Expatiperro

Despite a few wrenches thrown in at the last minute, and our exhausted states after an amazing and incredibly social weekend in Tallinn (to be blogged about soon), we're finally on the move in our own car! So it's a rental car- unfortunately, we learned after arriving in Estonia that buying a car in the EU without having EU citizenship is a week-long process, not to mention the headache that could come with selling it back- but being in control of our transportation after three weeks at the Russian Railways mercy is a welcome change.

We picked up our Opel Astra (we're taking name suggestions) at 11 AM in downtown Tallinn, and by 11:30 we were off in the countryside, driving on one of the main highways (a 1 lane, partially paved road) through thick forests and past six-point bucks. Outside of the major cities, there's not a lot going on in Estonia- many of the towns that we passed weren't even noticeable from the side of the road, and we would have passed them without realizing their presence had it not been for a road sign and a church steeple punctuating the treeline.

There's not a much better way to get a sense of a size of a place than driving through it. You know that the US is enormous when you spend three full days in a car, and you STILL haven't reached the other coast. Conversely, you know that Estonia's essentially a blip on a map when you spend eight hours behind the wheel and cover 2/3s of the entire country. If you don't believe me, check out today's route:


Tonight we're staying at an adorable bed and breakfast in Viljandi, a small town that apparently is on a lake, but that we haven't been able to see yet on account of darkness. (On that note, adorable is the adjective that comes to mind most often when describing anything in this country) Tomorrow we set off to the coast, then take a left and drive down into Latvia. We'll spend three days there before returning to Tallinn, dropping off the car, and catching a night bus to Vilnius, Lithuania, where we'll rent another car and meet up with three of Kyle's friends.

Not having a car has slightly complicated our itinerary, but I'm choosing to think of it as a gift, as a way to more fully explore the transportation options available to us. By the time we're done with the trip, about the only modes of transportation we won't have taken will be an ox-drawn hay cart and Segway. Though if I see a Segway tour offered in Vilnius, I might have to add it to the list.

Twenty four hours on the train later, we arrived into Moscow's Kazansky station, and immediately dove into the morning rush-hour crowds that packed the metro. Moscow's metro is unlike any other subway system in the world. For starters, it's one of the deepest systems in the world, with some stations over 150 feet underground, and every ride begins with a 3 minute escalator descent down to the platform. Trains come every 60 seconds, but even that isn't enough to adequately cull the crowds that jam the system day and night. And for a subway dork like me, riding on original 1950 model Soviet stock is a huge thrill.

But the most unique aspect of the Moscow Metro is its sheer beauty. Every station is a work of art that tell a story or celebrates an event with stained glass, bronze sculptures, faience tiles, mosaics, and painting. Of course, the subjects of the artwork is closely tied in with the era in which the subway system was built- the 1930s, when Communism and Stalinism were in full swing. Changing lines, it's not uncommon to pass a bust of Stalin, a mosaic depicting a particularly moving speech by Lenin (complete with throngs of cheering proletariats), stained glass memorializing a WWII battle, and hammer and sickle plasterwork below a coffered vaulted ceiling. In the metro, it's hard not to feel like you're in a bit of a time warp, like by going underground you've entered a time warp where the the Soviet Union still exists.





Much like the metro system, the rest of Moscow lives in an uneasy space between its Communist past and its capitalist present. Flocks of tourists line up to enter Lenin's mausoleum, which sits directly across from the Louis Vuitton and Cartier stores that are the new tenants in the former Soviet state department store. Multinational banks occupy buildings that still have the decidedly anti-capitalist hammer and sickle symbol carved into their sides. A 24-hour McDonald's is in eyesight of the Red Square, where Soviet military parades used to file across. And when you're at the market, don't forget to buy your Lenin coffeemug or Stalin matryoshka doll.


Despite the myriad of signs of it's Communist past, Moscow is firmly rooted in the capitalist, money-grubbing world. For starters, it's EXPENSIVE. A Big Mac meal at McDonald's (at which we ate for research purposes, of course) costs $7; computers are marked up 50% from US prices; even a burger and coke dinner at an "American-style" diner set us back $15 a person. Luckily for us, Russia's fast food options are tasty and cheap; if it wasn't for those, we would have gone broke. How any Russian (average salary: $750 a month) affords anything is beyond me.

