Budapest

The journey to Budapest started with a 7 hour bus ride from Krakow. As we were told this is the “better” option as compared to the train. Little did we know we had been living the life of luxury on previous bus rides. We thought standard would be a bathroom, the ability to put your bags below for free, and ample leg room. As we loaded on the bus and found to our horror none of the above came standard, our anxiety levels raised. What kind of shady bus company were we using? The calm Polish lady sitting next to us reassured us that although this bus was not good it was “not so bad.” Chris had to restrain himself from following up with, What would be SO bad? In the end we made it safely and the nicest Polish lady in the world bought us two train tickets to get to our accommodation. The endless goodwill in the world is amazing.

View of the city at sunset

First thing we learned in Budapest was that we said ‘Budapest’ incorrectly. It is pronounced ‘Buda pesh’ and not ‘Buda pest’. However, while in this wonderful city, Chris was also told ‘I like your English’. The man from the little shop was referring to his American accent… and from our travels Chris must have a strong American accent because he often gets similar comments.

St Stephens Basilica

Rubbing this guys belly is good luck. Chris is comparing belly sizes.

Royal castle

Parliament

City view from the Royal Castle

Day one (as in most cities) resulted in us participating in the free walking tour. The tour started on the ‘Pest’ side of the Danube river or the East side and finished on the ‘Buda’ or West side of the city. The highlights of the tour, included St Steven’s Basilica and climbing to the Royal Castle. We also sought ought the number one bar in the world but unfortunately it was closed. We had dinner at a local hungarian restaurant with Goulash and Palinkas a sweet brandy with a 40% alcohol content. More properly described as rubbing alcohol. One was enough.

Our free Palinkas shot

Katherine decided that our second day in the city was going to be relaxing vacation day; also claiming her legs needed a rest from our average walking bouts of 5-8 hours. As such, we went to the Hungarian baths. Reading a guide book on the proper bathing experience, we first relaxed in the hot thermal pools. We then submerged our entire body into an ice cold pool. Which was really more like a quick run in and out, to which the old women neck deep in the zero degree water just laughed. From the cold pool, we sweated it out in the sauna. There were 3 different levels of saunas from comfortable to uncomfortable to on fire. From extreme heat, we took a cold shower and proceeded into the steam room. This room was a San Fransico Fog meets Sahara desert, we didn’t last very long before deciding our skin might melt. Another cold shower and back into the thermal pools. One round of torture wasn’t enough so we repeated the process again. After that we decided to spend the remainder of the morning in the thermal pools. The issue with the Hungarian baths are the signs, we had no clue where we were going… which often resulted in walking into the wrong locker room! The signs were so sparse that Katherine had to stop two elderly Finnish women from walking out of the women’s locker room completely nude, having not realized this was a mixed bath house and they need to put on swimsuits!

Heading to the Gellert bath house (hotel & bath house in the background). Chris rocking his Aussie swim trunks.

Central market

For our relaxing afternoon, we went to the Hungarian opera. Another event in which English translation would have been helpful. Despite not understanding any of the play, we felt very cultured and were pleased with the show. The opera in Hungry is extremely cheep, our seats were in the 14th row and only cost $8 each!

Our last day in Budapest, we decided to venture out of the main city to walk around the city park and other districts. We also walked across to an island park that had a running circuit of 3.2 miles.

Another outlook over the city

Budapest is a post communist country, finding this topic fascinating we took a communist tour. The insights into the life of the Hungarian people during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s were eye opening. We learned there is quite a bit of animosity between the Hungarian people and whether the post WWII time was a liberation or an occupation.

London

The day starts early 6:30. Unfortunately not early enough as our plane takes off in 10 minutes and we have over slept! Luckily for a small fee we were able to get on a later flight. This was an ominous beginning to the day.

As we approach our descent into London the pilot comes on over the PA system and says “It 6 degrees outside, cold, rainy and generally miserable. Enjoy your stay in London.”

Meeting up our friend and host Kristal, we embraced the Thursday night with local pub food and typical British style beer served slightly warm. Chris was also introduced to his first speak easy experience and lavishly prepared cocktails. It was a wonderful night out with our friend (and much need after the morning’s debacle)!

