Tack Tack Pus Pus Strike Again - Pirates in Latvia

Before I left for Latvia, I posted a status update on Facebook:

"  On a rusty pirate ship heading for RIGA filled with 2000 students!!! Hope this won't be my last.boat.tripever! :S  "

Well, good news is that I survived the International Student Cruise - and it should be most likely my last cruise whilst here on exchange. We definitely ended with a bang! The cruise was a lot of fun and Latvia was a really fun place to be. I have some very fond memories from this trip and I would love to go back again. It's a very charming city, with lots of colourful old buildings and really well kept gardens and parks. It was also dirt cheap! I really liked that part haha. I guess you are maybe wondering what is happening in that photo up top... perhaps why we are wearing hand drawn t-shirts, perhaps maybe wondering about the title of my blog? Or maybe even curious as to why I have a black eye in that photograph. Ah well, all in good time. We certainly did get up to some crazy shenanigans whilst on the boat.

As my friends and I stepped onto the boat, we were amazed by how many students there were. It was actually quite a sight to see pretty much only young people on the cruise. The reason is that usually these Baltic Sea cruises are what the Swedish people who are pretty much similar to our version of "bogans" go on as their big holiday because it is very cheap. So you get a lot of oldish, middle class, "white trash" (not my words...) and lots of old seedy men on the boat who do seem a little creepy. This time round, however, walking down the hallways, every cabin door was open - filled to the brim with students partying it up in their rooms. There were people sitting in all the hallways and everyone was super friendly and chatty because they knew that everyone else was an international student. All in all, a pretty great atmosphere. There was a "pool party" on the boat too (which we didn't hit up as most of us forgot our swimmers) and so lots of people were walking around dripping wet, or looking like they were about to head to the beach.

Our cabin was, as per usual, a 4 bed room. We were also joined by some other Uppsala friends who were in 2 bed dorms which were something like the size of a cupboard, and as such, they hung around with us in our room. We were fortunate or perhaps (un) fortunate enough to have a room right in the center of all the partying which meant there were always lots of people coming into our room for a chat and hang out, but when we wanted to sleep, the party continued outside our door with people knocking on our door all the time trying to get us to come out and party!

Here is our group of friends in our room looking ever so excited!

So after a not so restful sleep on the boat and much partying and meeting people, we arrived in Latvia and the first thing on everyone's mind was: 'FOOD!' Knowing that many people's tendency when travelling is to eat something like Maccas - I immediately begged, "Can we please go somewhere nice?!" I mean, we were in Latvia, and none of us knew what to expect from the prices or quality of food but I wanted to experience that! Everyone agreed that we should definitely find somewhere "nice" for brunch and so as we left the ship terminal, we picked a direction and began to walk. We had some maps on us, but it was quite windy - and far out, trying to read a giant map (filled with ads so it is huge) is so impossible. On the way to the more "main area" of Riga, we saw some pretty awesome graffiti!

Walking down a nice street in Latvia, we managed to find us a really fancy little cosy restaurant which was offering a "Business Lunch" for something like $5 Australian! Heck Yes! That was inclusive of a Cabbage Soup, a main of chicken, grilled vegies and cheese sauce and a drink. Don't mind if I do! It was so delicious and the décor, ambience and music in the place was really quite comfortable. Great beginning to our day in Riga, I say!

After we had eaten our fill, we explored the city, stopping to try and rent us some Segways (OMG! but they were closed), and pretty much just going where ever we wanted. The people who had organised the Boat Trip had offered us an optional walking tour for some moneys but we had refused because from experience, they are usually a little dull, and it is always so hard to hear the guide as the groups are usually quite big. We were fairly happy to be left to our own devices!

I love the typography in both Latvia and Estonia...

Why must the walls in Latvia be so interesting?

Cute sign! All the shops in Latvia have doors like this - HOW CUTE IS IT

Moped! What a cute street. I'd totally live here...

Could spend all day just looking down alleyways

Love the decay and texture of the walls

We ended up coming across what was the main city square I guess, which was super cute with colourful buildings, even a sorta castle-looking thing (on the right of the photo right under this) and there were lots of cute restaurants and stuff! We felt it quite necessary to get a group photo here... it was so cute!

