Back in the USSR

N 53 11.900 E 107 20.386 - Friday 26 September - Olkhon, Nikita's Homestead.

Siberia, I've had an image of it for a long time. It was a place of exile and imprisonment. It is covered with snow and trees. It is somewhere that a comet can strike and destroy thousands of acres of forest and basically go unnoticed. In some ways, those images have stood up to the reality and some haven't. What I have seemed to find, giving away the ending before I tell the story, seems to be amazingly beautiful, extremely harsh and desolate landscapes, completely untouched and primitive, yet filled with industrial blight, covered in broken vodka bottles and tire tracks through beautiful reed marshes filled with plastic grocery bags.

When I last left you, our train had just been invaded by the Russian army on our last 36 hours before Irkutsk. Eventually that night, we made it to bed. There was a few hours of drinking beer (they had 2 1.5 liter bottles of pivo they were determined to make it through) and talking. But we were already exhausted and had already hoped to go to bed before they even arrived. C had been up in the top bunk for most of it, hoping to sleep but it being impossible and eventually moved down to be a little more social. After an hour or so, during Vladim's first smoke break, she snuck back up and put in the earplugs and tried to shut it all out, but it all kept going on despite that.

During the second smoke break a long time after that, after both bottles had been finished, Ora, who had patiently waited and only participated in the small bits of the conversation that were in Russian, she reclaimed her bottom bunk and effectively ended the party. I was then able to reclaim my bottom bunk and also finally sleep. Outside the door, we could hear the rest of the carriage carrying on late into the night.

Sleeping on the bottom bunk, with your ear right there sort of kind of on the floor, the noises are strange. Much of the track is fairly smooth but then sections of it get quite noisy. I wonder how much of the track had shifted and sunk (built on permafrost that then melts somewhat, buildings sink and crack), but parts of the track were very loud with a clacking sound quite similar to a fast beating heart. I would say that is the main sound I will take away from the journey, the sound of the Trans-Siberian. The other sound, my favorite of all of them, is the sound of the safety checks (I presume) that the engineer makes at most of the longer stops. He walks around the entire train with a metal rod (and torch if it is dark), hitting all the springs on the wheels and the brake drum covers (I am guessing), clang, ting, clang, ting. I assume if something is wrong, it makes a different sound.

However, that night, the loud clacking sounds, the ones that sound like a fast beating heart, are quite conducive to a whole series of exhausting running dreams. After a too late night, I wake up even more tired. The landscape had gotten even better here, we were going through not densely packed forests of birch, but at least a great number of them and they were mostly turning. There were seas of yellow with small patches of red and green flowing by, we were also moving through more twists and turns and up and down small hills. It was quite a nice scene to watch.

The major though, once we were up and breakfasted, got out his laptop and decided it was movie time. He had a whole big pack of dvds. It appears that the MPAA has made little headway in Russia, at least in the Russian military. None of the dvds appeared to be actual kind of copies you would buy in stores, although he did have quite a collection of fairly current films. He decided that Kung Fu Panda was just what we needed and started it it up. It seems like quite a surreal moment there to me, sitting there on a train going through Siberia, with this amazing landscape going by outside the window, sitting there watching Kung Fu Panda in Russian. Occasionally the Major would tell us a bit of the dialog, what they were saying, although the plot and the action seemed pretty straight forward. It seems that there was this panda who wanted to do kung fu.

So fine, entertaining, kind of, although I probably would have rather sat and read and stared out the window. But I guess I could still look out the window. The film didn't require a whole lot of effort or attention. About halfway through, I went to take a shower. It had been a few days. Ok, not exactly a shower. Ora had ridden the train before, many times, and knew how it worked. She had a huge mayonnaise jar and I borrowed that. Fill it with hot water and you can do fairly well with a wash cloth. The toilets have a mesh rubber floor with a drain in the bottom. It isn't the easiest thing in the world, but you can get moderately clean and wash your hair and feel a bit better about the world and a bit refreshed.

And I was back in time to see the last 1/3rd of the film. If you haven't seen it, I probably won't wreck it by saying that the panda eventually does learn kung fu, but I wasn't worried he wouldn't. Mostly I was wondering why Yoda and Darth Vader were in the film as well.

The rest of the day was quieter. We could retreat a little bit into reading, watch more of the scenery, although the other soldiers were still going, running into our room to get different translations for different words. I assume they were trying to make headway with the foreign women. Cup of soup and tomatoes and cheese and bread and sausage for lunch and I guess a sort of similar thing for dinner. It is hard to believe that it all passed so quickly, we would be in Irkutsk at 6 am the next morning. Ora was continuing on to the end of the line, a few more days on the train. She insisted that we get ourselves packed up and mostly ready to go before we went to sleep.

Nobody really slept much that night. The other soldiers were young and energetic and they kept the rest of the train up for almost the entire night. They tried a number of times to get into our room but the door was locked. It didn't help with the sleep though. And the clacking of the tracks seems so much louder in the night and I was a little worried about getting up and out in time the next morning, it being so early.

I guess I didn't need to worry so much. The provodnitsa was a bit keen, probably really wanted to unload the train so she could have a much quieter rest of the journey, woke everybody up a 5, telling us we would be there in 30 minutes, which was a bit of a fib but we were ready to go by 5.30, and sat and waited until we finally pulled into Irkutsk at 6.

It is funny, after 4 days on the train, I barely explored much of it. I went a few coaches back and one ahead, but never ended up making it to the dining car (apparently not even a small loss) and didn't really engage much with the rest of the English speaking passengers (the tourists). But then I ended up doing much more of that during that first day in Irkutsk. We got off the train, wondering what to do next. We couldn't get our room at the home-stay until 9 so had a few hours. Wandering around Irkutsk in the pre-dawn hours, interesting and all, actually it seemed to present the town in the best light, but the backpacks were heavy and it was a bit cold. There was supposed to be some 24 hour internet cafe, but we never found it and ended up outside the 24 hour pizza cafe with three just graduated Oxford students.

Open 24 hours of course means they close from 7 to 7.30, so we had to wait outside for 30 minutes until they opened, but at least it was somewhere and we had company. Pizza and blinies for breakfast and a nice chat with some English kids and finally we were able to head down to the hostel to have them set us up with our room. Later that day, I picked up a book of matches from the restaurant we ate in, so many times people on the street asked me if I had a light (or at least made that universal sign language of needing a match), I figured at least once I could just give them the entire box of matches. Have I mentioned yet that all of Russia seems to be a smoker's paradise. Tobacco companies seem to even have done very well with rather young children. I have found the smoke to be a bit much at times but do miss actual non-smoking areas.

Our home-stay lady seems pretty nice and the room is good, although another of my list of questions about Russia is what is the obsession with absolutely gigantic pillows? How does one sleep on a pillow that the size of your head and of a great deal of your upper chest? We had a nice conversation and tea with her but it also was one of the conversations that led me to wondering about travel and being a foreigner in a foreign land.

My main accomplishment though, I was rather pleased with how I handled it and what I learned, was repairing the computer. Somehow, maybe the outlets on the train, the power adapter was no longer working. I had asked where some computer stores might be, or better yet, stores with lots of cables and thing who might not mind repairing things. I thought my chances of finding a replacement were pretty slim, maybe there was something similar or could somehow hack something together. It was one of the bigger cities in Siberia, but it is still Siberia.

