Do not fear, the mullet is alive and well!

Strazvutiya!
im in st petersburg, northern russia. i came prepared with winter jackets and fleeces as i thought russia would be cold and bleak. turns out its rather warm and bleak. my trip started on sunday morning where after emotional goodbyes i got on a plane to london. saw friends there then stayed up until 3am when i got a taxi to heathrow. Turns out it doesnt take very long to get to heathrow at 3 am so i was an hour early and it was just me and the cleaning staff. After some waiting around i boarded a plane to warsaw where i only just managed to make my conecting flight to st petersburg, my bag wasnt so lucky. the plane to russia was really small, maybe 45 seats and only about 12 of them were taken up by important looking russian businessmen. When i arrived in russia i walked up to passport control (i still hadnt slept in a fair while) and the customs woman just shouted something at me in russian. i thought the best thing to do was to just walk to another customs officer who explained to me through the use of her hands and a pen to paper motion that i had to fill out a form. once this was done, i was in and things were looking up... until i reached the baggage reclaim and saw a lonely case going round the conveyor belt which looked suspiciously like it had eaten my bag. anyway after lots of huffing and puffing and more hand gesturing i found out my bag was lost and it would be delilvered to the hotel the following night.

When i arrived at my hotel i went for a short sleep before meeting my 'trek' group who i would be travelling with. I dont have much time here so i will sumarise the rest. I toured about the city yesterday on my own which was quite interesting although annoyingly i havent learned how to say "can you take my picture please?". So there are no pictures of me really. oh an i had been wearing the same clothes for... 3 days at this point so i was starting to smell a tad funky and had the begginings of a goatee beard. i did get my bag though last night and was pleased to get a shower with soap. my clothes should probably have gone straight to incineration but instead they just went back into my bag for another cycle. ok fine they did go into my dirty washing bag.

i am leaving st petes tonight to get an overnight train to moscow then a bus to... somewhere else close to moscow which is supposed to be nice. thank you all for your messages and keep them coming.

dasvedanya

Terra incognita

Hello and welcome to my blog. Hopefully this will be an fascinating insight to my life as a traveller, documenting the highs and lows of my trip around the world. However, more likely this will be a small space of the internet dedicated to me moaning about the 'mystery meat' in russia or the quality of the mattress in vietnam.

It is the morning of my departure so i am frantically packing and saying goodbye to my family. I fly to london later today, then warsaw at ridiculous o'clock tomorrow morning and then onto st petersburg where i will hopefully get to catch up on some sleep.

Thanks to everyone for your messages of... luck giving and advice on what to do and what no to. Actually i think it was all what to do's.... This is going to be expensive