arnika round the world

(St Basil’s Cathedral)

Nyet (No) seems to be Russian service people’s favourite word. Particularly at train stations where we write in Cyrillic what we want and hand it over, waiting in anticipation to see if she will turn to her computer and start processing the ticket or shut us down with Nyet. Then that would be all, no more service. The trick is to not give up, pretty much every time they tell you no first time. There can be many different reasons for this but you will never know why. You have to go to a different ticket window or wait till that lady leaves on one of their (regular) breaks. It can get frustrating but we are getting good at getting what we want, just one big long lesson in patience. Basically we just write down everything and hope for the best, sometimes you get a nice lady (always an old lady) sometimes you get an extra unhelpful one who begins to ask you lots of questions in Russian. Eventually though it always works. Patience and persistence is the key.

Our train ride to Moscow was good, we were in platskart class which is what I have travelled on before in Moldova and also India, its like an open carriage with sections of 4 beds so having 3 of us was good as we could kind of take over our section-much to the dismay of the other passenger who was not so impressed. We managed to get some sleep and rolled up to Moscow in the mid morning. Negotiating our way through the Moscow metro was much easier that St P’s as this time there were actually maps every where and information on connecting stations. Finally we got where we wanted to go and found the hostel after climbing a lot of stairs and following dodgy directions with no signs anywhere. Once we arrived at the hostel the old babushka there spoke no English only to communicate to us that they had overbooked and didn’t have enough beds. This resulted in a bit of an argument with the manager over the phone until we left and set off across town to another, equally hard to find but much nicer hostel.

Thankfully the weather was nicer in Moscow and the 15degree days with blue skies were a godsend after grey clouds all of St Petersburg. The LP describes St P’s and Moscow and the Artist and the dictator which is probably a fair description as St P’s is definitely more arty and cultural feeling with more beautiful buildings and nicer feel where Moscow is cool, lots to see but not the same sort of cultural-ness…if that makes sense. Tom said it’s kind of like the difference between Paris and London-if you’ve been to both you’ll understand. The hostel we stayed in was much quieter and different type of people so we didn’t really go out at all, so a different experience than St P’s but still good as there is heaps to see in Moscow. I probably like St P’s better-like I would like to go back just to hang out cause its such a cool place. But we did do cool stuff in the capital.

Our first day after we had settled in we headed out on the highly efficient metro to a big market bizarrely set in some sort of old theme park and all these castle type buildings, a bit strange, lots of cheap knock off clothing and souvenirs where I got a sweet furry army hat with a soviet badge. Horribly there was a guy with chained up bears that did tricks…very depressing.

Given our quiet hostel we spent most nights in, cooking very good food for dinner- we have been eating very well as a group and buying lots of vegetables and making real food. I think we always win the “best dinner” competition that subtly takes place in the hostels. One night we headed out and had a beer in a jazz club round the corner and went to this kind of cool but strange café/bar/bookshop/clothing store. Would have been better if weren’t for the terrible live music, but we hung around for a bit in the bookstore part but were never able to work out how to actually order anything…

The big sites to see in Moscow are the Kremlin and Red Square. So we headed to the Kremlin on our first full day walking down Arbat street, a pedestrian promenade full of artists where we grabbed lunch again at this great cheap restaurant called Moo-Moo and checked out the Kremlin.

(Moo-Moo)

Kremlin’s are in most Russian towns, a big walled parliament area, this one has big high red walls and full of churches, a big bell and other important things. Already we had seen enough gold domes but saw some more, heard some monks singing which was cool and then eventually were over it.

Among many, many things I have lost, my most recent was my only jersey, a bit of a pain considering the weather, so I spent a few hours in a massive underground shopping mall and found a new black fleece to keep me warm through Siberia, an annoying but necessary expense. Actually the list of things I have lost is getting long so far

– My portable washing line- it was very useful until I left it strung up in a hotel in Syria

–  My favourite (and only) t-shirt with NZ plants on it, it went missing in a load of washing in  Romania.

–  My pink jandals, not so much of a problem now its cold but they were pink, and havianahs…a bit sad…disappeared somewhere in the Baltics

– –  My hoodied macpac jersey, vanished in the hostel in St P’s

– –All my bobby pins and hair ties, spread out from here to Egypt

– –   – One earing, bought in Istanbul, lost dancing in bars in St Petersburg

– – Lots of socks, gone to the land of missing socks

It might not seem like much but I have very few things in my bag, so losing one t-shirt is actually losing all my t-shirts. Hopefully I can keep it together a bit longer at least until China where clothes are cheaper to replace! Anyway after the mall I walked home via red square, one of the most beautiful squares. With the walls of the Kremlin lining one edge, St Basils cathedral at one end and the other edges all beautiful buildings. The sun was setting and the square quite empty, St Basils is amazing, kind of like a church on LSD, all colourful and interesting-much better than European cathedrals. We went back the next day for the obligatory photos (lots of them) and the walk through Lenin’s mausoleum where his actual body is preserved. Lots of guards and all very serious, you file into this building and down into the tomb where Lenin lies, still perfectly preserved since his death in 1924. His body is dipped in wax every 2 years then wiped down, you to can get this done by the guys who invented this method for a million bucks and live forever like the communist hero’s-Mao and Ho Chi Min also are preserved in their capitals.

