Mother Russia!

The one we have been waiting for!!! 
After a basically sleepless night I caught my flight to Helsinki! The plane ride over again became another hilarious journey.. For shorter story.. I had a stop over in Prague and on the first plane I had to be the emergency exit person but fell asleep during take off so sorry if we had crashed folks! Landing I panicked when the exit sign lit up so stared at the pamphlet for ages and back at the door to work out what to do. The connecting flight involved me and some lovely guys from Israel making jokes on the plane to pass the time and cure our hangovers! And finally I arrived in Helsinki! What a strange place! It was never dark!! Or if it was it was a deep blue sky not black! It was still light at 11:30pm! Everyone helps you as much as they can they even go to such great lengths as to draw you a map!! Unbelievably nice! So I meet my contiki group.. Blah blah blah! And we set off for Russia!! I gotta say that I can't describe Russia that well! It's something you've really got to see for yourself! Getting into russia.. We were greeted by a four foot stunning lady with a look on her face that could kill! Once passed security we were in Russia.. Some part of Russia??? A long long drive later we were in St Petersburg!!! St petersburg was... Better than beautiful, awesome or amazing, stunning or any of these adjectives! I spent most of days walking around exploring the place on my own. Yeah. Russia isn't that scary. The people are nice when you talk to them and I noticed no one seemed to do the double take look at me (I felt pretty unattractive there) the women all dressed up in Hugh heels short skirts and were very slim. Lovely ladies! After having bad luck trying to find a sex museum to see rusputins penis but having a great experience with the locals trying to communicate what I wanted to see and having one woman even say to me "what!!? Where the hell do you come from and what have they told you!!?" in the end I never saw it. Lame! But i became captured with the stories of Peter the great and Catherine that were told by our guide. Then onto the next town we went.. Some dodgy mosquito infested place! You got the feeling you were getting closer to entering the belly of the beast. The next day however many hours it was later we arrived in Moscow! Moscow was like st petersburg's mean big brother. It actually gave me the chills to be alone there half the time.. The people seemed to look at you in a different way. One night a fellow traveller abs j decided to explore the night life and after having the sirens on us by the police cause we stopped in front of the KGB (big no no) we were helped by some locals to this bar/club that was terrible.. But great. They insisted on buying us drinks and after watching everything being poured we tried to give them money they refused and said they were offended by the offer. It's how it is over there. The night ended by us saying goodbye to our fellow friends and getting into a unofficial taxi who was an Italian man who couldn't speak Russian or English.. So there I am trying to direct this man in bad Italian in Russia?? How that worked I dunno. 

Back to Spain!!!!

Granada Sevilla!!!!! 
After abruptly meeting v as she burst through a 10 bedroom dorm waking the sleeping hungover people we set off to find lunch/breakfast. We spent 2 days traveling from Barcelona to Madrid to catch a bus to Granada! The hysterical bus ride took 5 to 6 hours which involved us mining great 80s hits that were available to listen to on the bus in the backseats. Backseat bandits! When we arrived in Granada it was after midnight so we stumbled tiredly around the town up the mountain with backpacks on cursing the place Only to be welcomed by street music from hippies! When we finally found our hostel we were greeted by a tall lanky stunning barefooted man and a British shaggy looking character whom we spent the remainder of the night drinking and hanging out with. They informed us of their point system for their guest which basically went.. 1. You start on 10 points.. You gain points for helping them for example cooking then dinner, helping them clean, not waking them up before 9. You loose points by saying amazing which v lost 5 points in 5 minutes for doing. Generally pissing them off. We were long lost friends in Bo time! And it was the Perfect way to spend the night. Over the next couple of days there was a heat wave so we went about making picnics and exploring the town and all it's beauty. One of the days we took a bus to the beach and watched gorgeous curvy women swim topless and run along the beach.. So after a whole bottle of wine we swam around in our nickers! And it was well worth it! We bought drinks at a local bar.. My gin and tonic was as big as my head... V had to take us back after that. We never did get to see the nightlife cause we were either too heat stroked or stomach sick, but having said that staying in and hanging with the lovely hostel folk was far more entertaining. When we left they sad but i am sure we left on 20+ points. Sevilla was next. Stunning place with a quirky atmosphere. Everyone seemed to speak with the th and b instead of v sounds so cervesa turned into therbetha! Overlly gay lisp sounds! When it was v's birthday we ditched the flamingo night and ate and drank at a bar... My spanish isn't that perfect so instead of ordering 2 slices of pizzas I ordered 2 pizzas! They turned into our drunken treats later in the night! Sevilla was as stunning and beautiful as everyone says it is.. I adored it so much. After v left for primavera festival in Barcelona I explored the town alone and in the next couple of days joined back up with her, james, Jenna and will.