Last week I read the Beach (the book is much better than the film), and its made me really toey. I'm super keen to get back to travelling, although I kinda wish I was heading to a hidden tropical beach bordering a marijuana plantation... No idea why though.

Yesterday I got back my visa for Russia and I'm super pumped about that. After all the fucking around involved with that, its rewarding to have it all sorted now. To get my visa I had to arrange an invitation (usually the hotel your staying in will issue this, but wanting to leave my plans as flexible as possible, I haven't arranged accommodation). So I went to a dodgy online Russian company and paid them US$30 to invite me. So then sent my passport off the the embassy and the rest is history. Having just written this all out, it really doesn't sound like as much fucking around as it has seemed - you'll just have to trust me. So the plan is to fly into Helsinki a couple of days after Oktoberfest, train to St Petersburg, then Moscow (hopefully some places in between, but I don't know how restrictive the visa actually is - when you apply you have to list the towns you're going to visit, but I'm not sure if that's enforced), then Riga, Talinn (again, hopefully some places in between, but I know nothing about Latvia or Estonia so at this point I have no idea where I would go) then a ferry across the Baltic back to Helsinki.

We've also booked a long weekend in amsterdam with Byron and another few guys and then the last hurrah with the flat-mates will be a big trip to Oktoberfest. For anyone who hasn't read my comments in the last post, there's 10 days between being evicted and Oktoberfest so, as we haven't really seen any of England, we may rent a car for a week or go on a bus tour.

The novelty of my job has worn off, so I'm kinda living for weekends at the moment, but there's not long to wait for the travel to resume.