siandcath's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member siandcath on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/siandcath en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:55:51 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com Belfast - Darlington - LONDON!!! — London, United Kingdom http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1194355020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1194355020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1194355020/tpod.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:55:51 -0500 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
London, United Kingdom

So most of you would know by now we are in London. How did we end up here? Weren't we supposed to settle in Belfast? And hey, didnt we say we didnt like London anyway?

After the excitement of Oktoberfest we decided that we had done enough eating and drinking and after 4 months of travelling and moving on every 3 days we decided that it was time to go 'home' (in the Irish sense of the word). So we made our plans to stay with our Aunt Lily in Lurgan (Northern Ireland) and organised our flights (actually there is a very funny Berlin airport story which I will write about another time). I took the opportunity to get rid of Si for a few days and sent him to stay with Pasquale in London while I flew on to Belfast to get settled in for endless cups of tea and Irish soda bread with Lily and the rest of the clan. I was pretty emotional when I flew in, my heart was leaping out of my chest and I was just about jumping out of the window to get 'home'. For those of you who dont know I went to school in Ireland when I was about 5 or 6 and my mum and I lived with Aunt Lily in Lurgan. Lurgan therefore to me is a place with distinct childhood memories, such as Dickie McGills sweet shop which is still there!! While most of my dads side spread themselves out around the world my mum only had one sister and she stayed in Lurgan...and therefore I have a massive family in Lurgan......some in the graveyard and some still kickn but either way, walking around Lurgan is a feeling of knowing and being known.

When I arrived at Lily's my cousins Jennifer, Josie and Catherine were also there to make me feel right at home. Whenever I have been back to Ireland it has always been with Mum or Dad or my sister so being there without them was very strange for me as I felt they were missing. But on the bright side to be there in Lurgan having a cup of tea with my family around me was so special and I just felt really lucky to be there, even if my parents couldnt. So over the next 4 days I settled in an worked on my accent. For those of you that were at the wedding my dad did let the secret out that I do have an Australian and an Irish accent, but even thought I was trying my best to sound Irish I was till getting picked out as Australian!

Before long Si arrived and I already felt like a local showing him around. It was even more strange for my 'new' life with Si to be crossing with my 'old' life as a child in Lurgan and I wasnt quite sure how the two would mix and how Si would handle my even larger family circle. But I neednt have worried as Si was embraced into the family with warm and loving arms and before long I had my Aunt Lily telling me that 'you're too hard on him' and the two of them, as well as the rest of the family were getting along like a house on fire.

When Si did come back from London he had met a few people there and he had enjoyed hanging out with Pas, so the upshot of that was that we started thinking about London and the opportunities it might bring. In the end we decided that we would go that bit further and try and make it in London, knowing that if it didnt work out we could always come 'home' to Ireland. So after about 3 weeks in Lurgan in was time to leave. We were very sad as we had some awesome times in Lurgan and with our cousins in Belfast (so much so that we are going back for Christmas). The great part was that Dad had arranged for us to stay with his side of the family in Darlington (England), where we could get set up, start job hunting etc before making the big move to London.

So, we flew into Newcastle and caught the train down to Darlington where we were greeted by dads neice Joanna and her husband Peter. Even though we were all family, we had only met Jo and Pete over the six days that they stayed with us in Perth a few years back so it was very good of them to take us in. Jo and Pete made us feel right at home and we had our own room upstairs. Darlington was just beautiful, as was their home which was a converted old tower with a cottage garden. My dad calls it a castle but it is a tower dad. Anyway we had some great old times with Jo and Pete, they too shared our love of wine and food so we were right at home there (so much so that we are going back for New Years!). We had 2 weeks with them and became very close over that time. Jo and Pete went through all the ups and downs with us as we hunted for jobs and sent out application after application. Until.....one day.....Si scored a job and it was then time for us to move to London and try and find a home of our own. Once again it was very hard to leave, but we knew we would be back.

After a few nights on Sam and Lisa's fold out we found a place of our won in Stoke Newington. A newly refurbished little one bedroom flat with a kitchen lounge upstairs and bedroom and bathroom downstairs. It is TINY but we love it! There is a fresh food market down the street which we go to on Saturdays for our fruit, veg and free range eggs, and then there is a 10 minute walk to Chursh street, which is the trendy street with organic food shops, cafes, pubs, funky clothes shops etc and this is where Pas lives above the wine shop.

So we have been in our home for 4 weeks today and it has flown by.

My last bit of news is that after going for many arts jobs, I finally landed my dream job and I am now the Corporate Development Manager for the London Symphony Orchestra. A job that will see me manage partnerships in London, Paris, Tokyo and New York and potentially change the whole direction of our lives.

So were we meant to end up here? I think so. It will just take some getting used to and we do miss everyone so we are expecting visitors ok!

Have a great Christmas everyone. We will update you on our mad Irish Christmas in Belfast and our tranquil New Years in Darlington.

