Greece Bound

We have arrived in Greece!! Goodbye cold weather and somber faces, hello sunshine and pita bread! Before I get ahead of myself, lets recap the past 2 weeks, shall we?

We left Irkutsk for Tomsk in a lovely cabin on the train. We ate loads of noodles and bread, drank lots of tea, and napped. Upon arrival in Tomsk we were met by Nikita, our CS host. He drove us to his place, a very nice apartment which he shares with his wife, overlooking the city. Fabulous! We feasted on stuffed peppers (thanks Marina!), showered, laundried, and generally sorted ourselves out before heading into town with our lovely hosts for a grand tour. Tomsk is primarily a student town with gorgeous architecture overlooking the Tom river. We even went to the hill where Tomsk was founded! Lots of the buildings are adorned with wooden "lace", a characteristic of original Siberian architecture with Tomsk being having the most intact pieces. What a lovely time we had, strolling around and chatting. We went back to the apartment that evening for a dinner of solyanka, a delicious soup, and some mulled wine. We rounded out the night watching "Brother 2" a great Russian film.




The next day we continued our tour after a ridiculously great omlette brunch, and visited the campuses and parks in the southern part of town. In the afternoon we attended the annual meeting for the local branch of the Hospitality Club, an organization quite like CS. We even had to give a little speech and slideshow of our trip! The meeting was held in an awesome tiny theatre with the most fantasitc wooden puppets that move and talk to you electronically. Seriously awesome. We cooked our hosts dinner of Chili con Carne and wine, and enjoyed our last night in Siberia.

Two-point-five days on the train in 3rd class- woulda been grand had we not been plagued by this chick who decided to sit with us and talk to our neighbors all day and all night, regardless of the fact that her seat was down the cabin. Oli couldn't lay down when he wanted to and she was constantly crowding us!! ARGHHHHH.

Welcome to Moscow. Somehow, we found our way to the hostel without a hitch and found that Home from Home is not what it claims. We were met by a very confused staff, no record of our booking (a constant problem with this place, as it turns out) and then we were placed in the "dorm" in the common room- 4 saggy beds under the TV where the resident babushka sits all day watching the soaps. She also sleeps there and has a massive snoring problem, as we found out later. We headed out to grab a bite to eat (yummy blinys) and a night view of the Kremlin and St. Basil's cathedral. So picturesque!!! We rounded out the evening at a Cuban bar of all places, drinking extortionately prices drinks (thanks for the beer $ pops!!!!!) and avoiding our hellhole of a hostel.



The next day we went back to the Red Square to visit Lenin's Mauselium- creepy and sad, the past 85 years look like they were torture for the poor man. Lunch at a fab place in the famous GUM mall (Russians LOVE their buffet and cafeteria style restaurants!) and then the museum, afterwhich we were plagued with what to do until our 1am train to St. Petes. Oli decided on (what else) Tinkoff brewery! We lazed away the night having a few microbrews until our train. As we boarded our train, we realized that we had left our passports in the hostel's safe. Oh shit. Well, nothin to do but try to board the train with our photocopies and avoid the po-po at any cost! We boarded without a problem and slept the 9hrs to St. Petersburg.

Now this is a city we can dig! Immediately we loved the place, and were fortunate enough to be staying at the lovely Soul Kitchen hostel- nice! We checked in, grabbed lunch, and headed directly to the Hermitage. What a museum!!! We were there until closing, and saw every single room on both the first and second floors. It is one of the most fabulous museums we have ever been to and thats saying a lot after London, NYC, and the past year of globe trotting! Dinner at a local place where we munched on Ural dumplings and borscht.



Day two of St. Petes consisted of the Dostoyevsky museum (swoon), napping, and food at Yolki Polki- salad buffet for less than $10, a real feat in Russia, and where we found out later Obama had taken his kids to! Early night for us.

Final day in St. Petes was Hermitage time- had to finish up the 3rd floor! Hid out in a coffeeshop and then the ballet at the Mikaelovsky theatre- Giselle was on, and it was surperb. Russian ballet, can't beat it!! A bit fancy pants when you get down to it, and the men sure were proud of those tights they were wearing, but a great evening overall. Evening train to Moscow!

Final day in Russia, and it poured down with rain. We went to the armoury, where we saw a few Faberge eggs (I really don't get what the fuss is about), some awesome carriages, and a bunch of guilded things. Spent the afternoon in a coffee shop journaling and deciding on which Russian dolls to buy, then off to the airport for our 10:40pm flight to Riga, Latvia!

Slept in the Riga airport- I swear we were the only souls there. Not even anyplace to buy water, we had to suffice with sucking out of the bathroom taps. Slept surprisingly well for a few hours, had a cold pizza breakfast, and then caught our flight to ATHENS!!!

And here we are. We arrived yesterday and immediately had a beer at the rooftop bar overlooking the Acropolis, then found a market to buy dips and cheeses and pitas and wine, and spent the evening on our balcony enjoying the Grecian weather.

Today has been busy! We headed to the Acropolis first, where it was tour group hell, but still breathtaking. Of course, like every other fabulous thing in the world it was under refurbishment, but still- amazing. After that we popped in at a few other ruins around the city, ate a yummo Greek pita wrap, and decided to visit Nafplio on Friday. And that brings you up to date! Just a month left on our RTW adventure (then I'm off to Australia sans Oli for 10 days or so) and then Blighty for the holidays! Love and kisses.

