All of a sudden, I'm in Moscow!

On Friday I woke up still not knowing that the next morning I will be flying back to Moscow! What happened was, I realized my brother and sister were having a high school graduation ceremony on Saturday - and that was something I couldn't miss! I got my tickets on Friday night and pretty much went to the party almost straight from the airport!

I was so glad I did this, it was the best decision! Nobody knew I was coming, except for my mom, so it was a good surprise for all my family - everyone was there - and a very thirlling experience for me! My sister was so shocked, she stared at me for good 15 seconds, thinking I'm a ghost or something :)

After the big show, the graduates left to a party organized by the school and we all stayed up all night celebrating, talking, hanging out! It's great to be back with my family!

Bonjour, Paris!

I didn't have any hotel arrangements when I came to Paris, I had a few phone numbers and addresses, so I figured it won't be too hard to find something when I get there. Well, guess what? The whole city of Paris had NO VACANCIES at all, well, except for 800 Euros a night hotels! After 4 hours of researching online and making about a hundred phone calls from a pay phone, I was ready to give up and spend the night at the Internet cafe - I was so exhausted and frustrated.
It all turned out ok, but I went to bed at about 5 AM that night! And it was extremely hard to get a taxi. There is a dedicated taxi lane full of cars, but all of them are taken. There are people lined up all over town trying to get a cab.
In Louvre I experienced the coolest thing ever: the Da Vinci Code tour, which takes you to the most important sites covered in the book. The recorded tour guides you through works of art to explore the controversial ideas in Dan Brown's book.
You walk through the labyrinth of galleries of the Louvre Museum, Grande Galerie of the Louvre, where the fictional curator Jacques Sauniere was found murdered, see museums major works, some of the paintings evoked in the book including Mona Lisa, and get reminded of the main events of the book/movie. It seems that Dan Brown really worked on the theories in his book, because it makes a lot of sense and corresponds SO much with what's on hundreds of years old paintings.
Here is the inverted pyramid, where supposedly, a secret chamber is located. This hidden submerged pyramid is hinted to hold the remains of Mary Magdalene, plus a set of ancient documents setting out the "true" story of early Christianity. Anyway, that was a big highlight of my stay in Paris.
And, of course, I walked many many streets, including the good old Champs Elysee.
An awkward thing happened at one of the cafes: I was leaving a tip and had some coins in my purse, so I left all of them on the table, which was a 4-5 euros. The waiter came over, picked the big ones (1 and 2 euro coins) and said depreciatingly: "I don't need the rest. You can take those."
There was also another weird thing: a public toilet with a see through door! :)
And a funny ad for an enegry drink :)

Vienna

Vienna turned out to be completely amazing! I would say, it in the top 3 most beautiful big cities I've seen in my life, maybe even the the most beautiful! It's like a museum under the sky. The architecture is mindblowing, there are monuments and palaces left and right...and none of those ugly random residential houses or hotels in the middle of the historical centre.

Except for one. I guess someone really wanted to have a home in the heart of Vienna, so they built in on the roof of the palace! :) Now, there are different types of cities. In Vienna, the historical center is isolated from major traffic, so you can peacefully walk around.

Being completely unprepared could be a good thing - everything you see is a huge surprise! Austrians speak a very very weird German, so I couldn't understand anything at all. Although I was in Vienna for only 2 days, I think I managed to do most things I wanted to do:

1) Enjoyed the Fairytales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach at the famous Opera House in Vienna. I got really cheap standing tickets for like 3 euros and, I have to admit, sneaked out a little before the play was over - it was super hot and tiring to stand for 3,5 hours!:)

2) Ate a Austrian wurstel with Austrain beer at an Austrian stand.

3) Visited the Belvedere Palace to see the art of the 19th and 20th century, including "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt, that represents how bright, beautiful, and golden everything is when you first kiss someone.

4) Hung out at a cafe with a view and had a drink with Scott at a fancy lounge. Bought some souvenirs, just a few.

5) Walked around and absorbed the beauty of the city, until my feet were numb - this is the St. Stephans Cathedral, the landmark of Vienna.

Dresden, we meet again

Dresden welcomed me with nice sunny weather. I was really happy to find my friend UTA, who met me at the train station. Apparently, there was a big party going on in town, so all streets in the Dresden Neustadt were full of little kiosks, that
were selling food and drinks, there was live music on every corner, and lots of people walking around. There were trumpet bands, ping pong championships, weird looking cars and other random stuff. Some people, for example, put their
couches in the street and just chilled there, observing the party.

Uta and I walked around, had some turkish food with mojitos, I met her friends - oh how I wish I could speak good German! Or at least understand what they were saying. You feel so helepless, when everyone around you is speaking the language
you don't really know...