Love Cath (& Si)
xox
]]> 77 hours to Moscow — Moscow, Russia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189454400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189454400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189454400/tpod.html Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:08:48 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Moscow, Russia

Me again! There was such demand for more of my writing after my last entry that I couldn't disappoint my fans (namely my sister Shaz and my in-laws- thanks guys!).

Obviously it's been a while since our last entry.......we've been pretty busy touring around and the price of Internet usage is a lot higher in Europe (as is everything!).

Anyway, on to our 77 hour train ride to Russia.

There was much anticipation surrounding this part of the train journey. What would it be like for 77 hours (3 night, 4 days) on the one train? The main concern......how much food would we need to bring with us to survive the 4 days? We stocked up at the local supermarket and we may have gone a bit over the top. As well as the usual bread, bananas and noodle soups we also added some luxury items like cheese, gherkins, ham, tinned fruit, nuts, crackers, chocolate and some French wine. Being seasoned train travelers now we deserved a few treats.

Anyway our cabin was the best one yet. It had a nautical theme (in the tradition of Lake Baikal), blue curtains, images of Lake Baikal on the walls, a life ring clock and large mirrors framed in rope, as well as bean bag sizes pillows and great beds.

By now we had made many friends along the way and there was lots of people on the train that we knew, the Australian family from Floreat who we met on the train from Mongolia to Irkutsk, Meryl & Shirley from America who started on the same train us us in Beijing, Mano from Berlin (who we seemed to see everywhere!) and Tom from UK who was staying in the same hostel as us in Irkutsk. On the first night we also made a few more friends, Thomas, a big enthusiastic lad from Munich, Pascal from Belgium, Adam (film maker from UK), Charlie & his Dad Neville (South Africa). I name them all now as you will read what a great time we all had together. Not everyone was in first class so the restaurant cabin was the main meeting place for beers, but ours was the place for coffee!

Anyway, the first night we all had a few drinks together and Thomas, Pascal and Adam had us in fits of laugher with their stories, particularly the one about the Frenchman. About 9.30pm we all headed back to our cabins to prepare our 2 min noodles- its funny actually there is a great tradition for 2 min noodles on the train as the dinners are too expensive so it is quite OK to excuse yourself at any point and say "I have to go to my cabin now for noodles"...so one by one we all went back to our cabins for dinner. Si made it back to the restaurant for a night cap but that was my chance to retire.

The next day was going to be like any other day on the train...breakfast, reading and generally lying about, however, this day was different as Simon met some Russian lads while wandering the train. They invited him back to the restaurant carriage to have some beers with them. It was 10.30am. He came back at 4pm (and by that stage Thomas, Pascal and Tom had all joined in at some point). Now, you would have thought that was enough but he had promised them that he would bring his wife back at 7pm. If you are familiar with Russian culture, if someone invites you to drink, you don't say no....everything is "Russian tradition"...and now I was also brought into the "Russian tradition". They were nice guys actually (Roman, Dimitri and Alexander), a bit drunk by that stage (naturally) but they were all students and this was the first time they were using their English so they were pretty excited to be making English friends. My name in Russian is "Catarina" which I liked the sound of :-)

The next morning though our new Russian friends came looking for us...at 8am....to invite us to the restaurant cabin for more drinks and food and conversation. We managed to hold them off until about lunchtime and by then they had slowed down a bit and were playing cards...phew.

We also made a pretty exciting discovery.....the first class cabin has a shower! Shhhh no one is supposed to know though or they will all want to use it. It's tucked away in the little staff area and they keep it very secret, but if you ask for one they have to let you. So we slinked on in....trying not to make it look too obvious with our towels and toiletries and we emerged very fresh and 'showered' looking. We thought we would share this info with a few people that we liked but it was very much insider information...not to be shared widely.

So after our very civilized showers Si and I just hung out with Pascal and drank some really bad French table wine and had a pretty early night.

Our last day on the train went pretty quickly. We had another shower! Very lavish of us. The Russian boys chased us all up for email address and we all had group photos. Since Thomas lives in Munich he invited us to stay with him for Oktoberfest which would be a great opportunity to catch up with him and Pascal so we promised that we would try to make it. It was a great train journey....probably if Simon had of written this it would have been a very different record of his experience with his Russian mates but I will leave that story for him to tell in person.

So that was the end of the great Trans Mongolian rail journey. Si was only 70 pages from the end of 'War and Peace' when we had to step off the train.
]]> Mother Russia... — Irkutsk, Russia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1188804840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1188804840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1188804840/tpod.html Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:50:46 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Irkutsk, Russia

Welcome to Mother Russia.....get out your roubles....

We definately ran out of time in Mongolia. Great place and so much to see and do, especially out in the country side. For us though it is back on the train for 30hrs and headed to Irkutsk, Russia. Cath and I have got our own little train routine sorted now and it is often with a satisfied sigh that we slip into our cabin, don the comfy clothes and make the first of many cups of tea, coffee or instant noodles. Still the same dilemma though, read, look out the window or nap..??? We all have difficult choices to make so I wont go on about ours :) The train ride was comfortable and the scenery as the sun was going down was same old same old....spectacular! As per our last train ride, crossing boarders seems to happen between 9pm and 6am meaning an interupted nights sleep. We hit Mongolian customs about 9.30pm and departed Russian customs about 5am in the morning. Customs is a story all in its own...