(Runaway capitalism might have also played a part in the other most frustration aspect of our time in Moscow: the closures of nearly every restaurant recommended in our guidebook. Nowhere else I've been has a year-old guidebook been so hopelessly out of date.)

Even though Moscow had it's share of frustration, there are so many interesting things to see there that it's hard not to have a good time. Lenin's body and mausoleum was as bizarre as we'd expected; St. Basil's cathedral is even more mesmerizing in person than it is in pictures; the Gulag (Soviet forced labor camp) museum was sobering; and the vodka museum was intoxicating. Not even the closures and four days of cold and rain could dampen (or freeze) our spirits- Moscow's a city that deserves to be seen for itself.

Long-distance train travel might be the ultimate test for restlessness. You're on a train for days at a time, confined to an 8 by 75 foot train car, except for the few precious stops that are long enough for you to run outside, stretch your legs, and buy fresh food to diversify your diet beyond the noodle ramen, over-priced dining car dishes, and vodka. In between those stops, you're left to your own devices. Reading is a popular pastime, as is card-playing, journal writing, and crosswording. The dining car becomes the social nexus of the train, unless you're lucky enough to have a compartment to yourself, in which case you can invite guests over to chat. But when it comes to external motivations and a wide variety of things to do, train travel isn't the best place to find those. Sanity is only guaranteed to those who can slow their minds down, develop routines, and find enjoyment in watching the landscape pass by.

All that time on the train leads to the a development of a community of Trans-Siberian travelers. After just a few hours on our first Russian train, we knew the names and stories of almost all the people in our car. There were are our cabin-mates, Charlotte and Andy, a friendly young British couple taking three weeks to travel across the Trans-Siberian before starting new jobs. There were the three Australians in the cabin next door, blasting pop music on their iPod speakers and dropping in repeatedly with invitations to join them in vodka shots. There were Cristina, the social center of the car, constantly popping her head into rooms to dish on the latest bathroom update (open, closed, closed unless you bribe) and pass the time chatting about anything. These were the faces we saw at almost every stop on the rest of the trip- despite Russia's size, the number of places of interest to tourists is pretty limited. Better to be friendly and take that vodka shot, if it means getting on well with your fellow travelers the rest of the trip.

After two days of riding the rails, we finally reached Yekaterinburg. Our 36 hour stop there wasn't so much to see the sights as it was to rest, wash clothes, shower, and move our legs. The town was cute- more cosmopolitan and commercialized than Irkutsk, friendly, though without a must-see attraction. Yekaterinburg is known for being the place where the last Tsar and his family were murdered, so we visited the church commemorating that event, as well as a small photography museum. Three hours of sightseeing in the bag, we returned to the hostel, relaxed and caught up on a good night's sleep, and the next morning hopped on our final major train leg of the trip, the express train to Moscow.

We just arrived in Helsinki, Finland, earlier this afternoon, meaning that we've finally ended our Trans-Siberian route, a trip of nearly 5,500 miles that took us three weeks to complete. This last ride, from St. Petersburg, was one of the most painless ones we've had- just 6 hours, an entire car practically to ourselves, and zero hassles from customs officials. It's hard to believe that as recently as 20 years ago Soviet and NATO forces were facing off against each other across the same strip of land that we passed through without a hassle in 20 minutes. History moves fast.

Now that we're out of Russia and off the train, it's time for the next phase of our trip. In a couple of days, we'll take a ferry from Helsinki to Estonia, where we'll (knock on wood) buy a car and spend six weeks making our way from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. Along the way, we'll take in the Baltic states, the WWII sites in Poland, Kiev and Chernobyl, Vlad the Impaler's Transylvania, Post-Soviet Bulgaria, and Northern Greece. And instead of staying in hostels, we'll be trying our luck with Couchsurfing, a community of travelers who offer free accommodation and a chance to learn about a city from someone who actually lives there.

Like usual, we have no idea what to expect, but whatever ends up happening will be an adventure. If you'll be in this part of the world and want to share the experience with us, send me a note!

