im hungary, i need some turkey

last i left you we had stepped off the trans-siberian in to moscow. that whole "right of passage" as we walked away from the train platform was pretty powerful. 10 days and we had managed to cross some 6 time zones. we had crossed the whole of siberia-- pretty neat. in the end, we would have travelled overland from hong kong in china all the way to tallin in estonia by train or bus. now THAT sounds pretty cool. just a tiny bit of ground covered.

i am going to work backwards now from where i am in budapest, hungary to where i last left you in moscow.

so i had to get down to budapest by today-- 28 april-- to meet up with my sister who arrives today from the US of A. i am real excited for her to be here.. mostly because she is bringing me a stick of american deodorant-- good old speed stick man. hopefully my parents sent some green backs with her to keep me from living off of water and oats these next couple months.

the past couple weeks have been a big giant game of connect the dots. from moscow to where i am now in budapest i have stopped in the following cities (in order from most recent): budapest, stockholm (sweden), tallin (estonia), helsinki (finland), st petersburg (russia), moscow (russia). i will just give the highlights from each.

budapest.

i havent been here for very long so i will save my musings for later. initial sense is good: the flood plains have cleared (massive floods-- the largest in 150 years-- swept through a few weeks ago) and guns 'n roses just played a concert here not too long ago.

stochkolm.

fashion-- its a tough line to walk. having been travelling around for a bit now, i can guarantee you i have walked nowhere near, on or around that line. dirty trousers with shirts that are nearly worn through and have some pretty knarley pit stains are the norm at this point.

the urban hipsters of stockholm, however, certainly have a style all their own. 1983 reebok aerobic trainers, nylon jackets that you wore for your favorite sports team in '89, tapered jeans, chuck taylor sneakers galore-- this is no joke. the retro style is in dudes. im not done. stylish mullets were commonplace, many of the guys had facial hair sculptures and carvings that would make even prince (or the artist formerly known as) proud. i mean, from the DJ booth, christopher cross was playing in the bar for crying out loud! the hipsters were singing along! i couldnt believe it. i was trapped in retro heaven.

...and i loved it.

but that wasnt all the glam that stockholm had to offer. my stay was short, but from what my vantage point, sweden has a lot of character. as you look up, steeples litter the skyline, buildings are old but nicely kept. people are extremely friendly and speak english better than i do. islands are scattered all over throughout surrounding water. waxholm, a popular summertime spot, was nicely situated at the foot of the harbor. walking around the place was great, and i even got to try some swedish meatballs for lunch. to top it off, i was fortunate enough to crash with a friend at his place so i even managed to save a bit of money and see an old pal.

tallin.

i will forever have a soft spot in my heart for tallinn. its like the little up and coming medeival european city-- joining the ranks of the now overpopulated prague. when we rolled in, i was dead tired and quite ready to just sit and relax. russia had gotten the best of me and i needed some time to re-coop. bring it on!

cafes galore-- hell, even a mcdonalds-- a fine assortment of large parks and blue skies to boot, this place was getting an A+ in my book. my frustrations with prior stops were slowly fading from my memory. this was a place i could get used to.

the city itself is small with an old and new town. the old town is the medeival portion i suppose-- cobble-stone streets, a giant old square and traditional achitecture. the new town is a site for one of the biggest investment booms in eastern europe-- technology based for the most part. skyscrapers are being put up as we speak. the place is ready to take off.

helsinki.

what a sleeper of a city. i mean, come on! please erase this place from future plans and spend your time in stockholm instead. i could barely see straight as i walked off the overnight bus but that was ok because there really isnt much to look at.

clearly the prior night had been a big one (it was saturday morning, so we were seeing the last remnants of friday nights bar scene). as we walked walked to find a hostel there was a guy laying on the corner of an intersection passed out. he was a young kid, clearly had a bit too much to drink, and was just having a little snooze. truthfully, he looked dead. i dove right in to getting out my emergency paramedic kit-- time was wasting away. i got right to checking his vitals, hooked him up to an IV and got him back up in no time.

nope, i just checked to see if he was breathing and let him sleep away.

given it was now about 6 am, a cup of coffee was in order. roberts coffee was where we stopped. i would say i was one of seven people in the cafe at the time and a good solid 4 of the others in there were visibly drunk-- im talking one drooling while reading the newspaper, one face down in his pastry and another just shouting obscenities. i drank my coffee quickly. i still had the russian mentality in me that with this kind of drunken behavior, someone was going to get their ass kicked. that was enough for me to hop on the a-train out of there.