There was learning about Russian retail too. There are lots of big stores along main streets, disappointingly mostly chains of stores that are all over the world. Does there really need to be a United Colors of Bennington in every town in the world? I kind of think not. Sad about local color ending up being the same boring color as everywhere else in the world. But a lot of the action seems to be in plain buildings, on 2nd and 3rd floors, down hallways with 20-30 doors. If you can't read the signs out front, or especially the signs at the end of the hallway, you would have no idea anything was there.

I was given some vague locations, this street, somewhere on a 2nd floor. The first place, a store just out on the main street, a small one though, I started out in English. The store actually sells Asus too. He speaks pretty decent English and he can't help, but is nice enough to walk me around the block to the service center, where they can't help either. They say they can order one, might take a few weeks, but by that time, I'll be in Mongolia or China or somewhere. Then he walks me down a few blocks to another computer store, another small one. He was very nice I have to say.

That store, I also start out in English. The guy sort of understands, not so much though. It sounds like they also have a service center. Somewhere, I can't understand where and the guy doesn't know how to tell me. He asks the guy at the desk, begs a bit, finally he relents and tells me where it is. He seems extremely annoyed that he has to speak English, which he seems to pretty well. I guess I understand but also kind of don't. Maybe he is tired of being the go to English guy, or maybe he had a bad day, I don't know. But the service center, just around the corner again, they have nothing, but he is nice enough to recommend some other place and prints out a map of how to get there, a few blocks away.

This is one I never would have found on my own, up some back stairway, down a hallway, through one of the dozens of doors. This one looks promising though, very geeky, lots of parts and wires and people standing in line having written down part numbers where a very busy woman types stuff on her computer and sends two people behind her scurrying to get the parts out of some drawer from the back. This might be it. And I've finally planned ahead. I stand in line practicing slomanni (broken), pacheeneet (repair), pahoji (similar). That and pointing at the voltage and all that, she seems to get it, but they have nothing. She can order one, be there Tuesday, which is our last day there, so not great but at least it is something.

Then on the next block, hey, that's the store the home-stay lady recommended, looks like a big proper computer shop. Might as well try there. I've got the routine down, I practice my words again, and although they get hung up on the fact that I had taken the UK adapter off, I come up with eemyet (have) and go back through broken and all that. Ahh, I am saved, after a few people try to help, a proper looking geek comes out and after I also throw in paryes(cut), to cut off the old connector and wire it to something new, then he brings out a voltage meter and start plugging it into a socket and measuring things. Yes, this is much better now. Yep, it isn't working, he confirms that and he has an idea.

He finds an old power cable in back, the right voltage and through somebody else, an 18 year old woman who works there, who is going to school to learn English and is quite keen to translate and practice, he says yes he can try to reconnect things if we can wait a few minutes. Of course, then I won't have to wait days or months, I have a few minutes. When he comes back, after we chat with this woman for a while (seems to be in love with some 25 year old artist from New York, wants to go there, all that), my connector is spliced to this other adapter and it works and I'm so happy. She says then, this man would like you to pay him 500 rubles. We are in the middle of a large chain type computer store, lots of clerks had come over during the whole process until he finally took over. But yeah, if he wants to make a bit of extra money on the side during working hours, when in Rome, I guess. I'm happy, I have a working power supply again (about £11 worth) and the woman was happy (got to practice her English, while she was at work) and the guy was happy (an interesting technical challenge as well as a nice bit of cash). Quest over though, back to normal life, seeing things and writing about them.

Russians in the DHSS

N 52 16.727 E 104 17.030 Thursday 25 September 2008 - Irkutsk

The end of the second full day on the train. It has passed pleasantly. The scenery has been lovely, it is relaxing just sitting and reading, and it is nice that there is no real need to do anything much at all. But it was time for bed. Ora was already asleep in her bunk. She had been coughing a lot the last few days and had slept a lot during the days too, she turned in a hour or so earlier. We got undressed and closed the curtains and were just turning off the reading lamps after reading a bit before bed and starting to go to sleep when we seemed to pull into a station.

At night, it is sort of a shame that it is getting light so early. Reading the guidebook, we seemed to pass through a lot of really interesting areas after dark, like a huge percentage of the Urals. We still make stops at all hours, some are short 2 minute stops, some are the full 15-30 minute ones. During the day, you look at the schedule and figure out which ones will happen when you are still awake, when you can get off the train and wander around for a bit, maybe buy a few things, some food, drinks, or whatever. We were getting to Novosibirsk after bedtime and figured we would just miss it, even though it sounded like the train station was quite interesting and nice to see. But now, since we were awake, let's go out and take a look and see.

The whole journey there so far, there have been a few people getting on and off but really not a lot of change in our carriage. Here, lots of people were waiting to get on, and at our carriage, there was a whole mass of soldiers waiting. Oh no, we have been invaded by the Russian army. Sure enough, getting back on the train, our fourth bunk had one of those huge high topped hats and some bags on it. It was still dark in the room and Ora was still asleep, but the rest of the carriage was busy with movement, lots of soldiers running around.

Up until now, the carriage was probably about 2/3rds full and the majority seemed to be tourists. We had a Russian woman in our room and there were a few other Russians scattered around but not many at all. Now there were 10 new people on, two of them their commanders (Vladim was the one in our room), and 8 other rather young and somewhat wild soldiers. They were just back from 10 days of training and were heading home, or back to their base, and they were ready to party.

We kind of reluctantly got up and gave up some of our space. I was on the bottom bunk at this point (a seat during the daytime). Ora got up too as Vladim got unpacked and settled and his other commander friend (can't remember his name) settled into our compartment with a few bags of chips and a few liters of pivo (beer). I suppose we were actually luckier than the rest. One of the other rooms ended up getting designated as party central and they had soldiers in there all night drinking and talking and I doubt they got much more sleep the rest of the trip.

I was rather tired and really did want to just go to sleep, but I did enjoy the next few hours. Vladim spoke English fairly well, still with some large gaps but considering our almost complete lack of Russian, he spoke pretty well. The other one apparently understood pretty well but wouldn't speak. Yes, as I write this, I'm pretty aware of my own lack of knowledge about Russian and feeling a bit strange about traveling somewhere where I am that ignorant of the language. I've mastered maybe spaseeba (thank you) and nyet russkie (the phrase for I don't speak Russian is still eluding me) and maybe am slightly starting to get Cyrillic down now, but do feel weird about it all.

They started in on the pivo and we had a nice conversation for a few hours, although a bit frustrating given the communication gap. We had a small phrase book with us (a very very very small one, with just barely enough words in it to understand some basic menus and signs) and we would have to keep referring back to it. Or Vladim would grab it and try looking for something, get frustrated and try to find another word that might actually be in there. Stupid phrase book. Sadly enough, we seemed to be the only one in the carriage who even had one. The next day, some of the soldiers would come in and look up things in it to help them with their conversations in the other rooms.

