TravelStream™ news feed for member igor2000 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/igor2000 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:07:46 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/igor2000/1/1123416360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/igor2000/1/1123416360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/igor2000/1/1123416360/tpod.html Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:07:46 -0500 Russia Adventure

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London, United Kingdom

So, I arrived back. End of story.
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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Upon arriving in Amterdam, we discovered that all hotels had been booked, so we were forced to buy a tent at a campsite. After this, we did some sight-seeing, had an interesting experience in a torture museum, and checked out the gay area.

It was soon time to go home, however, so we booked a ferry to Harwich.
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Berlin, Germany

After a coach journey through Latvia and Poland, during which I had drink spille don me by a child, and had to suffer the couple across from me gutting a raw fish and eating it, I arrived in Berlin. My friend arrived shortly after by plane, and we did some sight-seeing, before going drinking with some people we got talking to. After a couple of days here, it was then time to catch a train to Amsterdam.
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Tallinn, Estonia

It is a short ferry crossing to Tallinn, and I had obviously picked the day that a lot of Finns take the ferry on their booze cruise. It was probably about 11am, and this family I got talking to had already started before even getting on the ferry.

I did a spot more sightseeing in Tallinn, including the walls in the old town, before booking a coach back to Berlin, where I'd decided a few days before I'd be meeting my friend.
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Helsinki, Finland

After Rovaniemi, it was time to return to the capital and move on to Estonia.
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Rovaniemi, Finland

I went north to check out the midnight sun. And it is an odd experience, coming out of a club at about 4, to discover it is still light. Quite disconcerting. Beautiful scenery up here, lots of lakes.

However, it was time again to move back down, and move on to getting back home, after this unplanned, but awesome trip to Finland.
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Helsinki, Finland

Arriving in Finland, I did some sight-seeing and expensive drinking, before heading north to check out the midnight sun.
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Volgograd, Russia

The train journey back was quite stressful. After getting drunk with my fellow passengers, a soldier called Sergiy appeared and made us drink more with him. Not wanting to pass up free vodka, we did so, and he told me all about his military service. And about his mate's time in Chechnya. His mate, was of course completely insane, and not in a good way. In a bad shell-shocked way. He described his friend as "a very sick man, but if you don't talk to him, you'll be ok."

Sergiy was also very interested in my personal life and in my penis size (in comparison to Russian penis sizes). He then went on to say "If I don't get money, I cannot sex people". After asking me for money, I fled back to my cabin, when horror of horrors, he appeared again, and set next to me, and made us eat fish with him. He then tried to get me to sleep in his cabin again. I politely declined, bolted the cabin door behind him, and slept very fitfully.

Upon arriving in Volgograd, I saw the Stalingrad memorial complex - a most impressive site - and then grabbed a flight back to Moscow.
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Moscow, Russia

After a hilarious Aeroflot flight back to Moscow (during which all of the seats flopped forward on landing, crushing everyone), I took some time to sight-see, having fled so quickly the first time around. The Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil's. All fantasic.

I then tried to get a train ticket back to St. Petersberg, as time was running out on my visa, and getting stuck here was not ideal. Of course, all the ticket-people in the station were profoundly unhelpful, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I couldn't speak Russian I should kindly fuck off. I assume that's what they were saying anyway. The only place left to try was the international ticket room. They were a lot kinder, but of course, they sold only international tickets.

So, Helsinki it is then.
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Irkutsk, Russia

During this time we made a couple of trips to and from Olkhan Island in Lake Baikal. These trips were packed with adventures, such as our hotel receptionist's father making us lunch before showing off his pump-action shotgun (with definite threatening undertones), skinny-dipping in the Lake (more an inland sea) with drunk Russians, Tom's adventures falling down holes full of rusty cars, and of course hiking across the island to stay with a rather nice family who fed me and taught me to play the spoons.

And not forgetting the shrub.

Good times, but at this point, Tom decided to stay in Irkutsk, whilst I moved back west for the next phase of my adventure.
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