(Me outside Lenin’s tomb)

We also headed across the river to a sculpture park where some old statues of Lenin and Stalin now rest after they were purged from the city during anti-soviet times. Kind of cool to see all the old statues lying around and some other crazy big CCCP silver thing.

Also lots of new modern sculptures and just outside the park in the middle of the river, the biggest strangest statue I have ever seen. It was just very, very big, and kind of in the middle of nowhere.  Bit weird, but then what in Russia isn’t?

We decided to attempt to get our Mongolian visa while in Moscow, it can take a few days and we had planned to get it in another town closer to the border but thought it might be safer to get it now so we didn’t get stuck somewhere waiting for it. We seem to have a knack of missing things by mere minutes and same in this case, we make it to the embassy one minute after closing. Lame. We went back the next day, nice and early with rubles, USD and passport photos ready to get it. The embassy it housed in some building being renovated, totally being pulled apart and basically a building site. Not really the impression you want to give to people about your country. We had to climb some dodgy looking stairs and eventually found a corridor that was actually built properly and sought out some girls gossiping around coffee who informed us we needed an invitation letter to get a visa! Definitely not what we had read anywhere, but you can’t argue with bureaucracy so we left empty handed. We have found out since the Mongolian embassy in Irkutsk, near the border is much easier and no letter is required….hopefully, we shall see though in a couple of weeks.

We ended up with 6 days in St Petersburg which was great to stay somewhere and get to know it a bit better. There is so much to do and see so we hardly saw all of it but did see the important things, have some good nights out and see a few random extras. The biggest problem was that it was very, very cold, unseasonably cold and most people seemed surprised how cold it was, a bit unfortunate as we just saw cloudy skies and not exactly weather that made you want to walk around and see stuff. The city itself is beautiful and set around rivers and canals, all the buildings in the centre are historic looking and loads of old churches and things.

(church of the spilled blood)

Our first full day we walked around an old fortress and across a bridge with some statues (lots of statues) but so cold do didn’t hang around outside too much. Me and Rdoc went to a shopping mall as well to try find some warm clothes for me as somehow I have lost my jersey among other things and needed a hat. I managed to picked up a good hat and get some woolen tights to protect me against the weather in the weeks to come. Tom was recovering from his vodka night so had a late start for sightseeing.

The biggest thing to do in St P’s is the Hermitage, one of the world’s biggest and best art gallery/museum. So we devoted our next day to seeing this huge place.

When you walk to it you come through this huge arch to a big square with the hermitage building in front of you, but of course it was covered in scaffolding! Luckily the inside was so beautiful it made up for it.

(me on the Hermitage staircase)

Tom is rather more pumped about art than me and Rdoc and we were rather over it by the end. We were probably acting like whining little kids by the end (right Tom!). It’s just soooooo big, like thousands of paintings and after awhile you are just charging past Picassos and Van Gogh trying to find the end. However in saying that the building it is in is beautiful and ornate, it was an old palace I think so most of the fun is looking at all the rooms and some are set up with original furniture. I do actually like paintings but rows of Italian “Madonna and child” gets a bit boring, the French stuff like Monet, Van Gogh and some others who I don’t really know, was good though and some interesting modern exhibition which I liked. We spent about 4 hours there, and definitely ready to leave by the end. I’m sure if you REALLY liked art and art history you could stay for days but that was enough for us (well for me at least). We had a wander round an old cathedral afterwards and saw a couple of wedding partied getting photos..a theme for this trip it seems, so many weddings! But it was such a huge day at the hermitage we headed back to the hostel to relax. We have this theory of a time black hole between the hours of 5-9pm where the time just disappears, its like we get back from our daily activities then its 9pm already. Tonight though we pulled ourselves together and had a quick break and some tea before heading out for some culture.

St P’s used to be called Leningrad, the soviets renamed it because it didn’t sound Russian enough, St P’s was always the more cultured cities, which didn’t go down too well during soviet times, but it somehow managed to survive and still is the most arty place in Russia, most famous for its ballets and operas so we had to go see a ballet. We got some last minute tickets to ‘Swan Lake” in a beautiful old theatre.

(Tom and Rdoc getting classy)

(Some swans…on a lake)

I don’t think it was one of the hardcore professional ones but it was cool. The theatre was kind of empty so we moved out of our cheap tickets to better seats with a perfect view. It was my first proper ballet and it was cool, the costumes were beautiful and the dancing was cool but it was a little weird, kind of child like story with over acting and a lot of self congratulating…I think we had to clap like every dance. We almost left without seeing the end after the second act because there was such a big bow and clapping time we thought it must be the end, but we stayed and of course it finished happily with swans and princes or something.

In our other days we headed out to a big memorial to the siege of Leningrad, in 1941-44 (or about then) Germany held the city in a siege and cut of all supplies for around 900 days, it was pretty intense and millions of died from disease, starvation and from the extreame cold.

It was a huge thing to get through it all and survived so they are pretty pumped on remembering it. I had studied it a bit in high school so it was cool to see the memorial which was kind of in the middle of nowhere, a big huge obelisk, some bronze statues (always so many bronze statues) and this big bronze sunken level with a museum and eternal flames and scary music playing, pretty impressing memorial and of course a wedding party getting photos there….a bit weird. We also checked out the other museum for the siege in town which was interesting but all in Russian, good to see more about this side of the city as it was and still is such a huge part if their history. We tried to go after the memorial but we had bad luck and arrived 1 minute after they stopped letting people in. Old ladies here are tough. But me and Rdoc went back to see it another day.

