Day 2 - A nice day that ended badly
Mon and I woke up early, we were just too tired the night before and ended up just spending the next few hours interchangeably napping or using the laptop.
By about 8:30 though we got moving and made our way down to the train station. Now I'd mentioned earlier that the trains were much nicer than in Melbourne, well, in terms of the insides of the normal trains, that's not quite true. There is a lot less sitting space to make way for more people standing and they do get a bit crowded. That said, this is made up for by the fact that they're very fast, very frequent, and their rail system is fantastic by comparison.
The rail map has a whole bunch of overlapping lines so it's easy to get to any station without having to go all the way in to somewhere and all the way out, and the longest I think we waited for any train was a few minutes. Very impressive and very easy to get places, but I'm really glad I learned Cyrillic or I'd have no hope of working out where to go.
The stations too are quite beautiful, it's like each was designed by a different architect but each has it's own interesting style, from giant statues on the staircase, to pillars emblazoned with artwork involving AK-47 rifles. This is certainly not the Melbourne train system. XD
So we jumped on a few trains and made our way to Izmaylovo Market, which is a big open air market involving a lot of soviet era relics, matroshkyas (nesting dolls), Ushankas (furry hats) and other stuff. We got there pretty early so people were still setting up and we were able to wander around for a bit and get some breakfast before it got too busy.
Mon got herself a really nice set of matryoshkas, and I got myself a couple of soviet badges and an officers hat. (I also picked up another one for seijikat as per her request. :3)
We both bought a few small gifts for relatives too, but I'll not mention them in too much detail so I don't spoil any surprises.
Here is a picture Mon took of the market since I didn't have a chance to take any shots myself.
After that we headed back a few stations to meet up with karmade who had organised a meetup for us at a little Russian restaurant so we could meet a bunch of the Russian ball jointed doll community. It was really awesome to meet everyone and also put faces to a few names I'd seen online. We hung around for a few hours and chatted, thankfully their english was all very good so it was possible to chat to everyone pretty easily. Thanks to all you guys, Karmade, Noctis, Sonorite, Byakko and the others who I didn't catch your names, you made us feel very welcome.
You can check out Mon's photos here: http://kawaii-mon.livejournal.com/613109.html
After that was where it got troubling, I'd been feeling a little bit off at various points during the day, but nothing too out of the ordinary, I'd shrugged it off as nothing to worry about. After heading out of the restaurant though I was starting to feel a little ill and decided I needed some water. Up until that point I'd been drinking mostly coke (which is served at room temperature here), juice and sugary things, including the pancakes with berries and sourcream that I'd had for lunch, and the lamb shaslicks I'd had for breakfast. It's far more of a conscious effort to stay well hydrated here as the tap water is not drinkable and going in and out of super heated rooms to the freezing cold outside doesn't help either.
Once we got to the station I just couldn't take it any more and got a sudden head rush of dizziness and had to sit down. Unfortunately this meant slumping against a pillar at the station, which of course attracted the attention of the police who thought I was drunk. Thankfully we still had Byakko with us and she explained to them, I can't thank her enough for that, it could have been very difficult without her help.
I managed to get onto the train though and sit down, the fever passed within a few minutes and I just felt weak and in dire need of rest.
Coming out of the station we got me some water and I felt much better after drinking it, still in need of rest but otherwise ok. Unfortunately my body was still not on board yet and I ended up throwing up 3 times on the way back to the hotel, thankfully into the snow, but still, not pleasant. We got back to the hotel and I immediately crawled into bed, I had some dizziness through the night but after waking up this morning I feel pretty ok. I'm just going to take it easy today and stay well hydrated and see how I go.
Unfortunately my shoulderblade is sore now for some reason, I'm not sure what that is but in the grand scheme of things it's not so bad and I'm sure it'll pass.
So yeah, I'm still not sure if it was just dehydration or some kind of food sickness, it could be a bit of both, but either way I'll have to be more careful from now on as I can't really afford to get sick and end up spending most of the holiday in bed. XD
Anyway, it was a fantastic day apart from that little ending, so with any luck that doesn't happen again and we can just enjoy ourselves from here on in. We're spending today with Noctis who offered to show us around a few places with her friend, so I'm going to have a little more of a nap now and then it should be a nice day of parks and museums.
