Pantheonic Paris

Sunday was a rather busy day, with lots of small things rather than a few great acts. First I returned to Notre Dame where the line for the tower was much shorter, and it only took about half an hour to get in to the towers. The first place in teh tower you visit is the gift shop, where I succumbed to temptation and bought a quill with some "Victor Hugo" ink. Then it was up to the actual interesting bits with the grotesques and gargoyles and all that. A nice view of Paris from the top.

After descending back to ground level, I went over to the Notre Dame crypt, which is mostly underneath the square in front of the Notre Dame with a small section underneath the church itself. The crypt shows ruins from various periods that have since been built over. The earliest were roman houses and then progressed until the middle ages.

After Notre Dame I headed over to the Grand Rex, where after a quick lunch I joined the line for the Battlestar Galactica screening at about 12:45. This turned out to be a good move as by the time the guests of honour arrived the line stretched far behind me. While I was waiting in the line I was interviewed by some guys for a bonus feature on the French release of the season 4 DVDs. I don't think I was at my most eloquent, and thought up many better things to say afterwards, but alas it was too late. They started letting people in about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start.

The event began with an introduction of the three actors present, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber and James Callis, and their characters on the show. Then there was a question and answer session. The answers from Mary and James were quite interesting, and presumably some were Jamie Bamber's, but he answered in French so I couldn't tell. After that was the presentation of the awards and finally the screening of the first episode of season four. I was a little disappointed as I had translated "premiere finale season" as the premier of the season finale, whereas it turns out it meant the premiere of the final season. It was still awesome though, and the show looked really good on a big screen.

Once all the BSG was all done, I headed over to the Pantheon, which I had assumed was a very old church/temple, as is the case of the Pantheon in Rome. It turns out it is actually a Revolution era building that while originally a church is now used as a burial site for great Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen), such as Pierre and Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Louise Braille and many more. Also at the Pantheon was the original Focault's Pendulum.

I left the Pantheon at around 6ish. With most things closed I headed to the one thing that was open late, the Arc de Triomphe. This time I went up top, as entry was covered by my museum pass. The view from the top is pretty good. Not as good as the Eiffel tower, but still good. There is also one thing you can see from the top of the Arc de Triomphe you can't see from the Eiffel tower (I'll leave it to more astute readers to work out what this might be). When I arrived at the Arc it was closed as some ceremony involving the eternal flame was in progress, but it ended after 15 minutes and I was free to climb up to the top. On the way down I took the steps of the spiral staircase reasonably quickly, and was a little dizzy when I reached the bottom. Thus ended Sunday.

Monday was my last day in Paris. I started by returning to the Louvre. I took in the Egyptian collections, some other stuff that apparently wasn't too memorable, and some stuff from the Middle East. At this stage I got a bit arted out and decided to grab some lunch and head over to the military museum. Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich. I started at the military museum by taking in Napoleon's tomb, which was really big and made of stone. Then I took in the arms and armour wing, which covered at least 1000 years of warfare, and then upstairs for the last 200 years of French military history. After this I went back to the hostel to pick up my bags and head to the train station for my train to Barcelona.

Partisan Paris and Valiant Versailles

On Friday a group of us, Mattheus, Mel, Elvis, the Chilean and I, went to the Eiffel tower. We went with the short line and climbed the steps up to the first to platforms of the tower. On the second platform I bought some croissants to eat at the top. Then we caught the lift up to the top of the tower which gave us a great view of Paris. On the way down the group got separated and Elvis and Mel went MIA. Mattheus, the Chilean and I made our way along the Champ de Mars to the Musee d Army, which contains among other things Napoleon's tomb. We only went into the church there, as the others were more interested in seeing other sites. We caught a train to Notre Dame and had a look inside. Unfortunately the crown of thorns was not on display, and I seem to have missed the statue of Joan of Arc I remember from my previous visit.

After Notre Dam I left the group as I wanted to climb the towers and they wanted to visit the Louvre. I went around the corner and saw the line to climb the tower, and decided to try another time. So I headed to the Grand Rex, the venue for the Jules Verne film festival, and picked up a ticket for the Battlestar Galactica screening.

Then I headed back to Notre Dame, hoping the line would be shorter, and indeed the line was shorter, to the point of non-existence, since the towers had closed 15 minutes earlier. I then headed over to the Louvre since it was open late on Friday evenings. I bought a 4 day museum pass for €48. This was a good buy as I ended up getting at least €75 worth of admissions out of it. While in the Louvre I checked out the classical sculptures and the Italian painters hall, leading up to the Mona Lisa. It was not as crowded as when I saw it in 2003. I exited through a hall of large French paintings with a detour to see the Venus de Milo. At this point it was getting close to 9pm when they start lighting up the Eiffel tower, for which I'd agreed to meet up with Mattheus and the Chilean to watch. I caught the subway and returned to the park in which we'd taken in the tower the previous day.

I was the first to arrive, so I sat down and watched the lights on the tower brighten. Mattheus and the Chilean turned up at about 9:15, and the sparkly bits turned on for the first time at around 9:30. After taking in this nice sight we headed back to our hostel, stopping to have dinner at a nearby kebab shop, where I ended up having the rest of my dinners in Paris.

On Saturday I ventured further afield, going to Versailles with Mattheus. When we got there, the line was reasonably long, which presented a minor moral dilemma. My pass allowed me to go straight in while Mattheus had to buy a ticket. While I didn't want to wait in a line I didn't have to, I didn't want to just leave him behind. We agreed to meet in a few hours in the garden after having gone through the main palace on our own.

The palace was pretty impressive. Lots of paintings, statues and rather small beds that were still quite fancy. There were some very ornate clocks that I liked. After touring all of the palace I went out into the garden, which it turns out wasn't covered by my pass since they turn the fountains on on the weekend and it costs extra to get in. It was well worth the extra money. The gardens were cast and magnificent, even though a small fraction of their original size, and full of fountains of various sizes. They also had music from the era playing from speakers hidden in the gardens which was a nice touch.

We took a mini-train to a few of the auxiliary sites of the complex, the Grand and Petite Trianon and Marie-Antoinette's village, which was quite nice. Then we walked back from the grand lake to the palace, taking in a few other fountains off to the side. All in all it was a good day with lots of walking.

Paradisical Paris

The hostel in Paris was pretty good, in fact it would have to rate as the best I've stayed in. The bunks were very solid and built onto the walls, each bed had a light, two power points, a curtains and a large drawer underneath. The room had lots of space and was very clean. The price for all this though, was the price. €25 a night, and the restaurant downstairs was pricey too. I arrived at around 5pm Wednesday afternoon and bludged around at the hostel all evening.

On Thursday I started out by taking a free walking tour. Also taking the tour were Elvis and Mel, the couple I'd met in Nice, a Brazilian named Mattheus, a Chilean whose name we never got, and a bunch of others. Our guide was an Australian girl named Spike (it was not made clear if that was a first name or a last name). The tour started at St Michel, a fountain near Notre Dame with a statue of the Archangel Michael defeating Lucifer. We then crossed the river onto the Ile de la Cite and walked along the Seine to the Ponte Neuf, crossed the river again, continued down the Seine a bit more to the artist's bridge which we crossed and then entered the Louvre complex. We passed through the Louvre and onto the Palace Royal, followed by one of the fancy shopping streets. Needless to say, I did not buy anything there.

Lunch was at a sandwich shop that was alright, but a little pricey. After lunch we took in the Tuilleries, the Concorde, Champs Elysees, and finished up near the Grand and Petite Palaces.

After the tour finished I went to the Arc de Triomphe with Mattheus and a few other people from South America who had gone on the tour. The Arc de Triomphe was huge. I was expecting something on the scale of the Arch of Constantine, but it was at least three times the size. I did not go up top at this time. After the Arc we went to see the Eiffel Tower. We sat in a park across the river from for a while just basking in the view.

We split up at around 5, with Mattheus, the Chilean and I catching the Metro to Montmarte for another walking tour, although this one was not free. Our guide was again Spike, and Mel and Elvis were also on this tour. The tour took in the many sites in Montmarte including haunts of artists like Picasso, locations from the movie Amelie, the work of the space invader guy, the last vineyard in Paris, and of course the Sacre-Coeur, which was close to the end of the tour. After the end of the tour, Mel, Elvis, Mattheus and I went back to the Sacre-Coeur to see the night view of Paris which was pretty good. Then we had dinner at a fondue restaurant that served the drinks in baby bottles. It was a very good meal of meat fondue and cheese fondue.

Me in front of some metal contraption.
The lovely tour guide Spike
Sacre-Coeur

Nice Nice and Monarchial Monaco

I arrived in Nice Sunday afternoon and checked into the hostel, the Villa St Exupery, named after the author of "The Little Prince". It was a pretty good place, with nice rooms, a large bar/cafe that served good meals, a great number of computers for guests use, en suite bathrooms, a large kitchen, travel advisers at breakfast and more.

I was in a 12 bed dorm. Also in the dorm were an Australian couple, Elvis and Mel, who were traveling around Europe after having worked in London for a while and as it turned out had also booked the same place as me in Paris. There was also a British couple and a Canadian whose names I did not catch, and a few others who I didn't talk to much.

On Monday I went to Monaco, land of fancy casinos, fancy hotels, high police to citizen ratios and fast cars. I caught the bus from Nice which took about half an hour. I got off close to the big casino. It was not yet open, and at any rate I wasn't going to pay €10 just to look in the door. I did go in to one of the less exclusive, regular people casinos nearby, and almost had a go on the Star Wars slot machine, but it would not accept coins and I wasn't willing to put more than €2 into the thing.