The best part of staying in a city for awhile is finding some cool spots around like the bar which was also a laundry mat really just a bar with some washing machines out the back, but it had a cool vibe and good music. Tom spent ages down there one night waiting for the laundry and got talking to some Russians who we ended up going out with. The hostel we were staying at had a great group of people around who we hung out with a bit. Jeff the American, Joel a Dutch guy and Mike from London, also a couple of Canadians and a few others who came and went so we had some great nights out in a few bars, drinking vodka (and eating pickles, always pickles with vodka) and dancing, and also fun times at the hostel with a mega game of super snap (the best card game ever). We went to some cool bars, drinks are pretty cheap and had lots of good people around. We must have taken 100 self takes on Toms camera though over a couple of nights…I am sure he loves it!

One particularly late night meant we had a very relaxed next day and in fact the only thing we managed to do was get a train ticket To Moscow for a couple of days away, a day later than intended but 3rd class was sold old. Actually spending the whole day buying a train ticket is not unheard of, it is very confusing and long lines and no English spoken. We were luckily and managed to find an English speaker who was really helpful.

On our last day I managed to drag Rdoc with me to the ‘erotica museum’ somewhere on the other side of town, its really a doctors office with a whole strange collection of sexual stuff and nurses dressed like ‘naughty nurses’ but the main attraction is the famous Rasputin’s penis, on display in a jar. Weird.

Afterwards Rdoc headed off and I walked back to the hostel through the beautiful parks, seeing another 15 or so weddings and checked out the souvenir market which is right behind this amazing church-kind of like St Basils in Moscow. I brought a photo of a guy who was selling a Russian photographers work, he takes crazy photos of the city and of random stuff and has lots of old photos. It was cool to see the work and interesting talking to the guy who was also into photography and we talked about old soviet cameras which you can buy for really cheap. I also picked up some sweet propaganda fridge magnets.

Lots of other stuff happened but its all a blur of churches, buildings, metros and Lenin statues. Basically St P’s is cool, the cold weather was lame but still fun and good hostel with cool people so always lots of people to talk to and hang out with and kind of like having a good group for the time. We were the last of these people to leave and it was time to move on as the day we left the hostel filled up with all these big groups and we knew no-one! But good times end and it was time to move on to Moscow on our 1.40am train.

My travels around Eastern Europe have felt like they are preparing me for the ultimate country of Russia. As the whole point of this trip was the trans-Siberian it was exciting to be on the train heading into the country. We had a nice train on the way in, a Finnish train I think, not a Russian one. We crossed the border in the morning and we passed the visa test! So we had it stamped and given our important slip of paper which to collect visa registrations on, losing it is not an option and there are always rumours about what border officials will do if you try get out of the country without it. We rolled into St Petersburg about 2pm and headed out into the unknown. We were at some random station which was famous for being where Lenin arrived after exile and given a famous speech, so we went out and saw his statue before heading into the metro to try to make it to the hostel. St P’s is a bit city and the metro is always busy, we managed to get 3 metro tickets from the angry unhelpful ticket ladies. We looked a bit conspicuous with our packs on and getting in the way of everyone. Tom had gotten his camera out and took a photo when a security guard comes up and takes him away, pulls out a folder with rules in bad English about not taking photos and how it is a 100 ruble ($5NZD) fine! So we have been in the country 30 minutes and already have a ‘fine’ which undoubtedly will go into the guard’s pocket.

(Soviet reminders are everywhere)

After we had sorted that out we headed straight into the crazy mass of people that is the metro, it is the deepest metro in the world apparently and to get to the trains you have to take this crazy long escalator. There are so many people around and with massive packs you are always getting in the way. Things are written all in Cyrillic so it’s hard to find the name of your station. It’s hard enough being in a country with a different language but when faced with a whole different alphabet it’s even more overwhelming. It’s all confusing and busy and crazy. We managed to get on the right train, change lines and make it out alive but it was pretty intense. We found on a later trip that the colour coded lines aren’t really colour coded either and it can get very confusing. We had come out on the main street Nevsky prospect which runs through the city. Packed with people at all times of the day, we pushed our way through and found our street just off the main road and made it upstairs to the hostel. Called Cuba hostel, it’s a nice place in a good location.

First things first we were starving but had no money so went for a walk to try find the best exchange rates, eventually we got our Euros changed, nice to be using a currency for more than 3 days finally! Then we headed to a café for some food and then back to the hostel to chill out for a bit. Me and Rdoc headed out to find a supermarket to stock up on food for a few days, we found enough to make dinner, the worst selection of vegetables ever, but just enough to make something to eat. Back at the hostel Tom had somehow found a group of people drinking vodka and eating pickles (a necessity with vodka apparently).The hostel’s electricity had gone out so the staff had brought vodka to make up for it. Good way to kick off Russia on the first day with a fine and some vodka. We cooked some dinner while Tom had a bit too much vodka and ended up asleep on the couch pretty early.