I'm still somewhat confused about what it was that Vladim actually does. Between the two of them, they seemed to be the commanders or teachers of the 8 others, although they didn't really bother much with enforcing a whole lot of discipline on them on the train. The second night, Vladim bolted our door shut when we went to sleep to keep them out, which turned out to be a good move because they were up all night and you could hear at least one of them going up and down the hallway trying all the doors to see if he could get in to chat, drink, or whatever. The provodnitsa was furious the next morning at them, yelling at them for all the cigarette butts and bottles through out the carriage. The two commanders though, one of them was the one who trains them on all the army stuff, rifles and artillery and whatever else. He seemed pretty burly and looked the part pretty well.

Vladim, after 15 years in the military, I guess was a software engineer by training, but doesn't do much of that. I think he was a major and he tried explaining what he did, but I still don't think I get it. I think in the Soviet army, he would have been the one who kept the military under the government/party line, the political branch of the military. He wasn't the commander of the base, or I think even the second in command, but seemed to be just under that but maybe telling them what the President wants to happen. In the New Russia, I'm a little less clear what people's roles are, how they have changed, or if they have changed much at all.

The military does seem to play a huge role. In St Petersburg, I flirted briefly with trying to buy some sort of jacket. We are heading into Mongolia soon and China after that and I suspect that it is going to be really cold. I have a lot of layers, goretex stuff and fleece and thermal layers, but I don't have a big thick jacket. Our guide on the walk in St Petersburg though that a nice thick wool navy jacket might be just the thing. We even went to the military store later to take a look, but when I saw the whole store was filled with young men admiring the display cases of medals, stocking up for their first military posting, and just really looking the part, I got a little shy and intimidated by the whole thing. To me, it would have just been a really warm jacket (and a fairly inexpensive one at that).

I might have even gone through with it if they had more historical (i.e. more army surplus sorts of things) jackets, but I think I would feel quite weird wearing something current and being seen as trying to play the part. The military seems to be present everywhere in Russia. There is universal conscription here, I'm assuming all males (Russia seems to be generally pretty conservative about attitudes towards women's roles, gays, etc), and they have to serve at least one year. Whether everybody that serves likes and supports the military, I don't know, but it does seem to be constant presence everywhere.

But I digressed quite a bit there, we were still up late talking about stuff. The other thing I have become quite conscious of while we have been traveling, especially in Russia is the attitude towards travel and especially long journeys like we are on. When we say we have been here and there and we are planning on going there then and we have been gone this long and will not finish traveling for a few more months, there seems to be a mix of wonder and excitement but also a bit of questioning why you would want to travel and maybe even some horror over it seeming a bit obscene and extravagant.

It has lead me a bit to wonder why I am traveling like this and what I hope to get from it. I'm already painfully aware of being very foreign, knowing almost none of the language and not many of the customs. Have I just come to look at the pretty sights and gawk at the natives? Am I just ticking off an impressive list of places I've been, not understanding any of them any better? Was it exotic and exciting to be in a carriage with two Russians trying to communicate and figure out what the world is actually like for all sorts of different people? Or was it just sort of a brief encounter, communication on a rather shallow level. Ora was lovely and it was sad saying goodbye to her, but what is it beyond that?

We have on one hand encountered different Russians, sort of amazed at our journey who also seem sort of horrified by it, why would you go somewhere that you don't speak the language? There seems to be something in that, that troubles me as well. There is also some attitude of quite strong nationalism. Why would you want to go to Mongolia? That's a horrible place and Mongolians are awful. As we have gotten further east, there seems to be a lot of underlying prejudices. I can understand the attitude of some we have talked to, a deep love of Russia, maybe a slight desire to see other places but always wanting to come back to Russia as the main priority and desire. I also find it troubling too, a desire to create a really homogeneous society, the reports of lots of racial attacks against Asian looking people, the attitudes we have seen towards them, wondering why we would even want to go see somewhere like Mongolia. Although all of this does seem like quite a lot for me to conclude from a very limited amount of time in Russia and relatively little contact.

On the other hand, it is strange then to fall in with other small groups of travelers, mostly couples and a few small groups of friends, many making almost the same journey as we are, or just spending a year or more traveling and living different places. After feeling so foreign for so long, there is a great comfort in finding a little oasis, even if English is a 2nd or 3rd language for them, is there a greater commonality, a greater chance for some sort of actual interaction, relationship, or whatever. We had dinner the other night with a couple from Melbourne (our eventual end destination), we had also encountered them a while back in St Petersburg. Maybe it is just a short comfortable conversation, a bit of decompressing from so much travel and feeling foreign, but then part of me wonders too if they (or some of the others we encounter) could be actual friends then when we make it to Melbourne. Ora, the grandmother on the train, was really nice and a lovely person, but could that have been any more than just a nice few days and a bit of sign language and stilted conversations?

Anyways, this entry has gone on far too long, and I haven't even made it off the train yet.

Train train, sixteen coaches long

N 56 18.297 E 68 50.818 - 23 September 2008 - Tuesday 14.34 Moscow Time

Not exactly sure what time it is now, local time that is. I think we recently crossed over our third time zone in two days. The next one should probably be sometime tonight when we are sleeping. Our train might be running about an hour late, but it is hard to say. The timetables are confusing and they run on Moscow time, and it is hard to say what time it is anyways. I guess it doesn't really matter so much anyways.

We have another about 36 hours to go. The last mile marker I saw was about 2800 something (kilometers). I'm starting to get better at sighting them. They are just along the tracks, you really have to scrunch down and press up against the windows to see them. You also have to watch carefully for them. I generally sit there, count slowly, if I see one flash by then counting again to like 35 I'll see the next one. The guides (one of them, we have two with us) have different points of interest and towns listed by the kilometer markers. There is this tension between being a little obsessive about seeing where you are all the time and just sitting and letting it flow by.

For a 72 hour train trip. it is easier to just let it flow by. Fall is in full flush here and it is very yellow outside, little flashes of red and green. The landscape changed quite a bit from what it was yesterday. It was more pine sort of forests yesterday, a little more dense than it is now. We passed through and over the Urals mostly last night while we slept, although they don't seem to be super high and spectacular of a mountain range, and passed into Asia (my first time in Asia) and into Siberia. The trees turned more into birch, become more sparse, the land is more meadows (apparently bogs) with numerous small lakes and reed marshes. I haven't seen much wildlife, but then we are whizzing by. There are occasional fields of crows and some ducks on lakes but I couldn't say about much else.

Ora (maybe Aura or something similar) is asleep in her bunk. We are sharing the cabin with just one other woman. The other bunk is unfilled. She is on her way back to Vladivostok or I think she said she lived somewhere near there, her seventh trip from there to Moscow. At least I think that is what she said. Her knowing almost no English and between C and I, our Russian is about the same. Our phrase book is only useful to a point. I wish we had bought the full dictionary. It makes communication very frustrating and extremely limited (not to mention very time consuming).

She is pretty nice though, a grandmother, she bought a few toys from vendors on the platform at different places we stopped. We disagree a little bit on the heating and the music. Have I mentioned the music yet? It is very cheezy, a strange mix too. It sounds like Russian pop (not quite as sickly sweet as Japanese pop, slightly more folk music) and some rap and even English language R&B/rap thrown in occasionally. One was singing about her lady lumps earlier this morning.

