Kontrastnaja Kazan

Veröffentlicht am 31. Juli 2014 von Steffi

Kazan, a historical city located on the shores of Volga.

Kazan is a weird city (Tom liked it a lot). You will find some beautiful Monasteries, Churches, newly build apartments, and a lovely pedestrian zone. But during a stroll Sunday afternoon we met nearly nobody on the streets, apartments are empty and there are basically no shops in the pedestrian zone.

Impressive Kul-Scharif-Moschee

Partly renovated but rather deserted pedestrian zone.

Typical tartastanic buildings, recovered from degradation.

Everything was build or renovated for the 800 anniversary in 2005. However, you get the impression that Kazan only got itself a nice facade hiding its real face.

Inhabitants are living on the other side of the river in more or less old panel flats and shopping takes place on the traditional central market.

The difference of the living and renovated Kazan is especially underlined by the separating Volga.

Shopping of daily goods takes place on the traditional markets.

These are selling everything from shoes, fresh meat to dried and paperized fruits.

Parked cars filled with teenagers in front of the deserted cultural center playing hits from „Kuschelrock“ Cd’s from the 90’s. Skeletons if unfinished buildings are framing the beach and a pedestrian lane just stops outside the touristic region.

Skeletons of buildings are framing the Volga shores.

We were told by a women from Kazan that nobody can afford living in the newly build part of Kazan and only tourist or people coming for Sports events enjoy them.

Traveling the Transiberian Train

Veröffentlicht am 31. Juli 2014 von Steffi

Antworten

From our bus experience we were prepared for the worst for our first 13h trip by the Russian long distance train and were absolutely surprised by the comfortable journey that awaited us.

We booked a „Kupe“ ticket and found ourself at a small table with Michael and Viktoria. We were offered delicious georgian cheese and bread from Viktoria and a continuing discussion from Michael. The fact that we understand nothing of the complain about politics in Russian did not seen to bother him much. Around eleven all went to bed and were shaken to sleep.

Cosy socialness in a „platkartny“ wagon.

Tom and …

Tommy sharing one bed. Unfortunately beds tend to be a bit short, when your are above 1.60 m high.

The next day we had a look at the „Platzkarty“ wagon and despite the fact, that it was open it didn’t seem worse than a „Kupe“. The two fold price difference finally convinced us. And we started a 36h journey from Kazan to Novosibirsk. I managed to sleep through 24h of this 36h (everybody who knows me, know that I fall asleep as soon as I enter something moving). The rest of the time flew by by eating rolls, bread, waffles and tschak-tschak (some interesting russian kind of sweets), drinking tea, and trying to chat with the ladies sleeping below us. A little russian, hands and feeds help a lot at this point.

Tschak-Tschak, some kind of combination of flour, egg, and honey.

Sleeping neighbours and hand to food translator Angela and Macha.

Some facts about the Transib:

1. Out of 50 Russians only one group of three man were constantly drinking vodka.

2. The whole train works electrically, except the samovar in each wagon that is providing hot water for everybody. This is heated by burning coal.

3. If you are a little limited in your ability, don’t book one of the upper beds. It needs some acrobatic skills to get into them.

4. Russians are overwhelming friendly, but don’t expect them to speak English.

5. If you are running out of food, you can buy fish, fruits, and fried bakery products, from the ladies waiting at the big stations for you.

Stop in Omsk, including many ladies selling fried bakery, smoked fish, and Tschapkas (russian hats).

6. You get bed sheets, and towels, but nobody will tell you how the water tap works – however it works.

7. It’s a lie, that you can’t open the windows. I figured that out after my head nearly froze while sleeping with an open window.

Traveling Ecoline Busses

Veröffentlicht am 31. Juli 2014 von Steffi

Antworten

It was a pretty cheap ticket to go from Warzwa to Riga (We actually didn’t go strait to Moskva, because I refused to spend more than 3 hours waiting in FRONT of the Belarussian ambassador). Starting at 10 pm and arriving 13h later. The bus was quite modern standard including modern seat setup, meaning that my legs got thumb after approximately 30 min. The promised WiFi was not working and the free tea costed 1,20€. However, we arrived in Riga on time after a long journey along country roads. I kind of missed the fact, that there exist no highways in Lithuania and Latvia.

