In order to get on a cheap flight away from Moscow and across to Beijing, I decided to backtrack and detour through Finland for a night.

Finland’s capital turned out to be quite cool with a few interesting skate and street wear shops. I only had a few hours to explore and the rain was almost torrential so I didn’t achieve a whole lot.

Riding the trams around a fairly flat town center reminded me quite a bit of Melbourne. I might have felt like this because of the rain but I definitely think there were some similarities in the architecture of the two cities.

For accommodation, I picked up couch with a guy named Antti. He had a pretty sweet little flat and a good outlook. Since he was coming off a big weekend and had to work Monday, we just chilled out and chatted with a couple of his Spanish friends who made a brief appearance.

Not a bad litle way to spend a night. Hopefully next time I’ll be in town when it’s warmer and there is more time to check things out.

My stay in Moscow was extended since I didn’t take the trans-Siberian railway.

I’ve decided this was a good thing because the Capital, and Russia as a whole, is such a unique place. I’ll admit it’s probably the most difficult place to be in that I’ve ever visited. I guess that’s all part of the charm.

Through the first few days I managed to see Gorky Park, Red Square, Lenin’s Mausoleum and of course the Kremlin.

After burning out on tourist attractions I arranged to meet up with a few Couch Surfers for coffees, lunches and trips to less touristy destinations. Still later in my stay I spent a day inside the flat, tried vodka for breakfast, and ate plain rice because I deemed it too expensive to eat out.

Moscow really was all that I expected. It’s cold, wet-snowy-wet at this time of year, and generally pretty depressing. But that’s just the on the surface. The people I managed to have genuine conversations with were all wonderful people with bright and interesting stories to tell.

As it stands with visa requirements, I won’t be rushing back. On the other hand, if these things change or if I get the opportunity to go out on business, I’ll definitely jump at the chance to visit Moscow again.

St. Petersburg is another city that I had wished I could have visited in 2006. Since I’d read Crime and Punishment that year I was excited by the idea of strolling up Nevsky Prospect, crossing the Neva to Vasilievsky Island, and seeing the Dostoevsky museum that’s set up in one of his old flats.

With the mandatory “tourist invitation” and visa in place, I managed to do all that on this trip. What was amazing was that there’s so much more to see and do which I didn’t really figure out until doing some proper research.

I will never profess to understand or be a lover of art. Regardless, The Hermitage was an amazing experience. I was quite taken by the quality of the exhibits and the breath of the collection. Being situated in the Winter Palace, even the exterior is photograph worthy.

St Isaac’s Cathedral was another great find which actually came about by chance. I was struggling to see or find anything with so much snow falling around the Armoury. Then a Hungarian bloke asked if I would mind taking his photo in front of the large, but otherwise innocuous, Church that I’d just spent a few minutes staring at.

All in all, St. Petersburg was not an easy place to visit. It’s damn expensive too. But on whole it was well worth the effort.

Maastricht, in the south of The Netherlands was a nice little one night detour.

I didn’t have a lot of time to see the sights, but went for a nice walk in the afternoon and managed to get a good feel for the place.

Yet another river city with beautiful old buildings and lots of green areas. Maastricht is unique for it’s abundance of university students (about 10% of the ~120,000 population).

There’s not all that too much to say about Amsterdam. I arrived Saturday evening and departed fairly early on the following Monday.

The most humorous anecdote was when Matt and I had to drag a punter from one of canals at about 1am Sunday morning. Wes was too busy taking photos to lend a hand.

The guy had fallen in on the other side of the canal. Unfortunately I only saw the splash. From what Matt described, it involved him stumbling backwards in a drunken stupor and tripping on a bicycle. A very Amsterdam moment indeed.

What was interesting from there was that I think the guy actually took a liking to the water. It didn’t seem like he was at all interested in getting out as he casually swam in our general direction. This was despite the fact he was wearing a leather jacket, denim jeans and heavy boots.

Those of us on dry land decided pretty quickly that his fun wasn’t going to last. So we got down to the edge of the canal and pulled the guy up the meter or so to bring him onto the embankment. He mumbled something and then asked if any of us could spare a cigarette.

Just to cap things off, as we walked away somebody had the presence of mind to start up a round of the Baywatch theme song. Here’s the first verse in case you’re ever in a similar situation:

Some people stand in the darkness
Afraid to step into the light
Some people need to help somebody
When the edge of surrender’s in sight.

Another stupidly early wake up was worse for having only had 4 hours sleep. The speed at which my brain was functioning was almost certainly evident from the amount of noise I made trying to pack up. My sincerest apologies to everybody else in the dorm.

I successfully negotiated the back streets of Antwerp to catch a 6:20 express train to Brussels. The change I needed to make to get to Cologne didn’t really go to plan. Firstly, I’d managed to disembark from the Antwerp-Belgium train at the ‘central’ station and not the station where international trains depart from. Second, I couldn’t make a reservation on any of the express trains that day because they were fully booked with tourists heading home after the public holiday /long weekend.

I eventually made it to Cologne by taking regional inter-city trains and changing a further two times.  But I wasn’t done yet. In Cologne I booked into a return journey south to Mannheim and set off to meet a few old colleges/friends.

I had a neat little afternoon in Mannheim. I saw a bloke run off down the street after shop lifting from a chemist. I made a few legitimate purchases myself and enjoyed some coffee/wifi while waiting for Dom and Christian to finish work. We had a  snack for dinner and a few beers but there wasn’t much time before I needed to get back to the station and head back up to Cologne. We’ll have to sort that out next time!