But when we got on the train, we noticed two things immediately. One, it is stiflingly hot and two, well, there was blasting cheezy music. We were happy to discover a volume knob in our cabin to silence it, but Ora seems to like it, so we turn it off and on occasionally. She is a brave woman, she is headed all the way to the end of the line (8 days worth) and she didn't bring anything to read. As for the heat, there are no controls that we can find. The first night was a sweaty one, until probably about midnight when the heat went off all together and it cooled down until they turned it on again sometime in the morning. But you can open the door into the corridor and cool the room down a bit, but I think Ora is also a bit sick (coughing a bit) and has been cold, even when the heat is blasting.

The provodnitsa (well, two of them but since they are on 12 hour shifts, we mostly just see one of them) runs a tight ship here. Open a window in the corridor and she shuts it for you. You have to sneak into the toilet to open that window and poke your head out. Well worth the view mostly and the fresh air. But she keeps things running well and nice and clean. The samovar is fantastic, loads of hot water all the time for tea and soup and I've just been drinking hot water most of the day on its own. She went through today sweeping (whisk broom) and fixing the carpet in the corridor and swept into our compartment. The nicest thing, they seem pretty proud of the carriage and their domain. Every time we stop at a station and get off and wander around the platform for 5-15 minutes, first thing, she heads right to the plaque on the side of the train (says Russia, Moscow to Vladivostok, or something like that, of course in Cyrillic) and she gives it a nice wipe down. The other provodnitsas seem to concentrate on wiping down the handrails as their first task off the train.

Time is strange on the train. It seems like a long time but is strange to think we are already half way there. It seems to pass quickly, especially since it has started getting dark fairly early, so much of everything passes by after dark (like the marker marking the beginning of Asia). I will probably just get into the rhythm of it all and we will be there and have to adjust to normal life again. Here you wake up, see where you are, make porridge and tea, read, get off the train when we stop at stations and see what they are selling on the platform, read some more, dig in the food bags for lunch (we stocked up before we left Moscow, cups of soup, bread, sausage, etc), read and look out the window more, find dinner things, etc. It is an enjoyable time.

I might head out into the corridor, sit on one of the seats there next to those windows and read there for a little bit.

Numbed In Moscow

N 55 48.608 E 37 31.001 - Sunday 21 September 2008, 9.53 am

Well, it is funny, it is finally here, kind of the part of the trip that we have been thinking about and planning for months. Everything up until now has sort of been playing around, just getting to here. Tonight we head off to Siberia, get on on Sunday evening in Moscow and get to Irkutsk on Thursday morning. That whole month in Scandinavia was just so that we could go to St Petersburg and then to Moscow instead of taking the train from London through Western and Eastern Europe before Moscow. Well, ok, I guess we saw a lot and did a lot there.

Moscow is a big bad city that's for sure. Tourist information centers, ha, don't need those here. Find your own way. We only really had two days here and some of those days were taken up by random little missions. So, I'll have to judge Moscow by Novodevichy Convent, a walk up the Moscow River from there, the Kremlin, and the area around Sokol. Ok, I really judge Moscow by the big ugly incredibly tacky sculpture stuck in the middle of the river slightly north of Gorky Park. 300 feet high of sheer ugliness. Apparently it is of Christopher Columbus (although he looks more like a cowboy and is astride a series of little toy boats) but the original commission fell through so the artist sold it to Moscow city instead (a perfect example of corruption in action) and it was re-branded as Peter and discovery by ships or some nonsense like that. Whatever it is, it would make anything currently in Las Vegas blush.

The walk on the river was interesting. A little dull but enlightening. I felt almost like I was in Manhattan somewhere. Where we are staying, near Sokol Metro, it feels pretty Soviet. Lots of huge bare concrete apartment towers. The one across from us looks partially derelict. There seem to be people living on the first three floors but the rest of the building seems abandoned. But over by the river, it must be the nicer section of town and the apartment buildings have more of a Manhattan feel, brick sidings or at least adornments instead of just bare concrete.

We heard lots of horror stories about Moscow, especially from that damn Australian woman on the train in Norway, really got C all nervous about Moscow and Russia in general. But so far it seems fine. Getting off the sleeper train from St Petersburg, the man who shared our berth with us was really nice. He was heading to a meeting but took the time to walk us to the Metro and rode with us the first stop (we got off and he continued onto his stop). Just a nice way to start the stay in Moscow. And lots of people offered to let C sit on the Metro when she had her heavy pack on.

The pushing and queueing though, dang, they are sharks. But that seems to be the case in St Petersburg too. I'm starting to recognize that look, somebody behind you, looking and calculating, is there any possible way I can shove my way in front of you? Then the familiar feel of pressure on the back of you, nudging you aside, out of their way.

My main question so far is what is the obsession with ripping receipts. Anytime you buy something anywhere, before they give you the receipt, they rip it. Am I not allow to return it now, since the receipt has been spoiled. Or is it supposed to indicate that I received the merchandise. I understand museums ripping your ticket once you use it but for merchandise, I haven't figured it out yet but everybody does it.

I'm just sort of finally getting Cyrillic. I have a small list that I tend to refer to about 800 times a day, walking down the street, on the Metro, etc. Still trying to get my brain to substitute R for P and L for n and the rest of that. Sometimes it works and I get Foto or telegraf or even vagon (which seems like German/Swedish/etc) and I can figure it out. Although I have discovered a fatal flaw in this plan. Sometimes you decode the letters, transliterate them, and you end up with Russian, 'poyest' just doesn't help me at all.

We have had some interesting experiences with Russian. Some people are quite nice about you trying and butchering their language. They don't understand but they try. Some just don't want to play help the foreigner learn Russian at all, they don't like the game. But two of those experiences have been in post offices and I guess post offices are always staffed with borderline psychopaths. In the one post office (supposed to be able to make international calls from there), the woman was screaming at a customer in line ahead of us and then we have to go up and meekly ask, umm, how do we call Australia from here. Stamps, do you want stamps? We sell stamps here! The next post office, the woman could barely contain her irritation long enough to sell us some post card stamps.

So, Moscow then, what we have seen is pretty good. The Kremlin, well and the convent too, how many icons can you see and take in? Gilded everything, gold paint, golden domes on cathedrals, it is pretty and the icons are pretty amazing but I know I haven't really gotten much of Moscow at all. it is a shame but I guess Moscow was more of a staging point for the train journey and hopefully our almost a week at Lake Baikal will be amazing. I think we are much happier being out in the country than in big cities.

There is so much that I could write about St Petersburg (pretty and all) and Moscow, but I should instead get packed up for the train so we can be out of our apartment here by 12. The apartment I guess has been its own introduction to Russia. It was supposed to be sharing the bathroom and kitchen with somebody else in the other double room but I guess nobody booked that one during the time we where here, so we have had the whole thing. But being in an actual apartment in one of the concrete towers instead of some hotel or a dorm in a hostel, well, I'll write about it later maybe. And someday I'll get through more of the pictures. Internet access across Russia hasn't been as easy as other countries, especially not free wifi at lots of public places like in Norway. Anyways then, next stop Siberia.

By the way, Golden Telecom Wifi in Russia really stinks.

Told me not to drink the water and not to touch the food, all they have is Pepsi cola and you know that won't hold ya

N 59 55.398 E 30 18.607 - 17 September 2008 - Wednesday evening.