The tour from Riga to Moskva was a lot less social due to at least 10 cm more space for legs and feeds (the version was likely 15 years older), but the bus driver found the ventilation first 30 km before Moskva. This turned the bus literally into a big Russian sauna. So during the 30 min waiting time at the Latvian-Russian boarder not only the nerves caused some sweeting of our travel companions.

The final conclusion from our side, no more overnight bus trips, if not absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, Tom had a good point not making any pictures on the Russian boarder, so this will only be a short little boring note.

Krasnaja Moskva

Veröffentlicht am 27. Juli 2014 von Steffi

The trip from Riga to Moskva was a little adventure in it self. Entering the Bus I ask the stewardess „Do you speak English?“, and got a very unambiguous answer „Njet“. „German?“ the stewardess started laughing „Njet, ruski i polski“. So much about help at the boarder. However, except from waiting in a saunaous bus and very angry looking (okay it was 1 am) officers, we didn’t had any issues. In Moskva we took the Metro to our Hostel, which was surprisingly straight forward (Copenhagen should take it as example for easier ticket system. 1€ each ride and that’s it).

Taking the Metro is easy, fast, cheap, and an architectural sight.

Anyway, I have to admit being able to read Cyrillic comes in quite handy in this country and provides quit some amusement as well. A visit to Мак Дональдс and seeing the offer for Хеппи мил real made my day (mak donalds, Cheppi mil).

Moskva, I really have to say that is a very beautiful city. Architecture, also aside from St. Basil is amazing.

Red Square, home to the Kreml, St. Basil and the GUM.

The walls of Kreml, protecting Putin from the „real“ World.

A 20 m high monument just standing around somewhere.

It’s clean, you feel pretty safe, and people relaxed. We visited Gorki Park Monday evening and I can’t really compare societal relaxing after a work day to something I saw in Germay or Denmark. Only weird, you don’t really see many kids around in the city.

Tom is wolfing down an eskimo, that became our favourite calorie intake in the 30 degrees hot Moskva.

Moskovian enjoying the wet refreshment arising in Gorki Park.

People training some artistic tricks at the shores of the Moskva.

Dancing in Gorki Park is quite popular.

Krasnaja Moskva (true for the city and the river).

Some people found a pretty good spot to watch the sunset, just the policemen didn’t like it that much.

An impressive episode happened during our last night in Moskva. We got woken by the turkish traveler in our B&B, telling us the there is a lot of water in the bathroom. And there was a lot of water coming from the roof. I went to ring at the person living up the stairs and tried my usually approach „Do you speak english?“. I got some kind of russian answer, so I tried to explain what is going on in russian and failed completely, so the lady hung up. There was obviously no water in her apartment and she neither tried to drown herself. So we called the landlord, but he did not lived around the corner and asked us, whether we could try the neighbour again. So I tried to explain the by now very angry lady, that it is an emergency. Either she couldn’t or she didn’t want to understand me. I run further up the stairs and found a very helpful bear like guy, neither speaking english. He followed me in the B&B, looked at the water and picked out his phone. After a while he disappeared out of the front door and was never seen again. A bit helpless we continued waiting and the running water didn’t actually eased my longing for a bathroom. Finally our landlord appeared and after another half an hour some craftsman came and fixed the broken pipe. Next day at 9 am everything was working again. Pretty impressive.

Even though Moskva is expensive, you can find nice and reasonable priced places to try the local food. Cool kulinara, liked it a lot.

The way to safely cross the street is to undermine the street. Anyway also a good spot to listen to some good classical music an do any kind of shopping.

One thing, that definitely is not limited in Moskva is power. The whole city is enlighten and enlightening during the night.

Poland, the country of Brötchenvorschmierer

Veröffentlicht am 25. Juli 2014 von Steffi

Antworten

After our last, due to the world championship (yeeeaaaahhhh), short night we hit the train to Warsaw in Poland.