Not sure if I ever ended up blogging about my trip to Sigtuna (the oldest town in Sweden) but when I was there, I saw a very cute cat. Here, in Riga - I also saw a cat! I dunno about cuteness, but it was kinda fat!

So all in all, I'd say the day was going quite well. We were on a semi-mission to try and find Pirate costumes as the boat ride home that night, there was a Pirate Theme and we were going to be taking part in a team competition which would require it. A couple people were also looking to find a Bottle-O as it is apparently very cheap to buy in Latvia. It was at this point, that the day took a rather unexpected turn! One of the girls from the Scanbalt Team approached us while we were exploring the city and asked us again if we wanted to take the Walking Tour. She explained that as most of the students on the cruise were hung-over, most of them never rocked up and as such, they had some tour guides available. We kindly declined the offer as we had things to be doing and with only about 3 hours left of free time in the city, we really didn't think a walking tour was going to be helpful in finding a Pirate costume.

The girl seemed quite desperate however, and it occurred to us that actually, it was quite embarrassing for them to have hired all these tour guides and have no-one interested. As I had just drunk a coffee, and was a little hyper - I asked: "When you say tour guide, do you mean a tour guide who will make us go to every single touristic place and talk for ages about it, or do you mean a tour guide who we can tell what to do so they take us where we actually want to go?!" Daring I know.... and I kinda can't believe I asked that - it was quite rude! But actually... it worked out well for us! The girl thought about it and said, well, having a tour guide with you won't hurt - she is just a local who knows everything. I'm sure she'd be happy to help you out! So the girl went and got the tour guide who was a really nice and enthusiastic Latvian lady. She was quite a bit alarmed though when she asked what we wanted to do and we said: .. we want to find Pirate Costumes. At first she didn't believe us! Ha. Hilarious. Here we are as we started out new, customised, "walking tour."

In the end, she suggested that she take us to the shopping centre to find the costumes and on the way, she would show us some sights and talk about it. Fair exchange I think. She told us all about the history of Latvia, about the fortress wall, and about how it used to be owned by Russia. More hilariously, she seriously did take us to a shopping centre (a modern shopping centre) and continued (in a joking manner) to be a tour guide, telling us about the stores inside, helping us to pick out t-shirts and permanent markers for our pirate outfit, and even taking us to the supermarket so we could buy rations for dinner on the boat and booze.

The tour guide and Manon in the shopping centre

Best tour guide ever! What a champ. After we were done, we gave the reins back to Dita (our tour guide) who took us on a more conventional walking tour which was surprisingly more enjoyable than we anticipated.

Little Latvian girls feeding Maccas to birds in the park

Peace Memorial - very inspiration talk by the tour guide

There are always soldier guards at the bottom who symbolically guard peace - we are soldiers too!

Cute boat coming out of a archway! yay

Padlock Bridge where newly weds declare their love

The first Mcdonalds in the Eastern Europe apparently and it was meant to have been so popular and thought to be classy when it first opened as it was the first "Westernised" place - people went there on dates...but now they hate is just as much as the rest of us... a love hate relationship

After a big walk around the city, and hearing about lots of things, we climbed the steps up to a little lookout where we all had a bit of a rest and the sun came out just in time - sunbaking!

Other highlights of the day were some interesting discussions about Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z. There may have been a point where we were re-enacting scenes in public... quite hilarious! (for some... I can't believe Kelsey never watched these cartoons!) Anyway, after a long  but really quite perfect day in the city - it was time to head back to the boat and bid goodbye to our wonderful tour guide! She told us it was the most interesting tour she had ever conducted, she had never taken people shopping and was now considering being a shopping tour guide. Ha.

Back on the boat, it was time to turn ourselves into Pirates. Of course, the name of our team was obvious - Tack Tack Pus Pus - the name of our champion winning team at Stockholm Nation (refer to this blog). Here are some pictures of us getting our shirts together. I did a lot of the drawing, people seem to think I know how to draw skulls. I don't. I also drew the Riga Cat! I don't believe I talked about that - but it's a big deal here in Latvia. Mina decided she would like to do my makeup, and gave me a black eye - isn't she kind?

Lol this photo was totally spontaneous if you can believe it!

Team Tack Tack Pus Pus!

