Ulan Bator

One evening of quiet nomad life and then back to the city the next day.  Ulan Bator is the capital and about 1 million people so roughly the size of Seattle.  I am at an actual homestay here (but still have my own room) which is really nice and comfortable.  Its in a apartment building in the southern part of the city and there is lots of hustle and bustle.  People playing basketball, children on the playground in front of the building and babies crying.  Apparently a third of the population is under 14 and you can really tell – kids everywhere!

Anyway no solid plans, but just two days to wander – happy to find this internet cafe so I can update you all.  Stay tuned for more pictures and more stories.  Tomorrow onto Beijing!

 

Mongolia

After another day and night on the train (this seemed easy after the last ride). I arrived in Mongolia bright and early in the morning and was promptly wisked off to the national park outside of Ulan Bator for my night with the nomads.

When we arrived we were taken int the yurt of a middle aged couple and served green tea with fresh cow milk yum yum and were able to talk to them a bit through the translator.  After that we were taken up to a group of yerts further up the valley where travelers stayed.  It was kind of like a yurt hotel : )  Again as a lone traveler I had a whole yert to myself.  Guess it pays to travel early in the season….

The rest of the day was spent wandering around the hills by foot and also on horseback.  I got to see lots of herds up close and enjoy the quiet a bit as well.

 

Irkutsk/Lake Baikal

The train ride to Irkutsk was the longest one planned for my trip 4 nights straight.  I got on the train and found that, lucky me I had a two bed car all to myself!  Not what I was expecting, but it was great to have a little privacy after staying in hostels for the last week.  The ride was beautiful, lots of small wooden villages and birch forests and the four days went by very quickly.

When I reached Irkutsk there was a ride waiting for me out to the lake.  As we go nearer I asked about homestay that was arranged and they said it wasn’t a home, but that I would be staying in the chalet.  Chalet?! well that sounds fine with me and sure enough a little ways up one of the valleys off of the main street of the lakeside town there was a beautiful wooden building.  Again my own room and a balcony too this time ; )

I spent two days here walking the town and doing several small hikes up the hills surround the lake.  The views were spectacular and on the second day I met a group of American students who I hiked with.  Some of them wanted to get in the lake so even though it was a little early I joined them for a dip.  The water was freezing, but felt really good and clean enough to drink…. very tasty.

After two days it was time to get back on the train to Mongolia!

 

Moscow

I made it! My hostel is something like a big college house for trans-siberian travelers (its called the trans-siberian hostel – go figure) and everyone is very friendly. Heading out to the Kremlin today and maybe a cemetary that was recommended to me by a fellow traveler. Weather is just like home drizzly and grey ; )

 

St. Petersburg

Navigated the walk from Finlandski station (where the trains from Helsinki arrive) to my hostel – very proud : ) Got settled in and walked around a bit and had a quick dinner before crashing. Was thinking about taking a tour of the Hermitage the next morning, but ended up going with a few fellow travelers I met
here to Peterhof – the summer palace of peter the great just outside
the city. We walked around the huge gardens, which seemed very much
like Versailles and took a look at the palace. Apart from the
beautiful scenery one of the most fun parts about the trip was getting
there and getting back we took the subway. The subway stations are
very ornate and full of people hurrying like crazy – definitely
reminded me of New York or Tokyo. You buy tokens and then get on
these really long escalators that go very fast down to the platforms.
The subway seems to come every few minutes and once you get on there
are no signs that say what the next stop is, but they do announce it
over the loud speaker so if you listen carefully you can figure it
out.

Russian itself seems like a very fun language, I still do not know too
much, but I have been carying my phrasebook around and I found that
probably about half the people I ask speak a little or enough to help
me out – which is nice. Reading the signs in cyrillic also takes me
some time, but I think I am definitely getting better at that too.

The most practice I have gotten so far was actually with a small child who sat next to me on the train, neigher her or her mother or brother spoke english so I tried some phrases out on them. She didn’t say much, but I managed to get her to say that she did speak russian (she said da! after her mom prompted her a bit) and that she was three (three fingers).

Excited to do more tomorrow and then the next day onto Moscow.

 

Helsinki

Great fun, relaxing and wonderful.  Sandy you are a great hostess.  Will fill in more details here soon : )

 

Stockholm

Left Copehnagen Monday and took the train to Stockholm, which runs across the sea to Malmo and then up the southern part of Sweden.  The train was fairly empty early in the morning and it ran through various industrial looking areas and then fields of rape seed and the open countryside of sweden.  Before I fell asleep I got a chance to take a few photos.

On the plan ride from Seattle to Copenhagen I met a woman and while we were chatting she suggested that if I needed a place to stay I could stay with her mother who lived near the center of town.  When I arrived I called her from the train station and she gave me directions to her flat.  Turns out she lived in a rather ritzy part of town called (appropriatly enough) Karlaplan.  She was a clothing designer and I stayed in her sewing room on a guest bed behind the dress rack ; )

I only had about a day there so the next morning I got my stuff and
walked around the city center and the island in the middle, did one
museum and then walked to where my boat to Helsinki was docked.

The boat ride out was beautiful, you go through hours of small islands
off the coast of sweden and it is light late so we had a lot of time
to enjoy.  My roomates were fun and we ended up seeing the on-boat
entertainment in the evening which was also really funny.  Stayed up rather late, so when I awoke we were allready docking in Helsinki.

 

Copenhagen

Arrived in Copenhagen safe and sound and was suprised to find it was summertime!  Was picked up at the airport by my friend Natasa who has been studying there all quarter and who said that this was the first nice weekend of the year.  We took the train and then a bus to her place in the Frederiksberg neighborhood.  Along the way I got to see a little bit of the town, which was bustling with people cars and bikes.  Almost got run over at least twice as I stumbled around in the bright sun into bike lanes and pedestrian islands.   

The next morning I awoke to another gorgeous day, Natasa and I had a light breakfast and then headed out to find me a bike.  Bicycling was Natasa’s main form of transportation in the city and I was excited to try it out.  We found a shop and rented a black cruiser called The Sprit of St Louis.  It was big a clunky compared to my bike at home but just perfect for a city with bikelanes everywhere and no hills.

The next few days were full of bicycling, eating goodies (gelato yum!), and exploring the city.   The warm weather even held up long enough for us to do some sunbathing and swimming at Islands Brygge

 

 

 

theTrip

Travel ideas came about thinking about spending more time with friends and family this year as well as the desire to get out and do some wandering.  Hot people spots were scandanavia and asia, but how to connect the two…. the answer a nice long train ride.  Here is a map for those who like to connect the dots.