Friday we are off to see the city with our first stop being Trafalgar Square. The highlight of the square is a display for the Champions league finals, which were being held in London that weekend… if we were German, we would have bought tickets, but at the current scalper rate of 1,400 pounds we opted out of our soccer finals experience.

As the pilot had forwarned, it was cold and rainy. This led to a quick walk/run to Buckingham Palace before catching a bus to Stonehenge. Our planned six hour day trip excurision turned into seven hours due to Labour day weekend traffic. As such, we ended up on another bus without a bathroom. There is something about being told you are not allowed to go to the bathroom which makes you really want to go! On a positive note, the rain subsided long enough for us to walk around the rocks of Stonehenge. We got a few pictures and listened to the audio tour. Our thanks to the rain gods.

Friday night we had dinner with old PwC friends. To think that we could be in another city across the world to have dinner with five former colleges and friends was amazing and left us, yet again, realizing how truly blessed we are.

Top row from left: Anthony, PwC Melbourne and London; Kristal, PwC Denver and London; Harry, PwC Melbourne
Bottom row from left: Chris; Nick, PwC Denver and Melbourne; Katherine

The night turned into a night of cocktails, exclusive member’s only bars and London cab rides. We had a great time reconnecting with friends and wish all of our friends only the best in the upcoming year. Hopefully, we can do it all again someday!

Other highlights of the weekend: Kristal’s walking tour, fabulous sunny Saturday weather, laughing with Kristal’s roommates, watching the Champion’s league final and riding the tube.

Globe Theatre

Bar at which Shakespeare and Charles Dickens drank (and now also Chris and Katherine for the record books) – we felt very cultured

View from tower bridge of the Gerkin

Walking the city with Kristal and her roommates, Matt and Ali. It was a beautiful day in London!

Tower bridge

This building is called the Shard because it looks like broken glass at the top. The building is relatively new, one or two years old.

Krakow

Krakow the mecca of Poland and according to guide books the number one destination for anyone visiting Poland. Katherine and Chris hadn’t done to much research before arriving and would soon discover that Poland was like an onion with all of its layers.

Initially we thought we were staying in a reputable hostel in the centre of the city with a number of good reviews. Upon arrival we found that our place of residence for the next 3 nights was roughly 30 minutes outside city centre, directly above a tram line which meant sleeping hours were only between 1 – 5am when the tram stopped running. Otherwise it sounded like the tram might literally come through your window. There was no need for us to use the address on the reservation (we tried that address, the woman in the apartment wanted nothing to do with us), we were staying two apartments down from the email confirmed address . We were guided by a random man that met us in the street and spoke broken english. After that debacle, only one thing could be in order and that was a drink. Krakow city is surrounded by a river and the weather was gorgeous. We sat out on a boat, soaked up the sun and had a few cheaky pints.

The door to our apartment. Correction, door to our apartment building, we were three floors up some broken wooden steps. Just behind Chris’ head, whom is taking the picture, is the tram stop. It was that close!

While in Krakow, we tried to book an Aushwitz tour for the following day. The website was a little hard to navigate and we needed a phone. Luckily, Katherine found the company address although oddly it didn’t seem like they wanted customers to come to this address. Our ipad died shortly later so we decided we would walk to the addess in the morning and try to show up for the tour. The rest of the night was spent walking through the Old Jewish Quarter where a number of scenes from Schindler’s list were shot. More to come on this later…

An early start to the next day as we are out of the house by 7:15. Katherine or as Chris likes to call her Magellan leads us directly to the suburb and street. We are walking through industrial Krakow at about 8:15. The first tour departure is at 8:30. We start to get a little worried. We spotted two white vans with the name of the company but where is the office??? So we keep walking. Eventually Chris decides to ask some one. (Side note this is the 4th stranger that has been asked on the trip to borrow a cell phone and success rate is riding high at 100%). He calls up the company. Then tells us in broken english some dodgy directions to walk back towards a building. We decide to head in that direction but linger near the vans and wait for someone to show up. To our luck Pete (later to be our Polish Driver) sorts us out with two seats and a student discount!

