Mother Russia

We have just spent the last two days seeing the sights of St. Petersburg. We are now at 60 deg latitude - the most northerly point of our journey. We are staying at a very laid back hostel called 'Hotel California'. Apparently it is run by a bunch of musicians from a rock band, and when you press the doorbell an electronic voice in a THICK russian accent sings out 'Welcome to the Hotel California' :-) It's so laid back in fact that shortly after we arrived, the receptionist had to pop out, and asked if we would mind greeting anyone who called! Also, there's a moneyjar sitting by the computer next to me here - use of the internet costs about EUR 1.80 per hour, but payment is completely by the honour system!

Tomorrow we will travel to Moscow and then onto a 5-day train journey to Irkutsk! We had planned on only travelling a day or two at a time on the train but after booking a ticket to Yekaterinburg (only 26 hours) we realised that there were NO trains out of Yekaterinburg for about 5-6 days! In the morning, we will have to cancel our original ticket and get the longer one.If I survive the 5 day journey, I'll let you know how it went :-)