People Who Don't Get Mad When I Speak English! (Update--Metro Pictures)

November 27th--I barely got out of Russia.

That's a bit overdramatic, but it was tense for a few minutes. I started out the day by taking some pictures in the Metro. The Metro stations in Moscow are incredible, many of them like museums in their own right.




Then it was 30 minutes to get to the northern-most station to catch a shuttle to the airport. This took another 30 minutes, and the ride took 40, cramped and shoved against many other travelers as the rickety shuttle lurched through horrendous traffic. At the international airport, it was much calmer, a calm that was shattered when the Olympic Airlines people said I didn't have a ticket.

Now, I had double-checked my reservation the night before, and I was good to go with a confirmation number and email and everything. However, the woman at the desk said that it's not usually possible to reserve flights to and from Moscow with their system, so I had somehow slipped through the cracks and gotten screwed. There was a reservation, but it was never paid for, even though I gave all my information.

Luckily, the flight was not crowded, and she was able to cancel my original reservation and get me a new one. Customs and passport control was an anti-climactic breeze, and I was on my way.

The flight to Athens was 3 hours, 40 minutes, and we made up an hour on the way.

I got to the hostel without incident and sat down to catch up on the blogging. It's more of a party hostel here, with lots of loud Americans. I don't really like it--similar to the hostels I stayed in in Amsterdam and Munich, it's geared to a different type of traveler, I think. No worries, though, because I'll be taking a ferry into the Greek Islands tomorrow. The weather, while not too warm, is certainly mild, and there are leaves on all the trees again!