Aushwitchz was a sobering experince of the atrocities that occured during WWII. The were over 1.3M people killed. We saw the living condition or lack there of, the gas chambers, and heard stories of the people that were there. The Polish president was also there that day, so parts of the museum were closed due to his presence.

Auswitch-Birkenau main entrance, notice that the railroad tracks come directly into the camp location. The Jewish people were transported into the camp and literally directed into the gas chamber. They were told they were going to take a shower.

Old railroad car used to transport people into camp. This car was crammed with up to 80 people. The people were transported for miles without food or facilities.

For those of you that don’t know, Katherine chose Maximilion Kolbe as her confirmation saint (also how she derived her high school nickname of Kolbe). During our tour of Auswitch, Katherine was able to see the cell in which Maximilion Kolbe died, cell #18 of Block 11. Maximilion Kolbe volunteered to die in the place of a stranger. He was later canonized a saint by Pope John Paul II.

After we returned we were lucky enough to be in Krakow for Night at the Mueseum where all museums are free and open till 2am. The atmosphere was electric. Unfortunately we were with our thousand best friends and lines were a two hour minimum wait. Where is Waldo (Chris) can you spot him?

Waiting in line for the night of museums.

The next day we did two walking tours. The first one was of the old quarter. Opposite to Warsaw, Krakow was left nearly untouch during WWII and therefore still has a number of original buildings.

Krakow’s barbican that was never used for fending off any battles.

There was also a huge castle in the old town that had a number of different architecture periods. It was interesting to see how it changed through time.

Chris showing you this clock tower in the old town leans, it’s structural frame shifted due to strong winds over the years.

Then it was on to the Jewish quarter. The funniest part about the Jewish quarter is it used to be a seedy neighborhood until the movie Schindlers List. After the movie everyone wanted to see where the movie was filmed and so once the tourists started coming the Polish government cleaned up the neighborhood. The other funny thing about the movie is the Jewish quarter actually has a number of very historical places to see but the actual scenes in the film are not historical at all. The guide also added some interesting insight into Schindler and questioned if he is really the hero he is portrayed to be.

The most fascinating part of Poland was talking to the people. The vast majority do not want to take the European currency. The average salary that the people were quoting us is a person would be doing well to make $12,000 USD a year. Since WWII, this has been the longest time of peace in the Poland’s history since the Middle Ages. Since the change from communism in the 1990’s the economy has been improving.

These pretzel stands were all around Krakow, we had three in one day! We tried the cheese and the sesame.

Warsaw

As we get off the bus, in route to our hostel, Chris does a double take and asks where are we???

Mike Tyson the spokesperson for a Polish energy drink. Correction, spokesperson for the #1 Polish energy drink. Immediately two thoughts come to Chris’ head: 1) Could we meet Mike Tyson? 2) Where can I buy this energy drink? Unfortunately we were not able to meet Mike in Warsaw or as Katherine puts it “Why would I want to waste my time.” Thought number two was a success!!!

If people are interested in seeing some comical Mike Tyson commercials I recommend you tubing Mike Tyson Black Energy!

Our first day took us to the Chopin Museum with free entry every Tuesday. Not knowing much about Chopin, other than his musical genius, we learned Chopin begin writing compositions at the age of seven! We also learned he had several love affairs during his short life of 39 years. He was born in Poland but spent much of his life in France. The museum was well laid out with interactive screens, music rooms where you could sit down and listen, a twister game to Chopin music, and a grand piano that you could pick up Chopin music place on the piano and it would start playing.

Next we were off to find Polish food, landing on a touristy terrace pub in the Old Town square.

Chris’ stein of beer. He thought he got the happy hour special later to realize they have that special every day!

Katherine’s miniature beer mixed with cranberry juice.

Another must for anyone going to Warsaw is the Museum of Polish Uprising. Surprisingly the guide books and tour maps only giving passing mention of the museum. Upon talking to any local in the city they describe this as the best museum in the city. As we enter the museum with high expectations the room is dark, people are screaming and it sounds like bombs are dropping. You feel like you are in the middle of the war and should immediately seek shelter. The pictures and descriptions were informative. Poland has an interesting take on the war where they were basically screwed from both sides. Initially the Nazi’s took them over from the West but they also had the Russians from the East. This made becoming independent impossible and left them really deciding between the lesser of two evils.