Looking the final match Argentina-Germany with some very waterproof fans in Goslar.

I was pretty surprised, that I liked Warsaw that much. It’s comparable cheap, people are friendly, a company offers free guided tours, which are great and it is extremely green. You get the impression Warsaw consists of 30% Park area, 10% communistic buildings, and the rest equally distributed between traffic jam and construction sides. Sure it’s not that bad, when you move out if the city centre.

We met little mermaid’s cousin in the city centre of Warsaw.

When strolling around in Warsaw you find a lot hidden street art, …

… historical architecture …

…communistic and modern architecture…

…prising of the communism…

…traditional polish shopping places…

…and numerous polish inhabitants (waiting for the ancient trolley busses).

Lessons learned about Poland.
1. The way how polish people eat breakfast. Polish people usually eat rolls from very white wheat flour for breakfast, which they pre-prepare in the kitchen for the whole family. The striking thing, every roll looks the same. They don’t eat one with cheese and one with jam. All rolls are e.g. prepared whit butter, cheese, cucumbers and slices of sausage. If you forget to bring sufficient sausage for all rolls you really risk big confusion of all family members during breakfast.

They don’t drink it for breakfast but it can even be found in the hostel’s freezer – polish vodka.

2. Polish people are very helpful and friendly, if they understand you, but if you approach them in English and the don’t understand you they are likely just turning around and going away.

The charming polish men, always providing a helping hand for a lady.

3. If you are a single man or simply don’t like cooking you are going to have your meal in one of the countless milk bars. However, you have to know the polish names of the traditional polish dishes, be able to pronounce them e.g. GołÄ�bki (Guhouambki) – stuffed cabbage, and be able to cope with the communistic mood of the old ladies selling the food. But it’s definitely worth tasting.

Renting bikes in Warsawa is in principal a pretty easy thing to do. Like in other cities you find this kind of city bikes located on countless terminals. You can either create an account online or at the machine on one of the terminals. I tried first online. The problem was that I could not lock into my account with the code I got via email. Unfortunately a brilliant software developer programmed a feature that puts +48 before every telefon number that one types while registering. Mine starts with +49 so the new code never arrived on my phone. So I registered with my credit card at the machine at the terminal. This worked fine, in the beginning. And it is pretty cheap:
0-20 min 0 zł
1 h 1 zł

However, at the registration you are charged 10 zł, which we considered enough for all days, but they did not tell you, that you must have at least 10 zł in your account to rent a bike. So one hour later we were in front of the machine and were asked to give our credit card number a second time. Arrrg what the hack was that and is somebody emptying our bank accounts while we are strolling though Warsaw. Tom called and we got the explanation. Then after our Tour of the remains of Jewish Warsaw (I did not now that the Jewish population in Warsaw decreased from above 30 to 0.3 % between 1939 and 2014), we tried to rent bikes again. The machine just told me the bike is not available over and over again. So Tom called them again. A 15 min Chat later, they had figured out, that they locked the account due to missing data. I should have logged in online and fill out my address and email. Not that easy, if you don’t know you have to and are running around in Warsaw. However, we managed and afterwards had only to deal with the numerous broken bikes that we rented while finding our way.

After trying to rent one of the city bikes, Steffi got king of frustrated.

Bicycle lanes are a rare phenomenon in the inner city of warsawa, but since polish people are a very relaxed species also biking in heavy traffic turned out to be rather safe.

By the way, our second stop in Riga was nice as well, but we spent most time relaxing in a Cafe or Park, due to the exhausting sightseeing trip in Warsaw.

Happy traveler

Riga at almost night

People of all age are the relaxing atmosphere in the fair market in the alternative district on the other side of the river.

Where you can buy everything from fresh vegetables, household equipment to delicious sea buckthorn ice cream.

In the old part of the city centre colourful buildings are framing the busy life in the weekends.