Next I took a ferry across the harbour and climbed the hill until I reached the Oceanography museum. While I didn't visit the museum, it was here that I boarded a mini-train tour around town. The tour finished where it started and I continued up the hill stopping in along the way at a church where the royal family are buried, and then on to the Royal Palace. I visited the palace and the adjacent Napoleon museum, which had in its collection some of Napoleon's hats and other knick knacks, a number of historical documents, the evolution of the uniforms of the Monagasque forces and more.

I then walked down the other side of the hill and visited the numismatics & philately museum, the car collection of the Prince numbering 100+cars, all expensive in their day and ours, and the maritime museum which was a tightly packed collection of model ships. Having had a full day I headed back to Nice and the hostel.

On Tuesday I walked around Nice. Nothing really exceptional to mention. My plan shortened when I reached the beach, which was entirely devoid of sand, and instead being made up completely of stones. I sat on the beach a few hours just watching the ocean.

Grandiose Genoa

New entry, almost a new country. The train has been stopped for a while, which suggests that we are on one side of the Italian/French border. My last stop in Italy was Genoa, the third of the old Maritime Republics I have visited (the others being Pisa, Venice and Amalfi (I hadn't heard of this one either)). Genoa, like Pisa, has a few great sites, but I wouldn't recommend more than two days there. The place I stayed was the first hostel I'd been to that didn't have free wifi, or indeed any wifi. I made do by stealing wifi from the nearby apartment blocks. To the owner of the wifi network named Sitecom, thank you.

On Friday I kind of followed the walking tour on the back of my map, but kept going off the track as I went to look at other things. I took in, in no particular order, a church whose name I don't recall, the Piazza Principe from the outside only, a port building, an old sailing ship, the outside of Europe's largest aquarium, which is dwarfed by Osaka's aquarium and for which I thought €17 was too much, an old church that was frequented by pilgrims back in the day, San Lorenzo, a cool church with a lot of alternating black and white stripes and its attached museum that contained amongst other items a large, green, hexagonal bowl that was believed to be the Holy Grail, the Ducal palace, a few parks, a museum of oriental art that closed at 1pm, half an hour before I arrived, Genoa's via Garibaldi (every Italian city has one), another church museum that I could get into with my ticket from the San Lorenzo museum, and the house of Columbus.

On Saturday I walked out to the lighthouse, which is around 500 years old and a symbol of Genoa. Next I went to the Galata Maritime museum, which was pretty good, but a bit pricey at €10 (by comparison entry into the Vatican museum was €14). After the museum I walked around the harbour area for a bit before heading back. On the way back I passed a cafe called &Sigma p_i log p_i, which I would have gone to if it had been open at the time on the strength of the name alone.Then I passed the museum of St Augustine, which was housed in an old convent. There were some really good statues in the collection, although I wasn't really excited by the exhibition of blue tiles, but it was the only section to also provide information in braille. As I left this museum it was a bit after 5, so I called it a day and headed back to the hostel for a dinner of beef ravioli.

I have started to look forward to the end of my travels. I've looked into cheap flights from Portugal to England and they do exist, although they don't leave from Lisbon. It looks like I'll be reaching England around the 6th of May.

Panoramic Pisa

On Monday I caught the train for Pisa, which required two transfers. It was while on this journey I, for the first time since I left Korea, was, however briefly, somewhere I had been before. Firenze Santa Maria Novella, the main train station in Florence. I was there for only about twenty minutes, enough time to find out what platform my next train was on, buy some lunch and get on the train. I arrived in Pisa about 4pm, and made my way to the campsite I was staying at (they rent out their cabins by the bed) which was just under one click from the leaning tower.
On Tuesday I spent the day in the vicinity of the tower, splurging on the tickets to visit everything there (the tower, the church, the baptistery, the cemetery building thing, and the two museums, €25, of which €15 was for the tower). Climbing up the tower was great. You can feel the tilt as you go up the spiral staircase. The view from the top is pretty good. The Piazza dei Miracoli is the standout feature of Pisa. My second day in town I wandered around town looking at the other historic buildings which weren't anywhere near as impressive.

Serene San Marino and Radical Rimini

Today I'm on an intercity plus train, which doesn't seem all that plus to me, from Pisa to Genoa. We seem to be following the coast, as when I looked out the window I could see the ocean. This is presumably the Tyrrhenian Sea, as I'm on the western side of the Italian Peninsula.

Last time I wrote was on the way to Rimini, which I wasn't going to for itself, but because it is the closest Italian town to San Marino, the other country inside Italy. Rimini is right on the Adriatic coast, and as it happens was hosting the annual world frisbee championships, which I didn't get around to seeing. Rimini seems like it's somewhat of a party town, what with condom machines on the street and a sexy pantie machine in the hostel.

The first day there I visited San Marino. I caught a bus there which took about an hour, climbing up the mountain for about half of that. Once there I followed the main path up the hill as it folded back upon itself several times as it approached the top. I visited the Public Palace, the main seat of the Government of San Marino, the biggest church, which was closed, the vampire and werewolf museum, which was just a collection of mannequins dressed up like famous vampires. It would have been a bit better if there was information in English, but it's not like I'd have learnt a lot I didn't already know. Then I visited the three towers, starting with the largest, which has great views, then the middle one, which included an antique arms museum (antique in the case being pre 20th century as they had a decent rifle collection) (I also passed a modern arms museum that was, alas, closed). The third tower was the smallest and while you could walk up to it, it was not open to the public. After that I had a look at the museum of curiosities, which was a Ripley's believe it or not sort of thing. About a third of the way through I was tempted to start making notes on the grammar mistakes on the displays.



I had lunch at a restaurant on the edge of the mountain which had a great view. I finished my visit by taking in the National Museum, St Francis' museum and the church of St Francis.

While in San Marino I tried to acquire some San Marino coins. Initially I tried making a few small purchases using notes, but this did not work although I did get a €2 from the Netherlands. I ended up buying some coins, a 50 and 20 Eurocent for 3 Euros. This is obviously a lucrative industry for San Marino as even after throwing in a few cents for the backing paper and plastic sleeve, it's still about a 300% profit margin. Even better for the merchants is the set of 1, 2, and 5 Eurocents that goes for €2.50, a profit of about 2000%. The more official looking sets that had one of each coin was €28.

Also on sale in San Marino were a lot of replica swords and guns. I saw quite a few swords from movies including Kill Bill, Lord of the Rings, Highlander, Conan, and more. The guns tended to be airsoft weapons, which I think is a less messy form of paintball.

That night the hostel I was at had a pasta party which meant a free dinner, which was good because I spent too much money in San Marino.

On Sunday I explored Rimini, taking in most of the sites in the historic centre, such as the arch of Augustus, a few churches, a statue of Caeser with a quote about crossing the Rubicon, a 2000 year old bridge and the local museum, for which entrance was free on Sundays.

Ruinous Rome and the Vainglorious Vatican

Tuesday was back to the Colosseum and today I went inside. But first I went to the Palatine hill and the Roman forum, which were interesting but a bit lackluster. The audioguide wasn't so good as the locations weren't clearly marked on the ground and a few bits on the suggested route were closed off for restoration, which didn't help. After the forum I went into the Colosseum, which is awesome. There was an exhibit on the Flavian emperors who the the ones who built the Colosseum that was quite interesting. Walking around the Colosseum was amazing.

Wednesday was V day. I went to the Vatican museums. They must be huge, but you don't get a feel for it as you follow a twisting path up and down, so I guess it's a high density museum. The Raphael rooms were incredible incredible, although overshadowed by the Sistine Chapel, which had the angriest guards I've seen, constantly telling people to be quiet and not to take photos (I discretely took two photos). The Sistine Chapel is one of those things everyone knows of, but seeing it in all its glory is great. I think always seeing just the bit with God and Adam makes you forget there's a whole lot more to the place. I could have done without seeing God's ass though.

I had lunch, sent two postcards (the two family member's whose address I know off the top of my head), and then left the museum. I checked the time once I got outside and was shocked to find it was almost 4. I had thought it was round 2-2:30is. This means I spent about 6 hours in the museum.

Then it was into St Peter's Basilica, which is, quite frankly, huge. It took a while to get inside, but well worth it. It is a building on a grand scale. I know I'm repeating myself, but the place is big. After looking around inside, I went underneath it into the crypt where more of the popes are buried (a bunch are upstairs in the church itself). I'm pretty sure this is not appropriate music to be playing on your ipod when down there. There was a small crowd in front of John Paul II's casket, and a few flowers on that of John Paul I. On the way out I got a photo of a Swiss Guard in uniform.

On Thursday I went back to St Peter's as I wanted to go up to the top of the dome, but after joining the very long line (much longer than the day before), I learned from someone offering tours of the Vatican museum that the church was closed for another 90 minutes because there was a mass on, which seemed to be verified by what was being shown on the giant TV screens around the piazza. I decided not to wait around and went to a few sites I'd yet to get to including the Circus Maximus and the Lateran Cathedral, which was also closed. I passed up an opportunity for a plenary indulgence by climbing some stairs on my knees (available every Friday in Lent and one other day of your choice each year). Back at the hostel I cooked for the first time since January, if you consider adding a packet mix of risotto into a pot of water and applying heat.

