Happy [insert appropriate festival here]!!!
Loyal readers, despite many weeks of neglect, you have returned, and I thank you. Hopefully Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, New Years, or Orthodox Christmas was as wonderful an affair for you as it was for me. I'm pleased to say that I had a blast and am now firmly esconced here in Maidenhead, with Bec and Mike.
I've already been lucky enough to visit Stonehenge (we skipped the less strikingly named 'Woodhenge'), Silbury Hill, Avebury standing stones, Oxford, the Tate Modern, St. Pauls Cathedral, Big Ben, the London Eye (OK, but we couldn't be bothered with the two hour queue, so a ride is on the 'do later' list...), Buckingham Palace and the National Gallery; there's an astounding amount for us Colonials to see here... Heck, I've even been to the top of New Zealand house to check out the view. It's a dandy city, and I think I'm going to quite like it here.
The last month has certainly been hectic, so I apologise for the lack of contact. Rest assured I'll be resuming personal contact with each and every one of you once I get my act together, promise...
I've finally, and clumsily (if anyone knows any good hand coding to lay out thumbnails, that'd be right nice thanks..), posted a Greatest Hits selection of photos on the blog below, listed by country. You can click on the thumbnail for a larger file, and if you feel so inclined, can leave comments at the bottom of each country section. It'll take quite a good scrolling wheel, but do your best. You can still access all the previous posts through the archives section by selection 'January'. Hope you enjoy. I'm hoping to find some free video hosting, as there's a lot of the trip that could only be captured with the movie image, so if anyone knows of any free hosting sites, please drop me a line.
So my friends, sorry again for the lack of contact - the cold here freezes the hands and the hard drive, but I'll make amends.
I have shaved,
I have a new wardrobe,
I am trying to conquer the reflex to reply, 'yeah, when I was in...'
Take care good folks, and Happy 2005!
Your man, still adjusting to a different world,
Arch :)
Russia
Ahhhhh, Russia. Although I only really saw Moscow, it's a place I really have to get back to again. Cold and lonely off the train, there was plenty of hearty food, and thanks to Chris and Vika, I was well fed, shown around, and generally looked after - thanks guys!
The strangely proportioned and short legged statue of Marshal Zhukov, trampling the Nazi standard. North entrance to Red Square, Moscow. 
This is the weather that greeted me on my first morning in Moscow. A tower on the walls of the Kremlin, with the rebuilt Cathedral of Christ in the background. Yep, cold...
Red Square, with Lenin's tomb at left, and the GUM store at right. This is where Mathius Rust landed his Cessna in 1987.
Behind Red Square, the famous GUM department store, looking to the soon-to-be-demolished Rossiya hotel - the largest in Europe. I was starting to get a little hooked on over the top classical detailing by now...
My first view of St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow. Much to my surprise it really did look as mad as all the photos I'd seen (maybe I'd just been on a train for too long), note the begging Babushka at bottom left.
The sun broke out for just a few minutes, and I finally got to see it sparkle as it should. Every few minutes large drifts of snow would fall from the tops of the spires...
...and the spires in the sunlight...
Vika and Chris at Izmayalovsky Park, with the vendors who plied us with cognac as Chris bought an antique gramophone and some foxtrot platters. Um, scary Rasputin eyes, anyone?
Try as I might, this is about as Russian as I could make myself look. With Vika and Chris, Arbatskya, Moscow.
One of the plentiful statues bearing Lenin up on a column. These guys, covered in snow, head for 'Russbank'.
yep, that'd be Dostoyevsky, outside Bibliotecka imni Lenina station.
Polschad Metro station, marble tiles, and arches guarded by amazing bronzes of signalmen, female discus throwers, sailors and workers with the tools of their trade.
But some carried more weighty accoutrements...
Arbatskya Metro station entrance.
Another cake-like religious building at the northern corner of Red Square...
Sunlit spires over the entry gate into Red Square.
One of the mighty 'Seven Sisters' built under Stalin. They're massive buildings. Um, massive... My last photo for Russia, from here it was a 4 hour hop on Trans Aero to England, Bec and Mike, bacon, pork scratchings, warm pints, and more culture shock than I had really prepared for...
The Trans Siberian Railway
Technically I took the Trans Manchurian, skipping Mongolia to arrive in time in Moscow. Something I'd repeat again in a second, but never again on my own, I'd been looking forward to doing this for a long time. Mad neighbours, eerie landscapes, and an awful lot of stroganof, and a lesson in coldness I should have had a long time ago. Ladies and Gentlemen, loyal readers, I present, The Trans Siberian...
My home for almost a week, berth 19, car 3. That's Papa's feet at bottom left, and outside is the eternal blue light that bathed the first days of the trip.
Like a cross between a steam engine and a Soyuz, this is the mighty samovar which kept us stocked with superheated water, and formed the head of a queue of thermal-underwear clad Chinese each morning in carriage 3.
A rare sunny moment at Manzhouli, the border between China and Russia. That's the lovely 'Vostok' behind me, having her bogies changed. You can see both gauges of track underneath. This was where my tears were freezing in my mustache... This won't be the first time I say it, but "it was really cold."
Ice crystals on the window of the dining car, my refuge from Papa and her chemical warfare.
This shot best sums up Siberia as I remember it - a feeling of constant dusk, with the whole landscape bathed in a weird blue light; vast, desolate, moonlike, and this way for literally days on end...
Ice on the inside of my cabin window, as we turned north over Mongolia, where the temperature stopped messing around and just got galactically cold.
The frenzy of people getting ready to jump off at Irkutsk. This image is far clearer than my memory of it, taken on the way back to my cabin after the epic cognac and chocolate session with Nikita and Anastacia.
One of the many strange little stations along the way. Starting to get the feeling it was dark for a lot of the way?
