Barnesy & Jill's Monaghan Wedding

We made it! We only get 3 nights but is was the wedding I had to get to. Barnesy and Jill were finally getting married and picked a spot between both families to do so. The beautiful island of Maui.  I shuffled some days off work around so that A & I could make the journey for the wedding and catch up with some friends.

After an early start our flights to Maui via San Francisco seemed effortless and by 12pm local time, we were ready to find friends and maybe get in some pool time. We ran into most of the crew while having lunch at a bar in our hotel, The Westin Ocean Villas, so the festivities began.

One of my missions for the trip is to get into the ocean every day we are here, and after lunch I started that tradition - switching out between the Pacific and the pool. When we finally got settled into our room, we had little time before getting on the bus to Lahaina to go an a pre-wedding cruise. Wow! This is the life. 3 hours just cruising, with great people, enjoying the good weather and celebrating the love of 2 friends. Doesn't get much better than that.

Creany, Barnes & I cruising Maui

The Bride & Groom

We kicked on for a little while at a local pub, but it had been a long day for A and I so we left before the shenanigans got out of hand.

The Creantels

Philby, Barnes & Regs

Berlin, Germany to Amsterdam, Holland

Today is our longest haul of the Russian leg. Berlin to Amsterdam. This is a long day on the bus, broken up only by service stops and sporadic naps.

We arrived in Amsterdam at seven pm and the place was a buzz. There were people everywhere, with a large number of Poms, out before their clash with Columbia.

Our motel was ordinary, and not having a bathroom was not good, as I still wasn’t 100 percent.

We went to another restaurant / motel for dinner, which was quite nice.

From there we did a 90-minute tour on the canals of the city. This would be our last night together and it looked like everyone was ready for a big night, but as soon as our cruise finished, everyone split into small groups and went their own ways. We (Ken, Jen, Dave, Melissa, Cam, Jo, Roberta and I) ended up walking through the streets, seeing Amsterdam’s infamous Red-Light District and other sights before ending up at an outdoor café for a couple of drinks. Roberta, amazingly, ran into a mate from university while we were wandering around. It never ceases to amaze me that coincidences like this happen – millions of people everywhere, we’re on the other side of the planet, and still you run into someone you know.

Helsinki, Finland to St Petersburg, Russia

Today is the day I have been waiting for. It was the compromise to get Roberta to do a Contiki. Our trip into Russia.

A 7.30 am departure, with one stop before the border. Between this service station and the border, we were told enough information to send us running or leave us paranoid.

It took over an hour and a half to get through the border. It was a very intimidating event, with border patrol dressed in military uniforms checking passports to the finest details, getting on the bus and going through everything, only for us to be checked again after almost leaving the border area.

The first stop in Russia was at Vyborg, where we changed our Finnish Marks and had some lunch.

From here we drove into St. Petersburgh. This is a very interesting city. When you drive in, the horizon is dominated by thousands of blocks of units all the same height – some in bad condition, others left unfinished and left standing without a hint of completion. But there seems to be a just as many people driving around in Mercedes Benz.

We arrived at our hotel “Sovetskaya” expecting the worst, but our rooms were quite nice, and the dirty water we had been warned about wasn’t half as bad as I had imagined.

View From Our Room, St. Petersburg, Russia

Dinner was in the hotel’s restaurant and wasn’t much to speak of. Afterwards we went for an hour’s canal ride through St Petersburgh. This was great! Buildings here similar to that of London, yet there is not a high rise in sight. I can’t wait for our next couple of days.

Canal Cruise, St. Petersburg, Russia

Canal Cruise, St. Petersburg, Russia

Canal Cruise, St. Petersburg, Russia

Naomi, Julian, Carmen, Jamie, Sarah, Helen, Richo & Cameron, Canal Cruise, St. Petersburg, Russia

After looking at some black-market hockey shirts, we had a couple of drinks in Naomi’s room before heading to bed.

Andalsnes, Norway

This morning we headed off through Norway’s mountains to Geiranger. We went via Trollstigen, which is a winding road up through the mountains, with amazing views of the valleys and many waterfalls. So windy is the road, we have to hire a local bus driver for the day. This is also the area where the legend of the trolls began. Here, at one of the stops is where I touched snow for the first time, only to be bombarded by Carmen, but she got hers. Hopefully all the photos Roberta took justify how beautiful was that we saw.

Trollstigen, Norway

Trollstigen, Norway

Onwards, the bus took us to Geiranger, where we went on a two-hour cruise through the fjord, which is just as scenic as the three-hour bus ride there.

Roberta, Troll, Me at Geiranger, Norway

Geiranger, Norway

Roberta & I, Fjord Cruise, Geiranger, Norway

Before heading home, we took one last drive above Geiranger to look over both the town and fjord. It was also in Geiranger that I bought a present for our Christmas party – a jigsaw puzzle of Scandinavia. We came back the same way, and also stopped at Stigfass Falls, a huge waterfall that, once again, is nothing like home.

We arrived back at the camp at six pm and after dinner most of the crew joined in for a game of soccer before the rain set in.