The Pirate Challenge involved travelling around the boat to various stations where we did things such as play "Suck and Blow", Throwing hoops onto pegs, Bouncing coins into cups, Twister and a relay where you had to do lots of spinning around and running so you were all dizzy. We did pretty well in all the tasks but not any better, I thought, than any other team. But for some reason, at the end of the night at midnight, all the students crowded in the big show area and our team was called up as the winners! OH MY GOSH!!!! Actually, a different team, "The Sparrows" won. But they never rocked up to collect the prize so technically we won by default. It was ironic because we found out that we had actually been hanging out with The Sparrows for most of the night, and later when we found them again, they told us that they had been banned from going to the award ceremony by the security! Interesting.

So when we were announced as winners, we ran on stage super stoked! And we were told we would now need to do a Mexican Standoff with the winner winning a holiday! Oh my. So Mina and I went first...each taking a sorta "Nerf Gun" thing and walking away from each other until someone said GO and then we had to turn and shoot each other. I ended up getting shot straight away which sucked. And in the end, our friend Bal won! Bear in mind, all of this was happening with all of the students on the boat watching and cheering us on! What a surreal moment! After Bal won, we were given a bunch of t-shirts and 2 bottles of champagne and so we spent most of the night up running around the boat celebrating! So all in all, the trip to Latvia was really quite PERFECT - especially the last day. The new Best friend/Tour Guide and the winning of the Pirate Challenge really made the trip!

Vodka Tour to Russia Via Helsinki

Boy is it good to be back home again! I just got back from Latvia.... where's that, you ask? Well, that's another story. One trip at a time, please! I'd like to keep things in order and I guess I did drop the ball a little with not getting this blog written sooner. My apologies people! But I am here to study, you know? And believe you me, I had only a week between Russia and Latvia to recover and catch up on Uni work. Mate! It's hectic being a travelling Erasmus student.  So anyway, over the Easter break - I made the rather epic week-long voyage across the Baltic Sea to St Petersburg in Russia via Helsinki - Finland. We were a group of 40 - all international students from all over Sweden - travelling with Scanbalt and this was to be my first trip in Europe using a tour. I wasn't sure what to expect from the tour to be honest and all four of us were feeling slightly intimidated by the fact we were going to Russia! My travel buddies for this trip were the ever-present Mina (who I recently realised has been on every single one of my trips), Manon and Carter. Here we are, in Russia with a sphinx! That's right....

As we boarded the boat heading for Helsinki - we laughed at the contrast between this ship and the crazy epic, "new-ness" that was the brand spanking new ship we had for Tallin. This one was quite a bit older, smelt a little funny, and was not even a little bit shiny! Gosh. Still, it was a boat and as long as it didn't sink, I sure was not going to complain! One thing I can complain about though is the fact that our cabin was located on the 2nd deck! That's pretty bad. Why? Well, firstly... it is right down the bottom. I'm sure you guys all know from Titanic that that is where the lower class people go. Last time, we were on like Level 4 or something which actually makes a lot of difference! Secondly, it is down under and next to where the ship stores its cars and animals! Thirdly, it takes a really long time to get down to our cabins from up top where all the activities and entertainment are (Level 7,8, and 9) and involves lots of stairs. Lastly, it smelt like sewerage! But hey, we had booked a student tour and I guess when they said it was going to be a budget trip.. they weren't joking!

For us though, all disgust for our cabin location was abated when we entered our cabin to find that our room had an old school radio! Ha... it was pretty cool because the music the radio played was also very old style music. The kind that you would listen to in the olden days if you were fancy and on a boat. I also really liked the feel of the room... it was warm and had the wonderful mirror window which we all love! Here are some lovely photos of me and my cabin mates enjoying the warm ambience of the room....

During our walk around exploring the boat, Mina decided to take the reins as photographer and snapped happily away using my beautiful Nikon. Here are a few shots of the boat! Oh boy... slow start, already so many photos. This could very well be a long blog. But hey, I am only following orders!

Hello Sailor!

Mirrors!

Flying around on the boat....just so excited!

I went outside for a quick look... it was so cold! Brrr.... But I couldn't work out how to open the door! The handles don't work...you need to press a button next to it.... doh! Some things don't change...

In the Cuban Pub! (Boat had a Cuban theme...weird because we were going to Finland and Helsinki)

Bon Voyage!