Regal Rome

Next on the itinerary was the eternal city Rome. Rome, the city founded by Romulus and Remus, the city that ruled most of the known world in its day. The city with a country inside it.

My hostel in Naples and Rome have been different than most of the places I've stayed at so far. They were both a bit out of the centre, about half an hour bu public transport. this had the effect of making me spend more time away from the hostel and have longer days of sight seeing. This combined with a late sunset (7:30ish) meant even on slack days I was doing 5-6 hours of walking around (I noticed on the train I'm a bit sunburnt now). I checked in about 1 o'clock and headed back into downtown Rome around 2ish. I first visited a church which had an exhibition on Galileo The exhibition kept bringing up the fact that Galileo was not an atheist, which I wasn't aware anyone was claiming to be the case. Then I kept walking until I got to the Spanish steps, where I saw some guys offering a free walking tour starting in about 15 minutes, so I went along on the tour. It took in a few squares, went past some churches, the column of Marcus Aurelius, the Pantheon and finished at the Trevi fountain, where I duly threw in a coin to ensure I would one day return to Rome. After the tour I called it a day.

On Sunday I explored the area north of the Colosseum. This took in a few of the forums, Trajan's column, the monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II, the 1st king of Italy, which shows the Italians haven't lost it when it comes to building grand elaborate monuments, a few churches (of course) and later headed up to the Pantheon again to see it slightly less crowded (the day before the tour got there just after a mass had finished) and then on to the Piazza Navona where I bought Mum's birthday present.

Monday I stayed at the hostel until noon as I stayed in to call Mum up to say Happy Birthday. In the afternoon I crossed the Tiber and caught a few sights along the river. I had lunch just in front of the St Peter's, then followed the Tiber south and finished the day by circling the Colosseum

Absolute Athens

So I've been slack keeping things up to date. I last wrote while on the train to Athens from Istanbul, before entering Greece. It was definitely so because I did not mention the hassles I had on that train after the border. When I bought the ticket I was told I'd have to change trains at Pythion on the Greek side of the border and I'd have to get a reservation before boarding. What wasn't mentioned was the fact that it would cost €6.50, nor that the station would not accept Turkish Lira, US dollars, bank cards of any kind and it did not have a bank machine. I and a Spanish guy were lucky the two Japanese girls on the train (the train had a grand total of four passengers) had just enough Euros to pay for us as well. When we changed at Thessaloniki we had to pay another €8.50. Fortunately this station had some ATMs and snack bars, so I could pay back the Japanese girls and buy some food, as all I'd had to eat that day was two bread rolls and about a dozen pieces of Turkish delight. Dinner was a nutritious bottle of coke and two snickers bars.

I arrived in Athens in the morning and checked in with no hassles. The room was a bit cramped with maybe a foot or so between the bunks, which were two regular bed securely connected on top of each other.

That day I took a walking tour that took in all the impressive remains from antiquity, various agora, temples, monuments, and of course the Acropolis. On the way back to the hostel after the tour I saw a Games Workshop reseller, and popped in to buy a hand drill which has made adding coins to my chain a lot easier. I also learnt a bit about 5th ed.

The rest of the time in Athens I visited museums, one or two a day. The museums in Athens have the annoying habit of closing around two or three o'clock, as do the banks. This meant my afernoons had little to do, especially once daylight savings kicked in.

Other highlights of Athens include the Archeology museum which has a pretty good sculpture collection (comparable to that of the Hermitage) and the Antikythera mechanism, Thanasis kebabs where I had lunch for three out of five days and the original Olympic stadium from 1896 with the required statue of a naked guy in front of it.

Did I mention most of the statue of guys were naked guys. Even the soldiers. Especially the soldiers. They must have been good. I'm sure I'd at least where underpants if I was going to war.

Going from Greece to Italy was a multistep process. First I caught a bus from Athens to Patras. Then I caught the ferry from Patras to Bari. The ferry was huge with a bunch of semi-trailers parked in the garage, and giant escalators to get from the shore level to the main passenger level. My berth was small but comfortable. There wasn't much motion from the sea, but there was a lot of vibration from the engines. After arriving in Bari, I caught a train to Naples, the home of pizza, situated between the sea and Mt Vesuvius. I got to the hostel at about 6, and for dinner I got a marinara pizza from a nearby pizzeria that was really good. They have the kitchen right up the front and it was entertaining watching them make all the pizzas.

The first full day in Naples was spent around Pompeii. I started with a trip up Mt Vesuvius, which has pretty good views from the top. No lava though. I descended the mountain and after lunch I explored the ruins of Pompeii. After Greece, a 7pm closing time was glorious, although I only stayed until 6. Pompeii was great to wander through. Most stuff was pretty well conserved compared to other sites I've seen. Thank you volcano. The audio guide was pretty good, having a lot of background information as well as specific details about buildings and structures.

The second day was spent walking around the historic centre of Naples. The highlight was the underground tour of the aqueduct system built by the Greeks and Romans and since then used as air raid shelters, trash cans, winery and more. I also saw a few churches and castles, but they weren't as cool.

A Petition of Sorts

Lords of the sea and wave
your audience I crave
It has come to pass that as I roam
My journey brings me to your home
It is a place I have yet to dwell
Amid the spray and swell
Safe passage do I ask of you
Let me sail on seas of blue
The lords of wind and sky
Have always let me by
The lords of steel and rail
Have always left me hale
The lords of wheel and road
Have always lightened my load
So hear me now lords of dolphin and of fish
I beg of thee one simple wish
Lords of the deep and blue
Let my path be straight and true

An unexamined blog is not worth blogging

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Istanbul

As I may have mentioned previously, here is a special presentation of some photos from Istanbul, with some appropriate background music.

Glorified Gallipoli and Terrific Troy

Monday was an early start to catch a bus to Gallipoli. I got there about 12:30 and the tour started at one. Our guide Hasan took us to the Gallipoli museum which had a number of artifacts found in the area, including a collection of bullets that had hit each other in mid air and letters from soldiers, to ANZAC cove, which the Turkish government has officially renamed as such, John Simpson's grave (the guy with the donkey), Aru Buran cemetery, the site of the dawn service where they were already erecting the stands for ANZAC day, Lone Pine cemetery, one of the Turkish memorials, Chanuk Bair, a big New Zealand memorial site, the site of some of the trenches and a large memorial with a quite from Ataturk regarding the soldiers buried on the peninsula:

"Those heroes that shed their
blood and lost their lives...you are now lying of the soil
of a friendly country, therefore rest in peace. There is
no difference between the Johnies and the Mehmets to
us where they lie side by side here in this country of
ours...You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far
away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are
now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having
lost their lives on this land they have become our sons
as well."

- Kemal Ataturk

A few things really stuck home on the tour. First is that it felt like home. I'm not a sentimental type, but it did not feel like I was on foreign soil. The next was how beautiful the area is. Also present was the respect the Turks have for the ANZACs and the respect the soldiers on both sides had for each other even while killing each other. Stories of gallantry and nobility are common on both sides.

On Tuesday morning I took a tour of the ruins of Troy, the city of legend written of by Homer. Pretty interesting, but a lot of imagination is required. Pretty cool were the spots where you could see pieces from the nine different periods of Troy's history covering 3000 years. Then it was back to Istanbul and crashing in a hostel.

It was another early start today to catch the 8:30 train to Athens which will take 24 hours or so.

A few thoughts on Turkey. Russia keeps it prize for the best chess sets, but Turkey gets the prize for best chess boards, and best backgammon sets, although I'm not sure how much competition there is for that one. It was also a lot more expensive than I expected. My hostel was good, although the weekday staff were a lot friendlier than the weekend staff. Finally, Istanbul is a cat city.

Intrinsic Istanbul

Thursday was a rainy day and I visited some museums. First was the Topkapi palace, where the Sultans used to live. It was alright. There was an awesome knife in the treasure room which had a gold sheath and three huge emeralds in the hilt. There was also a collection of relics of the prophets which included Moses' rod, David's sword, arm bones in a golden arm shaped case, a bunch of Mohamed's beard (dude must have had one long beard). This collection also had someone there 24/7 reading from the Koran. An easy job if you can get it. After the palace I visited the Archeology museum and in three hours got through less than half of it.

Friday was fine weather again and I did a bus tour around town. I spent about an hour and a half walking along the remains of the city walls, which were pretty tall and would have been even taller in the day as the ground was lower then. The walls are also about 1500 years old and stood for 1000 years before being broken by the giant cannons of the Turks in 1453. I think I could have done it cheaper using public transport, but I would have missed a lot of the things along the way.

On Saturday I took a two hour cruise along the Bosporus (the choice was between a two hour cruise or a six hour cruise) which was good but cold. Quite a windchill factor. After the cruise I visited another mosque but didn't see much as it was undergoing restoration work, then the spice market where I got a box of Turkish delight (half rosewater and half a mix of other varieties) and a t-shirt. Finally I crossed the Golden Horn to visit the Galata tower, which has a great view of the city.

Sunday I visited the Azeri Military History Museum, which had a pretty decent collection, then I went to see Valens aqueduct, which n days long gone supplied the Basilica cistern with water.

Idiomatic Istanbul

At last I got to Istanbul and walked to my hostel which was about half an hour from the train station and just behind the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. That afternoon was spent wandering around the area past the Galata tower looking for the Australian consulate, which I was only a block or two from when I stopped looking. On the way back to the hostel I stopped by a tourist information centre who showed me where it was on my map.