wandering the city povided really no satisfaction other than the "reindeer sandwich" i happened across. i just thought it was funny. in another food moment, i would say the highlight of the day was stumbling on an all-you-can-eat salad and pizza buffett. ohh dear. i knew as i walked through the double doors to this pizza metropolis that this would be a painful experience.

i ate there for a good 2 hours. i had pizza all over my shirt, remnants of my 10 salads all over my face and in my lap. i probably even had food in my hair. the fountain coke machine failed during the middle of my meal and i had to get that puppy back in order. i complained. they hated me. i continued to eat even though i wasnt even hungry. at a certain point, i was eating for the sport of it. a finnish couple chuckled as i continued-- "stupid american" must have come up at some point in their conversation. i walked out of there feeling sick, no doubt about it. my stomach hadnt seen this kind of over-satisfaction in weeks.

and that my friends was helsinki. big deal right?

saint petersburg.

everyone calls it the european city of russia. and sure, call it that if you will-- but there is no getting around its russian tendancies. cold looks and general introverted behavior were the norm in russia and i grew to expect that. st pete, in contrast to moscow, was just a tiny bit more welcoming despite the sot of 'russianisms' it still possessed.

the hermitage was something else-- a fine collection (MASSIVE really) of art, world renowned really. i enjoyed the 19th and 20th century european collections (mattisse, picasso, etc) and the early 14th and 15th century italian stuff (da vinci, raphael, etc).

the markets were kind of funny. everyone wanted to sell you those traditional russian dolls-- the wooden variety where you open the first doll and it contains another inside, and when you open that and it contains another one, etc. well, they had, of all things, a michigan state themed russian doll. that blew me away. gave me a good chuckle.

now for a little russell crowe violence-ridden story! we were walking home one night after having wandered around the city, and were making some noise as we crossed through the alley to get to our hostel-- a little too much noise to nobody but the federales.

the russian poooooooolice! ohh boy, things got interesting.

it took us a little too long to realize that it was the police that were telling us to stop dead in our tracks as we were walking down the alley. whistling away and shouting at one another, we kept walking. we stopped immediately right around the time igor raced up from behind bryan and sort of wussy-tackled him. omri was next, pinned up against the wall. i stood there wondering when the hell i was going to get attacked-- after all, history has usually handed me the ass-kicking card. i held out my beer for the cop to take but simply taking it was not enough. the overweight, bustling old guy decided to do a running drop kick to remove the beer from my possession. things went a bit sour when he missed the beer. i just dropped it instead to make him think he hit it. it was my turn to get slammed in to the wall. a few headshots later and a headache and we were off. apparently the american passports had scared them off-- or, it very well could have been my russell crowe-like badass moves. haha not really. who knows what they were after with us, but they got the best of us. we walked away frustrated and a bit sore from the mild beatings, but i think it took about 1.876 minutes before we were laughing at the oddball situations we managed to get in to.

moscow.

we wandered the red sqaure that first night in moscow with our mouths pretty wide open. standing before us was a pretty prominent spectacle historically. lenin's grave and mausoleum was to our right, st. basil's cathedral straight ahead. the night air was crisp and cool. i took pictures that will surely not give justice to the sort of "rush" that you get when you stand in front of such a scene.

you could feel the power of the red square grab a hold of you.

there is kind of an interesting little story about st basils cathedral (which sits at the foot of red square) and the architect who designed it way back in the 1500's. to begin, ivan the terrible decided to have the cathedral built to commemmorate the annexation to russia of the mongol states of kazan and astrakhan. upon completion, ivan was so impressed with the construction of it that he ordered that the architect's eyes be gouged out immediately. the reason, of course, so that only this sort of talent and style in architecture would stay in russia.

yeah, pretty crazy eh?

the kremlin, in moscow as well, should be noted as being equally as impressive. the collection of cathedrals within the enclosed walls are truly breathtaking. i mean, i use that term very sparingly as i travel along. and truly, looking up at the intricate painting and deisgns from top to bottom on the inside walls of these churches was amazing.

those were the "touristy" moments. there were other adventures to be had but im afraid i am running out of time... and i am going to be late to pick up emily at the airport-- not good. more to come soon on the adventures with her from hungay to turkey-- haha when i say it like that it has a funny sound.

"im hungary, i need some turkey."

ohh cheeseball.