After a short nap, I pulled myself out of bed. Afterall, it was a Saturday night! Everything was so surreal. From the moment I left Thailand, it seemed like the day never ended, it must have been the longest day of my life!

I am just gonna say, the party was completely fantastic, that's why I slept the WHOLE Sunday. Although I made an honest effort to get up at 3 and walk around, but my body was on strike - it demanded sleep and rest. And of course, at about 9 PM I woke up, full of enegry...and there was nothing really to do!

Uta and I had a very nice brunch and then we rode bikes to the old part of Dresden. I've been here before, but it was entirely different! It was in November, it was raining, the city was under construction and this all reflected in the way I felt. This time it felt like the city was smiling at me :)



After 2 short days, I was on my way to the train station to go to Vienna. And again, something had to happen. The lady at the ticket office took 20 minutes to issue the ticket so I almost missed the train. But that's not news anymore!

Eupore, Finally!

By the time I got to Frankfurt I had crossed so many time zones, my internal clock got completely confused. Now I am not sure whether it's day or night and all my watches and clocks show different things. My wallet is full of coins from different coutries and my international power adaptor is my best friend.
Travel is such an extraordinary thing! Airport is a very emotional place for me. A trip to the airport can cause a lot of stress, joy, tears...
I am very glad I took a train from Frankfurt to Dresden. Of course draggin my 40 kilos of luggage wasn't the funnest thing to do,
but once I found a seat near the window and a place to plug in my computer, I was in heaven :) Oh how much I missed euporean nature!

Kingdom of Bahrain - Unexpected Experience

When I was about to start my trip from Thailand to Germany, I was so not looking forward to what I was about to go through: 2 hours on a bus, 2 hours on taxis, 6 hours on trains, 2 flights 7 hours each, 10 hour layover. From Pattaya to Dresden my estimated travel time was nearly 40 hours!

To my surprise, upon arrival to Bahrain airport, where I was supposed to spend about 10 hours hanging out and doing a whole lot of nothing, I have been told to go throughimmigration. The angry looking arab stamped my passport and that little stamp was a 24 hour visa. As it turned out, Gulf Air arranged a hotel for all the poor ones with a huge layover - nice move.

Call me crazy, but no matter how tired I am, I would not trade a chance to see a foreign country, for a nice little nap!!! Although I was scared at first, some authorative people said it's ok to walk around. So, I found a map somewhere, asked hotel staff for advice and directions, and soon I was on my way to some Grand Mosque.




Bad news: The service was in progress and I couldn't go inside the mosque
Good news: I got to see the real thing - hundreds of men in white and women in black robes rushed in and out of the building, while the sounds of the prayer were coming out of the speakers installed on the roof of the building.








You can also see the modern buildings of the financial center behind the old mosque,
nice contrast.







Needless to say I was the only tourist there. The guard let me come into the hall of the mosquw, but not further. It felt sorta uncomfortable, but curiousity was stronger and the hotel taxi driver was there, waiting for me.










He took me to the central Market afterwards, which was near my hotel,
where I spent an hour just walking around and "soaking up the local culture".

Local shops sell tons of watches, electronics,
tapes, some very cheap crap and gold gold gold. There was also this guy selling globes.


OK, honestly, it's not as bad as it was in Egypt, where arabs expect tourists to be there,
so they try to talk to you, grab you and try to sell you something. In
Bahrain, I attracted a lot of attention, but nobody approached me. Although there were some women around,
it was pretty intimidating to be around all those men.
I am
not going to get into details about culture, I'm just going to say: I AM SO HAPPY I AM NOT PART OF IT!
Thank you mom and dad.

After buying a pair of HUGE "swiss made" watch for my grandfather (hope it will work), I've had enough.
I noticed an "Internet" sign and figured ahy not spend the remaining time in cyberspace.
The so called Internet cafe was an office from "Being John Malcovich" :) The ceilings were SUPER
low, so you had to really bend to walk around. There was not much place to do that though, the "cafe" only had one
computer :) It was just so random.

I left Bahrain feeling satisfied with my experience, but I don't think I will be coming there again!

Thailand, here I come

I have to admit, I am kinda behind on this, so I will update Thai posts as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, I will continue to write about my trip.

Red Desert

On the fifth day of our trip we finally reached Uluru, which is the world's largest monolith and Australia's most recognizable natural icon.
It looks very beautiful on pictures, but trust me, in real life it's even more impressive. Uluru is notable for appearing to change color as the different light strikes it at different times of the day and year, with sunset a particularly remarkable sight when it briefly glows red.


Sunset was easy, but getting up at 6 AM to see sunrise was not! I had to make big efforts to get out of my designer tent in the morning...



...but the change of color was spectacular, despite of the cold and lack of sleep!
This is sunrise...





