Hyatt Regency Ekaterinburg Yekaterinburg

<!--StartFragment--><br><br>Language matters<br><br>Well, that is what<br>I have spent most of my life telling the kids in school. And apart from anything else I always<br>get a kick out of communicating with the locals in their own lingo. As I said, on Wednesday it was such fun going from French to German in the space of a few hours. However, we are now in territory where we do not speak the language and where few folks speak ...

Yekaterinburg (Ekaterinburg) has had a bloody history in recent past - most famously for the political assassinations of the Romanov Royal Family 1918 - and more recently, for some mafia- type killings in the 1990's. My impression today on a walkabout is of a bustling, modern,mineral-rich and dynamic city (pop 1.5 million) and it is the regional capital of the Urals, which is the land mass demarcating ...

... done. Take that, visa agencies!<br><br>I went to the Museum of Decorative Art, and then when I returned, discovered that I had a room-mate. She's a young woman from Germany, and since we had the entire apartment to ourselves, decided to go out and buy some pizza and a bottle of wine. Yum yum!<br><br>Off to Moscow today, so will be about 24 hours on the train. I know of an internet cafe there, so hopefully I'll be able to update soon.<br>

... AND KOLYA<br><br>Mother and son, Marina and Kolya board the train in Novosibirsk. It is 2 am, and I want to sleep. I stayed up with Dmitry for a while for moral support, and now I am exhausted. I am not in the mood for questions such as, "is it cold sleeping on the train? Do I need the extra blanket?" and I am certainly not up for listening to somebody flap their outdated edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda around and have the reading light on for what ...

... and Marijke, who were also on their way to Beijing. Well over two weeks later, as you'll see from later blogs, we had a blast with these two, who I can now definitely call friends (I hope they can too - hee hee!!). The journey started and we were off - I just couldn't believe we were really going to travel over 8,000 km to Beijing. As you can see from the photos we had a few largely hilarious days and nights hurtling along (or sometimes dawdling) towards Lake Baikal. We ...

... Olga, one of the host at the hostel was alreday waiting for me in front of the hostel. God knows how long she must have been standing there as I forgot about the time zones and I e-mailed her the Moscow time arrival time which is 2 hours begind! Boor girl! Anyway, the hostel was decent wiht all mod cons and facilities one needs. Maybe not enough guide books (as i was desperate for one) and definitely not enough people (only 2 English boys ...

... the 'Paris of Siberia' as it is often known doesnt seem like a ridiculously innacurate description with the wide steets and well tended parks. We boarded our train to Yekaterinburg at the civilised time of 4pm and began our longest leg of the journey- 2 days and 2 nights on board the train through Siberia. Many people embark on this leg with the idea in thier minds that the scenery will be stunning and finish it very disapointed that it ...

Yekaterinberg Well, after a 25 hour train ride across the Siberian wastelands (nice forests - doesn't seem that bad), we arrived in Yekaterinburg. The guide book said there was no reason to stop, but we were determined to prove them wrong. Against all odds, we did. Yekaterinburg has very little to offer a tourist - a tourist that speaks no English even less! We had the greatest of luck in finding an old lady called Tatiana, who took us under her wing, and gave us a real ...

... were on the shady side of the train, so we wouldn't roast with the sun blazing through our compartment window for the next few days. We still weren't thrilled with our compartment, but on the bright side, we had both gotten a good-nights sleep, and most importantly our very first experience with the dreaded provodnitsa (compartment attendant) had been an overwhelmingly good one. Maybe things were going to be just fine. At the next ...

... early evening our cabin was filling fast with people sniffing out a party! For the rest of the evening an average of 10 people were crammed into the cabin including two new Swedish girls Ida and Lova. We were drinking local Baltika beer and had an ipod and speakers for music. Several restaurant carriage trips later (vodka and baltika) it was time to call it a night. We may have annoyed our neighbours so we told our guests that we'd been in their cabins over the following nights.