Triumph Park Hotel Sochi

... time for the actual event. We stopped for a look at a valley in the Caucasus Mountains where new road and rail tunnels were in evidence before having a meal of sweet cake and tea at a honey establishment which had a very attractive garden and backdrop. There the lady of the house / business gave an interpreted talk about honey.

Next we went to the actual Olympic site which is currently only a chairlift station and quite few small stalls and ...

... customer service. I got kind of stuck with my broken Russian about how to get an overnight ticket to St. Petersburg but no luck. I was lucky that a nice lady jumped in to help me translate that the next available train to St. Petersburg will be a 2 am tonight. Earlier trains will cost 7 time more. I went ahead and took the ticket and thanked the nice lady. She later told me that she worked in Malaysia as a translator, no wonder her English ...

... we were told that rooms were being cleared by 9.30am as there will be the next lot on board to do the reverse journey and the rooms needed cleaning. There was a regimented set up for collecting cases etc and although a few complaints from those who weren't listening properly, those who thought a day of there holiday was being disrupted and those who don't understand logistics or think only of themselves. The cruise is not the most expensive and give & ...

... s guidebook from 2000 had said people only wore brown and carried plastic bags! Had a look at the main drag, Nevsky Prospect, where the sights and shops are. wow, it was busy, hard to cross roads and i was terrified of being pickpocketed (by ladies with fake hands!) and it was raining, so not the greatest introduction. i was left wondering what the fuss was about.

... looking well dressed young ladies. Jeans seem to be the in thing for men, with a cigarette and a cell phone. The tourist book we picked up says that St. Petersburg is no more dangerous than other large European cities, but the go onto give you lots of warnings against all kind of things, which here tends you fell a little insecure. Probably silly as the warnings we got with our rental car in France were just as scary. We had got money out in Vienna, but only Euros ...

... us later that it's always busy, no matter what time. Luckily, the long line gave us enough time to panic about the menu written entirely in Russian and the lack of conveniently number Combo Meals. (I can at least count to ten.) Thanks to our alphabet lesson with Igor, I could sound out most of the things on the menu, which turned out to be phonetic Cyrillic spellings of English words, like "Big Mac" and "Chicken McNuggets". The line in front of us ...

... exploring. It was a grey day, but we managed to put some miles on, and looked at the different styles of archecture and many statues. The city has many canals and you are always crossing them on bridges (some 200 or so) and each one decorated differently. Each time we stopped to eat, we picked something new in russian style food that i had't tried before. I can honestly say, while the food was different in many cases, it was very good.

... no success. So I don't even know whether she's gonna turn up or not. There something funny happen. When we get there, a guy, part of whole group of about ten young people, comes to see me and asks me if I'm French! Well, you've spotted it well but I'm certainly not the one you're after as I'm with no group! 10 min after I call from Natasha with Katia's mobile. At last, she answers and we talk. I explained her I'm at the meeting point we had agreed on. And it happens ...

... this one bar called "FIDEL" and its this little cave with a DJ and small dance floor with one giant ink print of Fidel Castro smoking a cigar. Its very tongue-in-cheek, but the place was bangin'. It was so pleasant, fun and easy-going. And even though it was packed, people push without malice here. You just push becuase you have to, and people dont get ******. You push with a smile, but you push hard. Its great, very unthreatening. I feel very safe here, more safe than ...

... the Joensuu train station, I felt sad. Sad to leave my finnish friends, this great and beautiful country, this wonderful and lovely place. My English really isn't good enough to describe the beauty of the land and its people in an appropriate manner. I thought about switching this blog back to German but gave it up again, since many of you readers don't know German. Leaving Joensuu, I already felt how I would miss the peace and tranquility of this quiet town in ...