A lady rolling cigarettes in the Duty Free Store

My new friend will be making another appearance later in the blog...

We bought a few bottles of wine, some cheese, chips, and nuts and sat by the window in a prime time location as we sailed along the coast watching the pretty little Swedish houses and the sunset through a very very dirty window - how romantic! But really, it was a nice moment.

Then this happened! Haha.

Anyway, it was an awesome night of meeting lots of interesting people from the tour. We were quite a large and noisy crowd and that night on the boat, we mainly just hung around here in our prime time location, and also went to see a few of the "quality" shows on the boat which mainly followed the Cuban theme. Ridiculous!

DAY 2: HELSINKI

Arriving in Helsinki the next morning, we dragged our tired selves and our luggage onto a tour bus as the "best bus driver in the world" shuttled us around the city with the "best tour guide" telling us every minuscule detail about the city. I wasn't particularly enthused - I'll be honest. Buses are really not my thing - I tend to feel quite sick on a bus and get bad motion sickness. It turned out I also got bad sea sickness (although this was something I learnt last time too) but I had gotten it even worse this morning over breakfast. Horrible. A buffet breakfast on the boat was included with our tour and I am ashamed to say that that was one of the things I was most excited about. Unfortunately, I was too sick to eat more than about half a plate (blasphemy!)... but I did drink something like 15 cups of tea.

In Finland, it was still snowing a bit and that of course, makes everything all the more magical. We went through all the touristic spots, including the Sibelius monument which was quite an amazing sculpture and a real sight to behold amongst the pretty Christmas trees and the snow. 

After the long bus tour that I thought would never end, the sun came out and we were told we had the afternoon to explore the city ourselves. Yes! This was especially awesome because one of my friends from Australia actually happened to have moved to Helsinki three weeks earlier. Gobsmackingly ridiculous! But seriously. Ilona was in Helsinki - and so I texted her and we made plans to meet up at the Big White Church. As we walked around the city, exploring and heading in the general direction of the church, I found myself just really loving the vibe and spaciousness of this city. We were told on the bus that Helsinki is actually the Design Capital and I can kind of see why. It is just really nice, with funny little artworks, nice buildings, amazingly artistic store fronts, people who looked artistic and open, and in general - just quite spacious and well put together. My friends felt the place to be not so special and quite similar to the other Scandinavian cities which it is to a point. But I did enjoy it here and I really felt like this was a place I could live for a while!

This pic is for Helen

So Scandinavian!

Biggest Maccas sign ever?

Love these guys... they remind me of Never Ending Story.. I am not sure why

Turtle is so cute!

As we waited for Ilona at the White Church... we had some fun on the steps.... the sun really brings out the sillyness in people!

Really liked how it looked with this girl on the steps

Can you spot Ilona?!!?!?!?! Tanned and looking ever so amazing!

Year 7 Smith's Hill Buddies REUNITED IN FINLAND!!!

It was so cool to see Ilona in Helsinki! What a crazy thing to happen.... was absolutely surreal. Even funnier was Ilona's accent which was not so Australian anymore... for some reason. But it came back eventually - I gave her a bit of crap about it teehee. As you can see from the above place, we dined in style... at a very strange Pizza Buffet place (to atone for my fail of an effort at the Breakfast Buffet) that also had tacos but it all tasted really quite bad....

I love UP - the Pixar Film.. and this image reminds me of this

After lunch, my friends including Ilona walked around exploring the city a little more. Ilona had actually not done all that much exploring herself so that was good. We went for a trek to find the other big church in the city and on the way, so lots of quaint and quirky stuff. I love the quirkiness that is Helsinki!

Yes it was nearly Easter in Helsinki and these feathers are everywhere in Scandinavia - Sweden included. Here are some photos I took in Uppsala City just before I left... so cute!

Uppsala is filled with these feathers on trees... it's so colourful and awesome!

But one thing we didn't have which Helsinki did.... was these Bunnies crossing the street?

The Red Church we were trying to get to

Padlocks on the bridge

What a cool restaurant front!

At the top of Helsinki - GROUP PHOTO's are a necessity!

Walking back to the harbour to catch our boat and the beginning of a big trek to find a supermarket

I really loved this sign. It says in the red area - "Probably Always Cheaper!"

