P R A G U E
A retrospective blog is never ideal, but I left my laptop at
home as I didn’t want to do work on this holiday. Not sure what to expect
however listening to everyone’s opinions on Russia I decided to leave the
Breitling at home too. Not sure where the opinions stem from however as I felt
Russia was safe.
Sitting next to me on the flight was a man Fadl who was a
consular official of Yemen. He was so nice, gave me his number should I have
any issues in Prague. I didn’t. As soon as I landed and got to my hostel, it
felt like I was in Bali. I was staying at a swish hostel with a pool, sauna and
apparently every bogan Contiki and Busabout Aussie in town there.
I called an early-ish night after watching the games on TV
and decided I’d do the walking tour the next morning. It was there waiting that
I met a Kiwi guy Eddie and his mate Ali and the hotel socialiser (some American
dude) who took us to a walking tour, which I had hoped it would be with my
Aussie mate Matt that I met in Tel Aviv. But the outrageous hostel socialiser had other
ideas and took us to some other boring group. Enroute he was telling me how he
was a Marine and I told him I also was obvs taking the piss. And then I said
‘where are your shit tattoos?’ and then he showed me ‘duh’ foot in mouth.
Anyway I managed to bring it back and after convening with
Eddie and looking at the dull walking tour group and no potential hot things
for Ed and Ali, we decided to bail and try to find my mates tour group instead
of this one the dickhead marine socialiser had brought us to. So we took off
with good intentions and joined the new walking tour. It was about the third
destination that we realised Ali had disappeared and it was just Ed and I (and
the tour group). Our tour was great, but we were starving, so half way through
when we were given a break, we took off to find food. Our intention was to
re-join but we got lost, and despite our intentions to re-join we ended up
losing our tour group! So I decided as it was my second time in Prague, I had
to see the castle this time so we set off for our self-guided castle tour. The
next faux pas was skipping the queue and jumping in front of a Chinese tour
group. It wasn’t until we were in the castle that we felt the wrath of our
actions when a lady shook her head at us and goes “that was not cool, NOT cool” ha-ha I laughed
it off, I mean, how many times have I been pushed in front of by rude
Chinese? I think that’s karma. Whatever
it is we had a massive day walking, and I was stuffed so had a nap at the
hostel and chilled until the next footy match.
I was sat outside of the bar when I got a message from Ed
saying he was inside at the bar. He had managed to find two mates, Aidan the 20
year old that reminded me of Girthy (though due to his age and being unable to
apply the half your age + 7 to this, I cannot confirm he is exactly like him,
though he was from Canberra, had a Mo and a tattoo of Canberra on his back!!),
and J the token loud American who I’m sure produced porn for a living. We sat
separately hating on the rude Aussies (also the new short arse butt crack
fashion when applied to 18 year old overweight girls is not nice to look at!)
and watched the footy. We also committed to spending the whole next day
together and got up the next day to find a breaky place. We didn’t entirely
fail but we didn’t entirely succeed, i.e. we found a place that sold breakfast
closest to what we Aussies were used to, but the breaky menu had finished, so
we had to go somewhere else to eat, though the place we were had a massive
paddle pool in the back and island chairs. So it was a natural progression (or
regression) back to that place for Aperols upon completion of our breaky and
beerskis were had until I was so drunk, we decided to go back to the hostel for
a sauna and some travellers before my flight.
S A M A R A, R U S S
I A
My flight to Samara was on the world’s oldest plane. It was
made marginally better when I was upgraded to business, and then extremely much
better when a tall hot top knotted Danish guy sat next to me – Bjorn, became
the first person I fell in love with on this holiday. It was a miracle when we
found out that we were on the same flight to Moscow after the Samara game and I
was super excited when he and Anders (his mate who was the awkward third wheel
wedged between us) told me they would message me and we could do dinner at a
Top 100 restaurant in Moscow. I chose to ignore the fact that they met at some
socialist camp and was a little bit crushed when I didn’t hear from them in
Samara.
