Arrived in Ekaterinburg a couple of days ago after a 26 hour train journey from Moscow, which wasn't as bad as it sounds! At the station in Moscow the ticket lady did not seem happy with our tickets (as they were all in Russian we had no idea what they said anyway!). She looked confused and wondered off then came back, seemed to want to explain something about our tickets, but couldn't speak any English - in the end she gave up and let us on. Stil have no idea what the problem was... but we made it!

We had a four bed cabin, which we shared with an 80 year old Russian lady, who kept trying to speak to us and was getting very frustrated that we had no idea what she was on about! She kept herself amused by reading our books out loud, but with no understanding of what she was reading - in fact she was reading all about Anthony Kedis (Red Hot Chilli Peppers) and his heroin addiction! (Dan is reading his autobiography).

Ekaterinburg is much colder than Moscow - we've had our thermals on the whole time. Spent the first day doing a walking tour, which was interesting. We visited the place where the Romanov's were executed and various other monuments and museums.

Last night we went to the ballet to see Swan Lake - it was really cheap, about 8 pounds for seats in the stalls, so Dan had to sit through two and a half hours of ballet! The leading man was no Carlos Acosta!

Today we went husky dog sledding which was amazing! Got picked up this morning in an old car that stank of stale dog...nice! We then went to the dog shed to pick up the dogs and swap into an old Russsian army van - we think it must have been around in the war as it was falling apart. On the way to the sledding we stopped at the border between Europe and Asia for a quick photo.

The sledding was loads of fun - Dan was in the driving seat whilst I relaxed on my bum and enjoyed the scenary... Lots more good photos, we will try and get some up as soon as we can.

Now we're waiting to be picked up for our next train journey, which starts at 4am tomorrow morning and finishes on Thursday afternoon, when we arrive in Harbin, China after travelling across Siberia - that is one long train journey - lets hope we make it without killing each other!

More when we get to China in a few days xxxx