Wednesday morning I took a tram and walked up the hill to the consulate where I was told I had to go to a website and request a postal vote, which would be sent to my address in Australia. Not much use to me since the election was to be on Saturday.

After that less than stellar effort I made my back to the Hagia Sophia. The third church on the site dedicated to the holy wisdom, it was the largest cathedral in the world for almost 1000 years, it was converted to a mosque by Mehmet the conqueror and then into a museum by Ataturk. An impressive building almost 1500 years old.

Across the way from the Hagia Sophia is the Blue Mosque, aka the Sultanahmet mosque, which is intentionally very similar in design to the Hagia Sophia, but coloured, as the name suggests, blue instead of the Sophia's red. Its condition is a lot better than the Hagia Sophia, but it has the advantage of only being about 500 years old.

Next was the Basilica Cistern. This is a giant underground watertank built around the same time as the Hagia Sophia. It's cool and damp and the lighting is quite appropriate.

Vivacious Veliko Tarnovo and the Troublesome Train

Note: This is another big entry that covers a few places, so I'm going to split it up into several posts.

I'm now not only a few cities behind, I'm a country behind. I last wrote while on the way to Veliko Tarnovo, a small town in the centre of Bulgaria. The train ride was alright. There were some nice rock cuttings along the way my grandmother would have liked.

The main attraction of Veliko Tarnovo is an old fortress that is reasonably intact. There were also a few old churches around the place and a few monuments. On the Sunday I wandered around town taking in most of these sights. On Monday I lazed around the hostel and did a little shopping for supplies.

The guests who were there were an interesting mix. On the first night there was a pair of German cousins on a road trip, a British/Israeli woman who was buying a house in a nearby village and her sister and and an Australian and a Swede who had joined up somewhere and decided to travel together. On the second night there was a pair of Chinese people from Germany. The girl was obsessed with shoes and had bought so many pairs in Bulgaria she'd had to buy two new suitcases to take them back home (I think it was around the 40 pair mark). Her friend, who was not quite so keen on shoes, was named Shu.

The train to Istanbul got off to a rocky start. While I was waiting a guy came up to me and said he worked on a nearby archeological dig and showed me some Roman coins he offered to sell me for what was left of my Bulgarian money. It's just as well I didn't as when I got on board I got some bad news. The carriage my ticket was for had broken down and been left behind in Romania, and since the remaining sleeper car was run by the Turkish railways, the guard wouldn't just give me a berth on his carriage without paying for a reservation. This struck me as particularly rough since the carriage was reasonably empty and I ended up having the berth to myself.

Immigration was also a bit of a hassle. I had to pay for a visa and had checked before and found out that they would accept Turkish Lira, Euros and US dollars. I thought I would be fine as I had a bunch of US 100s left, but they wouldn't take it as they didn't have change. I managed to change one of the 100s into Euros at one of the duty free shops (the first I've seen since Korea) and all was well, but I was worried for a little while.

Bloody Brasov and Swift Sofia

So at the moment I'm a town behind in writing down what I've done. This is mainly due to the short amount of time I spent in Sofia, about 31.5 hours. Last time I wrote I was on my way to Brasov. I was not alone on this trip. Derrick was a Canadian I met at the hostel in Bucharest and he was leaving for Brasov the same day I was so we went to Brasov together, so when I use we it's not because I've gone all hoity toity and am using the royal we.

The train from Bucharest to Brasov was very good, new rolling stock that was well appointed and even had numerous power outlets throughout the carriage, although I did not make use of them on the trip. We got to the hostel with little difficulty. On arrival we were sat down with a couple who arrived at the same time and made to fill out our booking information on paper (every other hostel has done that themselves on a computer) and received the sales pitch. First the lady who ran the hostel outlined the things to see in the area, then the tours they offered to see them all. The tours sounded ok, but a little rushed and a little pricey (40-45 Lei per person, not including entrance fees). After setting into the hostel, Derrick and I strolled around town to get a feel for the lay of the land.

The next day was the first bad weather I've encountered so far. It was raining/drizzling most of the day except when it was snowing. After it eased up around 11ish we went out walking around town to see things in the light of day and to go inside things. The Black Church was interesting and had a huge pipe organ, although not as big as the UQ one. We walked around in the drizzle for a few hours before calling it quits.

the next day was a beautiful day with barely a cloud in the sky. We caught a bus from Brasov to Bran (4 Lei) and got into Bran at 10:40 only to find the castle didn't open until midday, so we walked around for a while, but the town seemed pretty much consist of the castle, souvenir stands and pensiones. The castle was alright, but didn't live up to expectations. The attached collection of peasant houses was also underwhelming. After finishing up in Bran, we caught a bus to Rasnov (3 Lei). Here we visited Rasnov fortress, which was built by and used by the peasants of the town when attacked. It was a bit of a climb above the town though. Going up we walked up the road going up behind the fortress, as this was the only marked path. It was a pleasant walk in almost forest with some great views near the top. In fact the views from the fortress were amazing, snow capped mountains, the town, the plains, all amazing. At the highest point of the fortress you get a full 360 view which is amazing. The fortress is about 500 years old, and was neglected for a lot of the 20th century, but still intact and they are working to restore it.

To descend back to town we took the stairs from the front of the fortress, which took us down to a street we'd walked down on the way up. We looked, but there was absolutely no signs suggesting the stairs existed at the entrance of the building we walked through to get to the street.

We then caught another bus back to Brasov (2.5 Lei) where we took the cable car up the mountain right next to the town and saw there was more of Brasov on the other side of the mountain. We could also see the hostel from the top as it was close by and a bright purple in colour.

On Thursday (the 12th) we parted ways, Derrick headed to Sighisora while I made my way to Sofia via Bucharest. I had about a 7 hour wait in Bucharest so I left my bags at the station and went to an English bookstore I'd seen while walking around town. I bought a Sandman book and a book about the AK-47.

The train to Sofia was an overnighter, and I arrived at about 6:00 I walked to a hostel a few people had recommended, for the first time not booking ahead. This turned out not so great as they only had a bed for one night, whereas I had been planning to stay in Sofia for three nights before going to Istanbul.

During the day I walked around Sofia and took in a lot of the sights. During m walk I decided not to try and find another hostel in Sofia, but to go to Veliko Tornovo, a place a lot of people had recommended. I'm going to stay there two nights and catch the train to Istanbul from there Monday evening.

Really, why even bother pretending?

So North Korea just had an election. Not surprisingly, Kim Jong-Il got 100% of the vote, although surprisingly he was only running for what seems to be the equivalent of an MP. But getting 100% of the vote is pretty easy when there's only one pre-approved name on the ballot in each electorate, and everyone has to bow to a giant photo of you before casting their vote. The guys with guns probably discourage independent thinking on the matter as well.

I wonder why they even bother. This is simply a more expensive way of appointing a body and doesn't fool anyone into thinking this was a real election. Either put on a better show and make it look like you're trying to be democratic, or admit you're a tyranny and use the money you spent on the election on food for your people, or more likely a tank or two.

While I'm on the topic of North Korea, I don't believe this is really a communications satellite. The only people allowed to communicate in the country are the military, and the country's small enough you don't need to send something all the way into space to build something to provide decent coverage. They're doing it to show that they can launch something big a long way.

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Big in Bucharest

En route from Bucharest to Brasov which is about a three hour trip. The views are nice, we're going up into some mountains, the Carpathians I believe. It also looks like it was a good idea not to have posted my jacket to London yet as it's snowing outside. Maybe I'll post it from Sofia.

Bucharest had two highlights although one of them had nothing to do with Romania. The Romanian highlight was the Palace of the Parliament. This is the second largest building in the world (in terms of how much land it covers. I think tall buildings are generally more impressive than broad ones). It's about 170m on each side, a giant square with towers on each corner. The rooms inside are huge. There is a gallery that goes along the front of the building that is 150m long. Most rooms are very tall, some going up to 19m tall. No one is changing a light without a ladder here. The building has 3500 tons of crystal in the chandeliers, a fortune in gold leaf, a lot of the floors and walls are marble, and all the materials and labour came from Romania. This is the kind of structure you only get when you have a megalomaniac dictator running the country.

The other highlight was going to see Watchmen, which was fantastic. It stayed true to the book, but obviously they had to cut a lot of stuff, and the cuts they made left the main point intact, although they had to change the ending a bit as without all the stuff they cut it would have been a giant deus ex machina.

Another interesting thing in Bucharest was the history museum. They had a replica of Trajan's column, which I believe commemorates the Roman's conquest of what is now Romania. As it was indoors and they couldn't fit in vertically, they put all the sections in order around the walls so you could see them up close and follow the story, which I doubt I'll be able to do when I see the original.

I feel like I'm getting a bit blase with my sightseeing. I think that it's partly that I've been on the go for over a month, and partly that the last week and a bit have been in between places, the places en route between the cities I'm really excited about. I remember how excited I was when I arrived in Moscow, a feeling I didn't have in Kiev or Bucharest.

Living Large in Lviv

It was only while looking at the stamp I got in my passport today that I realized that today is one month from when I left Korea. And I've only just made it to the third country. I've entered the EU, but not yet entered the Schengen zone or the Eurozone. That will probably occur in about two weeks when I make it to Greece.

As has often happened in my life, I don't feel like I've done enough to fill up a month. Nine days (including today) have been spent on trains. Twelve in Russian cities and seven in Ukrainian cities. That adds up to twenty-eight.

