I'm back safe and sound in safe, comfortable England (for the time being).

We arrived last night after a marathon day - up at 5.30 to get the early train from St Petersburg to Helsinki then after killing a couple of hours the flight back to London. Reminiscent of my last day in India... Quite the reverse of india was coming from chilly St Petersburg in the morning (strong wind, snow flurries, top temperature of -2) to London (a balmy 19 degrees). I've been walking around in shorts and thongs/jandles/flip-flops...

Since the last post we've basically been in Moscow and St Petersburg. We lost our adventurous edge and decided against wandering through some smaller, out of the way towns. The decision was helped by 1. people telling us we'd need a week in Petersburg and 2. being such a mission to buy train tickets that we wanted to limit the number of times we had to do it. Very few Russians speak English (which we can't hold against them) but they don't try very hard to communicate with you if you don't speak Russian. Especially in a place like a train station where you'd expect foreign tourists, when we tried to get tickets the attendant looked at us bewildered, as though she previously had no idea a language other than Russian existed. And its not as though we made no effort. We wrote down the key details in cyrillic but were still brushed aside after a minute of talking Russian at us as quickly as she could without tickets. We eventually got help from a nice old bloke who spoke english and even offered to contribute 1000Rubles (like €30), which was a little weird, but at least we had tickets.

Moscow was how you imagine Russia to be. Fairly dreary and grey. There was still plenty to see and do, and our hostel was fantastic. It's only brand new, and is basically the only hostel within half an hour of central, so everyone who is everyone was there. One girl we met was moving up to St Petersburg for a few months and offered us to stay in her appartment there (which was lovely of her!). We were in Moscow for four nights and its silly, but the highlight for me was Lenin. Its just so weird... He looks like he's been stolen from Madame Tussaud's and the guards are really serious about it all - no stopping, no hands in pockets, etc, etc. We also went to the Russian state history museum, which documented everything from the stone age onwards. I went into the museum knowing very little about pre-revolutionary Russia, and then left knowing very little about pre-revolutionary Russia. The whole thing was in Russian, and even then it was just little plaques saying what a thing was. There wasn't really any information anywhere, just a collection of stuff.

St Petersburg is much more European than Moscow - the style of the buildings remind me a lot of Paris and the city is covered with canals. We had 8 days in Petersburg, and I'm not going to bore you with too much detail, but suffice to say there was plenty to occupy us for that time, and there were still plenty of world-class museums and attractions we didn't make it to. Like I said it snowed on Wednesday (all day), which was a first for me (i've been skiing and seen snow and all that, but I've never seen it in the process of snowing). It was fun at first, but by the time my hands went numb and Hana began worrying out loud that she was getting frostbite and her toes were going to fall off it was getting a bit old.

Off next to Italy (most likely) as soon as possible (most likely sunday).

We've arrived in sunny Russia...

You may have detected the hint of irony in my voice(?). I failed to mention in my last post that we have been having magnificent weather since arriving in Helsinki on Thursday. So much so that I think I saw my first cloud since London today. We arrived in Moscow at midday, made it to our hostel at 1-1.30ish and as soon as we were ready to step out for a wander round it had begun pissing down with rain. Obviously not a problem for those of us with Gore-Tex™ but for others (HANA!) the inclement weather proved too much. Hopefully its not one of those Munich showers that lasts for precisely the time you intend on staying in a place... Technically we've had an excuse this afternoon - the official line is that we were exhausted after our marathon 16-hour train ride from Riga. We feared the worst from the outset. Feeling we'd be able to survive in a 2nd class seat (as opposed to sleeper) we opted for the cheaper but even seat was a generous description. Passengers were in lines of three along hard benches (essentially wood with a vinyl cover) and I even had the priviledge of a 2-inch wooden windowsill sticking into my back. Luckily about 90% of 2nd class cleared out just before the Russian border leaving each passenger a bench of three seats to lay down on. This turned out to be actually better than what I'd imagined and while we didn't have the foam mattress and sheets and blankets the extra 14 Lats would have got us in a sleeper, I still managed non-continuous sleep until about 9am. I frantically studied the cyrillic alphabet in the 2 hours between waking up and arriving and while I'm proud to say that I can now translate Москва and Шит (Moskva and shit) into roman letters it was nowhere near enough and when we stepped off the train into the station we had no idea what the fuck was going on. We were pointed in the direction of the metro by a friendly Russian who said he was going to Melbourne soon and would call on the return fabour from me. From there I was able to figure out where we had to go (I had dilligently translated the names of key stations from the roman on our map to cyrillic so I could recognise them when i got there). The Moscow metro is unbelievable, not for the actual trains which are similar to the Paris metro (efficient enough but smell overwhelmingly of urine) but for the stations which are decorated as though they're palaces. There are gilded chandeliers lighting the tunnels, marble floors and walls and stained glass (not windows cause we were underground but stained glass nonetheless). We got to the hostel eventually but then the rains came and coincidentally (?!) the fatigue...