So we were into Russia, the first day of our month long stay and already pretty eventful and typically Russian. Russia is an interesting place, St P’s seems like a mix of Chisinau, Bucharest and Paris, with people like Ukrainians, and women dressed like Moldovans. And when I say Russia is like these places, I guess I mean that these places are like Russia as Russia has been the biggest influence in Eastern Europe over the last century. It interesting after seeing how all these post-soviet states are trying to separate themselves from Russia and have museums documenting soviet atrocities, but Russia seem to love the soviet thing still. While there aren’t statues of Stalin any more there are still lots of old CCCP (USSR) signs everywhere and soviet victory monuments, and unlike Germanys open discussion on Hitler, Stalin is kind of just left out of things. There definitely aren’t any museums showing anything bad that Russia did. And they totally love Lenin, lots of Lenin statues and loads of things named after him. There are also lots of people in uniform, you must carry your passport on you at all times and policemen are known to pull over foreigners and issue ‘fines’ for not having your visa registered etc so everyone in uniform kind of freaks me out a bit! And there are so many of them, from policemen to traffic cops, army people in dress type uniform and army camouflage gear….everywhere is groups of men in imposing looking uniforms, walking down the street, on corners, in parks, at monuments. As well as security guards in all the shops. So you do feel a bit like you are being watched the whole time. We try to not talk when we see cops so they don’t know we are foreigners, although I am not dressed in high heels so probably don’t fit in! Pretty much people are not sympathetic to foreigners, lots of people are nice but it seems most people in any service type role hate you, it’s actually quite funny and if you ever get a smile out of an angry shop lady then you have done well.

(Russian is a difficult language)

(St P’s is pretty)

So Russia…it’s pretty crazy, hard at some times but fun, although we were only just getting started with St P’s, writing this now we have learnt a few more Russian words and have the alphabet down pretty good. I have read the Russia is a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside and enigma and I think this is definitely true.

Thanks to Rdoc having his lap top I have been wasting too much time uploading photos…they begin from Turkey, Middle East photos are still lost somewhere and will be added when I hopefully find them again. Lots of old towns and churches…enjoy!

Lithuania Latvia Estonia Finland

Moldova Ukraine Poland

Turkey Bulgaria Romania

Stepping into Helsinki, it was even colder than Tallinn. Finland doesn’t actually count as Scandinavia, more Nordic, but still my first time up in this part of the world and a definite difference from the Eastern European countries I had been in. Helsinki is a nice city, it’s very clean and organized, obviously built for the cold though, most main streets are just lined with big shopping malls so you can stay out of the cold. There are a crap load of McDonalds, like around 6 on one intersection which is not so cool, lots of European brand shops,  and a lot of cool looking design shops. People all seem very ‘cool’. And process were definitely a lot higher, back on the Euro and very western Europe prices

We had a bit of trouble booking a hostel as it was a Saturday night and everything was booked out, EVERYTHING. Very frustration but we had found a campsite that was in the city and accessible by metro so had booked a cabin there which was about the same price as a hostel (which is expensive here, around 23 euro so almost $50 NZD). We couldn’t check in until 4pm so we left our bags in a locker, managing to fit all 3 of our packs and day packs in there, and walked around the city for a bit. First of all we stopped at a food market right on the water which sold heaps of fish and vege’s. We had an amazing lunch by buying a big fillet of smoked salmon and some bread rolls…yum.

Had a wander round the rest of the market which turned into like a handicraft/souvenir market which had lots of fur, a lot of santa themed things and lots of reindeer. The north of Finland sounds really amazing, in Lapland where you can see the northern lights and beautiful scenery. But I imagine its very very cold there. But another time it would be good to get back to the country and see more. We made a detour to the tourist information were we loaded up on brouchers (we had no guidebook) then wandered around a bit more working out that there wasn’t that much to do. We did walk into a second hand book store which randomly turned out to be an art gallery, as we walked through all these dusty rows of books it just kept going and you came out into a kind of cave filled with hanging flowers and lights and plasticine where you could make your own creations. It was very random. After we got sick of walking we grabbed our bags and took the highly efficient (and English) metro out to our camp site.

It was easy to get to but pretty much on the edge of the city. I am sure it would get packed in summer and its right on a river so really nice. We had a 4 bed cabin for the night which was pretty small but enough for us, it had a heater which was great and a microwave.

Me and Rdoc headed over to find the supermarket but got there just after it closed.  There wasn’t really a lot else around, just a petrol station and a pub. We ended up buying a pizza and some chips from a pizza shop and grabbed a loaf of bread, a very pathetic dinner but about all we could manage! Being a Saturday night even though we were far away in our camp site we tried to head into town to go to a few bars. We found one kind of cool retro bar and had a drink there before walking around in vain without really any lunch finding anywhere decent enough eventually we headed home as it was cold and we were over walking round. In the morning we checked out of the camp site and headed to town and found a hostel which had some space, actually it was a cool hostel and in a great area, so probably would have been a much better time if we had ended up there from the beginning. We went via the train station and brought our Also it was a Sunday and apparently on Sunday’s the whole city shuts down and nothing is open, so not so good for me as I had planned to do some shopping for some more warm clothes. It was cold outside and we were kind of over it, it took us ages to find something that was open so we could eat and I ended up with not so good salad from a supermarket, it was all a bit depressing. The boys headed off to a café to hang out and I went back to the hostel and talked to people there. The afternoon passed and we made some dinner then somehow ended up at a Finnish guys house with naked people trying to get us ina sauna with them.