I think I've kind of stuck within my budget on average. I had a few bumps with regards to taxis on this front, but should not repeat that as I've decided to avoid taxis and make sure I stay at places that give good direction and are close to public transport. I'm using a different website to book hostels which is a lot better than the first site for giving directions. Hostel World for those who want to know. I've used my credit card a lot to get local funds as it's usually been easier than exchanging the cash I have(at least in Russia. The Ukraine and Romania have exchange booths everywhere).I'm going to cut back on that as I have only three, maybe four more countries outside the Eurozone, so I will try and use up my US dollars in those countries, and cash in my travelers cheques when I hit Greece.

I'm on another train as I write this (no surprise there. I seem to pretty much just write these on the train). I have the carriage by myself at this point. There was an Italian couple on board, but they got off around lunch time. In fact, when the train arrived in Lviv, this carriage was not yet part of the train, which initially caused me some confusion as my ticket said I was in car 16 and the train only went up to car 8.

Lviv was a nice town with lots of old buildings. The town center was quite historic looking with lots of statues and churches and other stuff around. My first day I did a walking tour from the Lonely Planet which took in a few churches, a few vacant lots that were synagogues until WWII, Castle Hill which distinctly lacks a castle but does have a good view, a few museums that were closed that day (I tried to go into one, noticed the sign saying it was closed on Wednesdays, thought nothing of it as it was surely later in the week than Wednesday, got confused at the lack of anyone trying to sell me a ticket until one of the men I passed on the way in showed me the sign again, at which point I realized it was indeed Wednesday).

On Thursday I visited Lychakivskiy Cemetery which had many cool tombstones that I was unable to photograph as the battery in my camera died. After the cemetery I went back into town to visit some of the museums and the tower of the town hall. The museum I liked the most was the Arsenal, which as its name suggests has a display of weapons from all over the world including swords, axes, maces, crossbows, pistols, rifles and cannons.

My last four days in the Ukraine I have had dinner at the same chain of restaurants, which is a non all you can eat buffet. The food was good and cheap. I sort of liked the borscht. The soup was good but I'd leave the cabbage behind. I wonder if it's possible to make borscht without the cabbage.

The hostel in Lviv wasn't as good as the others I've stayed at. The building was old and the stairs were not level and it was a bit dank. The theme was good (it was called Kosmonaut and had pictures of Yuri Gagarin on the wall and a vampire Lenin). While I was there I was the only guest, so I had not only a room to myself but the whole place. It was OK, but I prefer the liveliness of the place I stayed in Kiev. Another plus for the Kosmonaut is that I got a free t-shirt from them.

I arrive in Bucharest tonight and will spend a few days there. Then I'll head north a bit to Brasov and do the Transylvania thing (If I'm lucky I'll get to stake a vamp or two, though I doubt it). Then I'll move south again to Sofia in Bulgaria (via Bucharest no doubt) and then onto Istanbul, the second on my "must see" list for this trip (the list includes Moscow, Istanbul, Athens, Rome, Paris and London). Other places are on the "what's cool around or between those places" list. It will probably be about one and a half to two weeks before I arrive in Istanbul. I have a plan for what I'm going to do with my pictures from Istanbul, so look forward to that one.

Come On Catholics

This case from Brazil seems a little bit of overkill. An archbishop has excommunicated a group of people who helped a nine year old girl who had been sexually abused by her stepfather get an abortion.

I think this is the sort of case almost everyone would agree on that the girl is in no way physically, mentally or emotionally ready to be a parent, and that to continue the pregnancy would be dangerous to the girl.

Frankly, if anyone should be excommunicated here, it's the stepfather who has acted in a despicable fashion

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Killing Time in Kiev

Once more I'm on a train from somewhere to somewhere. In this case from Kiev to Lviv (or Lvov or one of the many other forms I've seen). It's a daytime train because the overnight trains get into Lviv at around 4 in the morning, so instead I'm catching a daytime train which left Kiev at 11 and will arrive in Lviv at 9pm.

Lviv represents the first departure from the general plan. The plan was that after Kiev I'd go to Crimea and catch a ferry across the Black Sea. But the ferries are too flaky this time of year, so instead I'm going to go overland to Istanbul via Romania and Bulgaria.

Kiev was a nice city, although I prefer Moscow and St Petersburg. For the first time the lingua franca in the hostel was English rather than Russian, although I was one of the few who only spoke English. Without more information my hypothesis is that the common language seems to be that of the people who run the place.

Last Wednesday I got to Moscow around 9pm, caught a taxi to Kievskii station, got a bite to eat and sat around until 11:23 when the train left. I got told off by security for taking photos of some of the decorations of the station. I went to sleep soon after the train departed and would have had a good nights sleep if it weren't for being woken up by customs at about 3 or 4 in the morning. They were a bit concerned about my visa since I've got two, one of which is canceled because the embassy made two mistakes on it. In the end though, all was well and they let me into the country.

I slept lightly for another few hours before arriving in Kiev. I walked to the hostel and although I missed the turnoff (the hotel given as a landmark did not show it's name all that well to someone coming from the direction I was) but realized my mistake a block or two further and found my way in the end.

The hostel is run by a British guy named Marcus who is a bit of a wheeler dealer in the Ukraine hostel business and extolled the opportunities out there for someone with a bit of cash to set something up. The hostel was alright, my only complaint being that the base of the bed was made up of planks that just covered the width of the bed and with a sudden movement one or two might fall off.

My first afternoon I walked past the National Theater, the Golden Gate (the rebuilt gate of the old city walls), the grounds of St Sofia cathedral (the buildings were closed Thursdays), St Micheal's Monastery, St Andrew's and then down St Andrew's descent, an old cobblestone road lined with guys selling souvenirs. The ones which really caught my eye, although not for reasons that would make me purchase somethings, were the stands selling tin soldiers. Russia had some exceptional tin soldiers with exquisite detail, but Kiev not so much. The stands in Kiev would have a few large models around 7-10cm tall, and then a lot of small ones around 28mm tall. How am I so sure of that height? Well, the first stall I looked at I started to look at some goblin like creatures on squares bases that kind of looked familiar. Next to them were some elves that looked quite Tolkeinish with a lot more detail on them. The I saw a futuristic soldier in big bulky armour carrying a massive laser gun. These were in fact Warhammer models given a quick once over with some metallic spray paint and being sold for about 100 hrivnias, or about AU$20. Last time I checked you'd have got two for about AU$18, so no the best souvenir.

So far I have bought three souvenirs. Two have been t shirts, as I figure I can wear them as I go and it's a practical investment. The other is an old badge from the KGB (probably a replica, but cool none-the-less).

For dinner on Thursday I went out with a group from the hostel to a place referred to as both the hospital and the doctor bar. It was a bar/restaurant with a medical theme. The waitresses wore nurse outfits (with varying amounts of clothing underneath), the bartenders wore scrubs, they served some drinks in test tubes, they had a padded room, etc. It was reasonably priced and the food was good.

On Friday I visited the caves monastery, an old orthodox church complex that included a set of catacombs with the preserved remains of a bunch of guys and people would go down there to pray. After the monastery I went to the WWII memorial, which features a 62m tall woman holding up a sword and shield, a collection of old tanks, jets, artillery and other military hardware, and two museums (one for WWII, the other post WWII). Reasonably interesting, but not much English.

On Saturday I took a walk along the main street downtown and then up to St Sofia again to check out the inside and the bell tower. The inside of St Sofia was very good, as they left some parts unrestored so you could see the effects of time. Overall, a nice cathedral. I also saw a poster for Watchmen, which is coming out in the Ukraine on the 5th.

On Sunday, I went to the natural history museum, which was pretty good. They had a lot of dioramas that were well produced, a hut built of mammoth tusks and jaws, a collection of live reptiles and insects, some whale skeletons and much more.

On Monday I went with a group from the hostel to the Chornobyl museum, and we were lucky enough to arrive there just as an English tour was beginning. It was actually a private tour three people had paid for, but they didn't mind people following along and joining the tour. Over the course of the tour people accumulated in the group. It was not as sad as the Hiroshima museum since it was an accident rather than a deliberate act and nowhere near as destructive, but it is still a tragedy.

After the Chornobyl museum we went to a folk village where traditional houses, windmills, churches and other structures are preserved. The wooden churches have a strong smell of timber when you're inside them (not surprising) which really gave them a very different feel to the stone cathedrals I've mostly visited.

That evening I tried to but some train tickets. I managed to get my ticket for Lviv, but my onward ticket was more frustrating. I had to go to a different ticket stand at the other end of the station, which was behind a set of doors with very little signage (after days of visiting museums and such, I know the words that go on the places that sell tickets). I found the stand and the lady couldn't read the note I'd had written in Ukranian by a local working at the hostel. The ticket lady thought I wanted a ticket from Kiev to Sofia, instead of Lviv to Sofia, and as there's no train from Kiev to Sofia, wouldn't sell me one. I double checked with information I'd gone to the right ticket stand, and went back. I got in line behind the man who was being served and a few minutes later a man got in line behind me and asked if he could go before me. As I was a bit frustrated at this point I said no and continued waiting. When the man in front of me finished the man asked again, and again I said no and tried to communicate with the ticket I wanted. At this point the man stated talking to the ticket lady in Ukranian (or Russia, I can't really say which), and when she started serving him instead of me I gave up and left. (Regarding the man's actions, I think if you're in a hurry you could ask once, but if the person says no you should leave it at that. Don't keep pestering, and don't barge in front. The ticket lady was even worse, as she should not have served him.)