A recreation of the sewage tunnel used by the polish people for tactical movement during the war.

Guns used during the war.

Yet again we capitalized on the free city tour (trend in capitalizing on the ‘free’ events – very Chris). On the tour, we learned to have a Polish monument, it is a must to have a mustache and sword.

Katherine stepping into the Old Town, the line on the ground shows where the Old Town wall use to stand.

Chris showing you his potential for a killer mustache.

Despite the devastation to Warsaw during WWII, Warsaw’s Old Town was rebuilt by 1953.

Another jetstar picture in Old Town (clearly it’s our thing).

A special treat as part of our free tour was a lesson on vodka drinking. The Polish claim that vodka was created in Poland and not Russia. It is there national drink. We were also given the privilege of taking a free vodka shot.

Our tour guide, whom was a skinny blonde, told us she drank a liter of vodka on her wedding night! Then still got a coffee at 7am in town square before going to bed.

Picture of Polish war planes

Poland’s Air Force One

Last stop was Chopin’s statue in the botantical gardens. Note: before setting out for sights on a map one should always refer to the scale. Chris assured Katherine the site was close and walkable. Technically it was walkable, it just took an hour… well worth the walk as we are sure you will agree from the pictures below:

Poland’s number 1 traditional food is the pierogi. So when in Poland, we ordered them steamed, fried, with meat, with cheese, with spinach, lentil, with salmon, and a variation of combinations above. Chris had one question for the waitress. The number one selling pierogi at the restaurant was called the Russian pierogi. Now why is the number one Polish pierogi Russian? After a lengthy consultation with the rest of her staff this mystery remains unsolved.

Last on the list before we left was a picture with one of the many buildings built by Stalin during the war. It is now called the Palace of Culture and Science. It was initially considered a very ugly building and not liked but the Polish people have come around and now enjoy using the building as a point of reference as it is the tallest building in the old city.

Latvia & Lithuania

Who would have thought almost three years later we would be meeting up with a good friend in Riga, Latvia? It was great to see a familiar face in a foreign place. We spent the first night catching up with traditional cuisine, Pizza Hut Pizza, which was the only shop open at 12:30 upon our arrival.

The next day started with a tour of the city. Latvia was probably the poorest of the three Baltic countries. As we would later learn one of the main reasons is so many of the young talented people are leaving the country for more prosperous options abroad. Latvia’s remaining population is older and not as technology savy making it difficult for them to obtain jobs.

Katherine in the flower section of the local market. In Baltic nations if you are ever invited to dinner remember to bring an odd number of flowers as it is good luck.

Jetstarring another town square. The tour guide made fun of Chris for doing this.

Don’t think this car is passing emissions standards.

When Latvia first became a city there was an enormous problem with rats. So to solve that problem they had city cats. Now there is a large ferrel cat population. Some say they still keep the cats as companions for the older women that no longer have husbands. Our tour guide explained that the average Latvian woman lives to 75, while the average man lives only into his 60’s. This is a picture of a cat house in the Old Town.

During the Cold War this was a clandestine memorial covered with soviet propganda. At the end of the Cold War the posters were removed to reveal this balcony, representing all of the soldiers whom had fought against the soviets.

The local PwC building… looking good in the heart of the old city.

The narrowest street in Latvia. The two girls are almost able to touch both ends.

After an action packed weekend Kristal has to head back to the real world in London and Katherine and Chris are on a bus ride to Vilnius the capital of Lithuania.

Vilnius is a budding metropolis of six hundred thousand people. The sun has parted through the clouds on arrival and it is going to be a glorious day. Chris convinces Katherine we don’t need a map to find our accommodation but can just start walking and we will find it. Twenty minutes later and no accommodation in site, Chris concedes maybe it is a good idea to ask information for directions. In Chris’ defense from tourist information we were only five minutes from the hostel.