A few days into Russia now, our third night in St Petersburg. I think I'm just starting to get a handle on Cyrillic letters, a slight glimmer. Once I've realized that a C is actually an S and H is an N and 3 is actually a Z, well, ok it is still a very foreign language but at least I can match up some of the street names and start to figure out other written things. All the street signs have been taunting me before, now they are looking a bit fuzzy, just concentrate hard enough and maybe I can make them out. But I feel like a little kid just learning to read. Look, that one that says CTON, it is actually STOP. And that one there, it says...

So where was I last, Estonia, I think I mostly finished that one. And Finland was a bit of a whirlwind. Porvoo was nice but quick. Helsinki, I don't really feel like I engaged so much with it there. Nothing really caught me so much about it. It would have been better to have gone to the countryside, or, sigh, to Lapland, but instead it was a few days in the city. There was some warming up to Russia there though. Once at lunch, we forgot the small backpack and didn't realize for about 30 minutes and rushed back. It was there still, but it was a gentle reminder that it probably wouldn't have been once we got to Russia. Well, maybe it would have been but if you believe what everybody has told us so far.

The train ride from Helsinki to St Petersburg, it seems like we crawled along for quite a long time around the border. The Finnish conductors did all their checks before the last Finnish stations, making sure we had our migration cards and they were filled out correctly, that we had our visas and all that. There were only two of them for the whole train. The landscape was pretty at times, lakes and cute houses. Then we crossed over the border, a pretty serious border, you knew when you crossed it. There were fences, barbed wire, gates and all that there. Then about 8 stern looking officials started collecting passports and cards and then we sat at the first station across the border for about 30 minutes while they were off somewhere doing things. Eventually they brought them back and all seemed in order and we headed on. So, that was a relief, first test out of the way now.

And speaking of tests, that whole train ride we used as a bit of a crash course to get ready. It seemed unlikely that we would have so many people (as we did in Norway and Sweden and Finland) who spoke English so well, so it was time to quickly study Russian and see how much would stick before we got there. I guess that fear was well placed too. It would maybe be possible to function on a very simple level with just the phrase book (should have bought a bigger dictionary though) but it does make it a lot less bewildering and scary if you have a vague idea of what is going on. I guess too if you just stuck to the very narrow strip, basically never leave Nevskiy Prospect and the few other intensely touristy areas, you could get by without trying all that hard, but then who would want to do that? I'm feeling a little better as I start to get more of a clue about it all.

But on the train ride, once we passed over the border, it was pretty immediately recognizable that we had passed over some sort of border. The buildings changed quite a bit. We had gotten used to the ones in Finland, how the farm houses looked, the commercial buildings, and all that, but they changed quite a bit just over the border. I tried hard to take a good picture of some of the houses, but as I generally find with pictures from a train window, I pretty much miss what I wanted, or it is blurry or whatever. Just one good picture would have been great though since it was all the same house the whole way, two story wooden house, very weathered, paint peeling, same style, etc.

We met a few people on the train, got a bit of last minute advice, pep talk about what do to and how to do it, especially from two Finnish guys on the way to a computer conference. They walked with us to the Metro station and set us on our way. We didn't have time to stop and reflect on the station, Finland Railway Station, apparently where Lenin arrived from exile, gave a famous speech and all that. We were more worried about figuring out how to get around.

Coming from lands where queueing is a polite activity, well, this has been a bit of an education too. It is a lot more physical here. It doesn't seem to be frowned upon to stand at the window next to somebody while somebody else is doing their transaction. Like lines are not straight like a string like in the UK, more blobby like a crushed tomato dropped off a roof, with the fat part of the blob being right at the ticket window where all the action is happening. Even old ladies engage in this sort of activity, well, they seem to be the best at it.

St Petersburg is interesting. Maybe not in the way people say it is usually. Almost everything is painted the same shade of yellow. We asked if there was a reason why and were told that why isn't really a relavant question in Russia. The whole city is almost so completely uniform. The big grand buildings are all the same style, yellow or green, big grand things, impressive but also a bit bland, very classical but it just doesn't seem graceful or on a human scale. The apartment blocks are similar, big facades, some of them with ornate looking stonework on them, but still feel bland and a bit lifeless. Inside of them, going through the gates and into the inner courtyards, there is a whole world in there, but still those are yellow. So far, what Russia seems to be is the land of the most gigantic drain pipes ever. I imagine you could run a whole river down those things. I would hate to see what walking on the pavement is like when those things are flowing.

Speaking of flowing, or not flowing, I don't know what it used to be like, but the traffic is pretty fearful. I maybe caught a hint of that in Finland, where pedestrian crossings were pretty uniformly ignored, but at least here so far, it seems to be the land of boy racers in trashed out Ladas or gignormous black SUVs (and then an assortment of other cars all struggling to get through really busy crowded streets. Pedestrians seem to be a major annoyance to them and pedestrian crossings are a bit of a joke. Even at the ones with a green man, you still have to fight the turning traffic.

We have seen some cathedrals, we were completely overstimulated after most of a day at the Hermitage, we took a really nice walking tour (Peter's Tour, really interesting and a nice 4-5 hours), have seen loads of gigantic yellow palaces/government buildings/etc, took a somewhat quick boat tour of the canals/river (ok, but just didn't measure up to the walking tour), and I can't quite remember what else now. Tomorrow (Thursday) we catch the overnight train to Moscow for a few days there. I expect that city should be even a little more full on than St Petersburg. Maybe I need to get back to studying a bit more Russian now. I wonder if Moscow has the same warnings about not drinking the tap water, catching weird bacteria and all that.

Finland Finland Finland, the country I where to be

N 60 09.940 E 24 58.215 13 September 2008 7.50

Last full day in Helsinki before the somewhat scary plunge into Russia.
Well, we keep talking to different people who have just been to Russia
and so many of them think it was rather unpleasant, except for a Latvian
couple who we met in Porvoo who said it wasn't as bad as they expected.
But whatever it is, it should be quite a contrast to the last month.

In a way, before hand, I expected Estonia to be a little bit like
Russia. I mean it was part of the Eastern Bloc and communist and all
that. Admittedly I really didn't know all that much about Estonia
before we went there. I remember reading stories years about about some
of the Baltic countries, Lithuania I believe, and there were a lot of
wistful things in that about years ago when we were free, and that sort
of theme.

I really liked the spirit of Estonia when we were there. At first I was
a little surprised by the tone of how they talked about the past, but
maybe it was more just an unfamiliar tone rather than being actually
surprised that they would feel that way. To us, growing up, anything
east of the Iron Curtain was just the Evil Empire, Reagan even joked on
the radio about nuclear bombing it out of existence.

But 1991 was a watershed year for them. So much there seems to be
measured starting then. 800 years of domination by one country or
another, and then a few short years of independence between WWI and WWII
until they were handed off to the Germans and then the Soviets until the
Soviet Union finally started to fall apart and they were able to assert
their independence again. Amazing that their national culture held
together for so long through all that, it must be the songs. And maybe
the fiendishly difficult language.

There were things all over Tallinn like that like plaques on government
buildings memorializing government ministers who were killed by
Communist terror. The lady who rented us the apartment talked about
traveling to the US in 1990, while the Russians where occupying the
country. We went on a 2 hour bike tour of the outer parts of Tallinn,
lead by a fairly young woman (22-23?) and hearing her talk about times
and events that happened before she was born or while she was still a
very small child, it put a whole new layer on the whole thing.