It is for the best though that those two vexed me. I had gotten the order of Romania and Bulgaria mixed up, and didn't actually want a ticket to Sofia, so fate saved me a big hassle by giving me a small one.

St Petersburg Redux

Once again I'm sitting on a train. I'm en route between St Petersburg and Moscow, and from Moscow I will catch an overnight train to Kiev.

I don't have much to add about my stay in St Petersburg. On Monday, which was a public holiday, I visited a few churches (St Isaac's, The Blood of the Saviour) and the cruiser Aurora, which was involved in the revolution before heading back to rest. I bought a souvenier, a KGB badge.

Tuesday I was very slack, and mostly lounged around at the hostel. I kind of feel like I should have done something but on the other hand I'd spent the previous seven days walking around all day, so a day of rest seemed in order. That evening I hung out with a few of the other guests who now all spoke English as all the Russian guests had left on Monday. I then went out with some of them to an English style pub called Dickens to watch a football (soccer) match. Actually, there were three games at the same time, but the main focus was on Manchester United vs Intermilan.

Today I packed up, sent some postcards and then caught the metro to the main train station.

Petrograd Patrol

This follows on directly from the previous post. You should read it first.

During the 20 minutes between waking up and arriving in St Petersburg I started talking to the guy in the bunk above me, whose name was Dmitry and is a professor working on terahertz optical and acoustic signals. I said goodbye to him as I got off the train, but he bumped into me while I was checking the map of the Metro, and he helped me get part of the way to my hostel.

I found the hostel pretty easily (especially given that I was walking. I think I shall have to eschew taxis as they never seem to be able to find the place and rip me off in the process). The hostel is called Crazy Duck and I'd say it's better than the Hostel Napoleon (so named because Napoleon stayed in the building back in 1812 allegedly) in Moscow. It's cheaper, the rooms are more spacious, the TV is huge and has surround sound and is also centrally located.

I checked in about 8:30 and while checking in saw a brochure for a walking tour at 10:30. That seemed like a good introduction to the city so I decided to do it. I was almost late because I got confused on the Metro, but got to the meeting point just as they were about to start. The guide was Sasha who was a history buff and walked around in jeans and a thin jacket, while the rest of us had gloves on and several layers done up. The rest of us were myself and two Belgians, Girt (I'm not sure of the spelling) and I forgot the others name.

The tour meandered around central St Petersburg, and took in a lot of small sites I'd have never known about, including an arts centre that used to be a squat and now includes the headquarters of a group planning to build a temple devoted to the Beatles. We also stopped in at a cafe and tried a cheese pastry thing for which I can't recall the name of (it happens a lot).

After the tour ended I continued on with the two Belgians and had a look at Peter and Paul fortress and then we had a late lunch at a cafe Sasha had recommended. At about 700 rubles it was the most expensive meal I've had in Russia, but definitely the highest quality.

After that we parted ways. I lounged around in the hostel for a while when two good looking girls introduced themselves and told me to come drink. Now, I may not be the suavest of individuals, but I know this is an offer not to be refused. I spent the evening not understanding much but indulging in the one lot of drinking I'm allowing myself per country. It was pleasant, and they were all friendly, but hard to get into entirely when all the conversation is going over your head. I did get a free dinner out of it.

On Sunday I woke up to a rather non-PG sound as metal bunks are not the most discrete of beds for certain activities. This is not an unprecedented experience, but at least in Japan I had a wall separating me from things. I basically stayed quiet and made as though I was still asleep.

Sunday's sightseeing was confined to one building, the Hermitage. I must confess I don't think I'd heard of it until I played Civ IV. The building itself is a work of art, and you could wander around and marvel at it even if it were empty of contents. As it is the contents are an outstanding collection. The only disappointment was the Egyptian display which did not line up to the hype in the Lonely Planet. I saw paintings by da Vinci, Raphael, Matisse, van Gogh, Rembrandt, and many, many others. There was a very good display of Greek and Roman statues, and I think I got photos of all the muses along with a bunch of other mythological figures. The rooms fitted out as they were in the days of the tsars were extremely elaborately decorated and it's safe to say that their tastes did not include simplicity of design.

I took a lot of photos, but am disliking the trend of having to pay extra to take photos of things. It was an extra 200 rubles to take photos in the Hermitage, but I think it was worth it.

In the evening I spent a little time with the group I hung out with last nigh, but too much Russian got to me so as they dispersed to get ready to go out I returned to my bunk. I spent a bit of time talking to a group of cadets who were staying in my dorm, and then finished up writing my journal after they left.

Moscow Meanderings

This was originally written as one piece with the next post, but since it's pretty much evenly divided between Moscow and St Petersburg and it's quite long, I'm going to split it into two posts.

So it's been a few days since I last wrote so let's catch up. On Thursday I took a bus tour around town. It started at the Kremlin, but then went around town in a minibus to a few good sites. These included the World War II memorial, which is very tall, the Moscow State University main building, which is one of the seven Stalin skyscrapers, Sparrow Hills, which overlooks a large part of Moscow, and a fortress/nunnery. We also drove past a bunch of stuff which our tour guide was about 5 seconds late pointing out to us. At Sparrow Hills I bought a souvenier, a t-shirt with a Kalashnikov rifle on it. The tour group was 5 people; myself, Peter and Yana, a couple around my age, and an older couple of which the wife was rather bossy.

After the tour I went to Gagarin Square, which was a lot further away than the map suggested. I nonetheless got there, looked at the monument for a few moments, took some photos and headed back to the hostel.

In the evening I went to an English club run by a guy called George who seemed to be a permanent resident of the hostel. He's kind of a freelance English teacher. He invited me along to meet some Russians and be the native speaker at the nights meeting (I noticed some of the paperwork in his plastic sleeves showed that people (Russians) pay 900 rubles a month to attend the meetings, so George has to sort of be a native speaker wrangler for the meetings). Two other people showed up, Alexy and Julia, both professionals who worked for banks. Conversation covered topics such as Moscow, work, travels, Boris Yeltsin, the media, comparative drinking, Australia, Korea, trains and more.

The last item of note for the evening was when at MacDonald's (I'm sure I've already presented my reasons for greater consumption of the big M while overseas) I realized they did indeed have quarterpounders. I was trying to read the menu and one item came out to be a "royal cheeseburger". It took a few moments of wondering what a royal cheeseburger was when I recalled the phrase "royal with cheese". Yes, Pulp Fiction saved the day.

Friday was my last day in Moscow. I did another of the suggested walks on my map, but missed a turn and walked an extra two or so klicks, but it was alright. This walk had more of an arts theme and went past a few theaters and a few museums, although I only went into the museum of recent soviet history. This museum takes off about where the big history museum at the Kremlin left off with with the late imperial era and goes up to the modern day with Putin and Medyedev. I was disappointed that the small section on the space race seemed to miss Sputnik I, which would be in any museum I could put it in, let alone one specifically on 20th century Russia.

After I finished my walk I hung around the hostel for a while before eventually heading to the train station (Leningradskaya, for the record, since there are numerous train stations in Moscow) for my 23:55 train to St Petersburg. The train was much nicer than the Trans-Siberian, but I didn't really get to appreciate it much as soon after departure everyone in the berth went to sleep and I woke up about 20 minutes before arrival.

Untitled Poem

Written while on the train.

The journey goes on and on
The wheels turn and turn
And still I am so far away
From the place for which I yearn

In solitude I sit and sit
An empty mind to think and think
This days travels over distances far
Is still just one small link

Time passes as I wait and wait
Within my sight things appear and disappear
One hour or two, ten trees or twenty
My destination is still not near

I cannot just sleep and sleep
My bed at night goes to and fro
The cushions do not soften it
The gentle rumble brings comfort though

The noise keeps on a steady pace
Across the land we race and race
I do not know how I now seem
I dare not look into my face

The plains I see are vast and great
From our path we do not deviate
The rails we follow loom ahead
Two lines of metal seal our fate

I marvel at this massive feat
To link two points so far away
We've traveled for two days so far
We've made but one third of our course

I ponder on my rhyming scheme
Now long abandoned for freer verse
I think I should end my efforts now
Before the meta makes things worse

Moscow Musings

Moscow is quite a bit different to Vladivostok. It's much more metropolitan; it has a subway system, there's the occasional bit of English signage around the place, there's lots of restaurants and perhaps too many shops. And the occasional mausoleum containing a leading revolutionary.

I haven't been in Lenin's tomb yet. It's allegedly open from 10 to 1 but every time I've gone by it's been as quiet as a grave. There's enough to do around it that I've not felt too bad about it (although I do still want to get in there). I've been to St Basil's with its multicoloured onion domes, inside the Kremlin and the churches it contains, the history museum (which had English notes on the first floor but not the second floor), and the cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which is across the river from the Red October chocolate factory.

My hostel is pretty good. I'm in a dorm at this place, which I guess is a downgrade from the place in Vladivostok, but a known one so I can't complain, and this is more likely to be the norm from now on. They also have wifi which is great. It's pretty close to Red Square which is very convenient. It's also just down the road from the former headquarters of the KGB. It's a rather bland building with a bunch of what I presume is the KGB coat of arms across the front.

The subway here is rather deep, and the escalators going down to the platforms are in a tunnel that leaves the Third Infiltration Tunnel for dead. The trains themselves are a bit on the old side, being noisy and rickety with nary an electronic display in sight. they are however plentiful, with just over two minutes between departing trains.