We were running late for the boat and so it was in a bit of a rush that I bid goodbye to my dear friend Ilona! I hope we will cross paths again soon! She's keeping her own blog so make sure you guys check that out too! Her adventures in Finland are definitely hilarious.... going to a country where you don't speak the language reaps so many amazing and funny stories.

Back on the boat - we ate the things that Ilona recommended us - like Potato cakes or something. Sorry Ilona, this batch was pretty gross. Not Happy Jan!

Icky Finnish Potato Cookies

Aboard the Princess Maria a-heading for Russia! YEW

DAY 3: ST PETERSBURG

We arrived in Russia - to be greeted by this BRASS BAND. It made for quite a celebratory exit out of the terminal. Again, we were herded onto the bus for a tour of the sites of St Petersburg, stopping for photo stops at random places such as this sphinx.

The views and the waters around St Petersburg were so sparkly and the buildings were very intricate and had a classical Russian style in design. Believe me, you will see a lot more of that. We were told that in Russia, there are usually only about 60 days of sun so we were quite lucky to have arrived on a sunny day. Funny because for the 3 days we were here, we experienced all different kinds of Russian weather. Sunny Russia, Windy Russia, Rainy Russia, Snowy Russia, and Hailing Russia.

Another photo stop was for a couple of statues, and a view of a fortress which was in the shape of a Pentagon which we would later visit. If you haven't noticed, I'm not so much into touristy trips and so I do apoligise for not giving the proper names for things sometimes. I will try and include photos!

After the photo stops, our next stop was at the Vodka Museum where we were educated on the history of how Vodka was made, given the opportunity to sample some Vodka, and treated to an amazing 5 course Russian Lunch! Now, that's what I'm talking about!

Really cute bottle... the lady haha so funny

The guy who makes Vodka

The most extensive Vodka bar... that platter has little bread with pig fat on it to eat with the Vodka... mmmm tasty!

We need to sample some quality Russian Vodka here...

The group of us walking around sampling and Vodka and eating weird food

Bit scared to drink the Vodka... ready for the BURN! And no this time - it is not water!

Our main course, after our delicious salad thing

Coffee and Icecream? Yes Please! Everyone thought I was weird for popping that icecream in the coffee... but I certainly didn't regret it! AFFOGATTO's - I love you.

The next leg of the journey was towards the fortress with a Russian Orthodox church inside. On the way, I was astounded to see that all through the city, cars were double and even triple parked in. Every car was also quite dirty and the roads were extremely wide. Still, how any car gets out once it is parked is beyond me.

Entering the fortress

The Orthodox Church

We had to buy tickets from a very angry Russian lady to go into the church

Interesting colour scheme...

My favourite thing inside the church was the people who were working on sections of the church refurbishing it - and I thought they looked a little like oompa loompas. Funny site!

Another highlight here was being serenaded by this priest choir who sang for us and they sounded seriously angelic. I was very touched by their voices. I took a video but it doesn't do them justice - also because it is sideways but it's more to listen to some Russian Orthodox Choir Music. Actually it's quite a long and large video so I will just let you listen to it on request when I'm back in Australia lol

After seeing the Russia Orthodox Church, we went to a Russian Church - "Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood" which was especially amazing. This is because firstly, IT LOOKS AMAZING from the outside. It is quite a sight to behold. Secondly, the inside is gobsmackingly intricate and detailed as it is covered in murals which are completely made from the tiniest mosaic pieces. It would have taken forever to build. Incredible!

This photo I took to show you the fact that all of it was made from little mosaic pieces. IN AWE.

After seeing all the sights of St Petersburg, our tour bus deposited us in the middle of a narrow but rather busy Russia street - causing quite a traffic jam (40 students getting out of a bus, and collecting their bags from the luggage area takes some time). We stood around awkwardly as the tour guide tried to work out where our hostel was. We looked like the biggest idiots standing awkwardly on the sidewalk and between cars in the street and to my disbelief, the tour guide announced that actually, we were not in the right place and the bus was going to have to come back and collect us and load our luggage again. Ha.... what a fail!

