Blogs from Russia, Europe - page 288

Hey my dear friends all over the world... I have been a bit lazzy lately with this blog, so I'll try to catch up with all the activities I have done in the last 6 weeks... Due to the fact, that I missed a whole month in Moscow, time is getting short and there are still many things I haven't seen yet, so I went on an extrem-sightseeing-tour to catch up on all the things that are worth seeing... And I had to hurry 'cause I wanted to know the best places I could send my German friends too, that were going to visit me beginning of June... Sooo... let me show you all the great things I have seen and the fantastic time I spend with Russian and German friends in Moscow. On May 22nd ... read more

Hello everyone, St. Petersburg is fabulous. The Hermitage Museum is the biggest tourist attraction. It was built in 1764 and was originally used as the winter palace. Catherine the Great lived there alone in the original 330 rooms. Although she didn't lack "company" she referred to her solitary existence as living like a hermit, hence the term Hermitage. Different Czars added on to the winter palace until it reached 1,100 rooms. If you visited each of the three million exhibits, you would walk 24 kilometres! The ballrooms could accommodate 5,000 dancing couples. We would later see the tack for Catherine's horse that was decorated with 1,000 diamonds. The cover on a family bible was encrusted with 3,000 diamonds. No wonder the citizens got cranky. We also visited Peterhof, the summer palace of Peter the Great. He ... read more

A prophets report I tried to finish this letter already two months ago. So I have had to make a lot of changes here. It is there (again) - a bit messy…. But I think you will manage…. I finished my lessons a few weeks ago, and I have been studying on my own, socialising (a lot) and done a few trips. However, we still wear hats, gloves and wintergear here, so its not very tempting to travel for a longer period. The other day I went with six girls to an island outside of Vladivostok. It was so hardcore cold; the cold, the rain and the useless campsite (light only two hour at night, no heating, no washing facilities, swamp everywhere, no bedclothes. In fact nothing at all!) and it was only due to the ... read more

Warning, the following sentences may contain dodgy characters, drug references, violence and scary toilet stories!! Okay, we were right in guessing that Moscow would be a whole nother story in comparison to sweet westernised St Petersburg....it is pure madness here!! This morning we caught the metro (underground train) along with the 10 million (yes you read correctly, 10 million, half of Australias entire population) other people that ride the moscow metro every single day....scary stuff, but we survived...yeehah!! Last night we stopped off in the red square after spending an extra 5 hrs on the bus due to the worlds craziest traffic and were chased by a gypsy woman and her 4 year old son, who then spat at us after we wouldnt give them what was in our pockets....nice!! I would fill you in on ... read more

Geo: 54.5104, 52.8869... read more