Hey Everyone!!

Sorry It's been a while but being on a train for four days is quite gruelling (plus there is a lack of internet facilities!!) So where was I??

Met the Vodkatrain guys in St.Petersburg, You'll be hearing alot abou them I'm sure! Carole, Joe, Morten, Sveta and Naomi make the group and a very happy group we make!

St.Petersburg was brilliant!! Saw some lovely cathederals and went to the Hermitage museum which is a must see people but the best part for me was the summer soulstice! There was literally only an hours dusk during the whole 24hours and for the rest you were wearing your sunglasses! Pretty cool, (but not good for body clocks and sleeeping!) Found some cool pubs and stayed up to watch a famous bridge erection and then after an amazing performance of swan lake by some very talented Ballet dancers we said goodbye to S.P, another overnight train and hello again Moscow!!

The overnight train was fun packed!! With champagne and pickles (for everyone else!) but started what was to be a good couple of days in another Russian City! We saw some more Chruches and impressive architecture and (inevitably) found an Irish pub with CIDER!!! and watched the Mexico game with funnily enough some mexicans! That was a great night!!

After yet more sightseeing in Moscow; Including dead Lennin and a Press photo exhibition, it was time for the team to embark on the longest stretch of train in the whole journey, The train took us from Moscow to Yerkaterinburg (Place the Tsars were assasinated), then to Krasnoyarsk (peaceful farming town), to Omsk (Lots of Lenin statues), Novosibirsk (I'm sure the polar bear mints are from there) and then finally Irkutsk with it's decembrist houses and Lennin Statue cemetery!! That's where I am now, but just before that the group and I went to Lake Bakail-which incidentally is 20% of the worlds fresh water and is HUGE!!! It looks like the sea, it's so weird! The locals say that if you go fully submerged into it you'll extend your life another 25 years, so we collectively decided that's what we would do! We didn't think that it was so good when we were in there though; seen as the water was 1 degrees and it was still frozen last week!! Mad English dogs!!! Ha! Then a bit of hiking and a Banya (Russian sauna with whipping involved) warmed us all up nicely!!

So back to Irkutsk for today and another couple of days on the train into MONGOLIA!!!! YAY!!! Talk to you soon guys!

Dasvindnya!!!