DAY 288: With my traveling buddy Sam gone, so went my room to go halfsies on in a prime location in Moscow, right outside Red Square. In true The Global Trip fashion, I had failed to make a reservation for the night in town, but just kept my bags in the hotel storage and hoped I could find a cheaper opening in a relatively convenient location before spaces filled up as the day went on. More importantly that that, I was to leave on the Trans-Siberian Railway the next day and I didn't exactly have my train tickets yet.

Sokol Tours in Boston, who arranged the train tickets and accommodations for my railway journey through Siberia, Mongolia and China worked in a network of other local agencies in other cities. Sokol's partner in Moscow was SWTS Travel, located in a busy commercial area away from the city center.

Being with Sam for three days did me good because without him I might not have gotten the hang of the Cyrillic alphabet and the Metpo ("Metro" in Cyrillic) signs written in it to get me to the travel agency. There was a line outside the door and about ten Russian guys were waiting their turn to get inside. I waited for about an hour until I realized that they were waiting for the bank services (also in that office) and anyone there for travel services could just walk in. Tatiana, the agent there gave me two tickets for the first and third legs of my journey -- the others I'd get from other agents along the way.

Okay, let's go find a room so you don't wind up on the streets tonight, I thought to myself. I took the Metpo to another new neighborhood which held the only hostel listed in my Lonely Planet guidebook that was on the map of central Moscow, hoping for the best -- but the woman in the building there turned me down.

Okay, where to now? A cheap hotel? Okay. I consulted the guide and lo and behold, one "budget" hotel was right outside the train station I'd depart from the next day. I almost rushed off to it, but realized I was in the neighborhood of the English bookstore I wanted to go to, and went there instead to get a Russian phrasebook; the three phrase pages in the back of my Lonely Planet guidebook were inadequate.

Damn, I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything yet. What's more important, food or lodging? I rushed off on the Metpo for the Hotel Leningradskaya, which did not look like a "budget hotel" at all. Lonely Planet described it as follows: "Arriving at this looming Stalinist skyscraper in the dead of night is likely to strike fear into your heart, but in the daylight this showpiece Soviet hotel retains much of its grand 1950s style and is worth considering as a base for a couple of nights."

It also said a single room would be $26 USD, but when I registered it was actually $87, but I splurged on it, figuring I'd make back the money in the lack of taxis I would have had to take from a hostel farther away. Plus, the building lobby had a grocery store.

Lonely Planet had it right about the hotel's description though; in the day it really did show off the grandeur of 1950's Soviet style (picture above) -- at night it could have set the stage for a horror movie. Designed by L. Polyakov and constructed in 1954, the hotel had classic bronze lattices in its lobby, some so detailed they appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records (said Channel 1, the hotel information channel). My room was nice with a private bathroom, old retro furnishings and a TV that let you watch ten seconds of porn without paying every time you switched to Channel 13 from one of the free channels. Porn or no porn, it was one of the swankiest places I've ever stayed in (to date).

WITH LODGING OUT OF THE WAY, food was the next priority. I thought about splurging on sushi -- which has become quite the craze in Moscow recently (there are sushi places all over) -- but settled on fried chicken from Rostik's, Russia's fast food fried chicken chain, in the mall food court instead, since I was already splurging on my room for the night. I did some internet and then retrieved my bags back at the Hotel Rossiya baggage storage room, lugged them on the Metpo and settled into my new room in the Hotel Leningradskaya.

The rest of the day and night I just did the responsible thing and sat at my room's desk and worked on my laptop, writing, typing and sorting through photos for The Blog. I didn't get as much done as I wanted though because I was too busy flipping the TV to Channel 13 every ten seconds.