Russia Reflections

Russia was always on my plans for this gap year my original idea was to go brazil for the carnival and then do the trans siberian railway and maybe spend a day in mongolia and a week in china. i have to say by the time we had been through siberia i was quite disapointed with the country i had learnt about so affectionately whilst i was learning the language, and even when so many people had told us about how rude the russians were and how bleak teh countryside was this time of year i still trusted the guidebooks words that i kept repaeting to pierre to 'throw away your preconceptions' i coudnt have pictured how bad siberia really was going to be.

moscow on tghe other hand was wicked, especially compared to siberia and my 'preconceptions' of it, i imagined a city still reeling from communism, packed out with soviet apartment blocks and miserable people. on the other hand the city was full of money (which can also be seen as a bad thing) style, beautiful women and some lovely stalinist neo-classical architechture. we were there for teh may holidays so teh whole country was spruced up and the when the sun was out the town looked magnificent. unfortuanetly after 6 days of trying to see tourist attraction and them being closed, and feeling shit from high alcoholic contented energy drinks i needed to leave.

St petersburg was my calling and i always knew this. it was exactly what i expected especially the feel of the town, in its europeaness with the architecture and the gneral attitude of the people. its ability to be expensive but at the the same time feel inexpensive was especially notable in comparison to moscow in the sense that you were spending money but you knew whole heartily that it was worth it. and teh women, my gosh the women in this town were amazing, the fact that all the girls mentioned in teh previous post are muscovites is no suprise, the women in peter are of a different level. i will deffinately come back here whetehr it be on holiday or even to live becuase my love for that town couple with my love for teh russian language might lead me to that.

overall russia got better the longer we were there, not because it grows on you but because we went to better and better places.

in terms of the standings me and pierre tied in russia with even a possible nose to me due to the amount of offers of future places to stay and the amount of tears shed on goodbye but here they are for real:

STANDINGS
MATT: 9 pulls, 1 bang, 1 gf
PIERRE: 8 pulls, 2 bangs.