Let me explain….in our search for accommodation I had sent messages to people through this website called hospitality club where people offer free accommodation and to show people around. I got an email back from one guy who said he was having a Sauna part and we should come, and so you why not? He was super friendly and came and picked us up with one of his friends and we went back to his place, actually his parent where were clearly loaded with this crazy flash apartment. There were a few other very strange people there and the whole thing was very very weird. Weirder still when they tried to get us in the sauna and we were trying to subtly get out of there. So we had 3 naked guys standing over us trying to convince us to stay. It was weird. Too weird. Although nice people, just a bit strange. We eventually got out of there and got the tram home….a very strange night.

Our train to St Petersburg was leaving early so we got up at 6 and walked to the train station where we settled in for the 6 hour journey into Russia where we hoped our visas would pass and we would get in

So our Helsinki experience was a bit strange, I wouldn’t write off the whole city but we didn’t find that much to do The accommodation thing was a bit of a pain and I think if we had managed to stay at the hostel the whole time it would have been a bit better as it was in a cool area, that would have been good if it was actually open. I do want to get back to Finland to see the rest of the country, but maybe in summer as I don’t think I could handle it any colder!

Old town number: 10

Yes by now old towns are beginning to merge into one, not that I don’t think they are beautiful but it has been around 10 ‘old towns’ on this trip alone, not to mentioned last time in Europe. So Tallinn…it had a nice old town! The defining difference between Tallinn and everywhere else was that it was freezing cold here, like winter cold. I have spent a long time pondering the big question of what is worse, extreme hot weather or extreme cold? I have been in extreme hot and complained the whole time, now it is actually only marginally cold and I am complaining again. A bit depressing as for us we will only be going to colder places, Siberia is not that warm this time of year. Hopefully I will make it to Thailand before home to at least get some sun. But yes all those times I complained on the 40 degree heat in the middle east have come back to haunt me now as I wear everything warm available to me…which is not that much! I am sure I will get used to it and have decided that still warmer is better, although I probably wouldn’t be saying that if I was still in Egypt. I do really need to buy myself a hat though.

Anyway the cold is not the most important thing, Tallinn, the capital of Estonia is a lovely place. We somehow ended up at a terribly boring and quiet hostel with very little going on. No noise, no common room…more like a hotel with dorm rooms. We had arrived off of our bus around 12.30, only narrowly making the bus in the first place as the ticket office told us to buy a ticket on the bus where the bus driver told us to go back to the ticket office. Eventually after going back and forth in the rain we pushed ourselves onto the bus and managed to convince the driver to sell us a ticket. Our hostel was in a great location right in the old town so we dumped our bags, put on more warm clothes and headed out for some traditional Estonian food- mega huge stuffed pancakes which left all of us feeling a bit overfull afterwards….healthy eating in eastern Europe is tough.

We had a wander around the old streets and saw some churches and gardens. All very nice, I thought a bit nicer than Riga’s old town.

Tallinn also has all the old city walls still around which encloses the old town and separates it from the malls and banks (and real life) outside. We headed down to the supermarket to pick up a few supplies and brought something other than pasta and sauce for dinner, turns out our pancakes kept us going for the whole night so we cooked up our asian noodles the next night. Back at the hostel we just hung out and caught up on our blogs and well, hid from the cold. Again plans to go out kind of feel through as it was just so cold! And Tom went to bed early still a bit behind on sleep. Me and Rdoc did head out to this great café on the main square which is kind of underground with candles and comfy couches, they had the most amazing hot chocolates of all time (well the one in Warsaw was good as well so maybe 1^st equal) it was like dark melted chocolate that you ate with a spoon, so we sat around in the warmth getting through our chocolate, another healthy addition to my food that day! Stuffed pancakes with creamy sauce and melted chocolate.

We just had one full day in Tallinn, which was probably enough to be honest after a lot of old towns. Another freezing day which does not make me excited about doing anything. But we got organized and went to the docks to get our ferry tickets for the next day to Helsinki. Helsinki in only 1.5 hours by boat then close to St Petersburg so why not head up there for the weekend? I love Europe how everything is just so close and you can just pop over to another country for the weekend. After we had our tickets we walked to a different part of the city with some sort of palace gardens then along to the beach which is probably nice during the summer but now is just a cold windy beach.

Back towards town we took refuge in a mall with the greatest supermarket of all time, basically it was just lots of food prepackaged into small servings, so you could get a really good lunch for cheap. Good salads, pizza by the slice, hot food, soups, pastries, juice, and usual supermarket food. It was overwhelmingly good, so we grabbed some stuff and sat in the mall then checked out a few shops before heading back to the hostel where I had a nap and was woken later by the boys who had discovered there was actually no accommodation for the next night in Helsinki. We spent a good few hours ringing places and emailing people we knew with connections in Finland. We had left it a bit late for weekend accommodation but who would have thought that it would be so full in Autumn. 2 days later lots of people had emailed us with offers of places to stay but a bit late by then, we managed to find a campsite cabin to stay in for the same price as a hostel so wasn’t too bad.

We made yummy, healthy asian food for tea then went back to the hot chocolate café and played some cards for awhile. We were trying to meet Joe, the aussie guy I had been hanging out with in Vilnius and Riga but didn’t work out so we tried to head to a few bars but I was over it, and freezing cold which means I can’t function or think any longer! So I headed back to the hostel for early bed while the boys had a few drinks somewhere.

Our ferry wasn’t leaving till 10.30 the next morning so it wasn’t a too early start, we went via the greatest ever supermarket to get some breakfast then headed over to catch the ferry towards Finland. The ride was pretty uneventful, nice boat, fast and we were stepping out in the even colder Helsinki by lunch time.