I pack my suitcase and take with me …

Veröffentlicht am 23. Juli 2014 von Steffi

Antworten

During the last weeks we discussed in forth and back how we want to travel and what we want to bring with us.

The first idea was to buy a little bus and simply drive, than wouldn’t have to think about what to pack but just stuff everything into it. However, how to get the bus across the pacific and the atlantic? we dropped this idea pretty fast. Than we discussed taken the bikes, but this is soooo limiting, so we decided to do it the classical way and to travel with a backpack. This decision resulted in the big challenge what to pack. We forced us through several travel pack list, excluded the tent and the cooking equipment (just to heavy and too easy to buy, when you need it), but included the sleeping back (I kind of like my own and spent a lot of time selecting it) and came up with the following things. I will give you the full list including the purpose of things and if I am not to lazy you will get a the same list with the real use of things at the end of our journey.

Content of Steffi’s backpack.

Content of Tom’s backpack.

Steffi (Tom)

Talisman For all the challenges waiting on our journey.

Two protecting angles, two naughty owls and a small version of our travel destiny that will remind us of friends and family.

1 pair flip-flops Short city walking in warm weather and
showering.
1 pair trekking boots Long and cross country walking and for cold
conditions.
4 pair trekking socks Going together with the trekking boots.
1 pair long trekking trousers insect tight Colder conditions and as insect repellent
during the evening hours.
1 pair short trousers (trunks) Warm conditions (hopefully 90% of the time).
1 pair short sport trousers (same trunks) Strength exercises and running on the beach
3 shirts (merino wool) 24/7, light, fast drying and odourless
1 fleece jacket (shirt + Softshell jacket) Warm and cosy for any cold nights in
Mongolia.
1 rain jacket In case its raining.
1 pair rain trousers In case its raining heavily.
2 jogging bra (Tom only brings one). Useful for every action also riding an
elephant in Cambodia.
5 panties (boxer shorts) I guess you can get what they are used for.
1 Buff (merino wool) For the chilly wind in Siberia.
1 Cap I case I freeze on my ears.
1 Bikini (still the same trunks) All the sandy beaches.
Sun glasses Sure we only travel under summer conditions.
Travel towel To have something to lay on at the beach.
Electronic tooth brush & accessory Brushing teeth ;).
Hairbrush (nothing) I grew rather long hair after all.
Shampoo You know the commercial, where sweaty girls
arrive in some village, wash their hair, turn
around and all guys look at them. Kind off.
Face creme (nivea creme) For the days where the sand from desert Gobi
drys out our skin.
Wet wipes Sure there are some days without a shower.
All this Deo and similar stuff Try to stay in some form civilised.
3 credit cards (the same number) 1 to withdraw cash, 1 to get lost, and 1 get to
get locked by the bank
1 passport + copy Including Visa to get in all the communistic
countries.
2 ID cards One as back up, and an old one to fake a
wallet for thieves.
1 drivers licence Rent a car for travelling.
1 international drivers licence Goes together with the real one.
11” Notebook Writing this blog for you guys and watching
movies in silent nights.
eBook reader Killing the hours in trains and busses.
iPhone Replacement cam in case the big one gets
stolen.
Nothing (really nice camera) Taking pictures of everything so you can get
envious ups sorry inspired.
Nothing (2 x Backup drive) To safe all the nice pictures
Nothing (Rasberry pie) Just because we (Tom) can.
World adapter
and all the charging equipment For charging all this electronic stuff.
Knitting stuff (see electronic equipment) Knitting small animals for the sweet kids we
will meet in the transib.

One of the little cute animals.

