Trans-siberian flamingo

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Monday, July 9 2007

48 hours of survival

Some updates from the cultural exchange !

Yesterday we came back from the most remote place in Russia (almost) : Doctor's parents house in the countryside. Not the countryside as we know it, but let's imagine : first, three hours of train away from Eka to reach a city covered by pink smoke from the metallurgical plants, eating radioactive (but cheap) pizza waiting for the rain to stop. Then, hire a minivan to carry us to the Europe-Asia border.Europe side of the border

Asian side of the border

Turn right, on a very scary road full of holes. At one moment, the driver cannot go further because there is too much mud, so we get out and walk 8 kilometers to the place, with crazy mosquitoes attacking, the rain, and a destroyed bridge to cross.Scary bridge to cross...

Then we arrived to Doctor's datch in the middle of nowhere: Simply perfect! Except for the mosquitoes... Full of them eating all of us (well, mainly to Nicolas... french blood seems to be like french wine :P).

But some Bania (like sauna) plus cold river helped us to forget the mosquitoes... or maybe it was the vodka :P You can ask Stefano or Baris about it and how they felt the next morning... :P Consequences of driniking too much vodka... Emilie was a little socked at the begining due to the mosquitoes, but slowly she adapted to the situation and began to drink a lot of vodka as well :)

A special mention to Doctor's Mom, who became our Mom during the weekend and prepare a lot of good food for us :D

Another mention to the... Naked team!!! Formed by Sasha (alias terminator or porn star :P), Stefano, Baris and Natasha. Tanya was there taking the pictures....Naked Team!!!

Then come back to civilization thanks to a driver and his militar truck, which carried us through all the forest full of mosquitoes avoiding all the mud In exchange we promised him to make him famoues in internet thanks to our blog :D... Track driver and us more parties to stay the last days with all the people, including Natasha (the pianist), whom Jesus met.

There are some more things... but rigth now I have a lot of memory blanks... mainly due to the vodka and the hurry to take the train to go to Irkustk. Another 50hours in a train until we get there :S Let's hope it won't be so hot as the other one. We will also to get the Mongolian visa there, but we arrive on a friday evening, so we'll have to wait until monday for the consulate... :S I hope we will have time to go to Baikal as well and do everything we wanted (mainly in China... and have time to get to Hong Kong on time!!! :P).

See you from Irkustk!! (with 7 hours of difference with most of Europe: GMT+8).

P.S.: Maybe we will meet there the finish people we met in Lenin Hostel, the Vostoknauts!! ;)

P.S.1: Nicolas began this post on 9th, but me, Jesus, has finish it on 11th, and Tanya K. finished to upload the pictures on 12th at night - the last survivor in Ekaterinburg, drinking a beer alone (all the friends have to work tomorrow, to late for them to stay awake) and terribly missing everybody....

Saturday, June 30 2007

Moscow, Moscow!

28th June, 2007

Hi all!,

Finally I find some time to write something :P Between so much sigthseeing, parties, and so... I didn't find the time before to properly geek and post something.

In summary, I was writing a diary in paper (what can I say? I'm a clasical romantic :P) until we arrived in Moscow (everything we have done in these last days :D). Now we are supposed to update the blog so you can be better informed (I promised we will upload also the content of the previous days).

First train in Russia

Now we are in Moscow, after a crappy train (in the worst class, the 3rd), with a lot of people sleeping together in the same wagon without any cabins (well, there were actually "separated cabins", without doors, just the wall where the bed was standing.

We arrived to Moscow and... Surprise!!! The hostel is definetevely quite new (that the reason of the cheap prices) and they have problems with organization and they don't know which beds are free, so it's a chaos and they try to solve it when we walk around the city.

Hopefully some member of LBG Moscow helped us a lot and went with us to some visits through the city and have lunch. Of course Mario (Flamingo!) came with us.

Flamingo in Moscow - Christ Cathedral

And of course we visited the Red Square!!! :D A little impresive (but in some way I expected more)... and full of people. BTW, I coudn't take photos (no camera with me), but the Red Square at nigth is really impresive and beautiful.

Flamingo in Red Square - After Rain

Flamingo got more new smiles (althoug here in Moscow is more difficult to get russian smiles than in St. Petergsburg... :S) and even some photos!!! From photos from some turists to photos from some russians who where selling photos with eagles!!! :D

Flamingo wiht Eagles

We also went to St. Basil's cathedral (I expected much more inside, but it has a lot of chambers/chapels). And also when you ar close to it... it doesn't seem to be so big. But is very nice from outside, mainly when saw from the red square.

Also Kazan Church and some more walking around until we were destroyed enough to come back home to sleep. After that... some dinner plus some club :D "Propaganda". Quite different from Sweden, where you can only enter if you are swedish... Here at the begining they didn't let us get inside... until they realized our faces of stupid people who don't understad anything (in russian, or course) and then they say... "How many? You can enter" :D The club was nice... techno music (puajj), with really nice "russian chics", as Tobias says. Mmm... talking about Tobias. Gossip!! Guess who was almost mading up with a nice girl... who ended up to be marriaged!! :S Of course Tobias is a gentleman and he didn't do anything else (Actually he was saying from the begining: "Should I trust russian girls?" Mmmm, maybe he was rigth doubting it, even if he refer to robery stuff...).

Well, nothing else at the moment... It's late and we are supposed to wake up early tomorrow to meet Tanja F.(Latvia) to give her the money of the train tickets to Eka. Baris also is coming tomorrow, but in the evening. So we will have a lot of fun tomorrow evening in Slava's birthday party with a lot of водка (in cyrillic, which I'm trying to learn to read... bfff quite difficult!!! :P).

More news soon!!!!!!