It was a late 3:40am arrival and 38 degrees in Samara – so
was super relieved that everything was super organised at the airport. Had
money, a 5£ unlimited data mobile sim card and my driver there in no time. The
most stressful part arriving to the hostel at half 4 and the lady photocopying
every stamped page of my passport, which is nearly every page in my Aussie
passport!!
Mathilde and her brother Kristoffer had arrived before and
kindly made and left me the bottom bunk. The next day we took in the sights of
Samara … which meant the local shopping centre McDonalds, before seeing some
history (a WW2 memorial tanker with the dates 1941-1944 lol) and then we
headed
to the game.
Walking in to the Stadium the atmosphere was incredible. I
quickly met up with Whitey and his mates from Dubai and Oz, and randomly saw
some of Sammy’s mates from London. We frantically searched for an Aussie Jersey
for me to no avail as the whole country had sold out. I had so many beers
before the game, I think we were all very cut by the time the game started, I
actually heard rumours we drank the stadium out of beer.
The draw was the best result we hoped to get. I suppose I
would have loved to win, but I appreciate how awesome the Dane’s are and was just grateful
we didn’t make a fool of ourselves. (That obviously was to come in Sochi).
After the game, we got the team bus to the fan zone and partied till the early
hours this itself wasn't without drama when suddenly there was a mad rush to evacuate. I suspected the Canadian chick that was holding it in couldn't hold it in anymore, so when i actually realised the bus engine had blown up, I also cottoned on to scurry off in a hurry (this and the fact the driver came up with a pocket knife to the smokey engine and was like "I can fix this" sure you can buddy! We unsuccessfully tried to catch up with Pags, but caught up with Whitey
and his mates, Dimi who looks like an Arab, long haired Jason, dorky Dave (who
is mates with my mate Walshy!) and some other non-descript dudes drinking vodka
shots till the early morning. The UBER back was painful, the chatty driver
talking to Dave about what we thought of Samara. Dave, was so patient, "oh, it’s
beautiful", we inside chuckled as our group WhatsApp earlier that day was
something along the lines of “you guys are lucky you didn’t come here early,
this place is a shit hole!
When we got back though the hostel lady had water for us (I
had a cheeky vomit from the god awful food!) and stole 3 hours sleep before our
rude airport awakening where I said bye to Mathilde and Kristoffer who headed
back to Denmark and hello to the airport bean bags and the hot top knot Dane
man.
M O S C O W
Unfortunately unlike my Dane friends, I was not upgraded
this time so we were separated and I’ve never heard from Bjorn since. When I
boarded the plane however I was not too fussed as I thought the other plane was
the world’s oldest, I was wrong, this Utair flight was most definitely the
oldest almost shittest plane I’d been on (albeit Lao Air and a short flight to
BVI from Miami.) I was glad to be so tired I slept through most of it and was
greeted at the airport upon landing with two things – a text message from Bec’s
German mate Benny telling me he was in Moscow, and my driver – Vlad
(he was
very Russian, so this name I’m just guessing!)
Lots of traffic and heat was what I first noticed, the other
thing I noticed was that the women were smoking hot, but the men were fugly. It
was an hour in when Vlad got out to have a dart in the middle of the highway.
Thankfully I was too tired to really care a great deal and again relieved to
arrive at the hostel and able to check in early so I could have a kip before
exploring. When I woke up I walked in to Moscow town and had a look around. It
seemed like a really cool place, everywhere was buzzing and the Tunisians were
chanting. For some reason Putin had closed the Red Square and the too many
crowd was condensed in to a small area so it was also quite claustrophobic. I
was so tired though so decided to head back for another snooze.
Upon waking I had a message from my old favourite temporary
Kiwi housemate Timmy that they
were heading to the fan zone. So I decided to
bite the bullet and catch public transport for the first time. Man I was happy
I did so. The tube station was beautiful; the train was stunning and clean and
even had phone coverage and a TV showing football!
