Malahit Hotel Chelyabinsk

... that a sandwich was cheaper than a coffee, and after much deliberation, walked straight back out again. We took the first step, denying ourselves the luxury of a two pound cup of coffee. <br>True enough to our plans, once we finally reached the hostel again, we said hello again, checked in again, had a beautiful breakfast of oatmeal, and sorted our bags &#8211; which meant emptying it completely of clothes, and putting itt into the laundry bag, we set off to get some chores ...

... lunchtime. Not that we minded though, as we were very close to the front, in the car queue, our thermos flasks full and our picnic basket full of goodies. We're learning! After the official lunch break we were taken through to complete various documents, one important one being for Russian car insurance. That was a bit of a problem and we were wishing we had bought it at one of three booths on the Kazakh. side of the border. Seeing three in a row there ...

Cheliabinsk is not on the Trans-Siberian-Railway. It is far more south. Here we had a wonderfull time with swimming, sauna and a russian massage: http://www.atlantida-spa ...

... I waited three hours, and he didn't come. I went on alone. I witnessed an accident between a Hummer and a semi-truck. I might've felt more sympathy for the (uninjured) victims if they hadn't been driving a Hummer. My heart thumped. And then, there was Yevgenyy!!! again stopping for me in his Maz (a well-built Belorussian truck). We screamed happily to each other. He had a new Tony Danza haircut courtesy of his wife; a clean, white, un ...

... Devil Wears Prada - girl gets job, changes, falls out with boy, quits, gets back with boy), so it's all good! The next night her and Ilya took me up to a viewpoint and told me about all the buildings, and the abandoned TV tower that's too wonky to use! Again, although it's a big city, the centre is quite small, so I could easily wander round it all in a day., There's not a great deal to "do", but I saw the Afgan war memorial - Russian war ...

oh ****. 3am and the karma police have got us back for taking the **** out of karill. we'd been praying for the fourth bunk to remain empty but we get the compartment companian from hell. an 18 stone smelly kiwi with a hacking cough and a tendancy to snore really loudly. ear plugs helped but i didn't have a second pair to stuff up my nose. claudia's tiger balm proved invaluable - a smear on my wrist and i could hold it ...

... with karill planned for 3pm but we were dreading it. hatched a plan to last 30 mins before using claudia's illness as an excusae to bail. couldn't find anywhere we could get lunch by just pointing so we killed time by sitting on a bench in the pedestrian precinct. hell on earth. depressed people. bloody peruvian panpipe trio (they get everywhere!!!) with their amps up to the max competing with techno music from the shop opposite... relunctantly made our way to our meeting point with ...

... a woman playing i just called to say i love you and the hamlet ad tune on the piano. 29th september - our village "experience".... not a good day. **** weather. hour's drive with karill (long ponytail, horrible fringe and rubbish beard) to a village. driver looked a bit like brad pitt. only wider and older and more russian. claudia took a liking. karill translated the tour of ...

... butter and "three in one" coffee for our train trip later on in the day. Back on our floor it looked like the hotel was a mental hospital. Long wide corridors, musty green paint on the walls and white doors. It was kind of creepy. We were supposed to have our train tickets delivered to the hotel as we'd already paid for this, but instead we were left with directions to pick them up from a place called the Guide Centre. Having no idea where it was and the hotel was less than ...

... lighter pen and Megan was given a sailors striped singlet, just like the ones you see Russian sailors wearing in the movies. We didn't have much to give them, but scrounged up some Australian coins and a few Australian flag stickers. They stayed for a few hours chatting away about all kinds of things, showing us photos of home and their girlfriends etc. Overall they were really friendly fun guys. Arriving a Yekaterinberg we grabbed a taxi to Bolshoi Ural Hotel. When we asked ...