The Russian leg of our trip officially began at 3 PM on September 20th, though for the previous seven hours we sat just feet away from the border with little to do but twiddle our thumbs and pretend that the increasing pressure in our bladders had nothing to do with a need to pee, since the bathrooms were locked and no amount of pleading would persuade the snarling carriage attendant to open them. We were waiting to cross the Mongolia-Russia border, which one could have easily thought was in a war zone due the the security measures in place to stop illegal smuggling. Passport photos were studiously compared with the faces of their holders; armed guards marched on the platform next to the train peeking under the carriage; brusque border officials kicked us out of our cabin to search the luggage compartments. Then we moved fifty feet, crossed a chain-link fence that marked the border, and repeated the entire process again, in case one of us had suddenly conjured up 75 contraband leather jackets in the ten minutes since Mongolian customs. During this entire process, at no time were we allowed to leave the train or, in a cruel Soviet-style twist, use the bathroom. Instead of letting us relieve ourselves, the carriage attendant spent the day tending to her nails, eating soup, and vacuuming the entire cabin. Twice.

After a day of a front-row seat to bureaucratic inefficiency and OCD cleaning, we were finally on Russian tracks, and 12 hours later we were in a cold and rainy Irkutsk. Irkutsk is the unofficial capital of SIberia, which makes it one of the few outposts in one of the most vast and remote swathes of land on the planet. Even though it's the principal city in the region and one of Russia's main cities, it had a certain backwater feeling to it. The tram we took from the train station to our hostel looked straight out of 1950, with corrugated metal sides, a peeling Soviet red-and-white paint job, and a complete lack of functioning gauges on the driver's control panel (which the driver gave her complete, um, divided attention to as she chatted away on her cell phone). The city's buildings seemed to be sinking into the slowly melting permafrost, which surprisingly didn't render them uninhabitable; Kyle spotted one man leaving from partially-sunk house whose doorway had shrunk to no more than 3 feet tall.

The 35 degree temperature, freezing rain, and the fact that most of the city's sights were closed made our only day in Irkutsk a short one. But the next morning we were up early to meet our Mongolia to Irkutsk cabin-mates Andy and Charlotte at the bus station. We were off to Listvyanka, a town an hour from Irkutsk by public bus and the jumping off point (literally) for Lake Baikal. It's impossible to adequately describe the immensity and beauty of the Lake. The water is a deep, incomparable shade of blue which stretches beyond the horizon on one side, and on the other is just the foreground to jagged snow-capped mountains. The clear, brisk air makes the reds, yellows, and oranges of the autumn trees seem even more vivid than they already are. But despite the stunning scenery around the Lake, all the area's energy focuses down towards the water. There's just no escaping it. We knew that we had to dive in.

We dropped our bags at our guesthouse, threw on our swimsuits, and set off on a walk along the shore to scout potential jumping-in sites. Along the way, we explored abandoned barges, filled our cameras' memory cards with pictures of the views, hiked up into the hills, and took a chairlift to a viewpoint with panoramic views of the Lake. And with the sun going down and the temperature not getting any warmer, it was go time. With a Russian family cheering us on, we did the deed.



The follow-up to the swim might have been the funniest part of the day. To celebrate, we returned to the same restaurant where we had eaten lunch, and whose waitress had laughed in our faces when we asked her if she knew any good places from which to jump in. This time, we came armed with the video of our swim, which drew an "Oh God" and an eye-roll when we showed her it. After she took our order, though, we noticed that she wouldn't stop staring at us. Maybe she was in awe of our amazing cold-water tolerance? Not quite. A few minutes later she comes up to the table, points at Kyle, and says, "You... actor? Lost?" Despite our denials that Kyle was not, in fact, Matthew Fox (the star of the TV show Lost, for you non-addicts), she wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, and so our meal ended with a photo and most likely the highlight of our waitress' day. If you hear any rumors that Matthew Fox has gone off the deep end and is traveling around Siberia taking dips in freezing cold lakes, you know where they started.


A bonfire with other Trans-Siberian travelers ended our night, and the next morning we returned to Irkutsk to catch the longest train ride of our trip, across Siberia to Yekaterinburg.

We're finally in Moscow, having finished the major rail portion of our trip. 7000 kilometers over 6 and a half days through high steppes, taiga forest, and mountain ranges, most of the time while being confined to a 8-foot wide, 75 foot long wagon. Here's a breakdown of what life is like on the world's longest direct train journey.

The Compartment

Your home during the trip is a 7-foot by 5-foot berth, with two bunked beds on each of the long walls, and a window and collapsible table opposite the door. Your luggage goes wherever you can squeeze it- under the lower beds, in the alcove above the door, on the floor, between your legs on your bed. If squeezing your luggage in is tough, trying to fit four normal-sized people is even harder. It's a 3 dimensional game of Twister, maneuvering arms, legs, and feet in such a way so that no one feels their personal space is completely obliterated. It's much easier said than done.