I pretty much arrived when the boys wearily hungover decided
to boot for dinner. But not before trying my luck to get an Aussie jersey as
they had completely sold out of Samara and I didn’t fancy my chances of seeing
any in Sochi. There were three Smalls left in the shop so £70 later we got the
tube again, the wrong way though, so after the slight hitch, we headed back in
to the Red Square. We finally found a place to eat and watch football, a
Turkish place and had a hearty dins before we made plans for the walking tour
the next AM and parted ways.
The next morning was a particularly hard one to awaken to
even though I’d set my alarm for 9am. Every day so far i’d been up by 6am and
not asleep before 2am so was literally living off adrenalin. I caught the tube
back to town and met the again weary but good looking boys for the walking
tour.
Moscow is stunning. I expected ugly communist buildings, but
they have re-built many of the intricate decorative buildings destroyed during
the communist era and the place was buzzing.
We booted the walking tour this time deliberately at half
time as the boys had to get to the Belgium game and I wanted to go try the
modern restaurant place near my hostel called ‘Little White’. It may be the
best idea for a venue and definitely the most suitable for me ever in
 |
| Benny & I |
existence. Their motto simply reads ‘Breakfast and Wine Bar’. Inside I had the
best food and next to my loner table was a table full of hot Brazilians. WIN.
One of them, Sandro used to live in Oz (for two months on the Gold Coast LOLS),
gave me his number to catch up after the game. He was the second person I fell
in love with on the trip (I say second as obvs didn’t have to fall in love with
old housemate Timmy, as still held a strong torch after all those amazing
smoothies he used to make me for breaky, our fun tube trips to work together
and the fact he meets all my criteria except the blue eye one which I’ve become
lenient on). I sort of even forgot that Brazilian women are mental because the
men all treat them like shit and make them that way. I didn’t care. I went back
to the hostel for some chill time and then back across the road for an early
dinner met Benny boy there for a feed and some Aperols. We then made the
world’s worst decision to head in to the Red Square to watch the Germany game.
Again in the Red Square Mr Putin had called for the square to be closed off.
Benny and I missed the first half before we found a bunker craft beer café
televising it. It was really cool inside but temperature wise reflected a
sauna. I felt like after the game and the stress of the late Germany 94 minute
mark goal I’d sweated off a few KGs and I was most certainly drunk. Unfortunately
the Portuguese and English barrier meant that Sandro clicked rather late that
this night was my last one. He was in the Red Square when I was back in bed
(circa 1am), waiting for my 4am wake up to get to my half 6am flight to Sochi. The
UBER to Moscow airport was one of the most memorable and scary UBER trips of my
life but I was sort of too tired to care. The guy was Uzbekistani Ali G type
guy, quite rudely dressed but his car was quite neat. I sat in the (no word of
a lie) shag pile carpeted and cushioned backseat. Probably one of the best
decisions I’ve made in my
life. He drove on the highway like he was keeping the
tyres warm of an F1 car- so the kms felt to go particularly slow. He then
decided he wanted a cigarette, so wound down the window and had a dart. I
wanted to sleep but had to stay awake to ensure I wouldn’t end up in Kazakhstan.
I also was messaging my Aussie mates I was meeting in Sochi as V had jetlag and
was awake at the ungodly hour and gave her a rolling commentary of what was
happening. Then the guy asks me what time my flight is. I showed him. He looked
and looked particularly like he thought we didn’t have much time. So nearing an
hour to go until my flight you could notice my surprise when he gets off the
freeway and enters a petrol station, leaving me in the car...
The next fun experience was the Moscow airport as it was the
first time I noticed how rude some Russians could be. I suppose as it was the
first time other than the ladies toilets where the hot Russian chick had
shockingly failed to wash her hands and the hotel check out that I had actually
interacted with Russians. Not one smile, but I didn’t really mind, I just
wanted on the flight so I could sleep so the one hour delay was particularly
unhelpful in this instance. That and the fact our flight was full of Peruvians.
