Posted Dec. 31, 2010. Journal entries for Saint Petersburg, Russia from the June 2009 trip to come. Stay Tuned. ... read more

Krakow to Warsaw entry to follow. Posted December 28, 2010 for journal entries dated June 5th - June 12th, 2009. Stay tuned for the stories, comrad.... read more

May 31: We arrived in Moscow Friday morning, stiff from the long trans-Atlantic flight. After clearing customs with relative ease, we claimed our belongings and plunged into the heart of Moscow by train. Drab Soviet highrise apartments began to punctuate the forested landscape miles outside of the city center. In Moscow, we scarcely had time to catch our breath before heading to the ticket office to pick up our tickets to Kiev, Ukraine. Sprinting from the office, we arrived at Kyivskaya station just in time to catch our sleeper train to the Ukrainian capital. Moscow will have to wait. Slept well on the train. Arrived in Kiev early Saturday and met Michelle's friend Michael. Michael, a Peace Corp volunteer from Philadelphia, has spent the last 20 months teaching English in Lutsk, a town in Western Ukraine. ... read more

June 29: After departing from Cuzco on an overnight bus, Ryan and I found ourselves staring out at a brilliant sunrise over Lake Titicaca and wrapping up in a few extra layers to ward off the bitter cold. We reunited with a Japanese friend, Yoshi, whom we had met on our rafting trip near Cuzco, had a great alpaca lunch, walked around a bit, and discovered that one of Peru´s poorest cities was actually a pleasant place to linger. In our hostel that evening, we made fast friends with an Australian chef named Lee who had traveled up from Chile and was bound for Bolivia. Gathered for a great dinner with new friends (including Yoshi, Lee, another Japanese traveler and an English engineer who lives in Tanzania), chatted, laughed, and ultimately, decided a round of drinks ... read more

June 24: We are currently in Cusco, taking a moment to catch our breaths after taking in the colorful Inti Raymi festival earlier. I'll backtrack to catch everyone up: after unwinding for a couple of days in Trujillo, Ryan and I backpacked to Lima, where I became aware of just how enormous the place really is. The pollution is eye-stinging, the pace of life is frenetic, and the poverty is quite appalling, but there is something very attractive about the heaving metropolis of nearly eight million. The many diverse areas in Lima possess an exciting if sometimes downtrodden energy, giving a cohesiveness to the odd conglomeration of trendy commercial areas, neglected neighborhoods, sleek highrises and historic landmarks. Lingering in the tranquil backwaters of historic Barranco, meandering with the jetset in Miraflores, and shuffling in the walkways ... read more