From Russia, with love.

So for the last 6ish days we have been Russian around (hehe) St Petersburg and Moscow. Its been so much fun!!! We arrived direct to St Petersburg from Copenhagen and were met by a rather bright and happy girl named Katya (our tour guide for the trip), who was - I'm sad to say, wearing a puffy jacket. From the airport we were promptly whisked away to our three star hotel and given the lowdown on navigating the city. Without missing a beat we headed into Nevsky Prospekt (which is just too fun a phrase to say) to check out the Church of the Spilled Blood. Wow oh wow, what a start to Russia. The church in a nutshell is A-ma-zing! After having a look around, and inside we headed to St Petersburg Cafe for a lunch of Borsch and Beef Stroganoff - staples of Russian traditional cuisine. Afterwards it was back to the hotel to meet the rest of our tour group.

Tuesday we boarded our bus for a tour of the city, taking in sights such as St Issac's Cathedral, the bronze horseman and winter palace before taking a very cheap tour of the Hermitage. That evening we had a special vodka party with some new friends.

The next day, being the independent travellers we are - we opted OUT of an optional tour and sneakily decided to attempt seeing all the sights ourselves. Having discussed the idea with a pleasant information kiosk lady we were confident we would be successful. Plus we would save ourselves a lot of mullah, instead of 80 quid each we budgeted about 20 quid together. So, we made our way out to Tsarskoye Selo (St Catherine's Palace - Summer Palace) near Pushkin all via the public bus. A little mishap of a missed stop but we quickly recovered. Another bus and a gold toothed smile later we arrived at the palace. Afterwards we headed back into town to St Peter and Paul's fortress, the resting place of the Tsars of Russia including the body of the last Tsar. As well as witnessing a strange ritual of near naked bodies leaning against the fortress wall in 5 degree weather to get a Russian tan - crazy! From there we strolled along the Neva River to have another go-gander at St Issac's - which we were surprised to find out is sinking and may close to tourists within the next 12 months. We then headed to the Mariinsky Theatre to watch a Russian production of the fable - the humpbacked horse. That night we boarded a very snug overnight train to Moscow.

After dropping our bags at the hotel in Moscow, we had a quick breakfast and headed out on a walking tour of the city's sights. Taking in most of the red square and being taken back by the stunning St Basil's Cathedral. Unfortunately Lenin's Mausoleum was closed as he was vacationing at the spa - they have embalmed him so well that his finger nails and hair still grow - eww! We then lunched in the beautiful GUM department store before joining an organised tour of the Kremlin. We finished our afternoon checking out the inside of St Basil's, nothing flash, before heading over to see the Moscow Circus troop.

Our final day was left to our choosing, so J and I took in a tour of the amazing metro system of Soviet Russia ending in Revolutionary Square. We then travelled back to our hotel to check out the Vernisazh Markets to purchase our very own Matryoshka doll and equally kitsch souvenirs. We then had a lovely dinner on Old Arbat before a night tour of Moscow, to see all the sights lit up.

It has been an amazing trip, that flew by and we cant wait to go back again!

Us at the church of spilled blood.

Yarit (Jarratt - Russian style) at St Peters and Paul's Fortress

Us in the Red Square (State History Museum behind)

Being silly in Red Square (St Basil's Behind)

Look at this stuff, isn't it neat?

What a great start to a 2 week break from London!!! We landed in Copenhagen on Saturday at around 10am and reached our lovely hotel at about 11am, where Bec promptly ate her words about hotels around the central station being awful. Our 2 star hotel located a street from the main terminal is pretty lush, but so are most things in Copenhagen - we´ve discovered over the last 3 days. After dumping our bags in our room we headed our to the National Muesum for a whistle stop tour of Danish History, along the way we bought our first danish pastry and discovered that Tivoli (Copenhagens main tourist attraction - kinda like a danish disneyland) was SHUT! Jarratt was relieved as that was gonna save him a bucket load of cash whereas I, as you can imagine was a little less joyful. After the muesum we headed to Slotsholmen, an island seperated by river from the city that houses the Danish Parliament and a few muesums. From there we boarded one of the canal cruise boats for a spin around the sights. Afterwards, exhausted from our 4am start we headed back to the hotel for a short kip. We then headed down to the local cafe for our first Calsberg and a danish style burger.