In the preceding hour approaching a boarder crossing the train becomes a hive of activity. People (men, mothers and grandmothers) scurry from carriage to carriage with armfulls of jeans, vodka and other assorted items. The parcels go from cabin to cabin until almost everybody seems to have a parcel (or several) stashed under their beds or in their luggage locker. This is the smuggling racket..... Everybody is now carrying several pairs of jeans and a couple of liters of 'Chingis Kahn Vodka, Gold Label' that can be passed of as presents for friends. The customs officials board the train and begin their search, all the secret panels and storage containers in the train are opened and inspected and the officials look on with an understanding and somewhat resigned expression at the very evenly distributed parcels of jeans, vodka etc. If there is a commotion then someone has been caught with too many bottles or too much denim and the resolution seems to be that the customs official will relieve them off the excess (obviously contributions to the office Christmas fund) and everything settles down. this process takes a ridiculous amount of time (anywhere between 5-10hrs) and the business of checking passports etc seems to be a distant second on the priority list. Off course 10 minutes after the train has moved through customs, it is once again bustling with activity as everyone goes about regathering all the distributed merchandise until their cabins are overflowing with packages ready to be sold on the black market for a tidy profit. Who knows, maybe there is a career in it??? Anyway all the commotion does tend to lead to a rather sleepless night.

Next day the scenery out the window has changed again, not to different to what I would have expected from rural, eastern Russia. Lots off small settlements (wooden houses, all with vegetable gardens), longer grass and wooded hills. The highlight of the trip was the 2-3hrs we spent traveling beside Lake Baikal. the Lake is huge and along its length cliffs, grass and small pebbly beaches alternate. the water looked clear and cold. The natural scenery was broken up periodically by Russian families or couples camping and sun bathing on the shores. Seemed to be an abundance of attractive (as far as one can tell when traveling by train) girls in their bikinis which I was always sure to point out to Cath....

Irkutsk was the first port of arrival where we got off the train and were at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Not a tout in sight. Luckily we had met an Australian couple on the train, travelling with their parents, who had a Russian driver who spoke English waiting for them at the station. We were able to get advice from the driver as to the approximate cost of a taxi into town and what direction it should take us... We were told 200 rubles. Cath asked the driver how much to take us into town and without blinking (imagine a thick Russian accent at this point), said '2000 rubles'. Cath was on the ball and immediately said, 'did you mean to say 200 rubles?' , to which the reply (in the same thick bored Russian accent), hrrmmm yes, 200 rubles'. We didnt feel that it had been a innocent misunderstanding, but with a fixed price we headed into town. The hostel we were staying at is recommended in the L.P. and is called The Bakailer Hostel run by a fellow called Jack, by all accounts a knowledgeable and helpful fellow. When we arrived we were greeted by Vitali, Jack was away on tour. Vitali confirmed many Russian stereotypes of unhelpfulness bordering on hostility but we did eventually convince him to please speak to the Russian person on the other end of the phone as we were trying to find out about our onwards train tickets which were supposed to be delivered. We were a bit stressed about the tickets which vitali knew nothing about and did not think it particularly an onerous request for him to converse in Russian with the local company responsible for the delivery. It turns out the tickets were on the table next to the phone and been delivered earlier..... (not to leave you with the wrong impression, had a few chats with Vitali a bit latter and he did start to thaw, just not to good on the first impressions).

We found Irkutsk to be a little intimidating at first, lots of young guys drinking as they walked down the street, aggressive in posture and with haircuts that seemed to warn of limited intelligence. Jeans (worn belly button high) were definitely in fashion, hence the cross border trade in knock offs. Many of the girls were dressed up, with mini skirts and stilettos, hanging off the arms off the beefy arms off the guys mentioned above. all this was kind of surreal with the sun still high in nthe sky at 8 o'clock at night. We found another guy at the hostel and decided to do the old safety in numbers thing as we looked for some dinner. To put it simply, the food sucked and was really expensive. Everything is expensive here...

On our second day in Irkutsk we headed out to a small village on Lake Baikal, a popular tourist spot for locals. There is not a lot to Listvyanka but everybody is in a holiday mood and sits on the shore of the lake (may as well be an ocean, you can barely see the other side), on one of the intermittent beaches of pebbles and drinks their beer whilst eating smoked Baikal fish on a stick. It still got particularly cold (maybe 10-16degrees during the day + wind) but as they were there on holidays, there was a beach and the sun was up, this meant that it was quite all right to get around in your Speedos and bikinis. Cath and I went for jeans and jumpers. It was very nice there but there really was not much to do after you had walked dow the one street, visited the markets for your fish on a stick and then sat on the beach with a beer until getting cold and moving on. We found a nice B&B / motel with a Russian lady who spoke a bit of english. Leapard skin blankets could really have done with a wash.... Walking back to our diggs for the night it was quite a novilty to see 4 cows strolling down the narrow alleyway, blocking our path as they tucked into rubbish bins by the side of the road. they really were menaces and completely free to do as they pleased. Spent one night by Lake Baikal before heading back to Irkutsk. Cath and I both feel we are ready to move on and look forward to the 72hr journey in front of us to Moscow leaving tomorrow.

hope everyone is doing well back home, wish you could join us for the ride.