As I mentioned in my last post the rain had started on the way to Riga, Latvia’s capital and was set in to stay when me and Joe arrived in the late afternoon. We pulled up our hoods and set off to find our hostel, a big place run by Australians..they are everywhere…like a plague.

I just made some pasta for dinner after a quick walk around the old town which was nice…but an old town is an old town. I hung out in the bar for a bit getting trapped into a conversation with a stoned English guy who tried to psycho-analyze me with first year psych knowledge. Also there was a group of 70 German high school students staying getting trashed and generally being everywhere. I escaped to my room and hung out with the guys in there, including a kiwi guy from Christchurch. I successfully avoided the crazy English guy and the bulk of the Germans and got a relatively early night.

(Another old town…)

Finally it was the 9^th of September, the arrival day of Tom and Rdoc, both flying in at 2.45pm. I had a bit of time to kill before heading to the airport so walked around the old town again and did some internet stuff. I woke up feeling a bit sick with a stuffy nose and a bit of an ear ache which was a bit average, so I made sure to get some fruit and orange juice for lunch. I headed out to the airport to pick up the boys who arrived with gifts of chocolate and vegemite from home and my down jacket which couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Finally something warm! It was great to see them and have a little team together for the next however long we would last. Rdoc had been in Germany for a few days so was adjusted to the time difference but Tom had come straight from NZ and was pretty spaced out. We managed to make it back to the hostel and head out for a bit of a walk around then had dinner had the famous but not so exciting Lido restaurant. We did some grocery shopping and headed back to the hostel bar for some drinks and hung out for a bit, Tom was in bed pretty early and we didn’t stick around for that much longer before bed time.

Our first full day together and really my first day for seeing stuff we did the mega walk thing. First across the river away from the old town to this giant soviet victory memorial to celebrate the soviets winning something, not exactly loved by Latvians I imagine but it was massive, like massive massive with a huge tower thing in the middle then a massive lady on one side and a giant group of soldiers on the other.

We played around with getting photos for a bit-nice to have other people to take photos for once as I get over it. Rdoc has some fancy lens for his camera that does wide angle shots and makes things look very cool. Then we saw some cool looking onion domes across somewhere and went out in search of those through a random neighborhood to a not actually very exciting church. Back into town via a mega bridge to the occupation museum, a highly depressing explanation of Latvia being screwed over by Germans and Russians….again, it sucks for Eastern Europe and like Poland these countries are in strategically important places so routinely got bought, sold and invaded by more powerful countries.

We grabbed some Russian dumplings for lunch and continued walking around to a Russian market with a run down but I am sure once impressive Soviet style building. Markets in Eastern Europe are always a bit depressing, stuff isn’t that cheap and it wasn’t that great. Outside of the old town and away from the shiny shopping malls the reality for a lot of these countries is that people are still very poor and stuff still sucks for a lot of the population. That night it was the football, Latvia playing Greece and of course now being with boys we decided to go, tickets weren’t that expensive so we walked across to the stadium to pick up some cheap tickets for the evenings game. Back to the hostel via the supermarket and had a long rest after a mega day of walking everywhere. Surprise, surprise we cooked pasta for tea then walked to the game with Joe the aussie and the crazy English guy from the night before who is entertaining at least. They had more expensive tickets than us so we caught back up with them after the game. I don’t really know much about football so can’t really write to much about what happened, other than Latvia lost, the Greece supporters were pumped the whole game and Tom was so tired he was asleep for most of the second half.

On the way back via the hostel we all stopped at the very fancy sky bar on top of a big hotel, one of the only high buildings in the city. It was a nice place, drinks weren’t that expensive and an amazing view. The English guy was truly crazy, hard to describe, just odd and hilariously entertaining, although not really sure what he was talking about half the time….anyway after we stayed for as long as possibly without ordering more drinks we headed back to the hostel were we headed to bed.

Although we keep saying how we will go out, it gets late and cold and things are a lot more expensive here, and cover charges on bars and clubs are lame. Also Tom is still super jet lagged, despite denying it and we had planned to catch the bus to Tallinn at 8.30am the next day.

The Baltic’s definitely have a different feel to them from the rest of Eastern Europe, but still similar in that there is an old town with a lot of nice buildings and old churches…which by now I may be getting sick of. It does seem more western and less soviet influenced as you go through the three Baltic states, especially Estonia which tries to align itself with the Nordic countries rater than Eastern Europe.

Myself, Hal, Tom and Joe of the bus all headed to our Vilnius hostel, a nice place just on the edge of the old town. We were all pretty tired from our overnight bus so had a bit of a power nap then joined up with Magada, also from our bus, a Polish chick in Vilnius for the weekend. We all headed back to the back station to get the 30minute bus to this town with a castle. We slept for the short journey then got it together to go find the castle. The town was on this narrow strip of land that was surrounded by water with the castle at the end. We walked along the one road, it was a nice place, nothing too special though. Eventually we found the castle which is on an island in the middle of the lake. It had been completely rebuilt after being all old and falling down so was kind of flash and new looking. It was ok, more a nice spot than an amazing castle.

