Running Behind now....

Okay, so I haven't written anything in a while so I apologise... I am currently in Helsinki and outside this lovely bar (it is quite odd to be drinking whisky and listening to house music in a smokey atmosphere while on the computer...) it is ridiculously cold - it's about minus 5 degrees celcius to be precise. I am getting better at dressing for the cold so it doesn't cause me so much running around in circles and complaining about loss of feeling to my nose.

I'm going to go roughly backwards in time here and tell you what I've been up to...

Scotland:
I stayed with Anna Petrie in Edinburgh, now I'm not sure if Anna and I had ever met back in Australia but her father was kind enough to offer me her spare room (aren't dads great at that sort of thing?) and luckily we got along like a house on fire. Anna was brave enough to accompany me on a tour of the vaults in Edinburgh... I thought it was going to be a silly theatrical ghost tour like the one in York, but oh no, this was down right scary. Those rooms are teeming with something, now I'm not going to say for sure whether it's paranormal activity or highly effective lighting techniques and low pitched sounds, but I was terrified and could not get out of there fast enough. Edinburgh was lovely, it rained the whole time I was there so we had to spend lots of time inside drinking. Okay, not as much time as you may think, but it was much fun - and they had sleemans at Anna's local pub!

After Edinburgh I journeyed through Falkirk in order to demonstrate what a true nerd that I am so I could ride the Falkirk Wheel... this contraption is basically a big connector between two canals which are unfortunately at different heights. Go to www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk if you're fascinated with these sorts of things... Then I went on to stay with my parent's good friends Ed and Elizabeth Petrie (Anna's parents) for a night in the beautiful town of Blairgowrie. I quite like countryside Scotland, I could so move there and be happy.

My next stop in Scotland was with my father's cousin (and therefore my first cousin once removed), Russell and his wife Sandra. They live 23 miles outside of Aberdeen in a town called...ummm... Oyne I think. It's gorgeous! They both work at Aberdeen University so are clearly keen on commuting. Russell and Sandra were wonderful hosts and took me galavanting around the area to see the granite of Aberdeen and the neighbouring town of...ahh.. Kingsbury? my memory is starting to fade I'm afraid... On the Sunday Russell and I climbed Bennachie which is the presiding peak in the area with the remains of an ancient Pict fortification at the top. It was a spectacular day so we encountered many walkers and their dogs on the way down. The view was quite impressive and the wind reminded you to wear your coat... It was lovely to meet some more of my extended family, it's nice to know I have relatives out there considering I grew up with basically only my 6 person immediate family unit due to my relatives refusing to relocate from New Zealand to Australia ( I mean honestly, the audacity!).

After Scotland I journeyed to Ireland. It was hardly what you could call an extensive journey through Ireland. I stayed in Dublin for one night, hated Dublin (I recognise that many will disagree with my feelings about Dublin, but the city certainly pulled out all the stops to unimpress and disgust me so it'll be an uphill battle to convince me otherwise), but loved Kilkenny, where I stayed for two nights. I had a drink at the bar with an Irishman called Pat (a necessary experience in Ireland I feel), had a drink in a pub that has been around since the 14th century, and wandered around in a generally touristy manner. I went back to Dublin because I had to as Kate was flying in from London and we were going to Russia! yay!

Russia:
My first travelling dramas occured when we went to check in for our flights... we were meant to go from dublin to riga and from riga to moscow, however our flight from dublin to riga had been cancelled... so, after some great confusion and stress on the part of the lady at the check in counter, we were sent to vilnius in latvia, then to riga, then to moscow. it was a gruelling journey, but the worst was yet to come... It turns out that road rules are really only a formality in Moscow. I thought I'd seen bad driving before, I thought I'd experienced near death experiences on the back of my older brother's motorbike. Oh no, nothing I had ever done compared to being driven from the airport to the hotel in Moscow by a Muscovite in peak hour... The trip took an hour, and in that hour we drove on the wrong side of the road around blind corners at 70 km/hr, created new lanes when the traffic was backed up, dodged around numerous car accidents and generally almost died. It was a sign of my exhaustion that I actually dozed off for a while... When I woke up the driver pointed out our hotel to us and it was like a ray of light shone down and a chorus of angels started singing... the hotel was quite impressive from the outside. If she could, I reckon Kate would move into that hotel permanently... http://www.ukraina-hotel.ru/ the site can be in english if you know how...but I'm not going to tell you...

Kate and I slept from the moment our heads hit the pillow. We had a brief wander around 10pm to have some dinner and get our passports back (the hotel registers you with the local authority, a necessity in Russia it seems - I'm getting used to parting with my passport, they like to take it off you in Russia... don't worry, I have it back now), then slept through breakfast and didn't appear outside our room until 2pm on Saturday the 28th October...

Now I am tired of being on the computer so I will continue this exciting narrative later. I hope you are all well and not quite so cold as me... take care and all my love!

Sarah