Moscow

Yep, the rich were richer in moscow and the poor were still poor.

I saw lenin's corpse, stanislavsky's theatre, chekov's grave, over priced art galleries, faberge eggs and red square. And I bought a ridiculous hat.


I spent so long attempting to decipher the venue location on this bill poster that I missed the final night of the bolshoi ballet show. My west-centric monolingualism is really starting to get annoying.


I shared a pensive moment with Mayakovsky - futurist, poet, artist and bolshevik who killed himself in 1930.

Hey!
Gentlemen!
Amateurs
of sacrilege,
crime,
and carnage,
have you seen
the terror of terrors –
my face
when
I
am absolutely calm? (A Cloud in Trousers, 1915)

And I was reassured by the lady at moscow international terminal's security screening point. She looked just like this, except with a slightly longer skirt.

The Hermitage

This place is so fancy it gets its very own post.




I could go on.

Rodin... je t'aime...

Now, whenever I worry about getting old, I can just think of this guy (40,000+ years old and counting).

St Petersburg

Wow.
Men in uniform on every corner, dilapidated streets, enormous palaces, cyrillic script.
Some borscht.
Too much vodka.

I crossed the russian border all on my lonesome. See how intrepid i am.The border guards rapped on my carriage door at 2am and barked at me in russian. The only word I knew was nyet (no). Luckily, this appeared to be the correct answer.

yep, that about sums it up.

One of the russian tsars was murdered in a horrible way, so they built this garish cathedral on the assassination site. Lovely.


Yes, that is a hot pink stretch hummer. this is a serious oil-producing west-aspiring land.


No, a car like this is not uncommon


Red bull+vodka, ruski-style

A famous palace....


... and one of the neglected streets right outside said famous palace. Me and my fellow socialists were horrified.

Riga

Ok, so over a year ago i read a lovesick rant about the isolated innocence of riga, and decided i had to go to latvia. But the guy who wrote that must have visited pre-ryanair, because nowadays the place is full of drunk britons.



Still, i loved the place.



Especially the 'cocktails' made with icecream and some strange caramel-like tea...



... and the street art (could this be boho?! :p)



... and the sunset over andrejsala district (where the cool cats hang and create aforementioned street art)



... and the heart wrenching museum of the occupation of latvia. did you know Latvia lost 1/3 of their population during world war two (you can read cheerfully about what the soviets did here, remembering that one week - yep, count the days - after stalin's mass deportation of 1939 the nazis attacked and within three weeks had fully occupied the country).



But its ok, things are better now. Laura Bush left some comforting words in the museum's visitor book "may our two nations... remain friends of freedom and democracy for ever". Ahem.



And those decades of soviet rule did count for something. I got a russian visa in two days!

Sheffield

After two days in sheffield, i understood what jarvis cocker was on about - who ever knew there could be so much cleavage in such cold weather.

there were disco lights inside and everything

as you can see, i ingratiated myself with ease

Manchester

I had my first real pang of homesickness here, wandering around the Kylie Minogue exhibition at their local art gallery (yes, the same exhibition that's already toured Australia and the World, and that I already spent too much of my life in at Canberra, considering it really is kinda crappy).

I started crying when watching the dvd of her last world tour and realised I was having a minor patriot moment. Oops.



So Ian Curtis used to drink here. I wanted to go to Hacienda - of 24 Hour Party People fame - but it has apparently been turned into an apartment block. As have many places in Manchester.



I didn't win.



It was here in a great british pub in Salford, Manchester, that I monopolised the jukebox and danced around belle-and-sebastian style to manchester sounds. On my own. (its ok, I knew the bartender. don't go thinking i've suddenly gone all hip and independent).



Wikipedia tells me Mike Leigh was born in Salford. Karl Marx and Nico used to live there. Now my rock star friend does. With his wife.



It was on the train from Manchester to Sheffield I resolved to read fewer guide books.

Here's why:

1. My lonely planet is bigger than your lonely planet. And that is annoying.
2. The travel warnings give me nightmares (well yes I know I may be gassed in my sleep while travelling on trains but I'm on a train right now so would prefer you not to mention it)
3. Everything (including the maps and places names) are in English, which isn't much use in most of Europe
3. They promise glue-sniffing street urchins in every city and have, as yet, failed to deliver.

I didn't spend long enough in Manchester. And I'm beginning to think this everywhere I go.

Glasgow

So, while here i did not meet any scottish rock stars. I did not visit any pubs.

I did pay over 6 pounds to listen to a stuffy english art student recite some lines about charles rennie mackintosh designs at her school.

I did fall in love with Rodin.

I did take these photos.





This is Glasgow Cathedral. Pretty. Says lonely planet:

it is a shining example of pre-reformation architecture and the only scottish cathedral to survive the reformation.

Who says government can't be funny.



I bought these after three days of no contact with other humans. Think I might have been losing my mind. Are they ugly? I can't tell.



I enjoyed 0.5 good hair days, and decided Charles Worthington is my new best friend (http://www.cwlondon.com/products/products.asp?s_product_ranid=111222)