The Provodnitsa (carriage attendant)

This might be the most important relationship you ever form in your lifetime. She's surly, serious, OCD about car cleanliness (can you say vacuuming twice a day?), and definitely does not speak English. She's also responsible for your comfort and security, whether it's turning down the heat from "infernal" to merely "boiling", switching off the Russian dance music pumping through the in-car speakers, or unlocking the bathrooms during the interminable border crossings. Needless to say, messing up this relationship can have serious effects. Luckily, the way to her heart is as easy as buying the trinkets she pushes down the aisle once a day. Postcard for a bathroom visit, anyone?

The Food

... is whatever you can get your hands on. The food in the dining car isn't the best choice, as it tends to be queasiness-inducing, at least in those items which are actually available (the menu is more of an aspirational work, as opposed to a description of what's on offer). Also, cost of dining car food usually bears no relation to the prices that are printed on the menu- friends of ours ordered what they thought was a 600 ruble cutlet, only to be charged 1100, which they managed to bargain down to 700 before the waitress walked away. Other than dining car food, your only other option is supermarket food bought before getting onboard, which means lots of ramen noodles. Great if you love MSG, bad for everyone else.

One of the unexpected surprises of traveling in Russia has been watching the seasons turn before our eyes. September in Siberia is a temperate lull between the infernal, bug-infested summers, and the frigid, inhospitably cold winters. Throughout the countryside, trees erupt in an explosion of colors, turning gold and orange and contrasting with the deep blue lakes and brightly painted houses.





From the train window, the Russian landscape rolls by in bright, vivid colors that only appear for a few short weeks a year.



Other benefits of fall traveling include fewer tourists, cheaper prices, and a more relaxed atmosphere everywhere we go. But in terms of pure aesthetics, the colors of the landscape might outweigh them all.

A week into my Russian travels, I think it's time that I made a small confession- up until 2 months ago, this was the last place on Earth I wanted to travel to. I mocked friends of mine who took a "spring break" trip to Moscow (though in my defense, what kind of Spring Break trip is it when the temperature never breaks 30?). Russian cuisine seemed either like an oxymoron, or just a fancy way to describe a wide vodka selection. Overhearing the language on the streets in San Francisco, I could never warm to it in the same way as I did to Romance tongues. And while the Russian people who I knew from home are warm, generous, and incredibly nice, I blindly believed that stereotype that native Russians were gruff, cold, and unfriendly towards people who weren't like them. Combining all these elements, why on earth would I go to Russia when there were so many other interesting, more appealing places to travel to?

One of the benefits of traveling widely and off the beaten path is that you get exposed to and confronted with a huge number of people, many of whom you have preexisting ideas and opinions about. I'm sure you all have had, or still have, some of these thoughts- the French people are stylish but pretentious; that Italians are lazy; that Chinese people are pushy and loud; that Brazilians are gorgeous and know it (well, that last one is true). And oftentimes, when you travel to a place to which you've already developed preconceptions, you view your trip through that same lens, judging the country and its people based on what you expect to see, what people have told you what you'd encounter.

Traveling with an open mind is not only a "good" thing, but a vital attitude to have in order to really absorb a place and give your trip a deeper meaning. It takes a lot of effort and energy to overcome preexisting notions, but the payoff is immense- the ability to judge for yourself, and not just regurgitate whatever other people have told you to say whenever you're asked how your trip went. And who knows, sometimes what you've heard from others before your trip just gets confirmed when you visit yourself. But you can't know that until you've gone.

I'm happy to say that my seven days in Russia have pretty much exploded the stereotypes I carried with me into this trip. Russian people couldn't be nicer- the gruffness that I had been expecting melted away with the first "thank you/you're welcome exchange," and evaporated away completely with the friendly responses I've received to questions in broken/non-existent Russian. The weather's been comfortable, not the sub-zero weather I had steeled myself for; the food's been passable, great in some circumstances (and the vodka delicious and plentiful). And I've found myself wanting to learn some Russian, and kicking myself for not having picked up a few phrases before I left.

Russia hasn't become one of my favorite places in the world (that list is long and unfortunately not Russia-inclusive). But it's been a hell of a lot better than I had expected.

