Blog - Moscow

Added on Tuesday, 2009-12-29 20:00 CET in category Moscow
So here I am, in Moscow! It sure was a long trip. An exciting one too :) After spending Christmas in the Netherlands, dropping off my wife and the cat at Düsseldorf Airport, and picking up my dad-in-law, our road trip to Moscow had started!

On the way we visited my dad, who left me some rations of typical Dutch food I'd be missing. We continued into Poland, and then at about 5:30 the car died…

So there we were, in the middle of nowhere in Poland, the night after Christmas. We managed to still get to a petrol station, where we could call the ANWB breakdown service. Go 24-hour economy :) We got towed to a local garage, where after a while a drunk mechanic showed up with a bottle of liquor still in his hand :)

Turned out the carbon brushes had become worn, so the car battery didn't get charged anymore. The battery died, and dragged the engine and everything with it. The mechanic drove off, came back with newer brushes, fixed everything, and we were off again :)

By nightfall we made it to Lithuania and Latvia. Turns out there are no freeways Poland -> Lithuania -> Latvia -> Russia… There was, however, a whole lot of snow and ice. And more snow and ice. At a snail's pace we finally made it to the border with Russia. And guess what? No lines :) A mere two hours later we started following the long, long M-9 freeway towards Moscow. The interesting thing about this road, is that it doesn't really require any police patrol. It's in such a bad condition, you really just don't want to go faster than the speed limit :P

And then the skyscrapers started appearing. Moscow's no Manhattan, from our 14th story apartment I can see pretty much half of Moscow, but it's certainly no endless forests and one lonely road either :)

And will I have to get used to traffic here! The attitude of the average Russian driver is "me first!", so cutting, tailgating and blocking other cars is more rule than exception. Oddly enough, rat running isn't that popular.

And then I got home :) Russians can be quite boorish and rude at times, but once they know you, all that disappears, and you're practically treated as family. I think I'm going to like it here :)