Coffee Thermocup For the cold days in Mongolia, where you
want to keep your coffee warm.
Documents Bus and train tickets for the first week of
traveling to get started somehow.
Travelsheet For all the situations where blankets in Hostels
are kind of disgusting (Insectshield, so Tom
does not have to worry about Mosquitos).
Sleeping bag Because Steffi still dreams about a walking
trip in Nepal, where they would be handy.
Swiss knife This is always handy, when you don’t have a
kitchen to prepare your sandwich.
Lighter I case we get lost and need to switch on a
bonfire.
Plastic box We got one that you can close tight to
transport some not completely dry food stuffs.
and it can be used as a plate and a bowl.
Spork When you have soup in your box you might
prefer a spoon instead of slurping.
Rope In the cases you need something to hang up
wet cloth.
3 pens For writing notes
2 note books To have paper for writing notes.
Safety belt (Neck wallet) To store credit and ID cards while exploring a
city. (Make it harder for Tom to loose his credit
card.)
Licorice Got it as a goodbye present and will probably
irritate some russian people with it.
Danish coins I heard russian people collect forge in coins and
euros are jet so boring.

And our travel pharmacy that needs it’s own section.

All the stuff, that we hopefully won’t need.

Sun protection
Something hard against Mosquitos
Some vitamins
Probiotics (Chr. Hansen)
Clean syringes and needles
Tape for wounds and bandages
Gauze bandage
Elastic bandage
Desinfection tissues
Sterile pads
Blister tape
Gold folie blankets
Triangular bandage
Thermometer
Fenistile Creme against Mosquito bits
Creme against fungi
Beatisadonna and Bepanten for wounds
Voltaren against pain
Aspirin against fever
Further pain killers
Pills against diarreah
Malaria pills
Broadband antibiotic
Bonbons against sore throat
Dros against inflamed eyes
Drops against inflamed ears
Nasal spray
Personal medicine
The whole pharmacy weighs about two kg, anyway I hope we won’t need it.

Finding permit A38

Veröffentlicht am 11. Juli 2014 von Steffi

Our sweet yellow cards, that we had to give back before leaving denmark.

Searching the web for experiences for other travellers provides you with long list of what to take care of before you only considering heading for the world. As I mentioned we are not pretty good in planing a head so we simply made sure, that we were vaccinated for all you can be vaccinated, we quit our jobs and apartment and stored our stuff in the basement of Tom’s mum. But there is one thing that I am pretty concerned about and this is insurance. I am german and I awfully correctly need to make sure that I am ensured for every possibility that you can imagine and I don’t feel well bending the rules.

My first attempt was to sign an travel insurance in Germany. There I know the system and we anyway want to settle there. However, the pure commitment to settle in Germany is not a proper background for any insurance company, meaning without any residence no insurance.

I thought fair enough, them my money will go to a danish company. so I started searching the web for a “rejseforsikring”, but the only thing that popped up was insurances that cover the annual summer holidays for up to 30 days. That’s not really what I need. Despite better knowledge I started to doubt that danish people travel for longer periods.

The trick was to look at the danish version of “the lonely planet”. The recommended a travel insurance. So I checked out “Gouda.dk” and yes this insurance would fit but it required that you own the danish health insurance card also called “yellow card”. I owned this card, but I was aware of, that I have to give it back, when I leave Denmark. So I called them.

S: Hi, I would like to sign a health insurance, but I read that this requires that I own the yellow card. I am german and have to give it back, when I leave Denmark.

G: But you do have the card now?

S: Yes.

G: That’ s no problem, as long as you have the card when you sign the insurance.

Than the day came, when Tom got suspicious and checked out the insurance coverage and stumbled over the statement: “furthermore the transport back to Denmark is covered”. Well, that’s probably nice for all with a permanent residence in Denmark, but we are germans. So we went to the international “borgerservice”.

B: You are leaving Denmark? Sure then you have deregister and hand in your yellow card.

S: OK, but how does it work, in case we are transported back to Denmark.

B: I don’t know. I would call the health insurance company an ask them. You don’t have to hand in your card today.

So I called the health insurance company:

G: Hmm, so yes you are covered without the yellow card, but we can only transport you back to Denmark. However, that shouldn’t be a problem. You only have to register yourself again.

S: I guess you don’t know, whether I simply can register again?

G: No, but I would recommend to call “borgerservice”, they should know.

So I called “borgerservice”.

B: This is a simple case. You are leaving Denmark so you have to deregister yourself. In case you are coming back you have to go to “statsforvaltning” and they will check, whether your residence permit is still valid. In case it is still valid you can register again.

