ContinentHopping

Hello everybody, at the moment we are at the trainstation in Helsinki and all cheap hostels/hotels seem to have been fully booked, because of a soccergame, the autumn holidays and some congresses. So a slight change in plans, we will already take the ferry to Rostock tonight and therefore will arrive a day earlier in Germany, but Rostock is supposed to be a nice town aswell, so we will spend two nights overthere. So our arrival time will not change unless we have problems with our final trainticket . See you Saturday!!!

P.S. Indeed today 17th October is Edvar’s birthday, hip hip hoeree!!!

The end of our trip is approaching and yet we can not help ourselves to give you a quick update of our last adventures. The journey with the train from Irkutsk to Moscow went quick and smoothly with our fellow traveller Sasha an old Russian, who did not speak any English, but with hands and feet we managed to exchange our food and made an attempt to communicate with eachother.

When we arrived in Moscow the hostel we wanted to stay in seemed to have vanished. Lucky for us a kind Russian man helped us with an address of a second hostel. Since it was already late we considered to stay a night in the Holiday Inn, but 350 euros for a night was a little bit too much. In the end we managed to get to the second hostel by metro and decided to stay here for 81 euros per night, yes we were a little shocked with these prices as budget travellers .

The prices of hostels/hotels in Moscow are really rediculously high, but it seems you will not be able to get a room cheaper than 81 euros per night. The hostels are a little bit strange in Russia, located in a district away from the city centre and not really easy to find. The hostels are not particularly cozy and the personnel is not really friendly either. Somehow it seems that the Russians are either very friendly or really rude. Maybe talking English or trying to communicate with hands and feet is kind of frightning/unfamiliar/unwilling to them.

Russia does not really seem to be into tourism yet. Even at very touristic attractions finding some explanations in English is a difficult task. Sometimes you see a very large explanation in Russian and the English translation then consists of just two lines . In seems that the closer you get to the border of the other European countries that more Russians are able to speak English. Saint Petersburg definetely inhabits more English-speaking Russians than Moscow.

In Moscow we wandered around the town admiring a lot of very nice buildings and churches. Both Moscow and Saint Petersburg have a unique charisma, both cities are really worthwhile for a long weekend trip. The temperature is really cold here, so we decided to dig up our gloves and shawls from the bottom of our backpacks.

In Moscow we visited the Kremlin, which was oke but not really amazing. St. Basils Church has a nice appearance, a little bit like a Disney castle. We also paid Lenin a visit in his Mausoleum on the Red Square. Now we have seen all three in history important communist leaders during our trip around the world (Ho Chi Minh, Mao and Lenin).

We also spent quite a few hours on the internet searching for new houses and jobs. The first job interviews have been planned for the both of us. I decided to buy myself a new suit in Moscow and might pay a visit to the hairdresser in Helsinki so I will have a nice appearance for the job interviews.

We also attempted to spot some Ferraris, but it seems that Beemers, Mercedeses (incl. Maybachs), SUV’s or Limo’s (in all colours and sorts) are more hip in Russia. Luckily for Edvar we were able to admire a Lamborghini Gallardo driving by, his new twin brother from Germany (the Audi R8) and we also saw two Ferraris at the Ferrari dealer in Moscow .

     

After a night in the train we arrived safely in Saint Petersburg, where we wandered around the town and admired the mosaics of the Church of Christ the Redeemer (The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood). Tomorrow we will visit the Hermitage and Wednesday morning we will catch an early train towards Helsinki!