It was great to arrive in Cologne, catch up with Anna, meet her parents and sisters, and feel a part of a functioning family. It was also really cool to get into town and be in ‘real’ coffee shops and original stores rather than the generic tourist traps you so often find yourself in when in unfamiliar cities.

To cover off two of Cologne’s most well known icons, we stopped briefly at a beer hall to try Kölsch. We then walked around to take a look inside the grand Kölner Dom (Cologne cathedral). The place is massive and I’m really not surprised it took over 600 years to construct.

Three days wasn’t long enough but I needed to get across to Amsterdam to meet up with Matt and farewell Wes who was due to head home to Australia.

After an overnight train from Berlin I had two busy days experiencing Belgium.

We checked into our Antwerp hostel quite early, surprising and confusing the manager to the point of receiving a free breakfast. After that I decided not to waste any time and basically went straight back to the main train station to make my way to Brugges for the day.

Brugges

This bustling seaside town lived up to it’s reputation. It wasn’t long before I found myself drooling on chocolate shop windows and inside cafes sampling Trappist and Abbey beers. I also found my favorite manhole cover for the trip:

Ghent

Next day I went out to Ghent. Kind of a mistake since it was a public holiday and there weren’t many people around and even less shops open for business. I managed to completely underestimate the size of the place which led to a few navigation errors (read: being completely lost). But it was nice a fairly nice day and we had most of city to ourselves.

Antwerp

With only two full days to see Belgium, I only really spent my evenings in Antwerp. I didn’t see too much to be honest but from what I spotted, it’s a decent place.

My best memory is of an excellent modern blues-jazz band that we stumbled across in a smallish bar not far from the hostel. The four-piece featured a charasmatic Dutchman on vocals and lead guitar plus a Belgian who ripped on the harmonica. They played two sets thoughout the night plus a brief encore which only just managed to appease the crowd. I just wish I wrote down their name.

I’m such a fan of Berlin. It just has a really great vibe.

Matt, Wes I and took a free walking tour on our first day. I did the same tour in 2006 and found it pretty funny this time around because the route and script haven’t changed at all. Even still, it was a great way to reacquaint myself with the many interesting sites and landmarks in the central ‘Mitte’ district.

Two of the most obvious spots are the Brandenburger Tor (Brandenburg Gates) and the Reichstag (the German parliament building).

I stayed in the Charlottenburg district in 2006 so I’d already seen quite a few places in the former West Berlin. Kurfürstendamm, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the Berlin Zoo and the Tiergarten being highlights. So for the next few days I spent some time exploring the eastern districts.

There are no shortage of things to see in and around Friedrichshain. There was a cool theme bar dedicated to The Big Lebowski where I came very close to ordering a White Russian. I also really liked the Oberbaumbrücke which is an old red brick bridge that crosses the Spree. It’s down the far eastern end of the East Side Gallery so you can’t miss it.

In terms of nightlife, I managed to see a couple of bands. The first was a young and local punk whose name escapes me. The second was a solid performance by London’s Supergrass.  Both shows were plenty of fun but nothing to rave about.

One thing that I did enjoy was a ‘free’ (tips based) tour of some of the alternative sites in Berlin. I was a little hesitant at first because I thought looking at graffiti and visiting squats with a group would be kind of pathetic. Looking back I am glad I did it. I learnt a lot and took notice of many things that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. To save you those feelings of guilt, maybe just check out the photos.

After spending a day and then a night in the bus, any normal person would probably have a quiet day catching up on sleep or maybe taking a stroll. I guess I’m probably not normal.

After dropping my bags at a Belfast hostel at 8am, I walked straight into town and booked myself onto another bus tour. This time the destination was the Giant’s Causeway which is about 125km away along the northern coastline. Taking a second coastal trip in consecutive days didn’t lessen my enjoyment in the slightest. The views and those causeway stones are just too amazing.

That night I slept like a baby. Apparently the ear plugs worked so well that I missed out witnessing four drunken Irishmen keep the three other girls in the room awake the whole night. Next day I moved hostels and did some walking around with Judith, one of the sleep deprived, in a hunt for good coffee.

Matt and Wes arrived mid-afternoon and we set ourselves up for Halloween with a meal at a Thai restaurant. This was by far the green curry I’ve ever had! The night involved a couple Guinness and a nip or two of Bushmill’s at the Crown Liquor Salon before heading to a cool dress-up party at Thompsons niteclub.

Next day we set about seeing the city centre and getting on a Black Cab tour to learn what The troubles were all about. Despite the driver carefully explaining everything, I still (and probably never will) really understand what all the fighting was for.

That was pretty much all for Belfast. In the afternoon we caught a city bus out to Hillsborough to stay with some friends for a night. The following day we did the seaside town of Newcastle which was also worth a look.

Since I’d had a pretty hectic week crisscrossing Ireland I really needed some time to chill out. Being as overcast and as expensive as it is, Dublin was a good place to be.

That said, I still managed to take in a few of the sights during my stay. On the first day I took a walk from my hostel down to the Guinness Storehouse.

The route I followed took me down O’Connell street past the modern Spire and the old General Post Office. Then it was across the Liffey river to Trinity College where I pretended to be a student for about half an hour. After this I went west behind the famous Temple Bar, and along Thompson Street where I found a pretty impressive old church.

Walking is definitely the best way to to see a place. Here’s some photographic evidence: