Dabroe Pushalavitz v'Russio (Welcome to RUSSIA!)

Priviet world (please forgive our rough Russian transliterations),

I suppose it has been a while since we have updated you on our adventure. Since we last wrote, we have had many adventures through many different places. Our first adventure was still in Finland where first my bike, Charlie, broke his neck and then later, after recontructive surgery, his friend, Alunda, broke her ankle. We were very lucky both times as the first time we were in a town with a bike shop and the second time, though we were out in the boonies, we knocked on a random door and a very nice lady offered to drive Kelly and Alunda to the nearest town where she happened to be friends with a bike mechanic.

The next few days we spent on our trusty bikes and we eventually made it to Helsinki. Our last night on our bikes was perfect as we found a wonderful little pinninsula just outside of Helsinki to set up camp. We spent that night relaxing with the sound of the ocean lulling us to sleep.

From Helsinki we decided to spend a couple of days in Tallinn, Estonia. This was a wonderful little medieval town. We were initiated to the town by our couchsurfer friend Toomas, who when we arrived at his place, he immediately brought us up on his roof (he already lived in an attic) to show us the views and places of the old town. This was quite nerve racking as we climbed up a steep ladder and crossed a narrow ridge to get to this little platform to stand on. Later Kelly went up there for some quiet time and lost a boot... Luckily it fell down right outside our window, however it was still quite the adventure trying to retrieve it.

After we spent a couple of days in Tallinn we couldn't help but notice that every store seemed to be either a souvenier shop or a restaraunt. Luckily, we were there in the off season as we were told that the streets are packed in the summer receiving an average of 4-9 thousand new tourist daily! We were also lucky to have our own personal tour guide, Stewart, from England who has been in and out of Tallinn for the past few years. He taught us some history and showed us some cool bars. Thanks Stewart!

We left Tallinn and returned to Helsinki. We never really gave Helsinki much of a chance, as we were quite tired. However, we did manage to sneak a sauna (Sa-U-na) in, which was extremely relaxing. Kyle, unfortunately, rediscovered that he's quite the wimp when it comes to extreme tempuratures. We then headed to the town center and had a sad farewell to our faithful companions, Alunda and Charlie. Alunda found a new home with an older lady and hopefully Charlie has found a good home as well. You both served us well!

We then headed to our German couchsurfers dorm where we spent the night relaxing and talking politics. Early the next morning, we headed on the train to St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg. What a good place. We really enjoyed our time in St. Pete's. When we arrived, we were walking around the streets with all our bags and were a little lost, when out of the blue, two young ladies approached us and told us that they saw us in Tallinn a couple of days ago. Now this was strange for two reasons. One, because St. Petersburg is a huge city. And two, because Russians don't tend to be the kind of people who just talk to anybody on the street. Especially in English. Our usual response from people is "Niet... no."

Well, they ended up giving us a ride to our hostel, which turned out to be a funny place. The landlady didn't speak a word of English, and our Russian was even more limited than it is now. We eventually got things figured out though, and then Sasha and Alisa took us out to a student pub where we enjoyed some fine Russian cuisine and of course, vodka.

Later that night, Sasha was nice enough to drive us around the city, showing us all the unusual sights plus she saved us from getting mugged. It's always good to have a Russian at your disposal in Russia!

The next day was a long one. First, we headed to the Hermitage. We tried to get our tickets for the local price, but ended up failing as our fake Russian accents were a little too obvious... not to mention lack of Russian identification. We spent a good deal of time admiring all the works in there... but apparently you'd need two years if you spent one minute at each exhibit if you went for 8 hours a day. I guess we need to go back some day.

Later, we met up with our second St. Petersburg tour guide, Masha. She took us on a walking tour of the city and we had a good time just hanging out, playing music, jumping on bridges, and crossing streets when the light was red! Masha's favourite.

Masha then handed us over to Sasha who took us first to a vegetarian restaraunt (rare in Russia) then to a couple of bars. We had a good time playing foosball (Canada dominated) and just hanging out. The night turned into morning and we found ourselves walking Sasha home which was on the street that Dostoevsky lived on, with his famous park. We eventually made it back home at around 5 in the morning.

Our plans for the next day didn't quite work out as we got a little lost and couldn't find some places. That meant that we couldn't play ping pong :(. After walking around for a while, we decided that we should just head back to the train station and wait for our train to Moscow. Luckily, we did meet up with Masha for another music session, and then Sasha came to wish us fairwell. Thanks so much to both of you for a wonderful time!

Moscow was a little different. We only had two days there and we were really tired from St. Pete's. But we did manage to go to a nice gallery and hang out with some couchsurfers whom we played mafia with. The next day we went around the Red Square and all the other touristy things. But we were looking forward to our 3 day long train ride to rest.

Now we're in Irkutsk. The train ride was quite exciting as we got to meet some interesting people. Most notably Denis and his mom Larissa. They were so kind to us and helped Kyle get over his cold. We traded gifts with each other and had an all around good time. Now we're in Irkutsk for 3 days, then off to Ulaanbaatar on the 25th. There, we will meet up with Kyle's mom's cousin, Anne, who with her husband, are missionaries there.

Well, that's all for now. We'll update sooner next time with pictures.

Peace out G's.

Kyle and Kelly