We saw the memorial the Soviets had built in the 70s as a WWII memorial,
but nobody really goes there anymore besides tourists and nobody cares
about it anymore and it is slowly decaying. Weeds are growing up
through the concrete, cracking it and pieces of it are falling off all
over the monument. That seems to be mostly how they handle those sorts
of things. The Communist things don't really get torn down, they are
part of their history after all, mostly they just are left to slowly be
forgotten.

The singing ground was pretty interesting too. That is one of the
things that really made a difference for them, the national songs and
the unity that created. In the late 80s and early 90s, they had a
singing revolution. Across the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania, on one day, 2 million people joined hands. There had
been movements before, the late 60s started looking hopeful until the
movements were violently put down in other countries in 1968. But I
think I'll have to look for some Estonian music at some point, to see
what it was that they all came together to sing at the festivals, what
kept them together.

Anyways, on Tallinn, since we didn't really expect to be there, we
didn't really have all that many expectations of it, just a less
expensive place to rest and recover for a few days.

I did get sucked into the whole town card thing though. It is a
fiendishly evil markinging scheme those cards. Package together enough
free things that you really have to do a lot of them to feel like you
are getting your money's worth, or even coming out ahead and put a time
limit on it. It seemed nice in Oslo to have one, things were just so
expensive, it didn't seem that difficult to pick 3-4 museums as well as
free public transport to come out basically even on the deal. The 48
hour Tallinn card, it was pretty cheap, like 30 euros (the cost of a
nice meal in London). But the museums are pretty cheap too, although
with deceiving prices. Go up the church tower for 30 EEK, no that's too
expensive, hmm, wait, that's only about £1.50 or so.

But still I did it and then did an afternoon blitz. I saw three photos
in the photography museum which I absolutely loved, and the rest were
just sort of interesting, walked on the old town walls (refreshingly
unconcerned about safety and liability, crawling up crumbling steep
unlit stairways), a few towers off other sections of the wall with
different museums crammed into them.

My favorite and really totally worth the 30 EEK, even without the card,
was the St Olav church tower. 258 steps up and out onto the edge of the
tower, almost hanging over the edge, it was an amazing view of the city,
and slightly scary too. We even finished off that day with dinner at
one of the tacky theme restaurants, olde times and all that. The food
was pretty meaty and ok, sort of expensive by Estonia standards. It did
sort of annoy me that it was supposed to be a medieval theme yet they
had people playing Renaissance music. But maybe nobody else notices
things like that.

I guess the Tallinn card was worth it because we took a bike tour. It
was nice to be back on a bike again and to go out of the city and see
some nice things out there, and the ocean. We were early to pick up the
bikes and the Tallinn card reared its head again. 15 minutes to spare,
going for a walk, hmm, there's a museum, let's go in. Turns out to have
been a museum about mines. Dozens of old mines on display. I suppose
somebody must be into that, sort of a specialized trainspotting I guess.
But 5 minutes in there (well it was free with the card) and 10 minutes
in the maritime museum just a few doors down.

I would say I am happy about our stay in Estonia. We had a nice
apartment slightly out of the old town. Walking through the old town a
lot, it is just so full of old world charm but it is rather unreal after
a bit too. It is pretty to see but normal people don't live there.
Being in an apartment a bit outside of that was nice. It was nice too
just having less expectations and some time to rest and just not do
anything. A month solid of being on the move, seeing things, doing
things, it is nice to just chill out for a little bit.

We took the ferry over from Tallinn on Wednesday. The crossing was a
little bit rough. I generally don't get seasick but I was even feeling
it a little bit. All the fast boats had been canceled for the day
because of the winds and swells. We got to Helsinki and got on a bus
straight away and went an hour away to Porvoo. Our Finland time was so
shortened, we had to do something besides go to Helsinki. Porvoo was
supposed to cute and oozing with history. We just had less than 24
hours there and didn't get a chance to do much besides walk around the
old town. It is pretty charming and all, even the super famous red
houses along the river.

Helsinki, I've just had almost no expectations of things to do here.
Maybe I'm a little tired or it is Helsinki. I have been a little
disappointed so far. At least with the pedestrian signs. They are
exactly like the ones in Sweden, no alien heads like in Estonia, no
jaunty fedoras like in Norway. And in Finland, also unlike the other
countries we have been to, the pedestrian crossings are almost exactly
like in London, that is the only difference between it and any other
section of the road is there are lines painted on it. Norway, people
were great at stopping for you and even smiling about it. In Finland,
every crossing has been a few cars trying to squeeze past you before you
get into the middle of the crossing and then a grumpy expression if you
do finally get them to stop for you.

We haven't seen a whole lot of Helsinki yet, after one full day here.
We did go see Happy Go Lucky last night (subtitled in both Finish and
Swedish) and it was pretty good and nice to see London again, even if it
was north London and somewhat unfamiliar areas. It made me miss London
again more. We finally got the last of our travel vaccinations (which
we totally should have sorted out before leaving London). We tried to
get the third booster for Japanese Encephalitis in Estonia, but the two
clinics we went to, apparently they don't have a dose of it anywhere in
Estonia. In Porvoo, the nurse was out for a few days, but here it just
took a few minutes. So, that quest finally done. In terms of touristy
things, the big cathedral seems pretty from the outside, a bit boring on
the inside. I do like the look of it, it looks like a pretty grand
Monticello with an added cross on the top and stars painted on. The
government buildings around it are a bit dull, big and grand but a bit
bland. I just can't think of much else that I really want to rush out
and do. None of the museums seem inspiring enough to go to and I guess
I've had my share of them in Oslo and Tallinn. Maybe it is time for a
few cafes and just relax until we leave for St Petersburg tomorrow.

No language in our lungs

So far, three different countries and three different languages. Now, I am American and a bit lazy about languages, although at times I do try, but I just don't have an ear for them. I guess I am surprised though, just how many people around the world speak English, or at least some English. I suspect that the Russian phrase book is going to be pretty necessary in parts of Siberia, or Mandarin, well we will see about that one. I have been interested in the various languages and seeing how they work and similarities and all that, or just in how people communicate with each other.

Norwegian and Swedish, those have been the most comprehensible so far. We made do with the few pages of words in the guide books. I suppose that English (having been colonized in part by Vikings and all those) is somewhat made up of languages from Scandinavia. There are an awful lot of cognates (fisk instead of fish), so reading the languages kind of worked in a lot of cases. Where it got difficult is pronouncing things and hearing things. I looked over the rules for letters and sounds but just couldn't grasp it while we were there, like what letters are silent, which ones have completely different sounds than I would expect, and how the additional letters are pronounced. Or just how do you pronounce the 'u' sound as in 'fur' without the 'r' sound at the end. I spent a lot of time practicing that, 'ur' 'ur', no, too much 'r' sound.

Looking ahead at the phrase books for somewhere like Mongolia, the words look completely foreign, no meaning at all in just looking at them, but it does look easier to pronounce them. Or when they are transliterated, they seem easy to pronounce, even going as far as doubling the vowels to show what syllables get the stress (Ulan Bator becomes Ulaanbaatar). Well, ok, the script for that looks pretty, but also incomprehensible. I guess we will see how it goes there too.

