Okay, so I've already been home for over two weeks now but Brian just reminded me that I haven't written about the last leg of my mini-tour around Europe! Obviously this one entry will not do justice to the last countries I visited, but I'm going to write about them anyway. After parting with the other Canadians in Croatia, Jeremy, Melissa and I took a bus to Brno which is the second biggest city in the Czech Republic. Jeremy used to live there a couple of years ago and we were able to stay with a friend of his which [View Full Entry]

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When you're backpacking, the people you meet quickly become close friends. This is the way it was with the Canadians we met in Sarajevo - we just couldn't get enough of each other! From Mostar, we took a bus to Dubrovnik, a seaside town on the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea. We were immediately greeted by a swarm of women with pictures of their homes, wanting us to stay with them! Fortunately we made Brandon our haggling "captain" and he found us a nice place to stay for our three nights in Dubrovnik. Croatia is more expensive than what we [View Full Entry]

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Now, I absolutely love Jeremy and Melissa (and of course Hunter who isn't on this trip) but there are quite a few differences between Canadians and Americans. Don't ask me to explain what these differences are, there are many and some of them are very subtle and difficult to explain. On the train from Budapest to Sarajevo, we happened to have seats right next to two Calgarians (a brother and sister named Brandon and Jessie). They are the first two Canadians I've met during our backpacking adventures and it was really nice to be able to hang out with fellow [View Full Entry]

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The story begins in the Krakow train station because that's where we met Andreas. Jeremy, Melissa, Benny and I were buying our train tickets to Budapest and a guy asked Jeremy whether the backpack sitting behind him was his. When Jeremy said that it was, the guy said that he had overheard that we were headed to Budapest and that if he wanted to keep his things, he'd better keep a better eye on his things...that his backpack would've vanished in seconds had we been in a public area in Budapest! That was our introduction to Andreas, a German-Pakistani law student [View Full Entry]

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Coming from Alberta, I'm usually not overly impressed by mountains because we have the Rockies. C'mon, they're some of the biggest and most beautiful mountains in the world! But since Leszek was right about falling in love with Krakow, we followed his advice and went to Zakopane - a little resort town in the mountains. The town reminds me a lot of Banff (for those of you not familiar with Banff, it's a national park in Alberta and is where some of the Rockies are located) except that it looks more storybookish because of the old streets and houses. Just the [View Full Entry]

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We almost didn't make it to Poland... If it weren't for Leszek (Polish friend from Jyväskylä) and his recommendation to come here, I think we probably would've skipped this country altogether and that would've been a huge mistake because I absolutely love this country! We arrived after a long bus ride from Vilnius and realized that the third was a holiday. The holiday is to celebrate the creation of the Polish consitution in 1891 - not sure exactly what the holiday is called in Polish. How do I know that this was the cause for celebration? We happened to meet some [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately our stay in Vilnius wasn't long enough... We arrived from Riga on Monday afternoon after a long bus ride. We've decided to not plan our trip which meant that we hadn't booked a hostel before arriving in Vilnius - this caused a bit of frustration, but everything worked out in the end. Vilnius is a beautiful city. I loved the Old Town in Riga but I have to say that Vilnius' Old Town is even more gorgeous. Like the streets in Riga, the Old Town in Vilnius is made up of old cobblestone and I can't get enough of it! [View Full Entry]

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Today was a tough day. I had to say goodbye to the town that has become my home, and the wonderful friends that I had the pleasure of spending my last four months with. The only thing that made this day somewhat comforting was the fact that I'm leaving for my tour around Eastern Europe! This entry is mostly for my "Kortepohja Family" - I just wanted to tell you guys that it was an absolute joy to get to know you all. I'm truly going to miss our parties, brunches, chats, Stammtisches, Spanish singing and the pounding music of [View Full Entry]

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After another overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg (again, with little sleep), we arrived and were whisked off onto another city tour. Tsar Nicholas I was reigning during the construction of the Moscow - St. Petersburg railway and our guide told us that when he was drawing the line between the two cities, he accidentally drew around part of his thumb, creating a curve that is 17 km long! The architects were too afraid to point out the mistake and built the railway according to the Tsar's drawings. St. Petersburg is a gorgeous city! The city centre is made [View Full Entry]

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It's hard to describe my six days in Russia without writing a novel! What you may have heard about Russia is true: it can be dangerous; the people can be cold and unhelpful; you should not travel alone unless you speak Russian; and it is a place of contrasts. What people might not tell you is how warm Russians can be. Our tour guides are Finns who speak Russian fluently and are in the country more than they are in Finland. Kaisa was one of our guides and she's part owner of the company we travelled with. She told us [View Full Entry]

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