меня зовчт Juliana...

I have been meaning to update these more regularly as there is free internet at most of the hostels in Russia, and we have had a fair bit if time hanging aroud waiting for trains, but it just hasn't worked out for me. We are leaving Russia tonight, so I'm condensing the train, Moscow and St Petersburg into one.

We boarded Irkustsk ready for our 77 hour train trip on the evening of the 19th, which would get us to Moscow on the 22nd. Due to our late booking, we had had to purchase a ticket which included food. It was a little more expensive, but it saved us having to carry food four three days as well as our packs, jackets, water etc to the train. The train trip was I think one of (if not the) best experiences we have had in Russia. In our compartment, there were two Russians, who fed us, vodka'd us, and entertained us the whole way. They spoke very little English, but they were heaps of fun, and with the help of a phrase book lent to us by some Kiwis, we managed. This blog is titled "my name is Juliana", they couldn't quite grasp Sage, so re-named me Juliana for the journey. When I refused any vodka it would be "c'mon Juliana".... Oh yeah and the scenery was great too.

If anyone else out there is planning on taking the train, I would highly recommend a phrase book as it makes the trip alot shorter. I wouldn't necessarily recommend the LP phrase book, but we did have a good laugh over the 'dating' chapter.....harder, faster, softer!!!

Our visit to Moscow was brief, they are not kidding when they call it the most expensive city in the world. Our highlight was watching the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier retain there composure when being attacked by a barking dog. The tour we did of the Kremlin was dissappointing (supposed to be three hours, but it took us and hour to actually enter and finished and hour and 40 minutes later), and Lenin's tomb was....a little weird. We were on the train again two nights later bound for St Petersburg.

St Petersburg is very pretty, very European, and a little more tourist friendly than other places in Russia. It's a shame the weather has not been more condusive to wandering the streets (rain and cold), but we have visited a few museums, and spent many hours in The Hermitage, hung out with our Kiwi buddies from the train, and now we are leaving on yet another night train for Riga.

As any of you who are on Facebook will see, we have spent many hours in St Petersburg on the internet organising our trip home......yep, you can blame the free-fall of the Aussie dollar, but we'll be back by December.....yay, sunshine. From Riga we are off to Holland to visit Suze and Ronny, then some time in Thailand for shopping (can't wait), and then to Perth, and finally Brisbane in time for Rees's wedding.

See you then.

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