The days previous we had spent in Riga, which turned out to be quite a nice town. The old town wasn't as quaint as that of Tallinn but seemed much more used. Whereas the majority of people wandering the streets of Tallinn were tourists, in Riga they were locals going about their daily lives. There was also a more happening nightlife in Riga which coincided with more younger backpackers (which came first the nightlife or the young travellers?!). We also noticed an unexplainable aussie presence there. Two of the three hostels in old town are run by aussies, most of the travellers we met there were aussie and the articles in the 'what's happening in Riga' magazine had the word dodgy in it far too often for my liking. Unfortunately the facial hair trend seemed to peter out by the time we got to Riga - it must be a rural thing. I guess they're still on the first run of Magnum PI up there.

Still much more of Russia to come. Just hope the weather improves a notch...

Travelling is so much better than work...

Arrived in Helsinki without a hitch except that we way overshot our hostel when we arrived and after walking for 20mins turned round and found it about 2 minutes away from the central station. Helsinki's a decent sort of a city but lacks a bit of character. It was very clean and whatnot but lacked any real distinguishing features and was a little on the expensive side of cheap.. We spent a couple of nights there dining on fish soup in fish markets and wandering around island forts but after only two days we didn't feel as though we were leaving a great deal behind.

At the last minute our plans flipped around and instead of going from Helsinki to St Petersburg, we decided to make the ferry trip across to Tallinn. If I'm being completely honest the reason for the sudden change was that Hana had me start a book she'd read set in St Petersburg and refused to let me go there until I'd finished it. Despite a commendable effort I got nowhere near so Tallinn it was.. The ferry crossing was uneventful but I'm pleased to say that I got a new stamp in passport with a picture of a ship on it. I'm a simple creature.. I should say now that Tallinn is the most beautiful town i've ever seen (I should limit this to the old town because the tram ride out to the bus station in the 'burbs took us past some ex-soviet ghetto-type housing). After walking the 10 minutes to old town from the port and then another 10 minutes to the alleged location of our chosen hostel out of the lonely planet, we grimmed out a bit when a receptionist at a much nicer hotel informed us that it no longer existed. Just plonked down beside a well in the middle of a cobblestone street at the top of a small hill. It will be one of those memories we'll look back on and smile at but at the time it wasn't the happiest. The hostel we found in the end was about 2 minutes from our well so the grim was short lived. Its hard to pick out highlights of Tallinn - its more the town as a whole. After three days we had seen all there was to see (at least all we wanted to see) but I could have easily spent another few days there just wandering the streets. Before catching the bus to Tartu - Estonia's answer to Oxford (or Clayton) - we managed to catch an Estonian lunch buffet. It worked out well cause we were able to sample a number of local dishes, as well as stuff our faces...

