The Trans Siberian!

It is now day 4 of 5 of the long crawl across Russia from Moscow to Irkutsk. The train is faster than I expected, and the same carriages and class as we had to Moscow. However as we are travelling with the Vodkatrain group, time is travelling very quickly.

We have got to know a few people in our carriage; at first the guard lady liked us and was quite accommodating, however on the second day of our trip we ventured out to the restaurant carriage for the second time to meet a nice guy called Italia. He says very generous and bought us a bottle of vodka. So as etiquette is in this country, we had to buy one in return. Instead of refusing the drink, I thought it was etiquette also to accept the drink too. Oh dear! Apparently that's not the case! I ended up quite ill as did another girl in our group who was a bit loud and the guard lady then did not approve of us at all! We tried in vain win her back but yesterday she had another reason to be annoyed at us. One of the group brought a gas meter key because Vodkatrain suggested we get one for locking out rooms. Well! Someone unlocked the toilet during a stationary stop and she was convinced it was us but I'm certain none of us would do that but she didn't believe us. She didn't like us having a key. Oh dear!

On the positives we have stopped at a few stations for 50 mins each and had a wander outside the station. The are some remote stations; ... Byshev was 100km from Kazakhstan and consisted of an amazing church, a park and a supermarket! And Novosibirs was a lot bigger than I expected.

The landscape had changed finally after Novosibirs to some hills and more dense forest which I hope in turn will become mountains as we approach Lake Baikal. One more night to go! The rumble of the tracks is becoming a comfort.

St Petersburg to Moscow

We decided to buy a cheap ticket to Moscow because it was only a third of the price and we are trying to save money!

Well! I'm not sure if that was a good idea! The train is really old, not that I mind that so much, but the train has stopped twice so far too wait for another train to go first. Also people smoke in the carriages sometimes! We have cabins for 4 people and the are 4 beds because the train travels for 2 days and goes all the way to Новороссийск, that's a long way! But we only travel for the day on this one. There is a lady going all the way in our cabin - Tania,  a lady of 65 - she is very friendly!

The are a few kids, quite loud! The cabins themselves are pretty old but it's a better size than the overnight sleeper train from the Netherlands to Denmark as there are only 4 per cabin.

People in the cabin are friendly! We have talked quite a bit and another girl talked to us as well who lives in Moscow. Some men walk around without any tops, and let's just say I'm not quite sure why but you won't see any pictures here!

They have old style toilets with no running water. Funnily enough you can get boiling water for tea as much as you like! Good thing I brought tea bags :)

The carriage is not in a good way, curtain brackets have screws loose, poles falling down, the electric power points are sparse and they are too loose so you have to wiggle it until it works! On the plus side a guy came around and vacuumed our room and the corridors and also sprayed fragrance in the corridors!

But it's a nice experience to travel with the locals and the 10 hour journey hasn't been all that boring at all! Almost at Moscow!

Sweden to Russia

We opted for the ferry to get from Stockholm to St Petersburg. It was to take 2 nights and I've day, however I did not realise that the day was spent on land in Estonia! It was a pleasant surprise!

The ferry has a few restaurants, a couple of bars, a cafe and a casino area but it is by no means luxurious! I paid extra for an A class room which was the 4 out of 6 classes and it is of much lower quality than Stenaline! I think it's a much older ship. It's all good fun though, there is enough for us to do and it is still dusk at midnight this time of year with white nights. It's quite amazing! We also had the full moon last night too.

Docking into St Petersburg this morning...

Eurovision Final in Malmö, Sweden

The Eurovision Final was an experience in itself! I - unfortunately - did not have tickets to the main event in the arena as the tickets sold out too quickly so I only got tickets to the Semi Final 2. So we had to either watch it on tv and be boring, or find a public venue that showed the event on live TV which we did!

There were two major public screenings, one was at the Eurovision Village and the other was at the Folketspark in the South of Malmö;. This had entertainment, dancing, a quiz and Swedish karaoke!

I got in touch with some couchsurfers who organised a picnic spot to share which was lovely! We meet some really nice people and also others who we were sitting next to as well, most people were Swedish and a few other nationalities. Quite a few Brits supporting Britain!

