TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 1 - WE ACTUALLY F'ING MADE IT!  Five days ago we got on a train in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (under orders and escort of the police) and a mere 11,000 miles later (that's like across the United States and back - TWICE!), we've successfully crossed Siberia, the Urals and are finally in Moscow.  In the words of the Grateful Dead, "what a long strange trip it's been!"  Someday when people (drunks in bars) ask us (also drunks in bars), "why in the world did you cross Siberia on a Smuggler's train?"  We'll be able to decisively answer, "ah...er...hmmm, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Smuggler's train?  Oh you betcha!  Gold?  Heroin?  Under age prostitutes?  COME ON, these are Mongolians smuggling sh_t into Siberia!  We're talking about fake Adidas warm-up suits, cheap-ass cowboy hats, yak sausages and Winnie-the-Pooh thermos bottles (NOT KIDDING!).  And not only are the train attendants in on it (Hell, they run the whole thing!), they asked us to help hide stuff in our compartment (NOT KIDDING) and we did (NOT KIDDING).  So how did it all turn out?  Well, lets just say that at the border when the Russians started tearing up the floorboards and the wall panels (REALLY - NOT KIDDING!) they found and seized allot of stuff (including two blankets, two Smurf thermos bottles and 25 rolls of Scotch tape hidden under our bunk).  There was allot of yelling in Mongolian and Russian (and also allot of winking and nodding) and after six hours in the middle of the night, the Russians finally stamped our passports, let us all back on the train (along with most of the crap due to not so subtle payoffs) and we headed for Irutusk.

So we all learned when we were 13 playing "Risk" all summer in Don Kilfoyle's garage that the key to conquering the world was to take and hold Irutusk.  Well, lets just say that if the dumb-asses at Milton-Bradley (who made millions producing and selling that game to idiots like us) had ever gone there they would have realized that to control Irutusk is to control a bunch of dirt, a broken down steam locomotive and a broken down Russian whore named "Svetlanaa."  Our brief stop in the capital sity of Siberia has forever changed our childhood view of geo-politics, but then again, when we were 13 we also thought Pluto was a planet - so maybe size does matter!

That was day two of our five day train journey.  The next three days consisted of racing across the plains of the Siberian plateau, crossing the Ural mountains and drinking whatever beer (sorry Budweiser!) we could buy on the platforms of nameless Russian outposts.  Oh yeah, and we also taught the Mongolian smugglers in the compartment next to ours how to play strip poker (in the name of international relations).  Speaking of drinking beer and stripping, we're only here in Moscow for one night and then our VISA requires us to move onto St. Petersburg, so we're out the door and on our way to find a Russian club where hopeful they serve Bud and hopefully the strippers are under the age of 60...

                                   SIX PITURES - NO VIDEO (WE SHOT A BUNCH) RUSSIAN UPLINK TO SLOW TO LOAD!

      
Stacy on board the #9 train across Siberia!                                         Speaking of Siberia - 11,000 miles of it, baby!

      
We loved the "hot" Russian women working in their gardens!                        Does "Fiddler on the Roof" ring a bell?

      
After days on the train you just gotta do laundry!                           We were greeted warmly when we got Moscow!