We did eventually make it to our hostel, which was actually a little away from the city. Maybe about a 20-30 minute walk? The hostel itself was not too bad for Russian standards! The four of us shared a dorm with four other people from the tour. It was a very spacious, clean and bright room. The stairway up to the hostel smelt like smoke. In Russia, you can smoke indoors. The hostel itself had a no smoking policy so everyone ducked outside and smoked in the staircase. The smell of smoke everywhere, including restaurants and bars was something I had to get used to over the three days.

As we left to go explore the city and find ourselves some dinner. We couldn't read the name of our street and worried that we wouldn't find our way back, I took this photo of the sign. Any guesses on how to pronounce that?

Loved finding such colourful graffiti and awesome shots of Urban Decay

The streets of Russia. Daunting much? But yet, magnificent!

Loved the colourful randomness of this building

This is my favourite shot from Russia because I feel like it really encompasses everything that is Russia. The awesome church which I think is just bloody awesome. The frozen water. The houses and buildings and the broken balcony which is about to sink into the water.

The main shopping street of Russia

In a Sushi Restaurant, which smelled like smoke, we ordered Pasta (yeah I know) and I ordered this "homemade Russian drink" which tasted like berry jelly... was very thick and glutinous. Interesting textures.

Russian Subway! Sells Beer!

That night, we went on a pub crawl with the tour to a couple of Russian Bars and Clubs. It was a Wednesday so the only people out were us which was a little strange. All the bars smelt heavily of smoke, and everyone smoked a lot. The bar tenders didn't speak English well at all. In fact, noone in Russia really speaks English. It was actually quite a challenge getting around because we couldn't read any of the signs, and the Russians could not converse with us! Still it was all quite hilarious. The bars were very different to what we were used to of course. The toilets usually had no toilet paper, sometimes no water too. The decor was incredibly cool because they were very dark, with interesting ripped walls and crazy pictures on the wall, lots of graffiti and the music was AWESOME.

The next day, we went to the Winter Palace where the Hermitage Museum was. We were greeted by a Russian Army Band! So cool. I watched them play for ages. There were drums, and brass and a conductor. Afterwards, we spent about 4 hours in the museum - meant to be one of the best, biggest and most comprehensive museums in the world - where I saw lots of stuff. Such stuff includes: Egyptians (mummified people), Van Gogh, Matisse, Monet, 2nd Century Old Statues, Michelangelo Sculptures, Knights Armour, etc etc.

The Winter Palace

Russian Army Band

Inside the Winter Palace/Hermitage Museum, we saw a lot of interesting Russian interior design - which I have come to learn I am not a major fan of. It is definitely glamorous and intricate but just a little too glamorous, a little too pompous, a little too cluttered, a little too much of a cacophany of everything. Still, it was again, a sight to behold. You can really see, the Russian Royal Family liked to live in luxury. You will see an even better example of this at the next Palace we went to! You see, this palace was not luxurious enough for the princess for whom this was built for. After the Winter palace was finished, the princess decided she didn't like it - so now it is a museum. Huh.

Can you spot Annie in this pic?

After the long and tiring but very interesting many hours in the museum, we left and decided to go and find some typical Russian cuisine. Now, one thing I have learnt since coming on exchange is that when you go to a country, asking for the "typical food of that country" can be difficult. When you are in Australia, it is hard to find a restaurant which says "Australian Cuisine" (other than the one I worked at which was owned by Asians and is now closed down and apparently a sushi bar). My point is, that everywhere, places are becoming more and more globalised and multicultural when it comes to food. Nevertheless, we did find one! TEPEMOK! The Russian Fast Food Restaurant - pancakes and buckwheat porridge. YUM!

After our actually surprisingly delicious Russian lunch, we walked around the city a little more and it rained. We came across "China Town" and where you find China Town, you find Me and Carter! 

More shots of Russia because Russia is really kinda cool

After a long trek around the city, Carter, Manon and I had yet another long trek around the city at night in search for some pie shop which was recommended in Carter's Lonely Planet. We walked down the street it was on for what seemed like forever (in the rain with no umbrella) stopping Russians and saying only the name of the cafe only to have them constantly pointing in the opposite direction to the way we were going. It turned out we were literally walking left and right down the street, going past it over and over again because the sign was written in Russian! DAMMIT! When we finally found it, it was closed because it was after 9. Huh. We ended up just trying to find ANYTHING AT ALL to eat. We finally ended up in a really amazing Georgian restaurant. Soaked and hungry, we were so happy to find the waitress could speak English and even better, had a menu in English for us! Here is a photo representing how woozy we felt and then one of our happy celebratory pose!