Sunday we headed out to the Carlsberg Brewery to sample some of Danish´s finest ales. We learnt all about the development of Carlsberg, the brewing process and the worlds largest collection of unopened beer bottles, 18314 in total!!!! After some silly photo ops we made our way through the souvenir shop (without purchasing anything!) to the Jacobson bar. Before you entered the bar there is an option to smell a number of aromas, you then pick the combination you like and hey, presto! You can have a beer matching those smells! Despite only receiving 2 free tickets we ´found´ an additional two so in total we sampled 6 beers (Hvede x2, A seasonal Spring Beer, Elephant, Carls Special, Master Brew). A little tipsy we headed back to town. Later that night we headed out to the beautiful area called Ny Havn for a seafood dinner. Very Tasty!!!

Today we headed up to Amalienborg Palace to see the changing of the guards at noon and the Frederikskirken (aka the marble church), afterwoods we wandered along the seafront to check out the famed Little Mermaid Statue. Before picking up some Smorrenbord and heading to the Kings Gardens for lunch. We then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Latin Quarter before pulling in at La Glace, Copenhagens oldest cake shop, for some Mocca Eclaire. Tonight we plan on eating local again and getting ready for Russia tomorrow. Cant Wait!!!

Till next time.... xoxoxo

The Master with his Brew! (Gotcha dave!)

Us in Ny Havn Quay.

The little mermaid statue.

Pints and Punts

Well hello there! How are you all? Jarratt and I are well - living it up in the land of London. Even though we are both sick feeling ill and have been refused by the doctor to get a course of anti-biotics (!) These last few weeks the weather has treated us to a bit of sunshine and we're just about falling over ourselves with excitement. So we have tried to make the most of this fun, sunny weather by slipping across to our park on the odd occasion and catching up with friends. So here we go with a few more tales from what is the chronicles of Where is Bec and J?

Last Wednesday (25th) thanks to our very nifty phone company Jarratt and I managed to swindle some free tickets to a Ben Lee gig at the O2. Pretty cool huh? So since Dave, Bec, J and I are "all in this (London thing) together" we thought what better pals to "Gamble everything for love" with and head off "Into the dark" to the O2. Haha - that one was for Bec (Make sure you bring some apple candy on Friday, ok?)

On Sunday we headed to Cambridge for a look around the "prettier" university town. With Dave and Bec in tow we headed to Liverpool Street bright and early to board our 8:30am train that was really 7:30am (because fortunately this daylight savings change we we're wise to and not suspecting all the clocks to be wrong - hehe). Our first hurdle was met before we even picked up the tickets.... the cheap tickets we had bought in advance, as the booking was not showing up under any name. So we prepared ourselves for the worst and prepared to buy x'y tickets but SHOCK HORROR for tickets purchased on the day for groups of 4 .... you only pay for 2!!!!! Hurdle, hurdled!

We then headed to Cambridge and began exploring the universities where you DO NOT walk on the grass! EVER! First was Christs College, where we discovered the door to the Secret Garden and Jarratt pondered evolution in Darwin's own college. Second was Kings College, where we were wowed by the amazing architecture that had us jumping for joy. Our final college visited was Trinity, we were very excited to visit the college that Issac Newtons famed apple tree lives at as well as the original manuscript of Winne the Pooh. But much to our dismay the library was closed and we were left to play silly bugger statue games to amuse ourselves just outside the largest great court of its kind. We ended our tour of Cambridge with a rather eventful Punt (a fancy word for boat ride) down the Backs, where some sticky mud nearly had us paddling to the shore. We ended the day watching the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race that I'm sad to say Cambridge lost :( A few pints later we boarded a train back to Kings Cross Station in London where we disappeared into a wall at the 9 and 3 quarters platform.