I sat next to one from Chicago. He told me they sung the song for the whole
duration of his 8hr flight. Some had sold their houses to come to this world
cup = absolutely, unbelievable.
S O C H I
My biggest regret leaving Moscow was not buying a Putin
babushka. Never again did I see the one as beautiful as the one I had seen in
Moscow. Sochi was described to me as the Russian med, and a place that Russians
went to holiday. This time I didn’t have a transfer so used an Uber to get to
the hotel in Adler. The lady on the desk was a particularly dropped pie faced
sour bitch. She wouldn’t let me check in. So tired beyond words I went for a wander
along the sea front and found an almost Parisian restaurant aptly named ‘La
Parus’ to charge the phone battery. Ordered my fav holiday dish ‘eggs bene’ and
took in the ambience until I could check in and enjoy the stifling hot weather
poolside until my friends joined me. That is exactly what I did upon check in,
and as the Swedes had not yet checked out, it was fair to say I thoroughly
enjoyed the view. I chose the vacant pool deck chair that was next to the world’s
hottest man who didn’t look dissimilar to Jamie Redknapp (now the world’s equal
hottest man). When the sun went down and I was almost positive that V and
Andrew’s flight had landed I head inside, again for a nap. I know you probably
think I nap a lot but again 2am to 6am for 8 days running had def taken its
toll. That and i was running low of antihistamines and was dying of hay fever.
My token Russian Aussie friend V and her Hubby the 2M tall Andrew
came in and I was well overdue for a feed so after our awesome reunion we
headed to a place I’d Trip Advisored called Pizza Fisht for dins. It wasn’t
amazing, because we were plonked in the kids’ corner but we were all
celebrating our reunion, so after a few cocktails we left for an early-ish
night.
Next morning we headed to Parus for breakie, and stopped
enroute at the coffee shop I had also discovered earlier, for a roadie. Again
Parus did not disappoint and we stayed there until we decided to UBER to Sochi
and check it out. By now I was accustomed to the stinky UBER drivers (it was
like being back in Oz with the Indian and Pakis), but at least he had half
decent music taste and we got to listen to Roxette’s Joyride album the whole
way which kept me happy as it reminds me of my sister. Andrew and I were
getting V to ask if the Uber driver could take us to Georgia, noticing it was
only 14kms from where we were staying. It was strange when he said that just
across the border from Sochi was a different country and they had their own
passports. Andrew and I were zooming in on google maps going ‘yeah it’s
Georgia’ but this guy was adamant it was not Georgia. Having since completed
some research, and mindful I would like to return to Russia, I will leave this
with you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhazia.
Sochi was a cool place, and naturally wanting some respite
from the sun again we found a wine bar for some tapas and Strawberry daiquiris.
We caught a cab back to Adler and went to Parus for pre-game dinner. Enroute we
saw (and heard) thousands of Peruvians outside a hotel singing their repetitive
Peru fan song (equal parts as annoying as England’s ‘It’s Coming Home’). It
gave me chills and we instantly felt the presence of the Peruvians which had
waited as long as the Geelong football club premiership in 2007 to get to the
world cup.
Walking in Parus we realised that all the staff from this
morning were still there, in fact they were doing 15 hour days. So it was quite
embarrassing when the CEO of football Australia’s David Gallops table guest was
a complete arsehole to the staff having waited (as we did) for an hour to eat.
Apparently he thought he was the only one that had to wait and was very vocal
in doing so by slapping away the complementary bottle offered to him and
storming off just as the food arrived. I believe David looked rightfully
embarrassed by his guest but I especially was grateful they left hungry.