Hope you're all doing well too! <3
By about 8:30 though we got moving and made our way down to the train station. Now I'd mentioned earlier that the trains were much nicer than in Melbourne, well, in terms of the insides of the normal trains, that's not quite true. There is a lot less sitting space to make way for more people standing and they do get a bit crowded. That said, this is made up for by the fact that they're very fast, very frequent, and their rail system is fantastic by comparison.
The rail map has a whole bunch of overlapping lines so it's easy to get to any station without having to go all the way in to somewhere and all the way out, and the longest I think we waited for any train was a few minutes. Very impressive and very easy to get places, but I'm really glad I learned Cyrillic or I'd have no hope of working out where to go.
The stations too are quite beautiful, it's like each was designed by a different architect but each has it's own interesting style, from giant statues on the staircase, to pillars emblazoned with artwork involving AK-47 rifles. This is certainly not the Melbourne train system. XD
So we jumped on a few trains and made our way to Izmaylovo Market, which is a big open air market involving a lot of soviet era relics, matroshkyas (nesting dolls), Ushankas (furry hats) and other stuff. We got there pretty early so people were still setting up and we were able to wander around for a bit and get some breakfast before it got too busy.
Mon got herself a really nice set of matryoshkas, and I got myself a couple of soviet badges and an officers hat. (I also picked up another one for seijikat as per her request. :3)
We both bought a few small gifts for relatives too, but I'll not mention them in too much detail so I don't spoil any surprises.
Here is a picture Mon took of the market since I didn't have a chance to take any shots myself.
After that we headed back a few stations to meet up with karmade who had organised a meetup for us at a little Russian restaurant so we could meet a bunch of the Russian ball jointed doll community. It was really awesome to meet everyone and also put faces to a few names I'd seen online. We hung around for a few hours and chatted, thankfully their english was all very good so it was possible to chat to everyone pretty easily. Thanks to all you guys, Karmade, Noctis, Sonorite, Byakko and the others who I didn't catch your names, you made us feel very welcome.
You can check out Mon's photos here: http://kawaii-mon.livejournal.com/613109.html
After that was where it got troubling, I'd been feeling a little bit off at various points during the day, but nothing too out of the ordinary, I'd shrugged it off as nothing to worry about. After heading out of the restaurant though I was starting to feel a little ill and decided I needed some water. Up until that point I'd been drinking mostly coke (which is served at room temperature here), juice and sugary things, including the pancakes with berries and sourcream that I'd had for lunch, and the lamb shaslicks I'd had for breakfast. It's far more of a conscious effort to stay well hydrated here as the tap water is not drinkable and going in and out of super heated rooms to the freezing cold outside doesn't help either.
Once we got to the station I just couldn't take it any more and got a sudden head rush of dizziness and had to sit down. Unfortunately this meant slumping against a pillar at the station, which of course attracted the attention of the police who thought I was drunk. Thankfully we still had Byakko with us and she explained to them, I can't thank her enough for that, it could have been very difficult without her help.
I managed to get onto the train though and sit down, the fever passed within a few minutes and I just felt weak and in dire need of rest.
Coming out of the station we got me some water and I felt much better after drinking it, still in need of rest but otherwise ok. Unfortunately my body was still not on board yet and I ended up throwing up 3 times on the way back to the hotel, thankfully into the snow, but still, not pleasant. We got back to the hotel and I immediately crawled into bed, I had some dizziness through the night but after waking up this morning I feel pretty ok. I'm just going to take it easy today and stay well hydrated and see how I go.
Unfortunately my shoulderblade is sore now for some reason, I'm not sure what that is but in the grand scheme of things it's not so bad and I'm sure it'll pass.
So yeah, I'm still not sure if it was just dehydration or some kind of food sickness, it could be a bit of both, but either way I'll have to be more careful from now on as I can't really afford to get sick and end up spending most of the holiday in bed. XD
Anyway, it was a fantastic day apart from that little ending, so with any luck that doesn't happen again and we can just enjoy ourselves from here on in. We're spending today with Noctis who offered to show us around a few places with her friend, so I'm going to have a little more of a nap now and then it should be a nice day of parks and museums.
Hope you're all doing well too! <3