...and this is sunset










Uluru is sacred to the Aboriginal people of the area, the ones that lived there for thousands of years. It has many ancient painting in the caves and many sacred sites for the Aborigines. Here is their "kitchen", pretty high tech isn't it?











Actually, the whole rock has a spiritual meaning to Aborigines, so they ask visitors not to climb Uluru. After a few moments of hesitation, we started our climb, feeling guilty and insensitive to beliefs of indigenous people. We drove soooooo far, this is once in a lifetime experience and we just couldn't settle for walking around Uluru. The climb is very very steep, so you can see on the photo, that you have to hold on the chains all the time, the way I'm holding on. It's definitely an experience!





Due to some fitness problems, we had to make occasional stops and sit down, relax, enjoy the view and listen to the silence. As stated in the brochure: "An above-average level of fitness and a high tolerance to the extreme hot desert conditions is required"



In about an hour we reached the top, took traditional group photos, ate a traditional snack, took a traditional nap and headed back.
The formation you see in the back is Kata Tjuta, also called Mount Olga or The Olgas.
In about an hour we reached the top, took traditional group photos, ate a traditional snack, took a traditional nap and headed back.




The 4 hour hike there was our favorite!







White and green Gum trees, clear blue sky, red soil and salmon
color rocks. Fantastic!







Our next target was King's Canyon, I think it's the one of the oldest formations in Australia. It was another very beautiful 3,5 hour hike.








This masterpiece is called Lion King on Titanic...or something like that.



We got so deep in the heart of Australia, that we had to drive on unpaved roads for a while to get to the town of Alice Springs. Our car looked kinda like this.






On our stop at Johannesburg, I found something I couldn't resist. Now I'm a proud owner of the latest model of a 2 door sports car and charming, spacious 3 bedroom cottage.






After 15 days my Australian journey was coming to an end. It was very nice that my dad and Liz organized such an
impressive tour. It was sad to finish the first major step of my trip,
but I was also looking forward to adventures that I was about to experience.

Carnivorous Carnival

Now, When driving a car at night, what would you say are some things you should watch out for? Hm...let's see, drunk drivers? animals like cats, dogs or cows? Well, in Central Australia it's camels and kangaroos. They often decide to camp out in the middle of the road. How random is that? I must tell you though, they get hit pretty often causing a lot of dammage to the car and, apparently the animal itself. I'm sure the "Roadkill" restaurant has sufficient supply.

Camel steak was the best meat I've tried during our food fest in Central Australia. It's my new favorite, although something tells me there might be a problem with that. Crocodile was also excellent. No, it did not taste like chicken, well, maybe a little :) To me, it tasted like fish and meat at the same time. After a few days of eating sausage and ham for breakfast, beef, pork and lamb for lunch and emu, kangaroo, croc and camel for dinner, I felt like a true predator.

Roadtrip

We heroically covered 1000 kilometers on our first day of travel. If you ask me - it was great. I slept, observed
the beauties of Aussie, read my book and watched 5 episodes of Desperate Housewives.
The problem was, that as soon as we got out of Melbourne it started raining, sometimes pouring nonstop and it was +7C outside and I was not looking forward to setting up our tents in that kind of environment, not mentioning to sleep in one.
Luckily, we stopped at the great town of Peterborough, which looked like it had about 100 people that lived there.
The Resort Motel we stayed in had an eatery, that was proudly called a "restaurant" which was not only remarkable for food, but also
for it's customers and decor. A very tall older man and a very short older lady served a few clients
and everyone was very very quiet and...how do I put this...somewhat overweight.
The salad I asked for had vegetables carefully arranged in a fabulous design as you can see on the picture.

On the second day we did something even more remarkable: We went on a 7 hour hike in Flinders Ranges, South Australia's largest mountain range.
It started as a nice walk and later we ended up climbing vertical rocks. It's a bummer we didn't get all the way

to the top of Mary's peek - the sun was going down and believe me, you do not want to come back in the dark,
which we still had to do, but for a limited period of time. Australia has the biggest number of poisonous snakes and I was very scared to step on one of them.
The local "hot spot" - motel bistro - was the best possible ending
for our exhaustive walk. The night was cool...but not in a good way. I was wearing like 10 sweaters and was still shivering in my tent...after a few days I learned a special technique to stay warm in the tent called "wear everything you have"
But enough about that.
I finally had a chance to hang out with my friends - Kangaroos. We had some nice social time with Skippy:

We took a sun bath...

We exchanged some gossip...


And then, just as I started to talk about Paris Hilton, my friend got bored.
After leaving the campground we found ourselves in the town of Coober Pedy, which is known to be the biggest
opal mining area in the whole world! Since it is located in the middle of the the desert and it gets extremely hot in summer, people live UNDER the ground. Here you can see me standing on someones roof and holding on to someone's ventilation pipe!

TO BE CONTINUED...