Victoria Chelyabinsk Hotel

... at the station, ready for another day in our favourite city of the north. It was like coming home, the vibes of the city hitting our tired bodies to feel refreshed and ready again. I promised myself that I will take a day out and spend the day uploading the multitudes of pictures that I have taken of St Pete's and Moscow. We started walking, past the gentle calls of the Taxi drivers, with an equally gentle shake of the head, towards the centre. It was probably far away, our bags ...

... all like the flash cafes you frequent)! And, once again, our wheel cover attracted all the attention, not us.<br>As we pulled into our hotel Dave notice a couple of motor bikes parked alongside bearing the Scottish flag and upon making enquires, we eventually met Gordon and Tom who are travelling from Scotland around the world. Really nice guys, retired policemen and doing a charity trip for a disabled Bikers. (www.transglobemoto.com). We met up with them ...

... index.php?o ption=com_content&amp;task=blogsection& amp;id=9&amp;Itemid=31 More information: http://wikitravel.org/en/Chelyabinsk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabins k

... for me. We immediately began joking together. Mid-thirties Yevgenyy had the explosive speech of an Italian. And the self-pricking laugh of Joe Pesci. He also complained like Joe Pesci. He drove to make money. He was the best driver I've ever seen, practically flying in a truck on a bumpy, two-lane highway. (I guess Joe Pesci is Italian.) Once, he had to wait a half-second for a truck to pass. He tilted his head and made vulture-wide eyes ...

Ekaterinberg has somewhat of an infamous history as the town where the last tsars were killed, and as the mafia capital of Russia, but when the train pulled into the station, all I was bothered about was stretching my legs after almost 24 hours on board! Again, I'd organised to stay with a girl called Oksana through Hospitality Club. Much to my surprise, walking through the station, there's a teenage boy holding a card with my name on - turns ...

... my nose and get to sleep. got some sleep after getting on the train at 4am. the whole of today, tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night before we escape. spent out time eating, sleeping, getting cross cos kiwi in the bunk below is snoring, reading, listening to ipod etc. toilets on train not as good as the moscow to ekaterinsberg train was. proviniste bit less house proud. not added extras in the form of tea and biks either!

... hoping he wasn;t gpoing to show... then a miracle happened. our prayers were answered. sort of. karill and his bad hair and tache didn't show. but gleb, a cute 19 yr old guy, did! the transformation was amazing. we all went from hunched up, miserable grouches to all smiles and hair tossing. we lasted the whole walking tour with gleb and then he gave us a lift to the supermarket in his car so we could buy provisions for our long train journey ahead. long walk back to the hotel with heavy ...

... church from some old russian lady in a tasteful housecoat. v hard not to get the giggles. then out into the rain to look at some wooden buildings that some one had nicked from the surrounding villages. which i'd be a bit ****** of with if i lived there. russuan lady appeared again. this time dressed as the gestapo from allo allo in black leather coat, hat and boats. bit of a ...

... a theatre. The lady here also called a friend who spoke English and she came to the foyer so we managed to figure out where we were. We also realised the place we were trying to find was located inside the same building as our hotel. Not very impressed as they were supposed to be delivered and we'd spent hours trying to find them! We actually saw quite a bit of stuff while we were walking around. One place we were interested in was the Romanov Death Site. It had a memorial ...

... a small room with two single beds, TV and a bathroom that had a very distinct odor. We didn't have any water so went down to level two to the bar where we could buy some. Waiting to get served at the bar was interesting. Four people were on duty behind the bar, all talking amongst themselves or to the only other people in the place, two fat Russian ladies. A couple of the bar maids did make eye contact on numerous occasions but it was quite clear they would serve us when they ...