So I went researching regarding residence permit rules. This resulted in the following answer:

“You will lose your right of residence in case you give up your residence and leave Denmark, if you deregister yourself, or in case you reside more than 12 months outside of Denmark.

????? For the first I won’t pay rent in Copenhagen, if I don’t be in Copenhagen and I have to deregister myself if I am outside of Denmark for more than six months. Might be just me, but I don’t get how these rules work. So I called the “borgerservice” again:

B: No you can’t register at a friends place and anyway YOU HAVE TO DEREGISTER if you stay outside of Denmark for more than 6 months. Also danes have to do this.

S: But how do the rights for health insurance work, if I am not registered in Denmark?

B: Your are german. So I guess you will be insured in Germany.

S: No I can only be insured, if I have a residence in Germany.

B: But are you not registered in Germany.

S: No I can only register in Germany, if I have a residence in Germany, but I won’t have this because I am going to travel.

B: But you must be registered somewhere.

S: No obviously I don’t have to.

B: Yes, but if you are not registered you will according to the EU law only have the right for acute treatment in Denmark. I would recommend that you call your health insurance again.

This somehow was slowly turning into a never-ending loop. Friends recommend simply not to get that sick, that you have to be transported home, but you know out of principe there must be i rule for cases like that (a bit german ?). I called the health insurance again:

S: Might it be possible that you can transport us back to Germany? There we could get a insurance the day we come back.

G: No sorry, we can only transport you back to Denmark, but I can see that this is a problem. Let me talk to a college.

1 min

2 min

G: So I think we found out how it is working. In case you are transported to Denmark you will have according to the EU law the right for acute treatment. We will only transport you back in such cases. So if you need an operation, you will get this. The only thing is, that Denmark might keep you Denmark in the following three months.

Why they would like to keep me in Denmark, who knows, but I am pretty sure I would find a sofa to sleep on. Knowing all the rules I very hopeful that we won’t get so ill that we will need them anyway.

To get an international drivers licence when you have a german drivers licence and no german residence was definitely even as funny, but that is another story and shall be told another time.

Steffi, Tom and Tommy

Veröffentlicht am 6. Juli 2014 von Steffi

yellow dots – Steffis wish list
blu dots- Toms wish list
red dots – recommendations

Who are we and where are we going? We are Steffi (a little over thirty, analytical chemist and always wanted to travel the world but was either lacking the money, the time or a companion), Tom (a little more over thirty, software developer, and always wants to travel to snowy mountains to snowboard), and Tommy (one and a half year old, travel-sheep and going to show Steffi and Tom the world).

Tom and Steffi

The travel sheep

We are all germans (actually we met Tommy on the ferry from Roedby to Puttgarden, so we guess he is half german half danish), until now we were living in Copenhagen, our destiny is Germany but we decided to take a short round about. The master tour plan includes Russia, Mongolia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile, Peru, Cuba, USA, Canada and some more place you need to see before you die. Anyway we booked three nights in a Hostel in Moskva and a train ticket from Moskva to Kazan, since we despite all prejudges are not very good in deciding and planning a head. So if the ticket seller in the Russian train stations are willing mean we might end up stuck somewhere between Siberia hugging brown bears.

But whether we end up partying in the vodka train, hanging out on the beach Thailand, enjoying the silence of the peruian walking tracks, riding the champagne powder in Canada we definitely want you to know and be a bit envious. That’s what this blog is going to be for. So we hope you will take the time once in a while and travel a short part with us, even if it is only in your thoughts and if you get inspired you can check out where we are and come by.

Steffi and Tom on the Road

With Tommy traveling in the trains of this World.

Archiv für den Monat: Juli 2014

Kontrastnaja Kazan

Traveling the Transiberian Train

Traveling Ecoline Busses

Krasnaja Moskva

Poland, the country of Brötchenvorschmierer

I pack my suitcase and take with me …

Finding permit A38

Steffi, Tom and Tommy