Blogs from Saint Petersburg, Northwest, Russia, Europe - page 8

Having had an awesome weekend of beer, barbeques amd hot-tubbing in the Forest of Dean, the time came to start our five month adventure starting with a night in the Stansted Travel Lodge. Successfully, we managed to get up in time for an early morning flight (that's a 66% hit rate for us on such flights now) to St Petersburg via Dusseldorf. With no queues, easy check-in, a half-empty flight and a happy ending chocolate when getting off the planes it all seemed too easy. Long may it continue... Arriving in St Petersburg, we met our first fellow Trans-Mongolian-ites. Similarly, they had never been to Russia before but cunningly were doing the journey with a Russian friend they were meeting. That's definitely a form of cheating - it's much better immerse yourself in a foreign country ... read more

Mother Russia, land of oil billionaires, corruption and vodka. We've been quite excited at the prospect of visiting this vast land, not least for the epic journey involved in travelling to the Far East but for the sights of European Russia as well, which is why we chose St. Petersburg as our entry point rather than going straight to Moscow. The Estonian/Russian border crossing was far less hassle than I anticipated especially considering the bureaucracy involved with getting the visa in the first place. It only took about an hour for the bus to stop, offload all passengers and bags and then pass through immigration, which was quicker than a lot of other border crossings we've encountered. We then drove for a few more hours before we reached St Petersburg. Due to the time difference (+1hr) ... read more

Hello, Once again, I apologize for not writing in so long. The weeks get so busy, and then it's been over a week again. This week was especially crazy. We had six days of classes! It was killer. This weekend is the celebration of Ма́сленица (Maslenitsa). In other places it is celebrated as Shrovetide. It is celebrated in the week leading up to Lent. It began as a religious celebration, but now it is more of a folk holiday. The festivities are nothing like I have ever seen. Today we went to a huge celebration; there were several throughout the city. There were people in costumes, including men dressed as ostriches playing football. There were crafts and tons of effigies to buy and burn in celebration. Best of all, there were blini to eat. The holiday ... read more

Yesterday I had a lovely evening. Me and my girlfriend have decided on our relationship. Finally! I cannot describe how happy I am. There’s a life for us. I am simply going mad sometimes. Like a child in a fairytale land. This is what St. Petersburg brought into my life. Many hearty thanks. I’m drowning in lyricism and romantic ideas and expectations. I feel very incomplete about my blogs, there being no stories about St. Petersburg and Moscow. I have realized that I simply have to write something about Moscow, because a) it deserves it; b) I’ve been there many times, though always only within one day and on a way to some other place; c) some people might be interested to read my impressions about this city. Concerning St. Petersburg, it’s a different situation, because ... read more

So, the week after Novgorod, I was feeling kind of run down, but my sore throat seemed to be clearing up, so I decided that another long Saturday was in order. Jen and I convinced Kevin to actually commit to staying out all night, and several other people attempted to do so as well. So, After a nice day at the Russian Museum, I had a rest and got ready to go out. We had planned to make our way to a jazz club, but we found that it was a bit expensive just to walk in the door, so we made our way back to the center with a few people. We then found our way to the Dolce and Gabbana bar after weaving our way through the high-end shops at the Gostiny'dvor metro stop. ... read more

So, I am finally sitting down to write this next entry. It has been over a week since my last real post, so I had to convince myself to get back to it. We will start with our trip to Novgorod. Last Saturday, we met at 8a.m. to take a four hour bus ride to Novgorod. The bus was super nice, a double-decker coach. Mostly I just listened to music the whole way there and enjoyed the snacks that my host mama packed for me. We got to Novgorod, and immediately checked out our new digs. The beds were uncomfortably close together for anyone with a random roommate, but I had miss Jen with me, so that was more than fine. We had a sweet window seat that we could sit in and have a smoke, ... read more

AHHH everything i just wrote got deleted cause i lost my connection. re-write tomorrow.... read more

Hi. I am so bad at sitting down and really getting into this blog, but I promise that I'm trying (Allison). I'm actually just writing tonight to say that I will absolutely post pictures and a very long entry tomorrow. Novgorod was quite a trip, but it left me voiceless and in bed, so that set me back, and the last two days were really busy. I have only one class tomorrow though, so that means i can blog while everyone else is still in class. ... read more