Where In The World Is Evan?

It’s been a while since I made a detailed post and a lot has happened. As I mentioned in my last post Amsterdam was fantastic - I can’t remember ever having such intense fun for such a prolonged period as I did there.

My first 6 days where spent in a quiet hostel near the museum district, which allowed me to see 7 museums and countless monuments and buildings. Christmas day was rather quiet and a bit lonely as there was very little to do, but I went out drinking with a group of travelers from the hostel at night which was a lot of fun.

After that I moved to a larger, and much more party oriented, hostel in the center of town. Most of my second week was spent partying, with very late nights and very little sleep. My average daily schedule was bed around 5:00 am and up for breakfast at 10:00 am (as it finished at 10:30). Needless to say I consumed very large quantities of coffee to maintain this sort of lifestyle.

I did manage to also take a day trip out to Utrecht, but couldn’t find the time to get to Rotterdam or any of the other places I had initially hoped to visit.

Despite the late nights, coffee, and assorted other substances of ill health, my overall health and well-being greatly increased in Amsterdam. Much of this is probably due to two things; being out of Cyprus, and the fantastic food that was constantly available. The dining scene in Amsterdam rivals Melbourne for diversity (but sadly not for value), with every cuisine imaginable available - with the possible exception of Dutch food, of which I saw only delicious donuts.

The New Year’s celebrations were particularly amazing, and will remain a night that I will never forget. I may not have acted in the safest or most responsible manner at all times during that night, however, no harm came of it and very much enjoyment was had.

As I mentioned in my last post I have been meeting many different and interesting people (which of course is half the fun of travel). I spent time hanging out with people from such diverse places as New York, Dublin, London, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Brasília, etc…, with occupations such as lawyers, students, soldiers, drug dealers, environmental scientists, property developers, etc…

Leaving Amsterdam for St. Petersburg was difficult, as many of the friends that I had made were staying on. Although it was also hard seeing off other friends who had left before me.

In comparison Russia has been very quiet. It’s proving considerably more difficult than I had anticipated to get around without knowing any Russian. Almost no one here speaks English, and many major tourist attractions have no English information or even english speaking ticket sellers. The tourism industry here seems almost solely comprised of domestic tourists - more so in St. Petersburg than Moscow, where I met only one other English speaking person in 4 days (who turned out to be a translator who had lived in Canberra for 6 months)!

The weather here has been surprisingly warm, with two sunny days this week already! It’s a little disappointing really, as I had hoped to see iconic Russian monuments and buildings (e.g., St. Basils, the Hermitage, etc…) covered in winter snow, but instead I’ve just been rained on a lot

The food situation here has not been so good. Unfortunately I’ve been reduced to two options, either cheap fast food (Russia has both American and local chains) where I can point to the food I want (even McDonalds’ menu is exclusively in Russian), or very expensive ‘foreign’ restaurants where they have an English menu. Attempting to order food in an ordinary Russian restaurant would be pointless as I can’t even pronounce most of the dishes, let alone have any idea as to what they are.

I hope you’re all doing well, and that the weather back home is not too stifling.

Check out the Moscow and St. Petersburg photo galleries.