Congratulations to Chris and Helen on finally getting into their new home! Looking forward to the promised recliner action when we get home (watching movies if any one was confused...)

Till Moscow.
]]> Oktoberfest- Beer, Pretzels and Chicken — Munich, Germany http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1191079680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1191079680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1191079680/tpod.html Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:29:38 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Munich, Germany

You may remember back in my entry about the train trip to Moscow that we were invited by our German friend Thomas to stay with him in Munich for Oktoberfest. Unfortunately our other traveling buddies from the train had to go home and resume normal life so they couldn't make it, but for a couple of travelers like us we were able to re-arranged a few plans, organise a few dates and before we knew it we were emailing Thomas to let him know that we would be there in a few days!

We arrived on Thursday 26 Sept and Thomas was such a great host that he had stocked the cupboard and the fridge with just about everything he could imagine that we might eat, and over a few drinks we had a short history lesson on Bavaria (Thomas is a school teacher). That night we went out for a traditional Bavarian dinner with Thomas and his friend Rein (another big German lad). The plate servings were certainly Bavarian size and Si struggled to get through 3 pieces of Turkey schnitzel that were as big as his head. For Rein and Thomas this was a just a regular dinner.

Friday Si and I went for a wonder around Munich city centre but lets face it, we were there for the good times and the beer. At 5pm Thomas, Rein, Si and I headed to the Oktoberfest. Thomas and Rein were dressed in their traditional Ledenhosen. Both had matching outfits that were hand made and embroidered with their initials, with hand knitted knee high socks. They looked fantastic! At the time though we were not aware that just about everybody wears their traditional dress to Oktoberfest so when we got there we were amazed at all the costumes! The girls looked great in their traditional dresses but I think they should change the name to "Oktober-breast" as those dresses certainly flattered the chest!

As we walked into the grounds our first impression was that of the Royal Show but on a larger scale. The grounds had roller coaster rides, sideshow alley, shooting games etc like any other carnival. The 'tents' are along the back. We had always heard them referred to as 'tents' so we imagined they were going to be marquees (something like the ones at Perth cup but bigger), but they are not tents at all, they are massive halls! Also, you usually have to line up from early in the morning to get in but as Thomas knows the security there after a few words we walked right in. Our tent was the Hacka tent which was a very traditional tent for Germans, not tourists so it was very authentic. It was also the best tent in terms of the decorations. There was a big stage in the middle where the band played a mix or Germans songs and western rock anthems (even ACDC). The whole tent was also decorated like heaven so it had clouds in the sky...you have to see the photos. Now, to get served you need to be sitting at a table but once again Thomas knew one of the waitresses so she said we could sit at a reserved table for an hour or so. Then we order our beers, the much anticipated 1L of beer! It was really heavy and I struggled to raise my glass for our first toast (because I was holding it wrong-there is a way of doing it so you don't break your hand!). From there on in there was many toasts, many litres of beer, singing and dancing on benches. Thomas' friends embraced us like locals and looked after us very well. should also mention the food at Oktoberfest. There are people going round with baskets selling pretzels that you need two hands to hold, so when you have drunk a bit too much beer you can soak it up with a big salty pretzel. The other food option (after you have drunk even more beer) is half a chicken served up on a plate. The chicken is a good idea for these big Bavarian lads who can eat and drink a lot. Basically the night was fantastic, like nothing we had ever been to before....so many people singing and dancing and spilling beer and having a great old time. After wards Thomas and his friends were heading off to a club but as we were only on night 1 of our 3 day Oktoberfest I opted to go home, which I think was a good idea!

Oktoberfest Day 2- This was Italian day where just about all of Italy floods into Munich. By 2pm there was Italians passed out on the side of the hill and this was pretty funny. Unfortunately though this meant that security was tighter so we couldn't get into the same tent with Thomas that day. This was OK though as we wanted to catch up with Tom, who we met in Laos, who was also in Munich. We met Tom and his sister Sylvia and friend Chris and we lined up at another tent for a few hours, eventually getting in about 6pm. Once again, a night of beer, singing, dancing, pretzels and chicken.

Oktoberfest Day 3- We managed to fit in a but of sightseeing. Thomas took us to this really beautiful palace and gardens just outside the city centre. About 5pm we went back to Oktoberfest but is was a lot more chilled out being a Sunday. We joined Thomas' friends in the beer garden where we met even more of his great friends and then later in the night headed over to the Hacka tent for a slightly tamer night.

