I Am Alive!

Hi all from the black hole of Calcutta... oops I mean Russia! Turns out that internet is not as hard to get here as previously thought! Am in Moscow currently but before I get to all that here is my very quick update on what I have been up to for the last few days....

Since I last wrote a few of us went out for a meal in Helsinki - Halfway Sarah and I opted for "pimp my reindeer" which to be honest was not that nice but felt more authentically finnish than the mcd's we had had for our lunch that day!

On the 21st we started our border crossing into Russia. The crossing took only two and a half hours which is apparently a contiki record so we were pretty stoked after hearing horror stories of six hour crossings etc. Immediately over the border you notice the roads getting rough and rubbish on the side of the roads etc that just was not around in Finland but you forget all that plus the big men with guns once you get to St Petersberg. I absolutely loved the place... can't come up with words sufficient to describe it. It is beautiful and clean and safe and bright and champangska is less than $2nz for a glass... my kind of town!

We checked out the Bronze Horseman statue which is a tribute to Peter the Great outside one of the 1500 (honestly... not making it up...) palaces in St Petersberg. He was the founder of the town about 300 years ago and designed the whole thing himself. We also checked out some of the rivers and canals and had several champangska stops where we all jumped off the bus and hoed into some black market bubbles provided to us by out local guide who was sold to us as having a drinking problem and didn't disappoint! After all the champangska and general sight-seeing we headed back to our hotel, complete with bowling alley, disco, go carts and rifle range for a few more drinks and a very brief sleep!

The next day we went to the Summer Palace of Peter the Great (here after known as my mate Pete) and visited the Peterhof gardens and one of the beautiful churches out there. Then we headed back to town to visit the sige of Leningrad memorial (St Petersberg's old name, under seige for three years during WWII). We also visited the Church of the Spilt Blood, went to a fantastic folklore/dancing/singing show in another palace and went to try some authentic beef stroganoff... to be honest the food here has been bloody awful but stroganoff was excellent and made a nice change from pringles. We also had another couple of champagnska stops and went back to our dodgy hotel to get molested by hundreds of agressive mosquitos... why did no one tell me St Petersberg was on a swamp?!?!?!

The day after that (see dear readers... I have been busy while I have been away!) we visited some markets, the Faberge shop and I managed to pick up my mother's birthday present... I am not going to send this til I get to somewhere like Berlin though, just to make sure it actually arrives mum OK? The biggest thing for me that day was visiting the Peter and Paul cathedral and fortress which is where all the Romanov dynasty of Tsars are buried. The last Tsar, my mate Pete, and dear ol' Catherine the Great were all here and it blew me away. We finished off the day by visting the Hermitage art gallery (spread over four former palaces) and went to see Swan Lake performed at, you guesssed it, another palace.

I can't tell you enough how much I loved this place, but anyway I had better move on before I run out of time! yesterday we drove out of St Petersberg to Novgorod, which is one of the oldest towns in Russia. It's old fortress (Kremlin) and church are still standing and it was lovely to see. Very sleepy town though but we had a clean hotel (yayayayayayay!) and so were quite happy to have an early night in watching desperate housewifes on russian tv...

Today we have been on the road to Moscow (about 9 hours). The drive is only just over 500kms but the roads are so bad that it takes forever. our lovely bus driver Bella was doing his best but the drivers, the road, the police stopping everyone etc conspired for a long day... never mind we are here now and before we came to our hotel we went to visit the Red Square and I got my photo of St Basils cathedral... remember all those conversations at work re that one Jacqui??? It is beautiful and maybe tomorrow we can go inside. The other big thing we may get to do tomorrow is visit Lenin's masoleum... apparently this is very hard to organise but our guide is confident so fingers crossed. apparently they are talking about moving it so it will be pretty special to see before they do. Anyway I have lots more to tell but am running low on time so I hope that is at least a partial update for you all. Love Russia and having a good time. Missing you all though and hope you are well.

Big kisses!
Clare