So far, one of my favorite things has been looking at signs, especially road signs, and seeing how they are slightly different everywhere. In creating a sign, one without words, there is almost an artistic meaning in there somewhere. Ok, some of them you just have to know, a blue circle with a red X over it meaning no parking, or something like that. I guess you would just have to memorize a few of them. But trying to convey things like pedestrian crossings, there is probably the standard EU pattern, a picture of a person walking on stripes on the road on a blue background. Those have been pretty much the same through the countries, but all the people have been a bit different. The picture of the person in Estonia has a slightly bigger head, a bit egg shaped, almost like the drawings of aliens (the Greys, I think) compared to the ones in Sweden. I really liked the person in Norway, he was wearing a hat, a fedora, and had a bit of a jaunty walk, sort of a ska walk (one step beyond!). I did like in Sweden, or at least Stockholm, people got a bit creative with the signs, adding things to them. Ok, some of them were a bit obvious, adding obscene things, genitals and whatever. My favorite was the one where they blackened in to make a skirt and put on red shoes to make it a woman crossing the street.

Anyways, Estonia. We have been here a few days and I haven't really written anything yet. It has been nice here, although the goal isn't entirely clear. We weren't really intending to come here, but because of the booking and all that, and it seemed like a nice place to rest for a few days, inexpensive and all that and not a lot of things that we really felt like we needed to go out and see, we could actually try to relax for a little bit. After a month of traveling, that seemed like a nice idea. We found a nice apartment for a few days, pretty reasonable, internet connection so we can plan some of the next few weeks (trying to figure out Siberia last night). I made a birthday cake last night, challenging because, well, try to find 'self raising flour' in the grocery store. Apparently, Estonian and Finnish are related and are equally obscure. Somebody we talked to in Sweden said that they could mostly understand Swedish and Norwegian but Finnish was completely beyond them.

I'll have to write more later, this is getting a bit long and we should finally venture out into the rain. The old town is oozing olde world charm, it is really nice and pretty there. I totally love the doors and the layers of paint. But more later.

Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river

N 59 26.588 E 23 59.313 - 6 September 2008 - 8.43 am

Is there anything sadder than the house band in the night club on a ferry line? Do they think, wow, we got the gig for the Stockholm to Tallinn run, maybe it is time we just gave up on this music thing? I suppose they actually think, yes, we can pay our rent now. After their energetic set of classic oldies, setting the dance floor on fire, I stood and watched the videos they showed afterwards, Frankie and Relax. So trashy but I can see how it took months to get that bass sound just right.

Looking over the Baltic Sea now. It was nice to take an early walk around the ship as the sun was coming up. Pretty sea and very quiet. The deck was littered with beer cans and empty glasses. Friday night, the run to Estonia, seems like it is pretty much the party run. I do hope the party doesn't carry on too close to where we are staying this weekend and coming week. But I'm looking over the ocean waiting for the land to appear. Saw a gull flying over the water so we must be close.

Now onto the next phase of the journey. I'm a bit sad about the end of the camping phase. That a lot of nights there, 16 nights, I think, out of the almost 4 weeks we have been gone. Has it already been 4 weeks? It is going so fast. Without camping, what am I going to do with all my time? I was thinking about just ho0w much time there seems to be spent on basic living things and organizing and maintenance things. Going to bed, you have to wash the dishes, get everything sort of packed again and under cover in case it rains (or is windy and might blow away). We were quite lucky with the weather and only had a few nights of pouring rain. Even last night it was supposed to rain a lot but there was only a brief shower. Waking up in the morning, unpacking and getting the kitchen stuff set up, then cooking takes so much longer than normal. Packing up and moving is a lot of folding and stuffing things in bags and trying to cram everything into the bursting backpacks.

I still can't figure out what I wouldn't take next time. We did a blitz of last minute purchases the last few days in London, and none of them I regret at all. The stove was great. We let the guy in the outdoor shop talk us into the multi fuel one, as well as the set of stainless steel pans (instead of the aluminum ones, which after probably 30 meals over the blowtorch really would have been a melted ruined mess). I already had a pocket rocket stove, weighs about the weight of a sock, but the fuel cannisters seem so fussy and who knows where you can get them refilled. It was nice to have a cannister you can pour just about anything into, even diesel. We used white spirts which worked the best. One place we found kerosene, which was about half the price but was a bit fussy to get the stove lit and burned a bit weird.

The groundsheet purchase was great too, although a source of arguments. I wanted to use it for the porch and have something to sit and cook on. C wanted it under the tent. I thought that was a bit redundant, the tent already is a groundsheet. But admittedly in Myrdal, when we were camped basically on top of a bog, it did keep the tent drier inside and added an extra layer of warmth from the cold wet ground. In Finnhamn, we found an old huge groundsheet in the trash and cut it up and used that as an extra groundsheet, so we were finally covered there on both. The backpack covers, expensive for a little bit of fabric, but without our normal Ortleib panniers, waterproof, just chuck them outside the tent in the rain and it doesn't matter, the covers were priceless for wrapping the backpacks up at night.

Land ho! Lots of gulls now and a foggy looking landmass ahead. We should be there in another 90 minutes then. We should have an apartment in a few hours and we can start the process of washing everything a few times and hopefully be certain of being tick free for the first time in a while. An ant crawled out of my jacket just before dinner last night. One determined ant, who must have really wanted to get away from Sweden. Hopefully we haven't carried too many other buggers with us.

Ok, time for another walk on the deck to see the fast approaching Estonian coast.

Lazing on a sunny afternoon

Ok, I promise to organize the pictures eventually. It is hard enough just keeping up with them. For now, unsorted starting on our last day in Karlstad, Sweden and then Stockholm and some of Finnhamn. Pictures

And starting in Finnhamn, in the Stockholm archipelago, Pictures

Our actual route, so far.

Had some fantastic mushrooms today. A ranger was walking his dog when we came across a tiny snake. He showed that to us and gave us the three mushrooms he was carrying with him. He had just picked them nearby. Sweden has been filled with mushrooms but considering I don't know which ones taste good and which ones will kill you, I have just admired their prettiness. These were nice for lunch, cooked in butter and garlic. We might be camping but the meals have all been nice. No opening a can of beans and dumping it in a pan. There is chopping onions and garlic and all sorts of nice things to make nice meals. And the rhubarb jam we got from the organic farm shop here was great too.

It is a small island and not a lot of people here now. Apparently this island is heaving during the summer, but we got here a week or two after the season ended. There could have been hundreds of tents and loads of people hiking around, but instead we seem to be the only tent in our part of the island, except for the long term ones. There are a few people here who stay all summer, some have for about 20 years. The one woman we met said she was in our camping spot for 8 years but now has a nice wooden platform and gas stove and a few other luxuries. What a way to live, to spend your summers.

It has also been nice with the lack of people, the few people who are here, you keep seeing all over. We said goodbye to the German man and his two sons(?) yesterday. They had been a fixture for a few days, we would see them a few times a day and chat about things. Two nights ago, our campsite was overrun with Stockholm school children (15 yr olds) which was annoying but a few of them stopped to chat for a while and were pretty nice.

