"If you look in a mirror and see a crooked mug; it's not the mirror, it's the mug." Russian proverb.

So, how do you like your bleakness? Broad avenues?

glorious city squares?
vibrant nightlife?

romantic canals?

luxury accommodations?

or courteous motorists?Okay, to be honest, St Petersburg was impressive, and beautiful like I had heard... but it just didn't feel like Russia. Although, there certainly wasn't a lack of impressive buildings:

and amazing landscape and luxurous palaces:

Due to the intense language barrier and the Frommer's guide having consistently failed us, we were reduced to using the map at the train station to try to figure out how to get to Moscow.hmm, now if only I could read Russia... surely the ticket lady can help, no? okay, maybe we'll try again tomorrow... Two days later, with tickets in hand, we boarded out chariot to Mockba...

Okay, now were talking, that's a little better- that train sure wasn't rushin' anywhere, but it sure felt Russian!. Hmmm, that's not funny. From the train I got a look at the country side. Bleak yes, but not necessarily Russian. Kind of reminded me of Canada.
Despite Frommer's best effort to deter us, we quickly found our flat in Moscow and hit Red Square for an intimate night viewing.

The next morning it didn't quite look the same... Red Square? more like street color square.
"Oh, wait, what's that Frommy? 'Red' refers to the middle-ages when that word meant 'beautiful.' Cool." In fairness, we did get that one gem from the book.
Now this is RUSSIA! And as Chris aptly pointed out, "a view like this really takes you back to the days when all you heard on the news was, "This is Andrea Mitchell, reporting live, from the Kremlin. '"
Everything was better in Mockba- the sights, the city, and the nightlife! ;)

Even my Russian was better by the time we got to Moscow- "Piva big", "Metro?" and I'm pretty sure that says McDonalds...
We had an interesting visit to the Revolution Museum (recently renamed the State Museum of Contemporary Russian History) where we learned a lot about how things weren't too bad living under the ideals of the Bolsheviks and that life in the USSR wasn't that bad either. Yah, quit your complaining Lativia.

These were pretty good...

On the recommendation of our good friend Rick, we took the metro out of town a bit. Say as far as zone 3 in London or, I don't know, Tacoma from Seattle... bleakness.Without a doubt, Moscow joined the ranks of my most favorite cities. You can look at the people- even those my age- and just imagine how very different their life must have been from that of their western counterpart. Great city, great people.

I want to thank Rick Steves for contining to host information on his website after his Russia book had gone of publication. I want to thank the department story in Prague for selling me the cool old guy hat. And I want to thank the Russians for learning just enough English to allow me to negotiate a visa from their embasey in London; understand that I'm lost; explain that I really do want to order a side of mashed patatos with that thing that turned out to be a fancy mashed patato entree; order beer and vodka; and say spaseebaa to the nice young ladies.

Before catching our flight, we hit the square only last time, paid our respects to Lenin, and declared victory over the Russians! (maybe I shouldn't have said that)

Doing a little homework...

Like the diligent student I hope to be, I spent last week in Eastern Europe preparing for my forthcoming Russian linguistics and social science test.

Step 1: Form a study group.

(with big al and the beef in Prague)

With Alan wrapping up the final leg of European tour with me in Eastern Europe, we were able to get the Beef on board for one wild night in Praha.

Beef hit the road back to Germany first thing on Sunday, leaving us to a little independent study of Czech culture.

Step 2: Get to know the locals

After a night train from Prague to Krakow, I was pretty excited to enjoy a little polish sunshine. As you may recall my last trip to Krakow in Januaryish left me seriously frostbitten. The nightlife was as interesting as I remembered it. I had the pleasure of exchanging tales of loneliness with a nice young lady who shared the pain of trying to meet nice eastern european ladies... no pics, just one interesting story.

While Alan took a trip to Auschwitz, I decided to visit a few alternative sites I missed on the last trip. After a long walk out of the center, I ended up in the old factory district where Oscar Schindler's' factory has become a memorial to the Holocaust.

Step 3: Take in a little history...

Budapest style. We spent an afternoon at the House of Terror, and got a taste of what six plus decades of Nazi and Soviet rule must have felt like- not fun. We spent the rest of our time in Budapest getting a feel for the city and witnessing a bit of history in the making- say hello to the Hungarian boy-band craze sweeping the, um, really small city square outside our apartment...

Step 4: Take the test. Next stop- Mother Russia!

Howdy

Okay so it's been awhile- more of a summer to be exact. Long story short- things got busy, people came/ people left, took a few flights and moved flats. The highlights in chronological order as far as I can remember...

A Sort of Homecoming (June, Seattle)

A great weekend in Seattle on the front end of a not so great week in Texas...