We had such a great time in Munich, it was crazy but we were really fortunate to have Thomas there and we really appreciated staying with him and having him there to throw us into the local culture of the festival :-) We also made some great friends and we hope they come visit us in the UK. We have invited them to St Patrick's Day so we can show them how the Irish do it!

On the Monday we caught the bus back to Berlin where we would hang out for a few days before flying to the UK.
]]> Berlin - Autobahn to Munich — Berlin, Germany http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1190819640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1190819640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1190819640/tpod.html Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:23:39 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Berlin, Germany

Flew into Berlin on a cheap flight from Riga with the aim of hiring a car and driving the 600km to Oktoberfest the next day. A couple of australian girls, Belinda and Rebecca (who we met in Riga) came along for the ride and shared costs. We booked an Audi A3 thinking this would be a pretty smooth ride down the Autobahn but ended up with a Volkswagen something or other family van...... not quite so cool but did the trick. The weather was'nt great but still managed to spend the whole time travelling between 130 - 180km ph! This was us in the middle lane and regularly getting over taken by cars doing well in excess of 200 - 250kmph....... The girls all slept, you will be pleased to know I was wide awake. Arived safely after about 4.5 hours driving.
]]> Riga - party time — Riga, Latvia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1190639940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1190639940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1190639940/tpod.html Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:50:57 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Riga, Latvia

On friday the 21st, we finally rolled into Riga at the end of our little road trip. Sad to say goodbye to the little red beast (Opal Astra hatch...) that we called home for the past 4 nights. found a car park on the edge of Old Town, filled the meter and headed to Argonaughts Hostel. The Hostel has a really good vibe and friendly staff. We have definately made the connection now betweeen the atmosphere in these places and the day of the week. Its much less fun arriving at these places on a Sunday when everyone can barely raise their heads of the couch, everybody is hungover and the doorm rooms have a distinclively alcoholic / stale smell... Arriving o the Friday, people were getting ready to head out, sipping on a late afternoon beverage and keen to meet new arrivals and the dorms still smelt fresh. By about 8pm we were out having a drink with Mya (an Australian girl), Marco from Vienna and a couple of German girls. turned out to be a cracking night, first at the Cuba Bar and later at one of the local clubs. Riga is a change of speed for us. The pressure is off to run around seeing all the touristy sights that have been on offer through Russia. Riga, whilst beautiful with plenty of its own historical touristy things to see and do, seems to be a place where people just tend to hang out, stroll around a bit, sleep late and party in the evenings. With this in mind we slept till 11 on Saturday morning before having a liesurly brunch. The plan was to head out to Salispills, a small town about 40km from riga. Our last chance to jump in the car and see and do things a bit off the beaten track. Salispils was the site of a Concerntration Camp during WW2. the site itself is out in the middle of a pine forrest. Driving in you would occaisionally see people walking about through the trees with baskets and buckets picking mushrooms. The memorial site is a large grass area with four large stone figures, entitled The Mother, the Humiliated, The Unbroken, and Solidarity. The whole place was not only moving but seemed to be somehow fitting as a monument to what had occured there.

We had to meet the guy from the car company at 4pm, so we headed back to Riga sad at the thought we would be handing back the car, but not so upset about not sleeping in it any more. Personally it was a big relief to hand over the keys knowing that we had travelled through city and country, on the wrong side of the road, guessing at the meaning of road signs accident free! Back at the Hostel we cooked dinner and had a drink with some of the guys we had met the night before. Saturday night kicked off properly at about 11.30pm.... apparently this is a completely reasonable time for people to finally decide that they will be going out and its going to be big. Carlos, one of the managers at the hostel had organised a pub crawl (starting at 11.30pm and in his own words called it the 'death crawl'). this is a big change of pace from generally our travells to date but travelling is all about actively participating in the local culture so out we went (in we came at about 5.30am). a good night was had by all. Needless to say we felt particuly sorry for everyone who arrived on the sunday...
Today is Monday and after 2 and a half days in Riga we have finally been able to enjoy the great weather (much warmer than russia) and do a bit of exploring. Riga Old Town really is beautiful and has a completely different feel from Tallinn. Whilst Tallinn Old town reminded us a little too much of something off a Disney film set, riga still has a beautiful old town but importantly to us it also had enough grittiness to make it real. People still came and went and business existed that do not just cater for the masses of tourists rolling through. The plan is to fly out of riga on Wednesday to Berlin (we got a relatively cheap flight for 60 Euros). From Berlin we will have to make ourway to Munich for Octoberfest. Unfortunately Berlin is still about 800km fr5om Munich but was the only place we could fly into cheaply. Maybe it will be anopther road trip... tonight there is a fresh batch of people at the hostel and a Mexican night is being planned......at least it will make a change from vodka!
]]> road trip ! — Tartu, Estonia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189971120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189971120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189971120/tpod.html Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:49:18 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Tartu, Estonia

