Ministry in Australia

we walked there.

The hotel had seen better days, but our room was quite adequate. It had a basin with running water, but the bathroom was down the corridor. The first thing we both did was jump into the bath, to wash off soot and grime, which had accumulated over six days, without having a shower. After that, all our tiredness vanished. When talking to the receptionist, she insisted that I had to go to the railway booking office to book our train to Warsaw the next day.

The place was full of people and the person at the counter was most unhelpful. He wanted to send us to the station to buy the tickets, and in any case, they were really closed as it was already 7pm (closing time 6pm). He was obviously over-worked and under paid, but that didn't help us. By then I had enough. Why should we be running around, wasting our precious time to buy tickets, when the Russian authorities wanted us to leave the next day, which was not our choice? We returned to our hotel and said to the receptionist, that we were unable to get the tickets, would she be so kind to do this for us. First she grumbled, but then she agreed.

By then quite hungry, we went to the dining room, expecting to have our meal. Had we booked? Of course not, we had just arrived, but we were staying at this hotel. Things were again difficult, but after seeing the head waiter and insisting that we had to eat, we were allocated a table. The dinner at the Berlin was most delicious, particularly after six days travelling. To our surprise, we saw the Bocter's just a few tables further down from us, having their evening meal. They were also staying at the Berlin. They invited us to their place at Düsseldorf on our way to England, as they wanted to hear more about our experiences in China.

After dinner we walked to the Red Square. By then it was already after 10pm, and we thought we would be the only ones on Red Square. When we arrived there, thousands of others were milling around. The soft evening light transformed St.Basil's church and the Kremlin almost into a fairyland.

After a wonderful sleep we had a most delicious breakfast with cultured buttermilk, two frankfurts, bread rolls, butter jam and cheese, so different to our Asian breakfasts! The receptionist greeted us with a smile, she had been able to get our tickets. This left us plenty of time to join a guided bus tour through Moscow.

Red Square in full daylight didn't look as enchanting as the night before. It was again full of people and a long queue was waiting to see Lenin in his tomb. We thought, to have seen Mao was quite enough for us. Anyway, there was no time for that.

Our guide pointed out the place in the square where a young German pilot from Hamburg had landed a couple of weeks earlier. We thought this was a great joke, but our guide had a straight face and didn't let us know what he thought of it, but I could see a faint twinkle in his eye.

The bus took us around the Kremlin and from one of the many bridges

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