*Note anyone going to Lithuania, all museums are closed on Mondays. We got some great shots of the outside. A stark difference we noticed in the Baltic countries from Russia was the increased availability and reduced prices of fruits and vegetables. Our first meal was in a vegetarian place with a civic mission to rehabilitate former drug attics. The food was fresh and reminded us of Melbourne. We then went for a walk past the president’s palace. He didn’t invite us in for a drink 😦

President’s palace

Next we climbed to the top of a Gediminas tower.

View from the top


This is a picture of the gates of dawn, one of the most important religious monuments in Lithuania. There is a tiny chapel with an oil painting of the Virgin Mary that is believed to have miraculous powers.

We believe this is the famous oil painting, there was no one around to ask, but it was the main picture in front of the alter.


Love Locks

Chris is standing in the square where an estimated two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed a continuous human chain stretching across 650km and the three Baltic countries in protest against the Soviet occupation.

Estonia

After a short two hour ferry ride we arrived in Tallinn, Estonia. The port is very close to the old town about a 10 minute walk by foot. A couple of fun Estonia facts are the creators of Skype and Kazaa are both from Estonia. They recently switched to the Euro, and are a business centric city trying to make up for lost time. Our place in Estonia was in the center of old town so once we set our bags down we headed to the lovely little pub for a bit to eat.

The food was cheap, two euros for Elk soup, and one euro for reindeer pie. We ate here more than once.

I can’t believe someone from Jetstar hasn’t contacted us about a job in advertising.

The next we headed to the highest church in the city for the best view. This was also a former KGB lookout during the Cold War. The crystal clear day made the city look stunning although the shaky ledge made both Katherine and Chris a little uneasy so only a couple quick pictures were taken.

Don’t worry the ticket lady told us if you get tired climbing the 258 stairs there is a resting point half way.

This is one of the many beautiful churches. Our tour guide told us that less than 20% of Estonians are religious as they were conquered so many time with each conquering group bringing a new religion; as such, the people of Estonia are now mostly atheist. We have seen several groups of Mormons on this trip, so it seems the days of converting people are not over!

Next stop after Tallinn, was Tartu further inland and a college town. The feel seemed similar to Boulder. A little more hippie a little less business… as we were exploring the city Chris got suckered into the botanical gardens. The ticket lady said they were “very beautiful” so when in Rome or Tartu we paid the entrance fee and went in. We don’t want to disparage the botanical gardens so we have attached a picture and will let you be the judge.

Famous speculative statue in Tartu, of Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde (literary writers) sitting on a bench together. Both men of the same generation but it is unclear whether they knew each other. Chris considers the topic with them.

Bridge in Tartu, which the University students try to walk across the arch. Legend is if you make it across the arch, you will be accepted into the University. I guess this is a popular challenge so it is heavily monitored by the Tartu police. Katherine would not let Chris have a go.

Standard prisoner rations from the KGB during the Cold War.

Helsinki

Helsinki was change back to something more familiar. There was a spirit in the air that just seemed different. Also to our surprise nearly everyone spoke English. That made navigating the city easier and resulted in fewer wrong turns. The main attraction in Helsinki is an old fortress just off the coast that was used to protect the town. The history of Helsinki is that the city was created to compete with Tallin, Estonia across the Bay. This required moving the capital from Tarku, Finland to that city’s demise. The fortress was quite large and we had a chamber of commerce day out on the island for exploration.

We also ventured through the city’s biggest Cathedral and town square.

Finland was very proud of hosting the hockey world championships while we were there. We were thinking of going to a game but at a price of greater than 100 euro it was hard to justify. Instead we settled for the second best thing: a local pub and traditional grub. I had the lockland salmon soup. Katherine had the hearty meat balls and potatoes.

Katherine and Chris in traditional Finnish attire.

The future constructions workers of Finland. This is actually really cute, all of the school children had to wear these bight colored vests.

All the Finnish souvenirs we didn’t buy. We still got the shot!

Katherine along the beautiful coastline before getting on the Ferry to Tallinn.

Chris in front of the main Church in central Helsinki.

Katherine with one of the fort cannons.

Chris with an original submarine that is now a museum.

Fortress wall’s and main gate of the fort.