After deciding in the morning to try and rent a car, we were on the road (remarkably, the right road despite some navigational difficulties....) by 4pm and on our way out of town. Fantastic feeling to have our independence back and to feel the flexibility of chosing our own direction. The car we got was an Opal Astra, very similar to a holden astra hatch. Getting used to the whole driving on the right took a little getting used to and required a fair bit of concentration but if there is anywhere that is a good place to get into the swing of european driving, its Estonia. Once out of tallin the roads were great and the traffic light. We were still unsure of our destination but after driving for a couple of hours looking for the perfect small village with a charismatic pub that we had envisaged finding, we ended up stopping at a tiny village outpost on the border of the Soomaa National Park. We managed to find the pub, and although it wasnt quite the type of place we were imagining, it did serve some very cheap Russian styled soup which made do for dinner. By this stage Cath and I had decided that this leg of the journey would be done on the cheap and were determined to see just how tight we could get. We knew of a hostel here that we thought we would check out (the only one in town). We went in to ask about the cost of staying the night and upon finding out that it would be 170EEK each we decided we would be just fine sleeping in the car. Luckily, the guy asked why we were not going to stay and when we told hiim it was the price he said it would be fine to stay there for free ;) the place was completely empty and we think the guy was resigned to the fact that his hostel was a long way from anywhere and unlikely to get customers at this time of the year. The hostel was pretty amazing in its own way. Formerly it was a soviet era pre school and it was now in a rather delapidated condition with stark rooms and eerie corridors. After our dinner in the pub, we sat with the owner of the hostel and chatted, he was a really nice guy and heavily involved in conservation work in the national park. We still froze despite our sleepingbags during the night, thankfully we wer'nt in the car! the next morning we gave the guy a little money to cover our accomadation as we really appreciated the hot shower and use of the kitchen.

Life on the road when living cheap always started with a breakfast of bread, banannas and apples (which we picked from the side of the road). Lunch would be some cheese, crackers or bread and gerkins , wich we were going through at the rate of a large jar a day. Dinner was generally spent at a pub \ reteraunt where we could sit , eat a little soup, stash the bread that we got with the soup in cath's beanie (for the next days breakfast), use the bathroom to do our teeth and hopefully watch a bit of tele before retiring to sleep in our car parked in the parking lot outside. We became remarkibly accostomed to this routine and took pride in our thriftiness :) We had our own mugs and tea bags and would take it in turns going into cafes to ask for hot water when we felt like stopping for a cuppa. this was the routine for the next 4 days.....

On our second day we got back in touch with nature by driving into the Sooma National Park and doing some walking trainls. The environment was nothing like we have seen in aus, more swampy bogs..dark pools with the surrounds lined by autum coloured moss and sparse fir trees. we will definately get some pics up for you as it really was beautiful. Despite the wooden plank walk way that started and finnished in the same place (a 5km loop) we still managed to get lost at one point and only thanks to Cath studying our map and despit my 'gut feeling' did we make it back to the car! Spent the rest of the day drinving through the national park (stopping to pick apples) to our next stop which turned out to be Tartu. Tartu is another city in Estonia, renowned for its student culture. We ended up having dinner in town before having to leave due to the shortage of what we believed to be good 'camping spots'. Ended up driving out of town at about 11pm on a dirt road, an area that can only be described as a likely spot to be abducted by aliens....it really seemed remote but eventually we once again hit the bitumen and pulled up at a truck stop which was just perfect... had a cup of tea, used their bathroom, watched some tele and then retired to the car park to see out the night. Had such a great sleep that we woke up to a very busy truck stop at 9am!

Next day was uneventful after having to change a tyre early on (cath was on the jack ! ) and we spent a liesurely day driving around the countryside and eventually ending up at Otepaa, a great little ski resort/town. Really liked the place and ended up at a great pub on the outskirts of town by the lake. What made this pub great was a) its location on the lake, b) a nice relatively inexpensive menue, c) had a big screen tele and d) used to be a famous irish pub, and finally (and most importantly) e) had a great car park. We called it a night about 10pm and only qwoke when we discovered we had left the hatch open at about 3am! a bit chilly......

Last day in the car.... took a leisurely drive out of Estonia into Latvia, one more stamp in the passport. Latvie was very similar to estonia which was fine by us. Stopped for the usual pickles, cheese and bread lunch by the lake before putting Cath behind the wheel for the first time. Caths turn lasted about 45mins before I got bored and suggested that we should return to our traditional roles... cath managing our glove box larder and navigating and me driving. The highlight of the drive through Latvia was Sigulda where we stayed the night. Sigulder is a town about an hour from riga, famous for its national parks, casles and caves. Spent some time just wandering around before hitting the supermarket to top up on pickles and then finding an appropriately löocated carpark. Had dinner and a few drinks at a local restaurant before retiring for our last night in hostel opel astra (a bit on the nose by this stage...). Our last day in the car consised of wandering a little more around Sigulda and then driving into Riga. Overall, a fantastic roadtrip and in its own way, a real highlight.
]]> St Petersburg- Pancakes and panic — St Petersburg, Russia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189234860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189234860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189234860/tpod.html Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:54:42 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
St Petersburg, Russia

So, Simon and I were on the train on the way to St Petersburg when we realised that we actually had four nights there. By this stage we had been in Russia for a decent amount of time so we thought maybe it would be better to stay just 3 nights and catch the bus direct to Tallinn, Estonia. After a short discussion we decided this was a good idea and it shouldn't be too hard.......all we had to do was cancel our train ticket to Helsinki and purchase a bus ticket to Tallinn. I'll come back that........