Last night we headed into Kingsbridge for dinner at Gordon Ramsays Claridges. It was a wonderfully extravagant affair for lobster ravioli, quail cooked three ways and a dessert that was to! die! for! However, the whole experience was a little too la-di-dah for Jarratt and I, right down to the bathroom visit, where a lady not only prepared the sink for me by running the water, personally handing me a towel and flushing the toilet so I didn't have to. CRAZY!!!

Friday night we are being reunited as an awesome foursome as Dave and Bec move into our place, but Saturday we part ways as Jarratt and I head off to Copenhagen for a 2 week break crossing Russia, Czech Republic and Hungary.

At our recently discovered local.

Ben Lee, free and easy!!!

Door to the Secret Garden - am I right?

Joy jumping at Kings College.

The great court at Trinity College.

Silly Bugger statues.

Punting, or trying to at least.

La-di-dah!!!

Shades of Green

Well, top o der morning to ya all! It be a grand day it be... this blog entry comes straight from Larkhall Park, the lovely patch of greenery opposite our house. With the sun on our shoulders and bulmers in our hands, we thought what better way to spend a sunny Friday afternoon here in the motherland! So we've laid out the blanket, booted up the laptop and are ready to tell you our tales from our recent trip to Belfast.

Our tale begins last Friday (13th March) evening where we rushed out of work and got a cheap flight to Belfast. After a short flight and a freezing wait for a cab, we eventually made it to our hostel. We made plans for the following day and instant friends in our dorm room companions. We ended up chatting away the evening hours til one by one we all drifted off into sleep.

Saturday we made the eventful trip up the Northumberland coast to the Giants causeway stopping at Bushmills distillery (the oldest distillery in the world) and the rope bridge. The day definitely provided some awe-inspiring scenery, that Bec found herself spilling over Jarratt playing happy tourist with her camera to get pictures of the "pretty water" or "pretty boat"or "pretty hill" and so on. Its safe to say Bec fell in love with Ireland, or well England, or Ireland.... you try and figure it out. Highlights include a 12 year young pure malt whiskey (that was 12 years too early for our taste buds), a traditional Irish lunch of stew and Guinness pie and being blown away at the Causeway... literally, a strong wind blew me two paces backwards whilst trying to reach the point. That night we were joined by a frantic Fitzer (an Irish friend of Jarratts) for a night of painting the town, well... green :) We hit the empire for some pretty cool live music and one rather odd ACDC fan with all the rad dance moves before moving on to a club whose name fails us but will live on in our hearts for good music, great times and one pretty amazing black light that made our teeth glow bright white! We then stumbled home at the rather respectable time of 2:30am and promptly went to bed.

The next morning we rose bright eyed and bushy tailed for our very own Belfast Fry. Kinda like an English brekkie but no beans and soda bread instead. Afterwards we wandered the university area and botanic gardens, before saying our sad farewell to Fitzer. We then headed into town for a look around the centre at City Hall then through to the Titanic Quarter before pulling in at The Crown for lunch in one of their intimate snugs. Little, private booths inside the pub with your very own door bell style buzzer to call the waitress - very cool. With our bellies full we boarded our very own Black Cab tour. We visited Shankhill, Falls Rd and were even witness to some high level security (helicopters, armed military, the whole she-bang), after a joy rider wizzed passed us and collided with a black cab about 500m's down the road. It was an amazing, first hand insight into the time of the troubles and gave some real perspective on the whole issue. We then headed straight to the airport from our tour and board our 10 quid ryan air flight home madly looking in our calendars for another free weekend (a near impossible task) that could be spent in Ireland. Did I mention I'd fallen in love with Ireland? - Hook, line and sinker!!!

Windswept and interesting at the Causeway.

J on the rocks.

At the Causeway lookout.

Fitzer, Bec and Jarratt.

Crazy black light...

Outside City Hall.

Falls Road (Catholic Side)

Shankhill (Protestant side)