Moscow, Central Russia, Russian Federation
October 13, 2013
It’s been a strange one today.
I got myself up and sorted early to get out and about in Moscow only to realise after a few steps that I could hardly walk due to a very bad blister on one of my toes. I don’t think this was helped by the fact I stubbed that exact same toe just before I went to bed last night and it really has been in a bad way and is now pretty much down to just flesh. But I cleaned it up and got plenty of fresh air on it to help it heal as quickly as possible. I need the old feet in decent nick before hitting Siberia and Mongolia as checking the weather for those parts its going to start getting very cold over the coming week and when I head that way the last thing I need is to encourage frost bite. I did managed to hobble around the doors to find food….but only just as its very quiet in the area I’m staying. One or two over priced average restaurants, about 50 Starbucks in the space of a few hundred yards and a McDonald’s but I eventually found a couple of corner shops to get some supplies in only to find that for some mysterious reason they don’t sell spirits! This is Moscow, surely the home of Vodka? Apparently they don’t sell Vodka after 10pm in Moscow now, so it’s good to see they are promoting day time drinking in Russia instead but these shops literally had nothing on their shelves at all so this one remains a mystery to me.
With time on my hands I kept myself busy and started to plan and research what my next week or two involve while resting up. I already have Irkutsk and Lake Baikal sorted for later in the week so I focused on Mongolia and what I want to get out of that experience. When I first lost my job back in April I realised how very lucky I was to have this opportunity to fulfill my dreams of traveling and seeing more of the world but as my trip is progressing that is playing on my mind a lot more when you see people less fortunate than yourself and I need to give something back into the world as by many standards I have been very lucky to have lived a comfortable life so far in the UK. What seem like problems and issues and annoyances at home pale into insignificance compared to other people in the world who struggle to get by day to day, and I thought back to the many people I saw yesterday living at the side of the railway lines in make shift huts most likely happy just to get through each day and make it to the next.
So after plenty of reading I now have the first part of my time in Mongolia arranged. I’m staying at a hostel that is built into a school and I will be helping that school with whatever they need from me for at least a week. Helping teach English, paint fences, improve the facilities, whatever they feel I can help with best is what I’ll be doing. The hostel is very cheap but the opportunity to help those less fortunate and to make a difference in their lives is what drew me towards this and I’m very excited at the chance to be able to give something back to these people who will never be able to understand let alone live in the secure comfortable way that I have become accustomed to at home.
Time to start pulling all my gear back together now and get ready for a full day round Moscow tomorrow (assuming my feet are working by then!) before I head off to catch the Trans-Mongolian tomorrow night.