Today I took a nice walk around the southwestern part of the island, or actually a small island attached by a wooden bridge which borders this island (Finnhamn, I think I have spelled it wrong in some previous entries). It was a little more traveled than the island we walked on a few days ago, the moss wasn't quite as healthy and vital, the paths were a little more worn and pronounced, and the woods weren't quite as deep. But walking around the edge, walking on the rocks was good.

We opted against the cabin tonight, even though we had reserved it. It was supposed to rain a lot tonight, but it doesn't look so bad now and it seemed sad to leave our campsite and move inside. It might be the last camping night of the journey. Wow, that seems a bit strange to think about, we have camped so much already. Possibly in Siberia, but probably not. We are debating whether to mail the camping stuff back to Australia soon or just carry it for a while. The backpacks are pretty heavy and that would help, but it would be a shame to send them before we are done with them.

Anyways, off to cook dinner and enjoy a last night on the island. Last night, I woke up late and went outside and the sky had finally cleared and the stars were amazing and blazing. So many and the Milky Way too. I wonder how many more of those I will get before the northern sky is gone and I just see the southern stars. The wind was really blowing last night and lying in the tent, listening to the wind and the different sounds, the water against the rocks, the crickets, a few owls, it was a nice, if slightly spooky symphony.

Next stop, back to Stockholm for a few hours and then Estonia on Saturday morning on the 16 hour overnight ferry.

Did I mention the sun was out, the sky was clear today,and it was a beautiful day?

Row row row your boat

N 059 28.501 E 018 48.987 - Wednesday 3 September 2008

Just back from a sauna and a number of swims and I'm feeling quite relaxed. That's a good thing because much of the morning was wasted rebooking the whole next few weeks of the journey. Domin Rental, you guys suck. A week ago we were told an apartment in Helsinki was available for 5 days next week, but they kept stringing us along, not replying to things. Yesterday we call, oh, it isn't actually available and we don't have anything else. Crap, crap. And at this late notice basically nothing was available. Well, more accurately nothing was available for next Tuesday and Wednesday, the middle of when we had planned to be there. None of this was helped by the campsites all closing for the year at the end of August, camping has always been the fallback option so far.

So, Estonia is on the agenda then. Booked a ferry on Saturday from Stockholm to Tallinn, have a nice apartment lined up in the Old Town for 5 days and then will go to Helsinki at the end of next week instead for just a few days. It does mean that we won't be able to go to the Alund Islands, but apparently they are very similar to the Stockholm archipelago (which we are in the middle of right now) but just a lot less people. However, considering that Finnhamm seems to be mostly deserted right now, that isn't a big deal. The rebooking also means that we will probably miss the west coast of Finland too, but since my heart mostly mourns for missing Lapland (a totally mad diversion north, so far out of our way), I guess I'll live. It does seem like traveling like this requires a lot of last minute decisions and change of plans.

Where have I left off then? Karlstad probably. That seems so long ago. Their free bike program is really cool. 100 bikes for the asking, just get them back the same day. We took two of them, well probably further than they intended them to go, like 40 km, but they did fine. Single speed and a bit hard to ride but we had missed biking. At Mariebergsskogen, we saw not a lot, most things are gone for the year but we did see a osprey circle and dive into the lake a few times. Didn't catch anything though. And then on our ride to Hammarö, a peninsula into Lake Vänern, we saw a cute family of grebes swimming around in the lake. Very nice lake too. There were lots of 'R' markings on the map, which means some sort of historical thing, but we couldn't find many of them. The rune stone was pretty cool though.

We had a morning around Karlstad the next day, had to do some packing and last minute planning (seems to be necessary every couple of days) and then took the train to Stockholm on Thursday. We seemed to walk around the central station for ages, trying to figure out where to catch the T-bana and where to get tickets and how to get to our campsite. There we had the relative luxury of a cabin instead of sleeping in the tent. A funky cabin too, we skipped the bunk beds and slept high up in the loft. Not the most luxurious place but a nice change from the tent, especially after having had two nights before in a decent hotel. We cooked then over the world's slowest hot plate and saved our fuel for the stove.

Stockholm, for me, unfortunately was sort of overrun by the stupid English test. Our next day, we explored some of the city, visited tourist information, checked for free wi-fi (there is none to be had in Stockholm, apparently, even if cafes say they have free wireless it is a lie, they have wireless connections to providers who expect you to have an account), and mostly figured out where the test was going to be so I could get there for my spoken part that afternoon. We walked around the Old Town, which is nice but very touristy, and then back through town on the pedestrianized parts (also sort of nice but very retail). Took the test and hopefully I passed. What do you do? What sort of housework do you do around the house? Do you think it is important for children to do housework? Etc, etc.

Saturday I had to be up early and on the T and to my test for an entire morning of testing, written, listening and essay. Stupid stupid stupid. But it is done now and I don't have to worry about it or plan any more of our holiday around being somewhere to take it. Moving on then. Had to sort out the rest of our vaccinations which we didn't get finished before we left the UK. Found a clinic there and had a nice consultation (our London one got a bit carried away with the ones she recommended, probably don't even need the malaria tablets, but I guess that's how they make their money) and got a few jabs and we were on our way. We took the self guided walking tour of Sodermalm, which was really nice. Very low keyed but well organized and an interesting walk around. I feel better for having seen that section and gotten a bit of a feel for Stockholm.

On Sunday, we were leaving, we had a 1540 ferry for Finnhamm, so we had some time in the morning to see things. The ferry company was nice and let us leave our bags there for the morning and we went off unencumbered and caught a ferry over to Djurgarden, mostly to see Skansen. I love those open air museums, old houses and villages moved from different parts of the country and different eras to one park. This one was really one of the best I've seen. C was especially excited by all the crafts, each house had somebody doing something, making lace, weaving rope, or whatever. Pretty nice. Not enough time there by far, we had to rush through it thinking we could have spent a few more hours there quite happily. Bus back to the ferry terminal and caught the ferry.

Stockholm and especially the archipelago are made up of thousands of islands. Some pretty big and a few just tiny rocks poking out of the water. It was a few cool ferry ride 2 1/2 hours through them to Finnhamm, just on the edge of the outer archipelago. This island is owned by the Archipelago Foundation and is mostly for camping and cabins and has a big hostel and a store. We were a bit surprised when we got here and found that the store had closed for the season and wouldn't be open again for another week. Oops, that isn't good, we only have a few days food with us. Luckily the next day they agreed to open the store for us to have a quick shop and we also went to the self service farm shop which was selling very nice organic vegetables. So, we have enough food for the duration.

So, basically since then, it has just been enjoying this incredible island. Saw a black woodpecker yesterday which was quite exciting. We have a great camp site up on rocks just over the ocean. Yesterday we wandered around the island, took the rowboat across to Kalgardson (the Batluffarled, row boats at narrow crossings so you can row across, take the waiting boat back and then cross again and leave the boat at the other side, apparently you can backpack and row across a whole lot of the islands here). The island was amazing too, hardly touched by people and the moss was very pretty, huge rocky sections covered with this pretty white moss. We got in a very short swim there too. Unfortunately, it seems to be tick country there, I found six of them on me today, three of them dug in and had to be removed.

But another night of camping and then tomorrow night a cabin on the island then then the ferry back to Stockholm and a few hours later another ferry (overnight) to Estonia.