Anyway we got to St Petersburg safely, caught the metro to where our hostel was located and as we were emerging from the underground station there it was.........all the splendor of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. In front of us was the Kransky Cathedral, behind us was the Church of the Spilled Blood, down the street was the Hermitage.......and everywhere around us was some of the most beautiful buildings you have ever seen. You could feel the culture on the street, you could see it in the people and you could understand why this city was (and still is) the home to so many artists, musicians and poets. For me, with my arts background, being in St Petersburg was a big responsibility. There were so many theaters to visit, music performances to see, art galleries to wander through (especially the endless collections in the Hermitage), monuments to get photos in front of and the list was endless. To be honest, there simply was too many things to see and not enough time and the guilt of not being able to see it all was enough to cause me a sort of dummy spit breakdown.

In my defence though this is where I will go back to my first story about leaving St. P. a day early and changing our train ticket to Helsinki to a bus ticket to Tallinn. It was not an easy process and just getting the bus ticket alone took up our whole first day. On day two we then had to try and cancel our train tickets and after visiting several different offices and train stations we were finally told that we couldn't get our money back. So there was our first 2 days in St. P. already gone and my sightseeing panic was increasing by the minute. So to calm ourselves down in the evening we took a walk around the Winter Palace, over the bridge to take in the view of the whole of the city and then we wandered through the St Peter & Paul Fortress and back to our hostel. We even discovered a great little pancake stall on the way back where we treated ourselves to a pancake with the lot...and I meant the lot! Back at the hostel we cracked open a bottle of vodka with our new friends Emma & Guy and toasted to many Russian traditions before heading out. We headed to a little bar/club that played Beatles music and we danced the night away. While wandering the streets on the way home we got frisked by some St. P. Police but it was actually surprisingly non eventful....I think because they liked the fact that Simon was an Australian school teacher and of course I was my usual smiling, friendly self. Anyway, it was a fun night after a not so fun day.

The next day was our last day so of course we had to visit the Hermitage. It took us 3-4 hours to walk through and that was rushing it. The elegance and sheer richness of this place was overwhelming (even with a hangover). The collections of art and historical artifacts were even enough to keep Simon's attention (even with a hang over). We agreed that we definitely need to come back to St. P......maybe I'll take a girlfriend next time and go see the Orchestra and the ballet ;-)

So that night we caught the 10.30pm bus to Tallinn and by that time I was so worn out by all the pressure of being in St Petersburg that I was glad to be leaving! For anyone planning on visiting this city, take your time and enjoy it, it's worth it. Anyway, that night we crossed the border on the bus no problems....goodbye Russia.
]]> Old Town Tallinn — Tallinn, Estonia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189866000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189866000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189866000/tpod.html Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:52:37 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Tallinn, Estonia

We arrived at the Tallinn bus station about 6.30am, freezing cold, no local currency and a little geographically confused...not that we didnt know where we were, just no idea where that was in relation to anything else. We opted to hang out in the relative warmth of the station building, alternating between napping and watching estonian tele. About an hour later we bumped into Christoph, an english guy we had met at the cuba hostal in St Petersburg. He had been to tallinn before and was able to give us some rough direction to the tram that would take us to town, caught the tram, avoided the ticket collector and made it into Old Town at about 07.30. We found our hostel no probs but it was still too early to check in so we camped out in the only warm place we could find that was open, a small corner store / deli for anouther hour. We could'nt quite work out why nothing was open by 8.15, turns out there was a 1hour time difference between estonia and Petersburg. eventually got into the 'hostel with no name' at just after 9. It was a small hippie type place with worn out couches, psychodellic paintings and a small dog aslead in the corner.We could only get spots in the 10 bed dorm which turned out to be even more unimpressive than the common room. We decided we needed to get some sleep so we climbed into our bunk only to be kept awake by the hacking, phlemy cough of the guy bellow us, the barking snoring of the other guy still asleep and the alcoholic stench the came from both of them. Not pleasent or condusive to getting any sleep... It turns out the two offenders were a couple of middle aged Irish guys who were there for a few days to drink themselves sensless for less than it would cost back home. We witnessed their routine later that day when they eventually woke up, focussed their bleary eyes, picked up theitr jackets off the floor before stepping out of the room on the way back to the pub accross the road to do it all again.... (we didnt ask for their email addressed back in Ireland). We decided that we needed to get out ourselves and headed for the 'pub with no name' which we had heard had good cheap food. That night we dodged the English stag parties wandering around Old Town and made it to an estonian Pub called 'Hella' for a quite beer. Met an australian called travis who was working in Helsinki - good bloke. the evening ended in a really cute cafe in a hidded courtyard of Old Town where we sat down for a coffee and locally made chocolate. These chocolates were about the size of a golf ball and insanely rich - neither of us could finish our chocolates. For those of you who have experienced Mrs Knucky's famous chocolate fudge (Daniel and Jess' wedding) - it was twice as rich...... Cath wont let me post the pic of her with chocolate smeared across her face..pity. On our second day in Tallinn we changed Hostels to Alur Hostel, sooo much better. The whole atmosphere of Tallinn changes as all the tourists and Stag parties who are only there for the weekend leave town. Old Town was suddenly empty except for the surges of Finnish tourists who arrive and depart with the ferry from helsinki. Old town itself is stunning, on the surface it looks like nothing has changed in the last 5 centuries. Look a bit closer and whilst the buildings and the streets look amazing, all they contain are souvenier shops, bars and cafes. No business seems to exist except that targeted at tourists. so whilst impressed by the look of Tallinn, we decided to get out of town and try and see what elso was in estonia. We decided to hire a car in the morning and withing 3hrs of making the decision we had a car and were on the way to the Estonian countryside. The plan was to spend 5 days driving around estonia and Latvia on our way to Riga.
]]> Moscow.....WOW!! — Moscow, Russia http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189271700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189271700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/siandcath/se_asia-2007/1189271700/tpod.html Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:23:47 -0400 Where the bloody hell are ya!!?? The Irish way of getting to Ireland...
Moscow, Russia