We stayed in the student halls in Tartu and had the luxury of a private bathroom, kitchen and TV. This of course meant we isolated ourselves a bit and my grand ideas of joining some group of Estonian students on a crawl of the local watering holes never eventuated. Did see some old KGB cells which miserably failed to make up for it but was cool nonetheless.

A couple of days in Tartu pretty much brings us to now. This morning we were up at the ungodly hour of 5.30 for an early bus to Valmiera, Latvia where we transferred to a train bound for Sigulda. My hour in Valmiera was enough time to decide that it was a hole and that Latvian men love the old moustache. Our bus driver who took us from the bus to the train station was a dead ringer for Tom Selleck. It would be too obvious to say they are simply 20 years behind world fashion, so I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and say that this is purely and simply for the love of the 'tache. We got to Sigulda, a small town on the edge of a National Park with sweeping gorges and spectacular caves. Well I hear they're spectacular. We only spent the day in Sigulda and the majority of it was spent waiting on either side for the bloody cable car. Being autumn the colours in the national park were particularly spectacular, and the cable car ride gave the best view of all this, but there is only one and takes half an hour to do a round trip. Having to wait for three to come before our turn became tedious and then deciding to alight at the other side to see the castle was a schoolboy error as we had to wait again to come back.. Sigulda is good for fitting a lot of worthwhile things into a small area (and would have even more to do in winter with skiing and a bobsleigh run) and I could probably have spent longer there but Russia is calling.

We're now in Riga after catching the evening train and are wrecked after a long day (hence the internet). Turns out Latvia is quite expensive (the Lat is worth more than the pound) and I don't know how much longer I can deal with this many moustaches so we may yet be on the overnight to Moscow tomorrow. Have to wait and see what there is to see and do here.

Sorry this has just turned into a travel email that can't be deleted (just received Lyds' and promised I would be more interesting - and failing). If you're angry at me wasting your valuable time feel free to post complaints and suggestions at the bottom. Elsewise I'll most likely next be in touch from Russia. How exciting.

Just arrived back in London after 20 hours on a bus and I am wrecked!

People who know me will know that most experiences involving long-haul bus rides, constant rain for four days and camping (in said rain) wouldn't usually please me.. But I had such a good time at Oktoberfest it is completely incomprehensible how much fun it would be if I flew to Munich, stayed in a hostel and had great weather.. Having said that, the weather kept some of the crowds away which meant we were actually served beer.. and I survived soley because of my brand new, completely waterproof gore-tex jacket I scored for cost price (£70) from one of Georgie's housemates who's a manager in a Kathmandu-type store. It meant that while the others were struggling under their makeshift shelter in the beer garden of one of the halls (you have to see a photo of this: we stacked benches and tables on top of each other and ended up with a little room. The best part was that the brau frau kept serving us cause the rest of the beer garden was completely empty and we were the only source of tips) I could wander around at my leisure without getting wet. The same couldn't be said about my shoes though which were soaked completely for the entire week. Fortunately, unlike dan, having wet socks wasn't a serious enough an injury to impede my movement. The good news is that the week of soaking has returned them to their natural grey from the black they were after spending too long at places like the she bu walkabout.

The tour we went on was pretty much a scam. Aside from them raking in their massive margin (it does not cost them £200 to send each person there in a coach and 4 nights of camping) the included parts of the tour were designed so that a minimum of people actually made use of it. Breakfast finished each day at 8.45 and the day-trip out to a concentration camp and monestary (Andechs - which has awesome pork and beer) left at 10. Both stretches if you've been drinking till 4 in the morning. We actually overheard a guide say that they weren't expecting as many people on the day-trip and that they had to take an extra bus. Next time i'd just book it all myself.

In other news, Germans think I look like McGuyver and I lost my phone on a ride (but it flew out of my pocket at such a speed that its worth it if it hit someone). If you want to send me a text send it to my Australian number. I'll just use that from now on..

Off to Helsinki on Thursday and thats when it really begins. Should be fun - i'll let you all know how its going.