The art in the churches is amazing, although I feel sorry for everyone who did the painting on the ceilings. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is a particularly fine example and if I hadn't already known I wouldn't have thought it was built in the post soviet era (technically rebuilt since the soviets demolished the previous incarnation of the cathedral). If it were well lit instead of full of shadows it would be almost overwhelming.

I had a worrying situation today. I went to the MacDonalds on Red Square for brunch and to pay I gave them a 500 ruble note. The cashier looked at it and then took it to a manager. The manager looked at it and used one of the machines I've seen at a lot of places and then consulted with another manager before they decided they weren't going to accept it. This worried me since I'd just got the note from a bank. Fortunately, the museum accepted the note when I bought my ticket. A similar thing happened when I bought my train tickets. The ticket seller wouldn't accept one of the 1000 ruble notes I gave her. This is something new to me as I've never been anywhere where legal tender isn't just automatically accepted. Lots of places have machines that illuminate bills to reveal watermarks or UV writing or other stuff that may be on the bills.

I'm also surprised at how wet and muddy snow makes the place. A mud slushy is an accurate description of the streets.

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Vladivostok to Moscow

So I finally made it all the way from Vladivostok to Moscow. The Trans-Siberian Express is definitely a great experience, but it is also six days on a train with no showers and narrow beds. I don't think I've enjoyed a shower as much as I did the shower I had at my hostel tonight. Nor enjoyed dinner so much. Six days of eating ramen and instant mashed potatoes with meat gets to you.

Fortunately there was power points on the train, so I spent many an hour watching the landscape go by while charging my devices.

I think there might have been two other people on my carriage who ended up doing the whole Vladivostok to Moscow trip (aside from the guards) and I shared my berth with 6 people over the trip. There was a women who was there from Vladivostok and got off late in the afternoon the next day, one guy who was there for one evening, three men who got on early the day after and got off around lunch time, and late that evening the last person got on, and he went all the way to Moscow as well. His name was Uri, and he was the only one of them who actually tried to speak to me. He was pretty nice, and helpful as well.

Photos will go up as soon as I find a way to upload them all (I have about 1 or 2 hundred from Vladivostok and 500 odd from the train trip (not all will be great, so there will be a bit of a culling)).

Tomorrow I'm going to check out Red Square and the stuff in the surrounds, including, but not limited to the Kremlin.

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Writing time: seven minutes
Time since last post: over a week (the first time I haven't felt like I'm slacking off for leaving it that long between posts)
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Trans-Siberian Thoughts 4

One more sleep until Moscow. It sounds like I'm a kid counting down to Christmas, but that's the best means of keeping count I have. I set my computer (and so ipod also) to Moscow time (GMT+3) a few days ago, and have been trying to sync with that, but I woke up at about 5 this morning, so that's not working so well.

Numbers on the train are dwindling, and everyone is becoming more reclusive. There is hardly anyone in the corridor watching the landscape go by anymore, and the door to most berths are generally shut. This does make it easier to charge my various bits and pieces.

I too am paying less attention to the landscape, and there is a clear decline in the number of photos taken each day. After a while snow and trees and the occasional village gets a bit repetitive. We have started sighting the mile markers counting down the distance remaining to Moscow (2162 at time of writing, with 32 hours to go).

There's a bit of snow falling now and then today. This is the first time there's been falling snow on an ongoing basis. There was a bit at one of the stops on day two, but that was about it. The snow I've seen on the trip has been very fine and dry and does not make for good snowballs. I've tried once or twice and it's like throwing sand.

War and Peace is a bit more interesting now that I've gotten past the society intrigues of Part I and am now into the war against Napoleon. I can't say the Russians are doing well at this stage, but something tells me they win out in the end.

I have managed to work out the mystery of the bathroom tap, which has made me feel much better, although it looks as though the carriage has gone through its allotment of toilet paper for the trip. Given that I have a roll from Korea and that Russian toilet paper is the roughest I've ever come across, this development has not troubled me too much.

I've written a few different bits and pieces that aren't exactly a journal (well, are in no way a journal), more free writing, which I suppose I'll put up when I have access to the internet again. The book I'm writing in is lined for the first half and the second half is all blank pages, so I'm using the first half as a journal and the second half for everything else (drawings, maths, poetry, memes, etc). I do quite like the book and will have to post a picture of it. I had intended to use "The Deeply Unfortunate Doings of an Ill-Fated Life" for this purpose, but this book was a last minute splurge at Kyobo books when I should have been looking for a money belt and suits the purpose a lot better. I've still to find something worthy to put in the ill-fated life, but for now its got a few general bits of writing that have been produced for various reasons.

Anyway, that's getting a fair bit offtopic and the train has stopped for some reason, so I think I shall stop writing as well.

Trans-Siberian Thoughts 3

It looks like I have a companion for the rest of the trip. A man named Uri got on board this morning. He's been more talkative than the others who have been in my berth. He's told me his name for a start. We've also managed to exchange destinations (Moscow and Moscow) and book titles (War and Peace for me and a Bond novel for him).

During the day we've passed what seemed like a giant lake, quite possibly Lake Baikal. The track ran quite close to the shore and we followed it for a few hours. The lake was a huge white expanse with absolutely no vegetation at all on it. Most of the landscape has had trees or grass or something growing, but not here, just white as far as the eye could see. Occasionally I could see land on the other side rising up, but not often.

There also seemed to be a few cars and people out on the ice. I guess they were ice fishing. Someone must have been as at a recent stop there was a mass of people selling fish. Uri bought four and is keeping them cool by placing them next to the window. The window is the weak link in keeping the berth warm, and has got a fair bit of ice on it over the past few days.

I'm beginning to feel a bit grimy not having had a shower in three days. I have yet to work out the taps in the bathroom. No matter how I turn them, nothing happens and I worry I'm going to pull them off, and angry Russian sounds very angry, so I don't want to actually do that.

I'm also beginning to worry about money. It's not that I don't have enough, it's that most (all) the vendors so far have been reluctant to accept a 1000 ruble note (about A$40). I should try the drinks lady as she's obviously selling a lot (I've bought 125 rubles of stuff from her) so she should have sufficient change somewhere on board. As it stands now I only have a few hundred rubles left in small bills which won't last the whole of the rest of the trip.

Trans-Siberian Thoughts 2

I'm pretty sure I've got the date right. Time on scales less than a day aren't really much use on the train, and even a day isn't really a day. I left Vladivostok at 10pm and arrive in Moscow at 6pm with a travel time of 6 days and 3 hours. Over the trip I'm losing about an hour a day, or put another way, each day is 23 hours long.

Not everyone on the train seems to be on board for the long haul. At the moment I have my berth to myself again. At departure there was a mid 30ish woman in my berth as well, but she got off late yesterday afternoon. She was replaced a few stops later with a man who just slept, which is a lot more understandable after he got off the train late at night. Early this morning the berth was filled with three more men. I'm guessing a father and two sons, by their ages. They weren't on board long, getting off before lunchish.

A few of the people on my carriage have been here the whole trip so far, and we shall continue to see how many remain on board for the whole trip. I haven't really spoken to anyone, and no one has tried to talk to me. There is one person I've considered going up to and saying hello to. She's a redhead I first saw at the station at Vladivostok with a large backpack and looks more like a traveler/sightseer than other passengers. I saw her again at a stop while I was buying some ramen to eat. I really should go exploring and see if there's a restaurant car or the like. Yesterday I only got one thing of what I thought was ramen but turned out to be instant mashed potatoes with a little bit of meat. It was pretty good.

The landscape continues to amaze, but the white does get a bit monotonous after a while. Sometimes I think that if all the snow were brown dirt instead, it would look just like the scrub back home. There's plenty of mountains in the distance, but we don't seem to have gone over any ranges. My geography isn't good enough to know if we will or not. I suppose we might have already done so while I was sleeping. On the whole the views are well worth it, and I'm not the only one who spends a lot of time watching the scenery pass by.

Some of the time I'm doing that though I have an ulterior motive. The few power points in board line the corridor, so some of the time I've spent standing there my laptop or ipod has been plugged in getting some juice. I have decided to stop playing Civ IV while on the train, as the workout it puts the CPU and fans through really burns through the power quickly (I get about two and a half hours watching videos but only one hour playing Civ IV).

The train stops a few times a day for about 15 minutes or so (there are other stops as well but these are briefer) which gives those of us on board a chance to stretch our legs, buy some food, and in my case say "fuck" a lot because of how cold it is. The places we've stopped at have definitely been colder than Vladivostok was. Of course, I'm not as well prepared for the cold since there aren't any announcements of upcoming stations (not that I'd understand them, but I'm sure I'd quickly make the connection between an announcement I can't understand and arrival at a station (I did so pretty quickly in Japan.).).

I finally finished Paradise yesterday, after months of procrastination. I found my mind would just wander off while reading the prose and found the notes generally more interesting and illuminating. Like Machiavelli, a good knowledge of renaissance Italian politics is essential for the fullest understanding, and it is a subject that is not my strongest. I wonder though who would be put where in a modern version. Would Gandhi join the virtuous pagans in Limbo? (Indeed, what was Gandhi's religion?) Is there anyone despised enough for their adultery to make that circle worth visiting? What politics would replace those of Florence and Italy?

