London

I spent last week in London which was pretty cool. I stayed with my brother which was great because I hadn´t seen him for a while so we could catch up and also because it was free. The downside was that I had to share a bed with him and there were four people in the room so it was kind of cramped.

While I was there I also went out to see Dave from uni and Jacquie from Sydney Water which was cool too. We ended up going to a pub called The Porterhouse which is actually an Irish pub and I had spent a bit of time in the ones in Dublin so it was funny to end up there in London too. (To Ben - also reminded me of the New Years Porterhouse challange which made me feel a bit queasy in the stomach and then very proud of myself).

While I was there I also went on the London Eye (the big ferris wheel) with my brother. It was good because we chose a really clear day to go so we could see everywhere. I went to the Grenwich Observatory which is where GMT (Grenwich Mean Time) is measured from which was kinda cool. I spent one day walking along the Thames river and crossing over all the bridges, it was good because I got to see a bit of London outside of the city centre and I also got to do a bit of exercise.

One day I went on a day trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath which was fantastic. Windsor Castle is where the Queen lives when she´s not working at Buckingham palace. Stonehenge was my favourite. I had wanted to go there for a long time but hadn´t got around to organising it. There´s not much to do there, just walk around all the stones but even still I liked it. Bath was a nice little city, we went to the old Roman Bathes there and had a bit of a look around which was ok. My personal highlight of the day was getting a photo of a sign for "Slough Trading Estate", where The Office was set so look out for it in my photo section when I have time to upload them. Another interesting thing: around Stonehenge there are a lot of army training grounds and we saw a sign which said "Tank Crossing" (similar to our "Kangaroo Crossing" signs back home). Our guide hadn´t seen a tank crossing the road in all the years she´d been doing the tour but it was our lucky day and we had to stop the bus and wait for a tank to cross the road in front of us - it was a bit of a strange experience!

P.S. To people who have sent me emails in the last couple of weeks, I´m not ignoring you, I´ve just been a bit slack in replying but I will try to reply in the next couple of weeks...

Estonia and Russia

Well it's a bit late but I thought I'd write a bit about Estonia and Russia.

Estonia was cool. I caught a bus from Riga (in Latvia) and was planning on getting off in Parnu but I had some communication issues with the bus driver which meant I didn't get of at the right stop and ended up having to wait another two hours until we got to the capital Tallinn. I hadn't really wanted to see Parnu anyway, I was just going there so I could head out to an island the next day so I wasn't too fussed about the stuff up.

I spent one day in Tallinn and went on a walking tour around the city which was cool. Tallinn has wireless internet access all over town. It's a very progressive city but I heard that after they removed a Russian monument (which caused a riot among the Russians who live there and the native Estonians in Aprilish) there were also a lot of attacks on their internet system originating from Russia. Moral of the story: don't piss off the Russians.

The next day I went out to an island off the coast called Saremaa which was quite nice. They had a few sites to see: a castle in town and then some old fashioned windmills not too far away. The most unique thing I've seen for a while though were the meteorite craters they had on the island. The largest one was about 100 metres in diameter and had a little lake of water in the bottom of it. I'd never seen anything like it before. I also walked around a bit and saw a few of the smaller craters there.

From Saremaa I headed back to Tallinn for another day and then it was time for an overnight bus ride into Russia. Despite my expectations getting in and out of Russia was no hassle and I think the only reason they still make visitors go through the very beureacratic (not sure about the spelling) visa procedure is so the government can get a bit of extra money.

I started in St Petersburg and had timed my trip well in the fact that it was just coming up to the solstice so it never got dark. It was sort of twilight between 1 and 2 am but that was it, it´s really strange to be walking around after 11 or 12 and it´s still light. I went on a walking tour of St Petersburg which was pretty good and I went to a museum called the Hermitage. Apparantly it´s really famous (I hadn´t heard of it before going there). It´s an art museum (which I didn´t realise before going there either) so it only has paintings which aren´t really my thing so I didn´t spend too long there. Luckyily entrance was free for students and luckily I have my brothers student card!

 

Also went to a museum which was founded by one of the more famous Tsars (can´t remember which one though) it had one room full of babies/feotuses with deformities in jars. He started collecting them so they could be used for education but now people just go there to look at them (like I did).

 

From there it was onto Moscow on, by far, the most comfortable overnight trip I took. It was 3rd class but I had a bed and sheets and everything so it was great. Had a bit of trouble finding my way to the hostel (Moscow underground is the busiest one I´ve ever seen - much worse than London) but made it in the end.

 

Spent some time at the red square and saw Lenins mausoleum and his body, although I think it looked like a wax model and refuse to believe that it was really his body. I also went into the Kremlin but there´s not much to do there. At the red sqare is St Basils Cathedral which is the coolest looking church I´ve seen throughout Europe (and, as anyone who´s been through Europe knows, you can´t help seeing a fair few over here). It has heaps of towers and the whole facade is covered with different colours. I really can´t describe it well enough so you´ll just have to look at the pictures to see for yourself.

 

Some of the underground stations in Moscow are fantastic - they were built during the Communist era when spending money on fancy public buildings was ok while the people were starving. The oldest stations are the most elaborately decorated. The decorations ranged from marble panels with carvings on them to paitings to scultpures to mosaics and even a few stained glass windows. Again, check my pictures if you want to see them.

 

Sorry that this post has been so late in coming, I will try to be a bit more up to date in the future. Pete!

Update

Hi everyone,

I have been a bit quiet lately I know but a quick update on what´s happening...

I went to Russia (St Petersburg and Moscow) which was fantastic and I´ll try to write more about it soon.

Since then I´ve been in München (Munich - but I´m using a german keyboard so I may as well use the dots) relaxing at Mona´s place.

I was getting sick of the constant moving assosciated with travelling so I am taking a break for a while and then we´ll see. Anyway, that´s all from me for now. Stay tuned for more updates.

Pete

P.S. I put a few photos from Russia up on the photo section!