Best Eastern Hotel Ob Novosibirsk

We made sure that we left Moscow with a bang and that we did. We achieved this by going to the circus! It was utterly bizarre, yet fabulous and fantastical. The theatre was enormous and filled with tourists of many nations. The lighting effects were as modern as they could possibly be, 3D effects stretching from one side of the room to the other. The women were dressed, or should I say hardly dressed at all, sparkling in sequins and peacock feathers or angel wings. There ...

The day (at midnight Moscow time) started at around the city of Ekaterinburg. Today wasn't much different then yesterday. Just a bit better communication with the helper lady. We did have one stop later at night and good lord the mosquitos were quite intense. I quickly got back on the train after that. The two girls had also bought some vodka and proceeded to get drunk.. and giving me a drink here and there as well. Uno and vodka ended the night, the 2nd night on the train.

... de chaque jour, mon sac deballer, Aujourd'hui, j'ai envie de me poser, Besoin de vivre ma vie dans un meuble*. La tete de certains, deja je vois, Man'U, vraiment tu fais n'importe quoi, Tu n'as qu'20 ans, la vie devant toi, A mon avis, tu fais le mauvais choix. Non, non, non, je sais que je leur repondrais, C'est tres reflechi, je sais ce que je fais, Sedentaire, il y a longemps, l'homme devenait, Je ...

Nach ueber 50 Stunden Zugfahrt sind wir in der Hauptstadt Sibiriens angekommen und sind nun in Novosibirsk (1.5 Mio. Einw.). Wie geplant wurden wir auf dem Bahnsteig von unserer Gastfamilie in empfang genommen. Mit dem Auto fuhren wir dann in Richtung Stadtrand wo es unzaehliege Plattenbauten gibt. Tja, von aussen sehen diese nicht gerade einladend aus. Als wir aber durch die Panzertuere in die Wohnung ...

... thought we would rahther not, dahling, and went back home. This morning, we had brunch at 11. (Like I said before, Russian brunch is basically just everything you'd have for breakfast PLUS everything you'd have for lunch. A big meal.) Afterwords, Louisa and I were ready to go out and see something good, but all of our compatriots went back to bed! Making my mother proud, I said "We didn't come all this way to sleep, did we?" and Louisa and I hopped on our ...

... courtyard of the 'alternate' art gallery where the temple to The Beatles is (near a bar called the Fish Factory). Apparently the most discussed controversy in St Petersburg (maybe Russia) is whether or not The Beatles actually landed a jet plane in the main square and performed there during the communist era! We saw a statue of Alexander Pushkin that was apparently placed to look directly into the ...

... but suffice to say, it is a country of paradoxes. The tsars built ornate, grand and lavish palaces, often with the help of Italians, if slightly more scruffy than the European versions. On the other hand, the Soviet's went for big, dense and solid, attempting to project strength, devoid of personality and very dull. Think Boston City Hall. They seem to glare saying "Don't Mess with Me." Russians like everything BIG. Big buildings, big boulevards, big bells ...

... for a freaking transit visa! Oh, and they will not take rubles, they want us to go to a bank and get US dollars. This is when Meghan and I decided to say F$%# Belarus. There was no way we were going to pay that, so we grabbed our passports and train tickets and left. Starving, we decided to go to a "Subway" we had passed and get some sandwiches. Then we had to form a new plan. It was already too late to go back to our travel agent to see what she had to say ...

... hotel or a 'legitimate' hostel but it seemed that my place was not quite legit so I had to find some other way to register my visa. They gave me the card of some office that would do it but I decided to try to find a travel agent listed in the Lonely Planet guide that would do it as well. The German man tried to describe how I could get to the office and it seemed to confusing. Everything seemed confusing that first day. I started walking around the city and the first thing I ...

... contain the Moscow times, even when we are several hours ahead. There is both local time and Moscow time. Time to be organised when making connections. For example Irkutsk, our destination, is Moscow time + 5 hours. So that as our journey progresses, it gets noticeably darker much earlier on. The choice is to either live by the timetable ie. on Moscow time, and to hell with the conflict in daylight hours. Or else to ...