(That's right- the Kennedy Bros baby!)

Grenouille Rapide (June, Luxembourg)


Liverpool Footy Tournament (June/July, Liverpool)
This year we almost won one!

Smoke Free London (July)
Okay no pictures here, but man is it awesome- London went smoke free on July 1st and my dry cleaning bill has been cut in half...

CJB & CrazyM (July)

(Okay, not a recent picture, but you get the point- it was a awesome weekend!)

Tour de France (July)
The tour kicked off in London this year and I was front row for the action...

Mom and Dad (July)
That's right, Bob and Marcia took on Europe for Round II - The Greek Odyssey.
And after they were finished with the cruise, I took them to sunny Scotland...


Spear Mews (July)
A new flat in a new part of town (16 Spear Mews, London SW5 9NA- if anybody wants to send cookies or milk duds)...

(Who's up for game three?)

Harmonie Granger (July/August)

Ireland with CJB (August)
Same story, different island...

A visit from the future Mr and Mrs Mambelton (August)

Stay tuned for 'Scenes from a Hungarian Goulash Cellar'...

Obrigado very much!

I don’t really know what else to say about my 4 days in Portugal…

the water was blue,

Dave and the boys were on top of their game,

and at lease two of the three monkeys managed to stay out of trouble…

(I'll give you one guess which little monkey was allegedly run over by a motor vehicle while crossing the road - such a rumor is of course unsubstantiated)

In a word- perfect!

Sometimes they get the best of you and sometimes you the best of them...

Yah, so I visited all of the famous mosques, toured the palace, bartered in the grand bizarre, and took a boat across the Bosporus to Asia, but I don't think anybody wants to hear the play-by-play of my weekend. So what I will tell you about is the top two highlights on my two-day turbo tour of Istanbul.

1. Sometimes they get the best of you...

It's true that you don't have to work very hard to get ripped off in Turkey. But I like to think of myself as somewhat of a wise, seasoned traveller who's paid his dues and learned a lesson or two- I mean, shit, I've got a whole drawer full of broken Rolax watches and Ray Brand sunglasses. So, I was walking along the Golden Horn (Istanbul's harbour) minding my own business and rocking out to a little crazy poker when the shoe-shine man walking in front of me drops his shoe-shoe brush. Being a good lad, I picked it up and jogged up to him with a little, "here you go my friend." (everybody is "my friend" in Turkey). To show his sincere gratitude, the man offers to shine my worn-out, soon-to-be-trash New Balance sneakers. While he went to town with his little toothbrush he asked if I had kids. "Not that I'm aware of" I responded (he didn't think that was funny). He did however proceed to tell me of this wife, step-mother, and eighteen blind children. How could I possibly accept a free shoe-shine after hearing that... ahh there's the rub! I offered him all of the change I had pocket- about 10 lira or 6 bucks. "No, paper he insisted." The man was looking for bills. Keep in mind he could have bought Kebabs for his wife, step-mother, and seven of his eighteen blind children for 10 lira. I quickly realised that while accepting my "free shoe-shine" I had been surrounded by 4 other members of the shoe-shine mafia and my New Balance sneakers were quickly about to double in value...

2. Sometimes you get the best of them...

On a wise man's recommendation, I spent an afternoon at Cemberlitas Hamam. With no idea what to expect- I stripped down, threw on my loin cloth, and joined the 30 other sweaty naked dudes in the 400 year old steam chamber. Let me stress that I had no idea what to do, so I followed the lead from a few other guys and laid out on the massive marble slab in the middle of the room. As I was about to fall asleep, a gigantic hairy man grabbed my ankle and pulled me over to edge of the platform where he proceeded to scrub my skin off with soap and steal-woolish pad. Ten minutes later- after having 3 layers of skin removed (head to toe) and feeling exfoliated as hell- I used a bucket to rinse the soap off and followed my new friend in the adjacent chamber... Had it not been for the constant pain, I might have felt slightly awkward about the semi-erotic beat-down I received there. When it was over I returned to my private dressing chamber to decompress and reflect... I left the bath house a new man and feeling like a million lira.

Such are the Turks... honest folk trying to make a living (some more honest than others). A would-have-been travel companion declined the opportunity to accompany me on this weekend adventure believing that Turkey is too dangerous- I found this to be ridiculous before and even more so after. I found the people to be delightfully friendly and I left Istanbul with a affirmed love of the Turks and a acute case of Cholera.

I have a dream...

... that one day I will ride in a bad-ass moped gang.

And last weekend I got one step closer towards realising that dream on the island of Sardinia with Ryan, Willie, and my hog Trigger.


To be continued...