The Wurst of times

Laura and I have just spent a couple of days in Berlin catching up with a few friends. I'm sure she'll write some more about it, but I thought I'd just post a few photos. And now I can do it from the couch, hooray for the internet at home!

The Brandenburg Gate.

The Wurst place in town (*groan*)

And the currywurst Laura got from it.

Checkpoint Charlie

The metre of beer which we had at Georgebrauhaus

London

So after Moscow we flew direct to London and spent a week looking for a flat and getting bank accounts set up etc. Surprisingly it wasn't easy for two people from another country with no credit history and no jobs to secure a flat. Luckily my very kind Uncle said that he would be a guarantor for us so that we could get a place. We looked at a few places around London but we ended up applying for a 1 bedroom flat in Willesden Green (NW London). It's close to the tube station and it's a pretty quick journey into central London. And it's about 50 metres from the supermarket.

We didn't do too much sight seeing as it's pretty expensive to be a tourist in London. We're talking $50 to go to Madam Tussaud's, $25 to go to Westminster Abbey and God knows how much to go on the London Eye. And yes, i know the museums are free. But anyway we decided that we've got plenty of time to see the London sights so we just strolled around. Here's a pic of Nate with Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

Anyway it took a while to get everything sorted out as real estate agents here are just as useless as those in Perth so we had some time to kill. Nate mentioned in a previous post that we got some cheap bus tickets to Cardiff, so we headed off to Wales for a few days (which turned in to a week).

Wales

So we set off to Cardiff for a few days. We got 10 pound tickets from London and it was about a 3 hour coach trip which was nothing compared to some of our journeys so far.

Anyway we arrived in Cardiff and found our hostel a few minutes away from the bus station. Cardiff is a really easy city to sightsee in as it's small enough to walk around and see most of the sights. The first day we arrived it was raining and we just checked out the town and sampled some of the local produce. We went to he markets and I had a welsh cake (pictured below) which was kind of a cross between a scone and a pikelet, then covered in sugar. Anyway i took a photo (like i do) and some of the locals found it quite amusing.

Nathanael also sampled the local cider.

The second day we were there, the sun came out! So we spent the day checking out Cardiff castle which is right in the centre of Cardiff. Then we got a water taxi and went down to Cardiff Bay to enjoy the sunshine with the locals. As Dr Who is filmed in Cardiff we managed to check out the Dr Who exhibition (yes, we saw it Kay!). Then we went and had a cider and a chat with a few locals about the Olympics and drug cheats (Phelps!)

We also headed out to Caerphilly to check out their massive castle which the town is built around. We had lunch in a pub overlooking the castle which was pretty cool. Although i have to say, Wales seems to have more teenage mums than Rockingham!

So as the flat in London was taking a while we decided to hang around in Wales and hire a car so we could see a bit more of the countryside. We got to see quite a bit of West Wales and South Wales and also managed to see the ONLY Welsh distillery. We got chatting to the girl and guy working there and ended up staying ages talking about deadly snakes and spiders in Australia. They also gave Nathanael a taster of everything they had which included 4 whiskeys, a vodka, a gin and a liquer. Needless to say, he left quite happy.

We also managed to head to the Seaside and check out the locals enjoying the beach. It was raining, windy and no where near 20 degrees. BUT, it was summer, so no one was stopping the locals getting out on the beach. I realised that my parents must have put me through that kind of stuff when i lived in England as a child. We were concerned about children getting pneumonia! There was people in their bathers, eating icecream, yet others were dressed in long coats with scarves and hats. It was bizarre to say the least!

The Train and Russia

Ok so it was ages ago now, but once upon a time we were in Russia! Here's what happened...

Basically we got on the train from Mongolia for a four and a half day train journey. Yes, that's right 4.5 days! The train itself was better than the one from China because it had air-conditioning even if it was turned off and on randomly. However the food car was really expensive and quite dodgy so we pretty much had to provide for ourselves which wasn't much fun when you don't have a fridge or any cooking facilities. There was some stuff at the stations in shops and also a few Babushkas(below) selling random things like smoked fish, bread, fruit etc.

We amused ourselves with sleeping, vodka and talking about food we'd like to eat and finally arrived in Moscow. And we were just in time to experience the biggest down pour of rain i think I've ever seen or maybe the biggest downpour I've ever been stupid enough to go out in. Here's a pic of Paul and Chris enjoying our first taste of the European summer.

While we were in Moscow we checked out the usual suspects; The Kremlin, Red Square (pictured below) and the vodka museum which was pretty cool. Including a free shot of vodka which i had to sit out on due to the fact that i already felt like i was going to throw up.

