… or how I left these and many others stereotypes at home, next to the pile of things I could not squeeze into my suitcase and yes, I’ve tried numerous times with great effort. As it was my first time going to Russia I did not know what to expect, except a vigorous cold and mountains of delicious food. I had no expectations which means a chance of being disappointed was stripped to the bare minimum. I was super excited to travel with my mom as she’s a great travel companion and best human ever, but enough about how awesome my mom is, ha. We got a pretty sweet deal with the flight tickets directly from Ljubljana so a trip to Venice’s Marco Polo or Treviso was saved for another time, phew. Overnight flights to Belgrade and then to Moscow turned to be just fine, even got a midnight lunch – which was not burek to my great disappointment. And even though I used up one of my wishes from the falling star I saw from the plane for it. After endless lines at the passport control point (!) we instantly got the feeling we’re in Russia, being welcomed by grumpy old ladies, more than satisfied workers of the airport, sharing their extra loud yelling in our general direction. Yes, we’re definitely in Russia. After this lovely encounter with the most soulless humans we were greeted by a family member that hurried us towards one of the most russian things ever – Lada.
After a quick nap on two suitcases in the back of our carriage I woke up in Podmoskovie, which is word for everything around the center of Moscow. Tired, sleepy, but with the excitement being awaken deep deep inside. All I could think about was a bed or anything resembling it, but as a proper greeting a tea party was in order. At 6 am. The tea culture here is so huge and so deep you can drown in it, ha. I shall mention the greatness of the russian tea parties later on as it probably deserves its own blog anyway.
Sipping tea turned into me turning into a blanket burrito and sleeping literally for more than half a day. Waking up to more tea and throwing in some food as well which was followed by throwing on some sneakers to explore the place we ended up in. Which is where exactly?
We might not have the best of luck with the weather, but at least the clouds put up quite a show. This is most definitely not the picture of Russia you’d see in a tourist brochure and that’s how I like it. This is what I was looking forward to, the genuine face of Russia. And I can smell there’s much more where that came from…
P.S. So far no bears.
Cheers to the mess we’ve made!