Happy Anniversary to us!!!!

Well, it has now been one year since we flew to Mexico City from NYC and now we are in Russia - weird! It is also weird to think that in 2 weeks we will be in Cairo, after travelling the remaining few thousand Km of the Trans-Siberian, a brief stop in Latvia AND going to Athens!

Anyway, a lot has happened since the end of the last update, for this we have to go all the way back to Beijing..... but to the best part...

Catherine arrived!! We made our way over to the Hilton to meet her and we were greeted with big hugs and a ridiculous room!! We snuck ourselves in and went out to explore the city, now as a threesome. We went 1st to the Temple of Heaven Park, we had a lovely wander around the grounds and even got to witness a large group of locals having a nice Sunday afternoon dance! From here we went to go for a quick drink and to the Duck Restaurant that had been recommended to us.

We arrived and were greeted with something everyone can appreciate.... free wine! A good start so far. We were all hungry and ready to experience Peking Duck in Peking. Unfortunatly the free wine was the best bit! Despite being delicious, the duck was disappointing as, despite ordering a whole duck, we all only had 3 limply filled pancakes - no good. It was so shocking thas
t we even complained and the girl donned some rubber gloves and started tearing at the duck. "Extra Lean" duck my ass! Anyway, it was delicious and we did not let it taint our night. We went to find a drink and before we knew it we were witnessing a pole-off! That's right people, a guy one one pole, a girl on the other and them both going at it HARD! Genius. Suffice to say, we had a good night!

We awoke in our (thx Cat!) still wonderful room and ventured out to The Forbidden City. When we arrived we were suprised to find a Cartier exhibit (Catherine works in the antique jewellery business) and it was one of the most enjoyable exhibits that we have been privy too, particularly as we had a cute little walking jewellery encyclopedia with us!! We left this to view the rest of the beautiful City before heading across Tian'amen Square to wander around the old network of streets on the other sides. From here we went for a really fun hotpot, cook your own, restaurant before heading back to the Hilton for the evening.



After leaving the Hilton and sadly saying goodbye to Catherine, ouк new fave travel buddy, we went over to our hostel for our last night in China before starting the Trans-Mongolian Railway trip. We left from here the following morning and bee-lined for the train station where we settled into a vitually empty train, meaning we had our own cabin. Yay!! The train trip was really something else, exciting and visually beautiful, seeing the landscape change from the green, limestone mountains of China, to the rock Gobi desert and then to the undulating hills surrounding Ulaanbaatar. Particularly memorable was Jen's puchase of Jack Daniel's at the border... only to find it was Jack Daniei's, a "very convincing" fake - she was not happy!

Arriving at our hostel, and for the 1st time for a while private room, we finally conceeded to machine washing our clothes, much needed after China, and went to explore the city a little. Finally we were really cold and we relished the opportunity to don our new coats and jeans! The next day we explored UB more visiting the very interesting and extensive National History Museum and then onto the Natural History Museum - more of a taxidermists wet dream than a museum - We went for a few local brews (thanks Kev & Arya) before heading back and packing up for our 2 nights stay with a nomadic family in a tradition ger in the Terelj National Park.

After a few hours in the car we arrived at our new family's place in the beautiful National Park. We were greeted with not only amazing landscape but warm mare's milk, and homemade bread & butter! We were left to our own devices till lunch and we went for a very visually rewarding hike up the peak next to the encampment. It was an amazing sight and at this time of year the trees were all an amazing bronze colour. We returned from our hike for lunch and (I) enjoyed freshly cooked (& killed) mutton with potatoes, rice and pickles. We vegged and enjoyed the countryside for the rest of the day before settling in with Anna and Peter, our new Portuguese buddies, and a bottle of vodka in our wood-fire heated ger.

Our 2nd day was greeted with new people coming to stay and more warm mare's milk! Today was our day to go horse-riding, for 4 hours, my 1st time..... it was harrowing! Actually, after nearly falling off in the 1st 5 mins, I got the hang of it and we had a great time trotting to 'Turtle Rock' - you guessed it, it looks like a turtle! With a sore arse we returned and had another relaxing evening, it was only after reviewing the photos from the horse-riding that we realised just how reeeeeeeeediculous I looked on the tiny horse!



We returned to UB after a 2nd night in the countryside and went to get our tickets for the next leg of the train. We rewarded ourselves at the Chinngis Beer Co. and went to stock up on provisions for the ensuing journey.

The next part of the train was just as beautiful, but a little more painful as there was the border crossing at 1am that took close to 6 hours with Mongolians asking us to help them smuggle coats across by claiming that they were ours! Yay. But we did make it into Russia. We arrived in Irkutsk yesterday after several hours skirting Lake Baikal, the World's deepest lake and largest deposit of unfrozen fresh water, to our 1st Russian Couch Surfing host. We hung out with the hairless cats till Spike got home at 1030pm. We hit it off and at 4am, after a bottle of vodka, we finally retired to bed.

Today we were late getting up thanks to the vodka but still made it to Lake Baikal to dip both feet in and gain 5 years of extra life per foot. Take that smoking!



We leave in the morning for Tomsk and more Russian fun!