This has let me start once more on War and Peace, which is just as tedious this time through. I think I got through about a dozen pages at most before finding something else to do. I'll see how far I get through during the trip.

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Writing time: a half hour or so.
Time since last post: two days
Current media: none

Trans-Siberian Thoughts

Note: This was written while waiting for the train last Tuesday. I'll leave it up the top for a day or so and then shift it to the actual time of writing.

So it turns out I was right and the staff at the hotel were wrong. The 15:00 departure time on my train ticket is indeed 15:00 Moscow time, not 15:00 Vladivostok time. If it weren't for the fact that this is a difference of 7 hours I wouldn't be much put out.

I'll admit I was initially wrong as well, getting the direction wrong and thinking 15:00 Moscow time was 08:00 Vladivostok time, when it is actually 22:00. Just as well I didn't turn up to catch the train then. That would have been quite a wait.

As it is, by the time I board the train I'll have been lurking around the station for about 11 hours, and will have gone through the batteries on most of my devices, although my ipod should last a while longer. The best run it has had is about 24 hours on the go, while playing videos and shuffling, which put a bit more of a drain on the battery. If there is no power on the train, which I believe is the case, things will go dark relatively soon on the trip.

I should make it into tomorrow with juice in the batteries of things as I figure once I get on the train I'll hit the sack pretty quickly.

Vladivostok has been pretty good. The submarine museum inside an actual submarine (no longer underwater unfortunately) was an experience, although they took ever chance to extract some rubles from you (100 for entry, 50 to take photos, 50 for a brochure, and 50 to get a photo in a navy major's jacket and hat). The guy selling souvenirs at the exit said he collected Australian dollar and fifty cent coins and offered to buy any I might have had on me. Unfortunately, I only have a ten cent piece I don't intend to part with. I have considered drilling a hole in it so I can place it on my chain so I'm less likely to lose it.

There's a fair few monuments around the place here, mainly for sailors and admirals and such, this being very much a port town. There's also the to be expected remnants of the soviet era. Across the road from the train station is a grand statue of Lenin, or as it is written on the statue ΛEHИH. (Knowing the Greek alphabet has made it easier to pick up bits and pieces of the Cyrillic script (Ф = f, Λ = l, etc)). There are also monuments to the workers who rose up during the revolution, a few for WWII, and some other bits and pieces of history.

The weather has been better than I feared, although today I'm not wearing my really thick pants and can feel the difference. I've not seen any snowfall or rain, and the temperatures seem to have been between -5 and 0, or at least during the day when I was outside.

It's cold enough to keep the ice in the bays frozen. On my second day I strolled out onto the ice for a while which seemed to be the winter equivalent of the local park. There were families and couples walking around. The majority of people there though were ice fishers. They each had there own seat of some kind, be it a stool, a box, a tire, or whatever else, a drill, and one or two rods, which are about a foot long. They drill the whole and then lower the line and twitch it until they get a bite. The fish they caught weren't that large (the holes were about 10cm in diameter) and I don't really see how it could be viable as anything other than recreation.

Also in the ice was a cut out section about 10m long up by the shore where you could get into the water. A lot more people than I thought were doing it. Most simply climbed in, got there whole body except for their heads underwater and got right back out straight away, although a few hardier (and older) individuals actually swam the length of it and back.

There was also a lot of ice around the lighthouse I visited, but I did not go walking on the ice there. It was not as solid or as well attached to the shore. This may have something to do with it being a lot closer to the shipping lines than the other spot. The lighthouse is a small structure which apparently cannot be got to at high tide (I don't know if going in winter helped, but it didn't look as though the tide had been in for a while).

The best view I found in the city was at what I believe was the state agricultural college which is up a hill and looks down on the city. I got a few good pictures looking eastish, but not many looking westward as the sun got in the way. The college is actually split in two parts, one at the top of the hill and one at the bttom. The guide book said the two were connected by what is called a funicular and my plan was to find the lower station, take it to the top and enjoy the view. Instead, I found the top, enjoyed the view and then learnt the funicular had been closed, possibly for repairs (there were men working on the track), possibly for good, and walked down the adjacent stairs back to the main street.

My hotel was better than I expected. The room was nicer than I expected, and although it was a shared room, no one else was in there during my stay. The only problem I had was a lack of English on the staffs part (or a lack of Russian on my part) which made for some confusion, although for the most part things worked out. The hotel sorted out registration for me, which is one of the bureaucratic roadblocks the Russians put in the way of travelers. I'll be glad when I hit Turkey and won't have that to do with any more.

The ride to the train station this morning was interesting. The driver was what I guess was the hotel's security guard/odd job guy. He was normally dressed in what looked like a military uniform (matching camoish pants and shirt). During the drive he pointed out a few things and grumbled about the traffic. He managed to get across that he used to be in the navy, served on a submarine, and was possibly based in Sevastopol. When he left me at the station he gave me a very firm handshake and then a bear hug, which I was not expecting.

I much prefer the ride I had with him to the one I had from the airport to my hotel. It didn't get off to a good start when the guy said it was six hundred kilometers to Vladivostok. This made the price seem very reasonable, but somewhat put me off as I was reasonably sure no city has its airport that far away. As it turns out he meant 60km, which is still an exaggeration as it's actually about 40km. I eventually agreed as the buses had stopped about an hour ago and he had the best English of the taxi drivers around.

Actually, he wasn't the driver, he was the salesman as he took me to a car and someone else drove, although the guy came along as well. At first I was a little worried I'd walked into a less than good situation as the roads were dark and there was little traffic. I wasn't entirely sure things were OK until when they stopped outside a hotel and said we were at my hotel when clearly we weren't (they took me to Hotel Vladivostok when my reservation said Jing Long Hotel - Vladivostok) and then how serious they were at trying to work out where they should take me. They did try to get some extra money from me, but given that I was already giving them more than I was paying for my hotel, I was not going to give them any more.

I'm going to look for somewhere to leave my bags and then get something to eat, as I've only had a fruit and nut toblerone so far today, and the hunger is beginning to get to me.

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Writing time: about half an hour
Time since last post: a few days
Current media: whatever was on my ipod at the time

Rock the Block in Vladivostok

I'm now in Vladivostok. English is not as common as I'd hoped, but I've managed to acheive what I've set out to, although at a bit more expense than I'd hoped. My goal for today was to get to the train station and buy a ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express to Moscow. It took me about two hours to do so, but do so I did after two scenic but pointless rides on the tram, a taxi ride that almost got me there because while people here understand "Hotel" and "Vladivostok", they don't get "train station" or "How do I get to the ...". Fortunately the Hotel Vladivostok is very close to the train station, which I found out last night when my taxi driver decided that on my hotel reservation where it said Jing Long Hotel - Vladivostok with an address underneath, this meant Hotel Vladivostok, so I found out where that was. The driver did eventually get me to my hotel, but tried to up the price about 10%, which I was not cool with since the ride from the airport already was costing more than my hotel for 4 nights.

Anyway, after sorting out all sorts of stuff, I have naught to do but sightsee and enjoy myself until Tuesday, when I catch the train to Moscow. Today I wandered around the area near the train station, which is itself an impressive looking building. The highlight has to be the submarine museum, which is an actual submarine. At the end I got a photo of myself in a Naval Major's coat and hat, which look somewhat ridiculous on me, but are cool nonetheless. I can't post them yet, but will as soon as I can. There are a few cool buildings around as well.

I won't add much more becuase this place charges by the minute and the megabyte (which I shouldn't have too many of, but they add up quickly).

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Fan Mail 2

Well, not so much fan mail as a goodbye letter. This was written by one of my students I've taught for almost a year.

Since it is a bit tricky to read in the picture the text is exactly as follows.

to kevin
Hello this is cindy.
I hear that you will go back to your countty so I am sad.
After you go to your country bat don't forget us.
live healthy and huppily.
Don't forget me. and I won't forget you too. Good bye
2.2.2009
Friday
Sincerely
cindy

While I doubt I'll forget completely about any of the kids I've taught (although there are a few I wouldn't mind forgetting) things like this do stick and show you you haven't been completely useless at the job.

On a less pleasant note, it seems this is no longer in my souvenir box, which causes me some concern as to where it may have gone. I have done a slight culling of the souvenir box, but there's no way I would have got rid of it. I really hope it turns up somewhere.

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Writing time: 33 minutes (I went looking for the previous letter)
Time since last post: half a day or so
Current media: The Legend of the Seeker

The best laid plans of mice and men

I got a rather distressing email today. It was from the ferry I had booked to go to Vladivostok. Apparently due to bad weather an inspection was delayed, which means the ferry I was going to catch has been canceled. This is pretty shit, since that was to be the start of my long, and cheap, travels. Fortunately I was to pay when I got to the ferry terminal, so I'm not out of pocket yet.

My boss has been really helpful, and has organised a flight for me getting into Vladivostok the day the ferry was due to arrive. It is unfortunately three hundred dollars more expensive than the ferry and gets in about seven at night rather than one in the afternoon, which gives me less time in Vladivostok (well, my plan for Friday afternoon was to check into the hostel and buy my train ticket west, so probably not that huge a loss).

This does mean I'll get an extra day in Chilgok to sort stuff out, like buying a money belt, figuring a way to post my wooden katana home, packing all my boxes, and more I'll think of when I realize "Oh crap, I haven't done this yet.

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Writing time: 25 minutes
Time since last post: a few days (the preplanned stuff ran out before I wrote more)
Current media: The Office (US version)