 9 hours or so. there is already so much to write about moscow, but i can't. i can't do this recount of this journey properly unless i start from the beginning. a shame, because i don't want to forget anything, any of the wonder i have already felt as my body and mind slowly grasp the concept of the next few weeks.

this is the beginning:

the 19th day of may. the small hours of the morning. the flickering of a screen. i played pi the dark maths-based thriller while i grabbed an hour of sleep. 2am til 3am. i awoke to the greyscale images of a mathematician drilling his own head. i can think of worse things for a mathematician to do.

the car arrived at 4am, speeding us down a dusk grey ribbon to the airport.

it was an uneventful flight, spattered only by a steep, ear-blowing descent into moscow airport. the dull flight interspersed with waves of over-excitement about the next twenty-eight days and waves of petrification about the next twenty-eight days.

enough about the flights, they are not the journey.

moscow holds the impression of a tough place to get into. a tortured communist history has left a faded tattoo and tremendously strong fragments of red-tape. flight stewards hand out forms on the plane and have to follow them up by explaining every odd request as the passengers try to decipher its odd questioning. once landed, even with a fully filled out form, visa, up-to-date passport and genuine proof of reasons to be in russia (we had to get an invite from our hostel); there still isn't a feeling that you're definitely to be allowed into the country until you actually walk through the airport exit.

that red star. the hammer and sickle still have a weird looming presence over the city.

but is joined by an overwhelming sigh of relief as the red mist slowly ascends. there is still an intimidating police presence. young solid-jawed officers in defiant uniforms parade the streets, and as a wet behind the ears traveler and newly in the city i was expecting a foreign shout or a body search at any moment. we stuck out like sore thumbs on the journey to the hostel, like a pedestrian circus had come to town.

and then there is the sigh of relief. moscow is not all square walls and watchful eyes. moscow is a lively, youthful city with an up-and-coming style of it's own. if it were nearer to home it would replace amsterdam (if people went there for other reasons than drugs and porn they would also discover a beautiful country with a friendly handshake).

so it turns out moscow is busy shaking off its overtly bureaucratic regime. the new population is seeing to that. twenty years ago you would be given a strict list of hotels you could stay in and you would have a guide accompanying you whenever you left their grounds.

now teenagers practice parkour (free-running) in the parks outside the government complex.

a few hours in moscow today and i have a list i don't want to forget.

obviously the awesome towering onions of the domes on st. basil's cathedral in red square. it is an absolutely nutty building, a disney exhibit, an immense toy castle. it is also jaw dropping and a work of art, and for some inexplicable reason it sits well in the sharp lines of red square. perhaps the balance is because just across the square rests 'gum' (pronounced goom) an even more bizarre leviathon of a shopping mall. the solid marble mausoleum of lenin sits on the other side, where the old mortified comrade's body - fully preserved - lays for all to see in a big glass tank.

i want to remember the following:
(please forgive the list format)

• the couple doused by a road-cleaning truck as they made sweet love beneath the shadows of the kremlin.
• the little girl selling flowers, being chased unwittingly round the bar by the bouncer.
• a little boy on a red bicycle in alexandra gardens.
• the old man on the honda goldwing trike blaring out noisy rock music. that we kept seeing.
• the sound of the birds singing in red square at midnight as the paving slabs warmed our feet and candle illuminated paper balloons were launched into the night sky.
• the women, the girls.

i must write this, and then you'll hear no more about it. there's something about moscow girls. obviously it's a mixed bag but today i have seen the most beautiful women i have ever. they are striking, the ones that hit the mark.
tall slender bodies with slightly out of proportion torsos, long noses and small pleasant breasts. they look like they could seduce you then break you in half with diamond-tipped fingernails. i have seen more than my fair share of perfect bare-midriffs today, i can tell you.
they dress in a kind of slightly out-dated charity-shop 'ultra-fashion' way, but ever so slightly missing the mark every time. this, however, only seems to enhance their collective beauty. a certain charm.
many of them have sad blank eyes though. maybe due to a country with years of oppression, a new freedom and not knowing what to do with it. maybe it's just the thoughts of moscow men who appear - as a group, as a breed - are only just leaving the miami vice era, god help them.

i also want to remember:

• that massive boat.
• the journey in the rusty yellow van.
• the old man searching for treasure in the bins.
• the girls posing for a photo by groping eachother in quite an obscene way.
• the boy who climbed the wall.
• the feeling of willful freedom.
• the sense of discomfort that fell away to welcome.