Lake Baikal, in eastern Siberia, is a pretty impressive body of water by anyone's standards. 30 miles wide, 400 miles long, and over a mile deep, it holds 20% of the world's freshwater. To put that in perspective, if all of the other freshwater sources dried up and left Baikal as the only place to get drinking water, there would be enough to supply the entire world's needs for 40 years. To call it vast would be an understatement; the only real way to fully appreciate its size is to float out to the middle to the lake and convince yourself that even though you can't see land on the horizon, you're not on the open seas.





There's a local tradition (though it sounds like a convenient way to knock off a few of the weaker tourists) that says that whoever takes a dip in Lake Baikal will add 25 years to their life. Not being ones to turn down an chance like that, we took the bait, braved the 48 degree waters, and dived in. It's not comfortable, you might get hypothermia, and if you're like me you'll scream like a schoolgirl at a Jonas Brothers concert, but in hindsight, it was well worth it. Enjoy.

Next to Siberia (coincidentally our next destination), there aren't any other places as remote from the Western consciousness than Mongolia. Other than Genghis Khan and the Mongols, there isn't too much else notable about this place, or at least notable enough to merit a mention in world history class. Which is why being here has been fascinating- it's as if every time we step outside or talk to a local, we are learning something radical and new about the country, its history, and its people.

Stepping outside without proper preparation today, however, could imperil your health. Right now, the snow is falling heavily, and although its "only" 30 degrees, it feels considerably colder. Could that be because it's still officially summer for another two days, or because just yesterday it was 70 and sunny enough to give me a nice tan? Lest one think that this is a freak event, a very short story: after being picked up from the train station by the hostel owner, we asked her, trying to make small talk, when winter started. "Oh, next week," was her nonchalant response. If you think that Mongolia's climate is anything less than extreme, think again.

Mongolia has been a hard place to get my head around. There are few paved roads outside the capital, Ulaan Baatar; instead, trucks rumble across the hard-packed steppe, their paths visible from miles away due to the plumes of dust they kick up. In UB, the former nomads who make up a majority of the city's population still live in gers, or traditional tents, which are made slightly more permanent by the addition of fencing around them. The seeming isolation of the city from the rest of the world is belied by the Korean shabu-shabu restaurants, Mexican food joints, and German bakeries that line the streets. The Mongolian National Symphony (which we saw perform, along with award-winning throat singers, dancers, and musicians at an absolutely fantastic "Cultural Show", where the $9 tickets were a guilt-inducing bargain) plays the overture from the Barber of Seville, but using only traditional Mongolian instruments. But it's these exact dichotomies, Mongolia's inability to decide how far it wants to enter the developed world, that makes it a captivating place to visit.

The other, more readily-apparent draw for visitors is the extraordinary natural beauty of countryside. On the steppes, this beauty lies in their never-ending, barren expanse. Flat grassy plains lead to rolling brown hills on the horizon, with only small herds of animals breaking up the monotony of the landscape. The sky is indescribably vast and blue; by a totally subjective comparison, the Montana sky looks like it's being viewed through a pinhole.


Mountains and rock formations occasionally break up the steppes, and it was at the base of one outcropping that we spent two nights at a remote ger encampment two hours outside of UB. We did the typical things that tourists do in Mongolia- ride horses, take short hikes, absorbing in the scenery. We also got a chance to see some other traditional Mongolian activities, thanks to the tourist camp next to ours and the 200 Germans who were bussed in for the day. Steins of beer in hand and cameras strung around their necks, we were presented with an exhibition in traditional archery, wrestling, and horse racing. The whole scene was a little bizarre, actually- the Germans were allowed to try their hand at the archery, which inevitably led to arrows (thankfully rubber-tipped) flying into crowds of people; the wrestlers posed for photos after the wresting exhibition, which turned into something resembling a paparazzi rush as the crowd shoved cameras into their faces; and trinket sellers descended on the camp, materializing out of nowhere.

As a final note, the more time I spend here, the more I'm amazed at how much the Mongols contributed to world civilization. Paper money? The Mongols. The concept of diplomatic immunity? The Mongols. The violin bow? The Mongols. Creating the trade routes that bridged the East and the West and led to a flowering of trade and thought that brought about the beginning of the Renaissance? Goes without saying. For a basic overview, read "Genghis Khan", by Jack Weatherford. For a deeper understanding, come to Mongolia.