We also went to the markets which is where Nate and I had the photo in the Russian hats. They had a dancing bear which was really sad.

Anyway i ended up being sick while we were there and spent two days in bed or walking around like i was dead. Not much fun and i feel like i didn't get enough time to really enjoy Moscow. Luckily we had booked for an extra two nights after the tour. Also the weather was horrendous and it poured with rain the whole time we were there so i also didn't get too many photos which I'm a bit disappointed about.

We did get a feel for the place and we managed to check out quite a few of the flash Metro stations. We also saw heaps of the local dogs which seem to just hang around the Metro. And of course women selling random things on the street. The women in the photo below is selling stethoscopes!

On the last day i was feeling much better so we went in search of the Moscow Cat Theatre. Anyway the guide we had told us that it would be open and that there was a show at 4pm, so we rocked up there to find out it was closed. We were disappointed, but we ended up walking for another 10 minutes and finding the hugest shopping mall I've ever seen (i think it was 6 levels). It had an ice rink at the top! Anyway, here's a pic. We ended up hanging there for ages and eating lots of delicious treats.

Moscow was a really expensive city to visit as everything was really pricey. I was whinging about having to pay $8 for a coffee but i just saw a friend on facebook say that he was in Moscow and wasn't too keen on forking out $20 for a side order of steamed rice at a Moscow restaurant. Enough said!

Our life in pictures. Well, some of it in Mongolia anyway.

This is a picture of the conservative party building in Ulaanbataar. Our guide showed us this on day one, cause it was near our hotel and on the way to dinner. Apparently some guys broke in, drank a lot of vodka from the mini-mart on the ground floor and then set it all on fire. There's a lot of political tension in Mongolia after the latest elections; we didn't tell our mothers, but there was a state of emergency declared for a few days, a couple of weeks before we left on our trip.

Did we mention it was a seven hour bus ride to our first ger camp? Well it was. This is an impromptu frisbee game at one of the toilet stops. Note the lack of toilets, other people, bitumen, buildings and civilisation in general. It's just rolling, grassy steppe under an enormous blue sky...

How's the serenity.

Laura found these urchins drinking beer in a cafe after we went out one night. That's not a joke. She wanted to take a photo of them, but these are street smart Mongolians we're talking about who realised that this was a slightly tipsy white woman with money in her pocket. We're still unsure about how much money Laura gave them (she claims it was the equivalent of twenty cents), but we're sure that it was enough to buy their next beer.

Has it been so long?

(Us with hats in Moscow)

Whew it's been a while since we made a post huh? Well we're in sunny, summery Cardiff right now (read that as 17-18 degrees and raining). How did we get here I hear you ask? Well, let me tell you.

We spent a week staying at a hotel in Kensington sorting out a place to live and touching base with our employers. We've put in an application for a little place in Willesden Green that is small, but adequate for our needs. However, the background checking etc. is taking a bit longer than we want it to, and we had to choose between staying in London until it was sorted, or getting out into other parts of Britain or Europe.

But why Cardiff of all places? Firstly we got coach tickets for 10 quid each (a bargain we thought), secondly we thought that we could probably do most of what there is to do in Cardiff in the couple of days that we'll be here. It still seems that way too...

London was pretty fantastic. We just relaxed, wandered around a bit, ate out a lot and saw a few of the tourist-y things. The weather though... that's been really unpredictable. Apparently London received half of it's average monthly rainfall in two hours yesterday. Aaah Summer! Though there was enough sunshine for a Pimm's in a pub just after lunch yesterday too, so it's not ALL bad.



N

Yet again another short post without pictures...

Hey all,

We arrived in Moscow yesterday afternoon after four nights on the train. Our hostel does in fact have internet, so I'm sure there'll be more posts soon.

The train was remarkably comfortable, though the food situation was rather dire. I am never eating 2-minute noodles again. We saw some beautiful countryside, including a few hours travelling next to Lake Baikal, which is definitely something that needs to be seen to be believed.

Moscow so far has been pretty awesome, though so much more expensive than we expected. Our breakfast coffees were about AU$7 each, though it was worth it for the first cup of good coffee since we left home.

We did all the touristy stuff today: the souvenir market, Red Square, the Kremlin and a Vodka museum. I have an awesome hat now, there will definitely be some photos of that soon. We didn't get to see Lenin though, he's only open weekdays and till 1pm Sundays, so we might have to go see him tomorrow.

Well, until we have some photos ready to post, I'll leave things there.

N.