Me again!

Firstly, thank you to our friends who looked after us in Moscow. Blair and his family very kindly put us up in their lovey apparentment in central Moscow. We met Blair though the WASO China tour and when we were planning our trip we thought it would be great to visit him in Beijing and have a drink for old times sake. Little did we know that by this time Blair and his family had been posted to Moscow. As fate would have it though we were doing the trans-Mongolian rail and Moscow was one of our stops so there was no getting away from us :-). So, for 3 days, Blair, his wife Barbara and his 2 daughters Morven and Pollaidn made us feel very at home. We were treated to home cooked meals, breakast cereals (Simon was quite excited about having real milk!), huge fluffy white bath towels, wine, vodka and the list goes on......basically we were spoilt. To top it all off Blair arranged for our own personal tour guide to take us around the city for whole day and what we didnt see that day aint worth seeing. To write everything in detail here simply wouldnt do it justice but just to list a few we saw St Basil's Cathederal, Red Square, St Josephs, Pushkins Museum of Fine Arts (some of my favourite Impressionist artworks were there- v.exciting), Old Arbat (very famous street in Moscow), the old convent, the 7 Sisters, Gorky Park, Theatre Square....we saw it all. The only thing that we did leave to do another day was the Kremlin as that would take a full day on its own.

What I will say is that Moscow was much more beautiful than we expected. Yellow, green and blue buildings with famous sights at every turn meant that we were constantly in a state of WOW!!! So much history and culture. There was simply no getting away from the grandness of one of the most famous cities in the world.

Time with Blair and his family went by so quickly and after 3 days with them we picked up our packs again...........and went about 3 streets down to our old mate Jane McKinney's place. Yep, we were actually that lucky to have more friends in Moscow. The McKinneys are family friends from Kalgoorlie and actually Jane is now an O'Neill and is married to Dave who is just awesome. I hadnt seen Jane since we were kids but Dave was being transfered to Moscow and before they had even moved over there themselves Jane was offering to put us up, so when Jane opened the door of their apparentment building in Moscow it was the first time we had seen eachother in about 20 years! And the first thing she said was "I've just got off the phone to your mum and she said shes going to wait up until you call her back".......it was very 'family like' and we felt very relaxed at their place for the next few days....so relaxed that we even did 2 loads of washing and Simon was making himself soft boiled eggs and soldiers in the mornings for breakfast ;-)

The next day Jane came with us to explore the Kremlin. Of course we bumped into Mano from Germany (who we bump into in every country!) and we all went in together and had a gawk at all the beautiful churches in there. It was FREEZING cold that day so we should have taken more time to stroll around the grounds but instead we were very keen for Jane to take us to the hot spud van where we had stuffed potatoes with the lot! Just what you need on a cold Moscow day! That night Jane also treated us to a home cooked meal and Simon and I stayed up and watched a really bad movie on TV....just because we could.

On our last day we visited the Kremlin again but this time did the Armory where they keep all the old clothing, national artifacts and treasures and a series of armour and weapons. It was very impressive. That night we had dinner with Jane and Dave at 'Moo Moo', the slightly classier Russian version of sizzler....we mock it but it really was great food. The we headed home and got packed up as we were on the midnight train to St Petersburg. Once again we were very fortunate to have Blair's driver come pick us up and take us to the station which meant we werent wondering Moscow in the middle of the night with our packs.

As you can tell, we couldnt have had a better experience of Moscow....all there is left to say is thank you to Blair, Barbara, Morven, Pollaidn and Jane & Dave for such a great time!!! For anyone else reading this, the photos will do better justice to the sights we saw than any of my descriptions so I'll leave it there :-)

xoxox
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