We got bored kind of quickly and went and negotiated a row bow boat to hire off this old man. Somehow we all managed to fit in and spent the next hour rowing around the lake and somehow getting stuck in this big rowing race going on…we made it out after getting told off by a security boat. We decided that we better go for a swim, not that anyone else was but seemed like a good idea so rowed into the middle of the lake to jump in…it was refreshing to say the least but nice to get in the water and probably the last day warm enough to actually go swimming! Definitely not as warm as the Mediterranean where I last was swimming but nice. We walked around the stalls along the lake to dry off a bit and checked out some crazy Russian fighter pilot hats which Tom ended up getting one, complete with a soviet badge that the guy kept hidden away as they’re illegal to sell. We grabbed some supermarket food and had a late lunch by the water before heading back on the bus to Vilnius, a good day in the sun.

We cooked a massive dinner at the hostel and had a few drinks before checking out the town which was having some big festival, the music on the main stage had finished by the time we got there and clubs and stupid expensive cover charges so we ended up sitting on the steps of the main square talking to a whole bunch of Lithuanians for ages before we finally headed home and into bed around 5am. Needless to say we all slept in late the next day.

Hal and Tom left the next morning (or afternoon actually) and eventually me, Magada and Joe got out of the hostel and wandered around, seeing more weddings and churches and the old university.

We grabbed some dinner with a couple of others at a close by traditional food restaurant, nice and cheap with very filling unhealthy type meals. The festival was still running so we went down an checked it out,  making it in time to see one of the bands playing, again lots of people around but everyone was kind of tired so ended up back at the hostel early-ish.

My final day in the city I went out with Magada, Joe and an Irish guy and we went and climbed up an old tower to get a view of the city then went out to this district of the city which declared itself independent of Lithuania awhile back and came up with a crazy constitution with things like “A dog has a right to be a dog”,  and “everyone has the right to make mistakes”.

We ended up seeing a few others from our hostel and had a beer and some lunch in the sun by the river. Turned out to be the last nice warm day I will probably get so good to make use of it. We were going to check out their occupation museum but it closed early on Sunday so we headed back to the hostel and a few of us continued to sit around in the sun drinking beer before heading out to the last night of the festival where possibly the worst band of all time was playing. Apparently they were big 10 years but now just seemed like aging Dracula wannabes playing strange metal type music…hilarious. Ended up back at the hostel after not too long and stayed up talking to some people.

It was time to move on, my last day before Tom and Rdoc would join me in Riga. Joe was heading up to Riga as well and we went via this place called the hill of crosses, apparently quite famous in the area. It is essentially a hill of crosses…thousands and thousands of crosses placed as memorials and devotion. They were bowled down by the Soviets but people continued to place them there and now the hill is really important for all Lithuanian people.

It was a 3 hour drive from Vilnius to the town then a following 2 hours to Riga, it was cool but a bit of a mission. 2 others joined us to come out but headed back to Vilnius after, it is a bit of a mission of a day trip. Also we had to make the bus to Riga so were really pressed for time, we had to take a taxi there so negotiated a flat rate with a driver, had a quick look around and rushed back to the bus with a minute to spare after arguing with the taxi driver who had decided a flat rate was no longer the case and was charging us the metered rate, an extra $10 or so….super frustrating but with our bus coming that instant we ended up paying. But we made the bus and were soon on our way towards Riga, the rain had set in and was cold….summer was no more and really cannot see it getting any warmer before Thailand. All those times of complaining about the heat and wishing it would rain have come back to haunt me now! Bring back the sun and warm weather…well not the 45 degree stuff but sun at least!

My stop in Poland was brief as best, mostly due to the fact I wasn’t really planning on going but unfortunately the visa strict Belarus lies between Ukraine and my next destination of Lithuanian. So I decided to stop over for a day rather than take the direct 16 hour bus. I hate buses…although ironically after my avoidance techniques I ended up on the worst bus of all to get to Vilnius…an overnight bus…but anyway, that’s another (and not nearly as painful) story.

I had visited Krakow, where my train arrived into, on my last trip around Eastern Europe and was keen to see something different so I skipped through and caught the first train straight up to the capital Warsaw, it had been a long journey on the train to get there and I was tired and hungry by the time I got to Krakow. This probably didn’t help me miss the fact there is actually a one hour time difference which was a bit confusing when trying to buy a ticket and I tried to argue with the ticket lady about it until she politely pointed out the time was in fact 3.30 not 4.30. But it was amazing how the train station people were helpful and spoke English! I managed to get a train leaving immediately and somehow ended up with a bag of M&M’s to eat…another healthy addition to my day of train station bought junk food. I had taken a slow train so arrived in Warsaw about 10.30pm, a long 16 hour day on the trains. I walked to my hostel and went straight to bed. I only had a day in Warsaw as I would leave on the evening on a night bus so I headed out alone for a mega day of walking and seeing a lot of stuff in a short space of time. It was actually really nice to be in a western style city, probably the most western place I had been so far.

I managed to get my bus ticket and walked around the wide streets and parks eventually getting to the Warsaw Rising museum which was about the fight against Germans and the Soviet invasion. Basically Poland was screwed by everyone, being in a bad location in terms of other people wanting your land. It’s always sad to learn more about how so many of these eastern European countries were screwed by both Germany and Russia for so long with one bad regime following the next. The Warsaw Rising was when Warsaw tried to hold out against the Germans but lost, the museum was really interesting and really well put together with lots of interesting information also lots of horrific scenes from the fighting and the concentration camps which are mostly around Poland. Very sad but a good museum,  and made my walking around the city more interesting as I learnt a bit more about the important sites. Heaps of the city was destroyed but there is still a very impressive but touristy old town that I checked out with a really good market square.

