And then there was one...

Hi everyone! I am back in sunny Copenhagen after the end of my tour so thought I had better give you all an update on what I have been up to since I last wrote.

Berlin was pretty mind-blowing- the history is all very recent and there is an amazing amount of memorials and reminders of all that has gone before. Our first stop was a meal in a traditional beer hall (accompanied by a beer of course!) and then we headed out to our hostel - known as The Generator - for a good night's sleep. The next day we had a huge day where we did a four hour walking tour of the city to take in the former gestapo headquarters, the holocaust memorial, the memorial to the murdered jews of Europe, the Brandenberg gate, the Reichstag (German Parliament), the Tiergarten and Checkpoint Charlie to name but a few. After that the girls and I went on a mission to buy Ampelman merchandise... ampelman is the little traffic light man from East Berlin and he is very cute!

We had a night life tour that night where some random American with the best job in the world took us around a few bars and clubs. My dodgy tummy forced me to give up about 2am but a few of the group managed to stay out until it was time to get back on the bus in the morning! Obviously it was a VERY quiet bus ride to the ferry and eventually Copenhagen with everyone either in the tummy bug feeling sick camp or the drunk too much and have a hang over camp (and some of us in a weird combo of the two...)! We got back to Copenhagen and went out to a place called Rosie McGee's for our final night dinner. This is an Irish bar serving mexican food cooked by a chinese dude in the middle of Copenhagen... and it was damn tasty!

Yesterday we had a morning of goodbyes and swapping addresses and phone numbers etc before all going our seperate ways. It was a bit sad but am starting to get all excited about the next stage of my adventure now (Hungary in four days) and particularly excited about seeing my friend Caroline and her husband Toby and baby Rebekah in a couple of hours! I think it is about four years since I saw Caroline and Toby and I have never met Rebekah so I am really looking forward to it!

I hope you are all well and life is going well. Talk soon!
Clare

War Memorials, Strippers, Tummy Bugs and Toilets

Hi all - so much to say that I am going to write as fast as possible so here goes...

Since I last wrote we managed to successfully get in to visit Lenin's tomb which was pretty special and we also visited a military museum, the museum of the revolution and ate more dodgy chicken and potatos covered in dill in Moscow. We also visited the Moscow circus - the human acrobatics were fabulous but the animal stuff was pretty hard to watch. We were all just praying for the tigers to gang up and attack but sadly this did not come to pass!

The next day we headed out of Moscow very slowly (four hours to go 125k) due to bad roads and loads of traffic. The toilet search of Russia came to an abrupt end when we visited the Borodino memorial (one of the battles of 1812 between Russia and Napoleon) and the toilet lady was having a day off... wilderness here we come... little did I know that worse toilets were to come!

We also had to pay off a gang of kids who were blocking the road with their bikes to all cars passing... gotta love this country's entrepeunureal future!

That night we headed to the town of Yartsevo which is Russian for crap-hole... we were staying at a strip joint, brothel, truck stop combo and were treated to a few pole dances while we ate our dodgy chicken and potatoes. Sadly today the chicken really was dodgy and I (along with half the bus) now have a fairly decent bout of food poisoning... not nice I can assure you but I will spare you the details! Suffice to say the lack of toilets and sanitary conditions suddenly became more relevant!

The following day, avoiding any major incidents the night before despite the local pimps efforts, we headed out of Russia, with a visit to the town of Smolensk and the Katyn Memorial (a tribute to the communist attempts to eradicate the jewish population. We also visited a mormorial to Hatyn and had a border crossing to Belarus (white russia). Minsk looked like a beautiful city but sadly we only had a really brief city tour to take it all in before bed and an early start to get to Poland. The border crossing took us about three and half hours (not great with 48 people trapped on a very hot and stuffy bus when half of them have a dodgy stomach!), and the drive all up took 12 hours so we were very tired by the time we hit Warsaw.

I can assure you that we all perked up a hell of a lot when we saw what waited for us here... a nice normal hotel, with a clean bath and sheets on the bed. Air conditioning, food (albeit chicken and potatos but much fresher than we were used to at this point) and very importantly a fully functioning toilet. Jess and I did a happy dance in the bathroom to celebrate and I can't tell you how happy this made us all!

I really loved Warsaw. It is one of the greenest cities in Europe and we did a city tour, visited old town and the Warsaw ghetto, did some shopping and went to a Chopin recital in a palace before heading out for a bit of a group dinner. It was fantastic and I really hope I can go back and spend some more time at some stage.

Today we have been driving in to Germany and I am now in Berlin. Running out of time though so that story will wait! I am having a fantastic time and despite the dodgy stomach and loving the trip. I hope you are all well and that you are getting your postcards... I don't necessarily trust russian or polish post but I gave it a shot!

C