Saint Petersburg

Booking our room through Airbnb, Katherine had hoped this option was cheaper than a hotel, but safer than Couchsurfing.com. Needless to say, this option was more in line with Couchsurfing than a cheap apartment room. Basically we paid a Russian couple to sleep in their apartment rather than sleep in someone’s apartment for free. Katherine was initially creeped out, but later learned the couple hosting us, Oleg and Tatiana, were two friendly Hookah smoking hippies. They even cooked us an Orthodox Easter lunch. Chris would also like to note that they had a sauna in their bathroom, which he considered made them ‘legit’ from the start.

The building you walk through to get to the door of our host’s apartment. Note the broken windows – Katherine asked Oleg (google translate) if the neighborhood was safe.

Easter lunch with Oleg and Tatiana. Who thinks Oleg could be in the KGB? Tradition is to break your hard boiled egg against that of another person. The person’s egg which does not break has his wish come true. We also had traditional Easter cake, similar to a pastry cake with raisins and frosting – yum!

Day one we were off to our free walking tour of city. During the tour, we reacquainted with a friend from our hostel in Moscow, Maurico, from Merida, Mexico. Maurico had some of the funniest stories we have ever heard. He was doing a 3 month internship in Siberia and on Holiday during the long Russian break. Maurico was staying with a Russian girl in St. Pete who ended up showing us around for the next two days. It was the best tour guide ever. Here are some of the highlights:

Here is the arch way as you enter the central square in Saint Petersburg.

Picture in front of the the Hermitage, the second largest museum behind the Louvre. If you looked at each piece in the Hermitage for 2 minutes it would take 10 years to look at all the pieces! We saw only the highlights (Picasso, Monet, etc)

St. Issac’s cathedral – Katherine showing you it is cold. We were a little underdressed for Russia, but what you see is all of the warm clothing we packed! We began to appreciate why the Russian diet consists of a lot of tea and soup.

The view from the top of St. Issac’s cathedral.

Here is Peter and Paul’s Fortress from across the river.

Standing on top of the Peter and Paul Fortress wall look back into the church. After taking this picture and turning directly to our right, we could see these people sun bathing along the fortress wall. Note that in the previous picture Katherine is in a turtleneck! It was not warm.

They look tan…

Here are pictures of the famous Church of Spilled Blood. The inside is decorated entirely with Mosaics and is absolutely stunning.

There is miniature replica of the city which shows all the key sites which we thoughts was cool. Chris in front of the miniature Church of Spilled Blood.

Also a MUST is a shot of Vodka in the oldest Vodka bar in the world.

Chris taking shots with Maurico. Shot was followed with a salted pickle – not so yum.

The last day in St. Pete we ventured out to a town called Peterhof. It is about an hour and a half by metro, train, and then bus. Or 30 minutes by speed boat. We decided to take the metro/train/bus option out and the boat back. In Peterhof is a beautiful Grand Palace with fountains galore. As we were exploring we started to notice an ominous rain cloud. We made an executive decision to skip the last palace and head for the boat. Chris was positive the boat company would take credit card as we had less than 10 rubles at this point. As we arrived at the counter we learn the tickets are cash only and no ATM in site. At this point it is an absolute down pour. Chris looks around and decides the group of 3 Asians are his best bet at negotiating a short term loan with zero percent interest. What are the chances they speak perfect English? After a little convincing the funding is received. Later we learn that the boy is from Kazakhstan and works at KPMG. He loves America and his dream is to move to LA some day. Would you lend a bearded backpacker $40?

Fountains at Peterhof

Rubbing this guys foot is good luck!

Saint Petersburg’s metros are deep below the city as Saint Petersburg was built on a swamp. The escalators go down for ages.

Katherine showing off her dance moves in front of one of famous ballet theaters.

Count down to the Winter Olympics

Our time in Russia has come to an end. It was an enormous country with a lot to offer. The culture and life style are far different from that in America and fun to immerse ourselves in. The long summer days are by far the best time to go in our opinion. Although the language barrier was challenging there were countless people that went out of there way to help us. So far throughout the trip we have been in awe of the number wonderful people we have met that have been willing to help complete strangers expecting nothing in return.

