It’s been a long while since my prevous post about possibly the most underrated movie of this decade, but a lots happened since then. Firstly and semi-importantly, HD911 has passed a new milestone (yet again) by getting over the 21,000 page hit count since September of last year when the site was put up. This number seems to be increasing at a quicker and quicker rate, though I can’t say exponentially as that would be riduculous. But it does mean that the site has received just over 2,000 hits a month on average since it’s birth, which seems to me like an awful lot, considering the quality of my content.
After all, it’s no Isaac Newton thesis, or Oscar Wilde novel.
On Sunday night we got home from our week long jaunt through Russia, from St Petersburg (4 days), to Novgorod (1 night) and finally to Moscow (3 days). All I can say is what an amazing country, the food, drink, sites, everything. The whole week I was there, I don’t think I had one bad meal, which says a lot for a foreign country, especially one which serves pretty much anything in a pancake (pork roast, caviar, salmon, etc) or an omlette (pork steak omlette, mmm).
But it wasn’t without it’s dramas, like me leaving my card in a cash machine on the first day of the holiday. I can still recall the moment it happened too:
- Walk up to machine, insert card
- Perform transaction, receive cash
- Hear funny beep, assume it means end of transaction
- Put cash in wallet, walk away with ATM still beeping.
TopDecks Tours – Vodka Caviar 2008
Yet another case of the stupidity of me. But, the holiday went on. The other biggie was the tour group we with for the week, a Topdeck Tour, called Vodka Caviar 2008. The tour itself was fine, with ample time to go off and do your own thing, whilst still seeing an awful lot of the tourist attractions and each city. But the group itself pretty much consisted completely of 30 post high school age Aussie people, or at least some older people who acted like they were this age. Honestly, the whole trip was like a soap opera, with sex, bitching, crying, and the horribly annoying Australian habit of groups of friends at the complete exclusion of others, something which I haven’t noticed since leaving the home land. And thats a good thing.
The Amazing Moscow Underground
The reason we chose to go on a tour instead of battling it on our own was purely due to the fear and perceived danger in Evil Russia. Looking back, this was a silly point of view and apart from few things its no worse, than anywhere else we’ve been so far like Paris, or Prague, and I’d consider our weekend in Brussels last year a lot more intimidating than anything we saw in Russia. A few things that you need to do when you’re over there though:
- Always carry a passport with your travel Visa, as police can request this at any time, and you’ll (apparently) be locked up without it.
- Whilst being questioned by Police, never hand over passports of wallets, as these apparently have a habit of going missing (according to guide books, police corruption is an apparent worry)
- Before arriving, make sure you’re travel insurance is up to date and active, given the visa/passport situation it’d be a hell of a country/authority to deal with without outside help.
- Keep yours wits about you, and common sense, common sense, common sense.
We weren’t actually questioned at all on our time in the country, but the police/army/guards/etc were quite intimidating, as they were pretty much everywhere on the streets in the city, though this was a slight comfort as well. I’ve never been anywhere yet in my travels where there were so many uniformed officials everywhere.
The Church of Spilled Blood, St Petersburg
I found the key with Russia was definitely to keep an open mind, and take pretty much anything anyone else has said about the country with a grain of salt. Friends/people I’d talked to before the trip had warned me that St Petersburg was dodgy (whilst Moscow was nice), and vice versa, and the whole country was terribly expensive and everything is a complete rip off. In fact, our tour guide seemed to do whatever he could to diss the country with warnings of muggings, cons, bad water, bad food, dodgy cops, expensive travel. Though I guess thats his job, to make sure nobody gets hurt or loses anything on his tour.
Anyway, I’d definitely recommend Russia, it was a fun packed week.
