I'm getting used to Moscow now but it was a bit of a culture shock after St Petersburg which is tiny in comparison. St Petersburg seems to be designed by women for women with all the fairytale-esque pastel coloured buildings, not to mention the catwalk show which was Nevsky Prospect. Moscow is altogether more masculine and on a huge scale; the buildings are towering awe inspiring structures and the city is encircled by a series of ring roads which twenty lanes of traffic. I keep having to walk about a mile down the road before I can cross to the other side.

I made two discoveries yesterday that excited me greatly. I'm ashamed to say the first was Starbucks, but I'm allowed to be excited by that because you cannot get soy milk here and Starbucks is the only place which caters for my special dietary requirements ;) Speaking of which, my second great discovery was peanut butter, which I had previously been unable to find, and which got me the comment of "you are so English". Both were ridiculously expensive too but it was worth it as I was suffering withdrawal symptoms.

It's strange how being away from home makes you appreciate the little things more. Like clean toilets, non-smokey restaurants and peanut butter.

I'm realising it's quite advantageous sometimes being a foreigner; you can get away with a remarkable amount by looking wide-eyed and saying "Angliski, Angliski".

I'm quite enjoying staying in hostels, I don't really mind sharing a room with nine other people (mixed sex) and I've taken to camping out on a top bunk with my money belt, Anna Karenina and ear plugs. There's a huge mix of people in the hostel as well; lots of Russians (who make a great deal of noise to the early hours), an American investment banker, an Egyptian who's been living there for 3 months, as well as the usual backpackers. All of them are lovely (apart from the noisy Russians) and very interesting as they all have stories as to why they're there.

Today I went to Leo Tolstoy's house which is done up as a museum and they have his study preserved as to how it was when he was writing. I got very excited by this, especially as I'm re-reading Anna Karenina (somewhat ironically) in honour of my train trip . Apparently his wife was the one who actually fashioned his manuscripts into his published works. Behind every great man.....

I am greatly looking forward to my train journey tonight, it is the longest one we are doing and takes three and a half days. When we get to Irkustk we're going to Listvyanka by Lake Baikal to go husky sledding. I'm getting worried about the cold..... So no internet for a while probably.

Hope everyone's doing good. Ah, it feels as though I've been away a lot longer than I have. Missing you all,

Jane