I had a nice healthy lunch at a vege café to have a break from the incredibly stodgy Ukrainian food. As my bus wasn’t until 11 that night I went to a mall and window shopped in H&M and some other clothing shops, not that I can actually carry any more clothes, but it was nice to look around and not just look at churches and old buildings!

(The big building dubbed Stalin’s Birthday cake)

Back at the hostel I got chatting to an English guy and went to a jazz bar for a quick drink then it was time to get my bags and jump on the 9 hour bus to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. So a short but action packed day in Warsaw, I actually liked the city, not many people do but I guess it was a nice change from other places I had been, and had people who were actually helpful and friendly! Like they actually wanted to serve me! Amazing!

The bus ride was actually good as there was an Aussie and an English travelling together-Tom and Hal and another Aussie guy, Joe sitting near me, plus a group of Romanian girls who spoke perfect English so I had a cool journey chatting to them and got a bit of sleep arriving nice and early in Vilnius where the 4 of us headed to our hostel.

The 20 hour journey towards Lviv (or Lvov in Russian) was a frustratingly slow and altogether soviet experience, it was probably the most eastern European feeling, no other tourists, lots of big ugly apartment blocks scattered through the country side, lots of abandoned factories and a few villages that probably haven’t changed for years. With my lack of Russian or any useful languages I made friends with the 2 year old in the next section and we had fun checking out the cows out the window. I was in the open plan carriage, similar to trains in India with an open corridor type thing along one side with 4 beds on one side then 2 next to the window, I actually prefer it to the closed 4 berth cabin type trains as there is more room, more chance to walk around and more people about. The attendants on the train cranked up their small cassette player the whole journey with Justin Timberlake, ABBA, M people and other sweet 90’s hits. Not that they spoke any English, but I had fun singing along to myself trying to keep myself occupied as I had no book and only limited ipod battery. Eventually we rolled into the beautiful train station of Lviv, full of more unhelpful staff. I finally changed a few euro’s and got enough money to take an awesome old school tram into town which threatened to stop at any moment, but I guess its been working for the last 40years so why stop now.

It was a lot colder in the Ukraine and finally I fished out my shoes and jersey, which I have been lugging round since I left home and barely used. Time for the cold north and the end of summer which was winding up with the beginning of September, it will only get colder from here and already I was wishing for the same hot weather I have been complaining about for the last 2 months. I found my hostel OK, a cool little place all kind of soviet kitsch style with a great kitchen and big table, and….other backpackers! Amazing after too much time alone on the train and in Chisinau.

Lviv is picked to become the ‘next big thing’ in Europe as it a beautiful old town pretty much untouched by the wars, lots of historic buildings and churches.

I spent the day wandering aimlessly, seeing about 8 weddings taking place (they seem to be following me round), drinking coffee, getting lost trying to follow a map with English street signs when really everything is in Cyrillic. There was much more Cyrillic than in Bulgaria and Moldova, everything is Cyrillic and so a bit daunting trying to figure things out, plus no one speaks English and like usual no one wants to help you if you are a tourist! I managed to find a book market and found an English trashy book which was really better than nothing! My evening was pretty quiet as not too many people around the hostel. Late at night I met an American chick who arrived so we hung out the next morning in an attempt to buy train tickets.  But the women refused to help us and we ended up dragging this Ukrainian guy staying at the hostel down to the ticket office to translate. It was hilariously frustrating as the women refused to try to help us. I mean come on, a train ticket is not that hard to sell if you speak different languages! Eventually I got a ticket and ended up with the Ukrainian guy, a Hungarian guy and a French guy and we did a bit of a tour around the city, seeing some churches and climbing up a hill.

It was great actually having this Ukrainian guy with us, he was just visiting for the day and could actually ask directions which was oh so helpful. For lunch we stopped at this awesome place called Phaza Khata which was a huge canteen type thing where we had delicious potato dumplings and beetroot soup, everything covered in sour cream, so unhealthy but so so good.There are lots of cool cafes and bars around and a group of us headed out to a cute place later on for ice cream and coffee which was hidden down an ally way.

(inside the blue bottle)

(outside the entrance way to the cafe)

We actually used my phrase book and deciphered a bit of the menu which was exciting!On my last day around the city myself and the American girl somehow ended up in a university class as guest speakers to an English class. The teacher had overheard us on the way to the post shop and gotten us o come speak to her class as it was the first day. It was random but really nice and lovely students. The university is in an amazingly old building, there are lots of students around the town and we had arrived in the first days of class. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the streets getting a few jobs done then meet up with some others for more delicious Phaza Khata for lunch then a bit of a hunt around for a nice café, we ended up at strange place with dodgy pictures on the menu and crazy wallpaper and our bill coming inside a high heel shoe. Again my phrase book came in handy and I managed to order chocolate mousse which was excellent. I really enjoyed my few days in the Ukraine and am a  bit gutted I didn’t get to spend more time there as there seems like lots of other cool places to go to. It was a bit of an introduction to just how difficult Russia will be with Cyrillic alphabet and unhelpful people. But very cool place.

(a very random pig lying on the road)

I left early the next morning on a train bound for Krakow in Poland, which would have been a short journey if not for their strange way of changing the wheels on the train as the soviets have different tracks than the rest of Europe. So we had a long 4 hour wait at the border while we did that but eventually we got going and headed into Poland.