Moscow

Waiting in the airport headed to Moscow I kept wondering who would be on our direct flight from Hanoi; as the flight is relatively expensive and most Vietnamese people do not have much money. As we board there were 150-200 Vietnamese people getting on as well. During the flight we started to notice these people were acting a little different, finally concluding it was their first time flying. There were a couple of funny moments during the flight. First they would not lock the bathroom when they used the toilets. This lead to lots of confusion and people pushing the door in on them and conversely them peeing in the dark. This had one other adverse side affect, sorry ladies but a man has only average aim with the light on so turning it off is like playing a game of hide and seek. Finally the last thing (I promise) Vietnamese still generally do not use western toilets so they stand on the toilet seat instead of sit which made the toilet seat covered in shoe prints. Let just say it was a LONG 12 hour flight. Everyone clapped when we landed, which did add a nice touch.

Moscow is know for wonderful public transportation and it lived up to it. The train stations were immaculate with chandlers hanging from the ceiling and the floors covered with marble. The trains in the city came every two minutes. The cost was cheap at a dollar per ride. So we were able to get to our accommodation easily.

The next day we set out to find a free walking tour that started at 10:45. If you haven’t heard about these they have them in most big European cities and they show you around the city working on tips. We have had some great guides and learned some really interesting facts. It is a great way to orient yourself with the city. Here are pictures of the highlights.

St Basill Cathedral

Red square set up for the May 9 ceremonies, the day Russians consider the end of WWII

We saw the changing of the guards. The guards at the Kremlin have to march bringing their legs to a ninety degree angle. (We think this guy has a little work to do.)

After the tour we went into the Kremlin and specifically the armoury to look at the faberge eggs (sorry no cameras allowed).

This bell broke before it was ever rung : (

Picture of one of many of the churches within the Kremlin

haha, yes we did!

We found this in a souvenir store, can you believe this women wanted $30 for Cody Hawkins?

Although most of you may not recognize this church this is where the famous pussy riots concert took place. There is still quite a bit of debate on the treatment of the band and while we were here one of the band members was denied early release from prison.

The next day we decided to go to Suzdal, one of the Golden Ring towns around Russia, to see the Russian countryside. There are a couple of things we failed to consider. First we decided to catch a bus. Moscow traffic is TERRIBLE. At 10:30 Tuesday morning the highway looks like a parking lot. So a 3 hour bus ride turns into 5 and a half hours. Surely there must be a bathroom on the bus. Think again…. Further thinking that going to Suzdal would be a tourist place there would be someone that speaks English on the bus or help us get off. First person Chris attempts to be friend the bus driver. A large burly man, with a typical Russian mustache. He just shakes his head and repeats “Net” meaning No. Next person is the girl in the front seat. She communicates with the bus driver who continues to shake his head but says she will help us when our stop comes. As we get closer to the stop, mind you 5 hours into the bus ride, our helpful russian girl is snoring like a freight train. Luckily another very friendly woman helps us (all communication through hand signals) and we arrived in Suzdal.

Hostel in Suzdal

Monastery in Suzdal – we were lucky enough to hear the priests sing in the church, it was peaceful and surreal to be in this quaint little church listening to the harmony of their voices.

Drinking Medovuha, a honey mead beer, which is a traditional Russian drink

Beautiful winter shoes for sale in the town square

Kremlin in Suzdal

One of the first Russian churches made of wood

On our return trip from Suzdal to Moscow, we decide to take the train instead of the bus which was a much better decision.

Fun fact we learned that May 1-9 are holidays in Russia. So traveling across the country is expensive and generally sold out. Therefore the only reasonable train from Moscow to Saint Petersburg was a 12 hour sleeper train. A normal speed train takes roughly four hours. Although transport around Moscow is elegant this train wasn’t quite as classy. Katherine didn’t even want to use the “clean” bathroom when we first got on the train.

Chris making his bed on the train. Katherine’s bed is on top and the bed Chris is sitting on belongs to our cabin partners (they seemed nice, no English).

Picture of a bunker used by the Russians to hide during WWII, this was spotted during a train stop between Moscow and Saint Petersburg.