sofasurfers

Moscow, 11th October

Instructions… “Outside Tverskaya station, you will see the Pushkin statue. There are a couple of benches near the statue, that’s where I will be waiting for you…”

We have no idea quite what we’re expecting to find here (cf her profile pic of Lake Baikal), but at least we’re pretty conspicuous - fresh off the boat, berucksacked, bewildered… We arrive in the square (confession: no idea what Pushkin looks like). There are 20 or so random Russians hanging around. Eyes akimbo, we scan the horizon, and shrug. Then, out of nowhere Tanya appears… Now what?!

Fast forward to Sunday - it’s 6pm, we’ve been up for about five hours. We got through a bottle and a half of vodka and 25 new friends. We’d been whisked to a couchsurfing party, where the first four people we met had been made redundant and talked of travel, pastures new and doing the things they had always dreamed of but never dared to realise because there were jobs to do and mortgages to pay. In the climate of economic doom, one guy even had couchsurfing (on Ollie’s couch) third on his wishlist after seeking work and excitement in Kabul and Northern Iraq.

That’s what.
Vodka count: 1.5l