One of the CS group brought some skin crayons to draw flags on ourselves, it was fun being patriotic!

It became busier and more packed at it grew closer to 9pm when it was due to start and people were getting more and more desperate for spots close to the TV screen. Lots very very rude too and it was quite ridiculous!

Finally the Eurovision Song Contest began! All 26 countries performed, more than I remember than last year so it took a while!

For the first 5 songs the bass was ridiculously loud and people were yelling in Swedish an apparently popular please that meant 'turn down the bass' which they fixed after the fifth song!

These ones I really liked;

Belgium
Estonia
Malta
Russia
Germany
Sweden
Denmark
Iceland
Ukraine

My favourite counties were Iceland, Sweden (I am probably biased as is hard not to be influenced by all the Swedes surrounding us!) and Belgium.

Voting took a long time but I was very impressed by all the Swedes supporting Denmark when they started getting ahead with the points. They were so excited about it, I know it only takes 20 mins to get from Malmö to Denmark on the train but I didn't realise the two countries were so respectful and supportive! It is wonderful to see!

We didn't leave the park until 1am but there were plenty of trains back to Lund where we are staying.

Eurovision was created to break down social barriers between European counties, and I am so moved and humbled to actually experience this first hand. It is alive and well! Long live Eurovision!

Eurovision semi final 2, 2013

Last night I attended the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) Semi Final 2 of 2013; it was held in Malmö, Sweden.

After all these years of watching Eurovision (about 22 years?) I finally attended a Eurovision performance! I must say that I was incredibly impressed with the smoothness of the live tv broadcast and the transitions of the little videos inbetween.  As you can see from the photo below, it takes a lot of computers to make it all work so well!

Flavoured water was provided in little cartons for free, and recycle boxes were provided. I am getting the feeling that Sweden is very modern in its ways than I did not anticipate. 

The entertainment before the show was great, it wasn't televised but there were roller bladers with some amazing projections of paint blotches on the floor with their jumps! It was very modern and cool!

Most of the songs featured a projected backdrop that complemented the song,  however after seeing the tv broadcast today, a lot of it was missed on tv.

There were a few songs of the 17 that I really liked, namely Iceland, Israel and Switzerland.  However, only one of my favourite three made it through to the final, so I was actually very disappointed with the result!!

The viewing was very enlightening though of how the show functions and how they make the show live. It was quite surreal to really be there! Such fun!

Copenhagen to Malmö, Sweden

Arrived in Sweden by train from Copenhagen under the sea and over a bridge. A very quick trip to Lund where we are staying, only 40 mins! Lund is really nice, a good feel! I found lots of vegan stuff in the supermarket, yippee!!

Denmark

Denmark has been very enjoyable! This is my second visit to this old city. For an old city they also have electric car chargers in the street!

We have been to the Frederiksberg Gardens and Sønder marken gardens, the Aquarium in Kastrup, the Hans Christian Andersen museum, gone on a boat tour and for our last day we went to the renowned Tivoli Gardens - a theme park and entertainment venue in the centre of town. We went on a lot of rides! It was lots of fun! Tomorrow morning we leave for Malmö, Sweden.

Amsterdam to Copenhagen

Amsterdam was great! We went to the Bols Museum (again!) and also to see a Dutch indie band; the Handsome Poets. They were really good, they sing in English but the Dutch crowd qseems to be taking on the indie scene well! It was a lot of fun.

Today we spent the day in Utrecht which was a lovely city.

So it has been a dream of mine for quite some time to travel in a train carriage with beds and a side corridor! Today I got my wish :) We are in a 6 bed cabin but it's quite small. Also climbed up the ladder and somehow fell down due to the ladder not being far or enough!! But I'm ok! We will be on the train for over 14 hours.

London to Beijing

So I've been in the UK for six days, hopefully it's the busiest I'll be because I'm tired of running around doing errands like getting my Chinese visa! It's been great though, catching up with old friends, and seeing the city that used to be my home, as well as seeing the lovely town of Weymouth once more after all these years. Caught up with lots of family relatives which was wonderful.

We went to Brighton yesterday, it was great as always; my favourite city in the world! The Brighton Arts Festival was on so we saw a show in a tiny little underground bar in Kempton. Cute!

Now off to the second country; the Netherlands!