All
Ben
James
Lavinia
TansyWelcome, guest
Mon 8th September 2008
One week in
I've woken up ridiculously early in the Moscow hostel we are staying in, so thought I'd take the opportunity of using the one computer while everyone else was still asleep.
One week in to our journey, we have seen and done so much, it's impossible to know where to begin.
My journey started last monday, when the trucker bringing Lavinia and James down from the North stopped at Leicester services and kindly picked me up too. A few lifts later we arrived in Wokingham. Ben's Mum provided us with a delicious last proper meal for a while and his Dad helped us on our way by giving us a lift to Dover. Here we split into pairs and James and Lavinia took the first lift onto the ferry. Ben and I soon followed and were in Calais by the early hours of Tuesday.
Our journey had little hitches and big hitches! The worst of which was an eight hour wait just outside Hamburg (which in itself was way out of our way) and the last few hours were spent nail bitingly waiting for one particular Polish trucker ,who we believed was going to Berlin, not knowing if he'd let us travel with him. This cloud of wait did indeed have a silver lining, however, as about 6 hours into our wait, who should pull up, but Gunter, our first ever lift in Europe when Lavinia and I hitched to the G8 last year. He hung out with us for an hour or so, making our wait a little more bearable! I also found some tansy at the side of the road which cheered me up. Beth's chocolate covered flapjack was also a source of cheer several times along the way!
However, despite/ due to all the hitches we made it to Warsaw pretty quickly and unbelievably arrived within about two hours of Lavinia and James. By the evening, we were on a coach to Vilnius.
Having reached Vilnius by early Thursday, we decided to spend a day looking round before taking a coach to Riga. Vilnius was lovely. The stunning architecture is mingled with an unpretentious tumbledown appearance and some artistic grafitti. In St Anne's, our favourite church (we saw a LOT), the shabbines of the place seemed to add a certain charm to the beauty of the architecture. This rough beauty pretty much sums up Vilnius. There also appeared to be some fairly interesting alternative culture, and we founf what appeared to be an artists collective, possibly a squat an the far side of the Vilnia.
Riga, where we stayed that night, was a complete contrast and felt much more like a bustliing capital city. It was also very beautiful but with much less raw charm. Ben and I spent a pleasant hour wandering through the lovely park along the side of the river which the Riga Opera House sits on the edge of and which contains a large Freedom Monument (with an amusingly synchronise double guard).
Our train to Moscow was another experience.It seemed to start badly as we anooyed several people by not understaning the seating. Once the train set off and we were in the right seats feeling unpopular, surrounded mostly by Russian and Latvian passangers with no English and feeling unpopular we were handed entry forms with the word Belarus in one corner. Things didn't seem good! However, it turned out that it was a standard form and that we were not going through Belarus, and after we'd offered cake around, the atmosphere with the other passengers eased! James and I were on top bunk which had no ledge to hold the slippery mattresses on and which felt a bit precarious but we all survived the night, and the alsations and border checks and arrived in Moscow saturday lunchtime.
Moscow is BIG in every sense and appears to be designed to dwarf the individual. As you walk round, there is massive building after massive building and it is easy to feel overwhelmed. However, we seem to have arrived in the middle of of Moscow's 861st anniversary celebrations and yesterday saw many bizarre and ridiculous performances, but also stumbled upon the Moscow Symphony Orchestra led we think by Andres Previn performing a free concert!
Finally, we are now staying in the Lenin Hostel which is on the fourth floor of what on arrival appeared to a rather dubious appartment block. The only indication that the hostel was within was a stencil on the wall reading 'LENIN dial 005'' When we entred and the door slammed behind us leaving us in a dim and grimy stairwell, we felt slightly nervous. The hostel is, however, comfortable and homely inside and is a good sanctuary to retreat to after days of massiveness.
We are due on a train to Ulan Bator on Wednesday so have a couple more days in Moscow. I think I have now written far too much, so sorry if I've bored you. I'll blog again when I have more stories!
by Tansy - get rss
name Adam
You are painting some wonderfully vivid pictures with your blog entries - no risk of boring us. It'll be interesting to know if you find a more human face of Moscow after a little more time. Looking forward to next instalments XXX
name Bill
Splendid. Loved it. Oh to be young again! The university hostels in Paris were the furthest we got in 1951 - and no hitching. Love, Bill & Barbara
name Alison
Feel like I'm getting a European education - I'd never even heard of Vilnius and Riga, but they sound and look lovely. The pictures are great. The train looks rather like a prison - hope it felt more comfortable than it looks! Thinking of you all. Mum xx
name Becca
Tansy! Lovely to see you're doing well, despite the hitches! Britain isn't doing much exciting right now (apart from failing financially) so its nice to hear about your adventures. I'm currently at work listening to all the ladies gossiping in my office. Lots of love xx
name Mel
Hey miss tansy! just got your b-day card, it's lovely, thank you so much darling... guess you don't have much internet access atm but can't wait to hear the rest of your incredible stories. Lots of love from sunny (Oh yes!!!) bradford
name Welmoed
Hanburg doesn't seem to be hitchhike-heaven haha, I got stuck around there too some years ago! The main roundabout seems to be the góód place to hitch, but before we got there...