Yes we were in a Georgian restaurant but all I wanted was a Ceasar Salad!

After dinner, we ended up being coerced into going out for a final night out in Russia! It was quite a crazy night where the whole group of us (some 20 or so people) all got lost in Russia at night and separated. Carter, an Aussie and I ended up in a Jager Bar where the bartender who didn't speak English gave us an amazing "Sambuca Experience."  If you want to know more, you can ask me personally. Either way, it was a really memorable last night in Russia! But when I got home, I was definitely ready for bed! Only to have to get up quite early to go to St Catherine's Palace for our last day in Russia!

It had snowed overnight. WOOT

Last Day in Russia - St Catherine's Palace

In the palace, you need to wear foot slippers!

St Catherine's Palace showed me a world of extreme luxury, wealth, and a gaudy smorgasbord of Russian interior design. Obviously, I wasn't especially keen on the style but I admit it does come out nicely in photos compared to in person in my opinion. Also, it serves as a depiction of the style at the time. I am very glad that I was able to witness it first hand.

The Amber Room - not allowed to take photos in here. But I snuck one anyway. The room is quite famous, but actually, the Amber in here is apparently not even the real deal - as the real Amber pieces which were donated by a Prussian Prince were stolen by the Germans in the war and are "lost" - unsure if they are destroyed or hidden. Wow. Just Wow. These are GIANT walls of amber we are talking about - how does one LOSE GIANT PLANKS OF AMBER?

Outside in the garden of the Palace

In St Catherine's Palace Garden, there is another little palace for St Catherine when she wants to "get away"... and have peace and solitude...

Lenin Statue, and the military hats some guys from the tour got!

At this point, the four of us and two German guys decided we had had enough of the tour on the bus and strayed away and caught a metro instead home. The metro is meant to be one of the deepest as it never surfaces above ground. It was also awesome because you don't see the metro! It is kind of like in Harry Potter in the Ministry of Magic, when the people go into the toilet and then come out in little portals. In the metro station, there are no platforms - you simply just wait in the main area and when the metro pulls up - the doors all down the station open and people spill out. Amazing sight!

I bought some crab chips for the boat ride home - they tasted like crab! Pretty tasty!

There was a Russian bride and groom in the ship terminal... how romantic and random!

About to set sail!

On the boat - we were stoked to discover that for this leg of the journey back to Helsinki - our cabin had a window for the first time! YES!

We arrived back in Helsinki on Sunday morning to find that wow - major flaw in the tour - it is EASTER SUNDAY. Nothing was open. And it was cold. There was pretty much nothing to do! Mina here expresses how it kinda felt for us to have to spent the whole day in Helsinki with nowhere to go and nothing to do. We found a coffee shop that was open.

We found a Turkish place open too. Big meal...

With so much time to kill - we ended up finding out way to the cinema (Manon's brilliant idea) and asked to see any movie that was in English. To my delight, The Descendants was about to play so we saw that. It was awesome and sad. So what looked like it was going to be a horrible day in Helsinki ended up being an awesome day in Helsinki and very comfortable.

Back on the boat, while Manon had a nap - the rest of made a little blanket fortress for funsies! HOORAY!

It had been a very very very busy and super touristy trip! We met a lot of cool people and saw a lot of things which I really don't think we could have seen unless we had gone with a tour. What became quite clear was that travelling to Russia, a tour guide is very helpful, especially one who can speak Russian. It can be quite an intimidating place. Still, it was a crazy adventure. I can't say I was particularly a fan of it being so touristy, but I think it was a good experience to try it. In the end, we did mix it up a little and we did lots of interesting things. I bought a bunch of postcards from Russia too! And I intend to send them to everyone when I get the time. So I may need to grab people's emails!

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Because it took me a heck of a long time to write it. Wow - and I still have Latvia to go! Damn. But hey - THANKS FOR READING GUYS!

Oh yeah also - my friend who I said would pop up. I didn't end up being bothered to talk about him anymore but we saw him again and again throughout our nights on the boat.