der weg ist das ziel

First things first: I am currently in a gigantic underground shopping mall right next to the Kremlin. Somewhat macabre, I think... There's lots of shopping malls here, and LOADS of gigantic billboards. This city definitely has the most advertisements I've ever seen (even more than New York!). That's my impression anyways. Even the elevator here is plastered in advertising... On that note: we didn't o to see Lenin when we went to the Red Square today. We saw the St Basil's catherdral, which is really pretty in all it's weird shapes and colours, and then we went to ГУМ (GUM), a gigantic fancy department store built in the late 1800's, that used to be the symbol of Soviet shopping: loads of empty shelves, long lines. Now it's got Louis Vuitton and the like... Definitly a city of stark contrasts. We picked up our transsib tickets yesterday from a sketchy office building, which was quite difficult to find not speaking Russian and going into the wrong buildings at first, and the insides of which reminded me a lot of the former GDR. And we walked by the former KGB headquarters today by accident; definitely as pompous as one would expect...
Our hostel is really nice, it's also in a sketchy building (that reminded me of our hostel in Barcelona liebe Franzi) in a former apartment, and it has two 6-bed droms, a kitchen, a living room and a nice bathroom.
Our train from Helsinki to Moscow was also very nice and fit into most clichees you know about Russian trains (a providnika for every car standing about half a meter from their respective cars and checking tickets when you get in), but some things were unexpected: a flat screen TV in our compartment...
Anyways, we're leaving tonight on the transsib and arrive in Ulaanbaatar on the 24th (I've lost my capacity for knowing what day of the week it is...).
As I have no time to uploaed photos now here is a link to Coco's blog (with some photos): rose.travellerspoint.com. She also has a facebook photoalbum, so those of you with an account can see those too :-)