I left Parus with the intent of meeting Whiteys group and
the elusive Pags at Vinograd to see Stafford Bros when I received a call from
Pags a little bit pissed, telling me he had arrived and should asking me if we
should go to Abkhazia on our way home! On our way back to the hotel however we
doubled back passed the hotel and it was when we heard the chants again that we
suddenly worried that the Peruvians were out the front of the Aussie hotel
keeping them awake before the game. Andrew and i were ready for a fight but we
were assured by three different groups that it was the Peru hotel and we
carried on our way (BTW we were told it went on till 4am!) I was in an UBER
enroute on my own at 11pm and my driver got pulled over by police. At first, I
was fine I was sitting there hoping it would all hurry up so I could get to the
concert. But too much was going on in my head and as I was sat there a good 20
minutes unsure what they were saying in Russian, everything went through my
head, including that recent murder in Carlton. I decided, as I could still see
my hotel that I would politely get out and go back and wait for Whitey to grab
me enroute. When Whitey told me it was 100 Russian Yams out of his way and he
was going straight there Dimi/ Arab knight in shiny armour offered to come get
me, but I was well tired and called it once I was safely inside.
We couldn’t book pre-game at Parus, the closest place to the
ground so instead went to the second closest - Pizza Fisht for 15 or the WhatsApp
group consisting of Whitey and his mates, Robbie Gore’s group and us lot. We
arrived to a stressed staff member informing us there was a problem and a
restaurant full of no necked Peruvians (V pointed this out and then I couldn’t unnotice
it). I realised that they would leave to get to the game early (as Pags did) so
we chilled and had cocktails while we waited for them to clear. They did, then
the staff put 4 tables together for our group then I anxiously sat there with V
and Andy stressing no one would show up for 30 mins until Dimi put his head
through the door and Robbie and his mates come, soon there were 16 of us and we
had taken over the whole restaurant. We got some travellers after a feed and
headed for the game.
We didn’t leave near enough time to get right around the
other side of the ground – God knows why they couldn’t just let us in at the
gate closest and we had to walk around, but it was at this time that Robbie
told me he was robbed in St Petersburg and they had skimmed his account clean. I
was quite shocked by this as I had felt Russia to be really safe comparable to
anywhere else I’ve been, I was sympathetic I think but I was also drunk and
Sette was stressing we wouldn’t make it in time for the anthem, I was stressed
I wouldn’t get a pre-game beer so we joined forces and sprinted in.
Not having enough time to get beer, I was grateful Andrew
had sorted me out. I sat down near the no necked Peruvians who were everywhere
and all we could hear was their song resonating, vibrating through the
stadium.
The game itself was quite hard; it was quite dejecting
letting a goal through despite having a lot of the possession. The sound was
piercing, I knew what had happened even though I was at the bar getting
beerskies. I was quite angry at the blonde headed black man (who I didn’t know
even existed until I saw Geelong debut our new player Narkle who IS my fav
player already) who scored the goal as he was one of those players like Neymar
that loved to roll around. Then I realised there were two blonde headed black
guys and I got really confused and I was quite drunk and the only excitement
for the game for me was when Timmy Cahill came on… then Peru scored again and
their song by now was giving me the shits so as soon as the whistle chimed post
game we legged it (at a slightly slower cripple pace due to Andrew’s bung knee)
and headed to our meeting place Parus. 30 thousand Aperol Spritz’s later and a
three course meal we settled the $45k Rouble bill and went our separate ways. I
had a small vomit in the garden and walked home.
The next day came and we went and chilled at Vino Grad. Dimi
cancelled our previously planned date from the night before and instead offered
me a night out in Fulham for our first Premier League home game to which I was
happy to take up. By now my body was starting to give way, so I ordered a soup
despite the temperature being 100 degrees outside. We had dinner local and were
re-iterated that my decision to leave the UBER the other night was a good one
when we met two Peruvians who were taken out bush and robbed of their money by
a taxi driver when their phones had gone dead in the celebrations the night
before. My flight out the next morning was a stupid o clock 4am one to Sofia
Bulgaria.
Well in to page 6 of my longest Blog to date, I’m not going
to even write about Bulgaria. Apart from the decent food (I had Indian and
Spanish), the weather was crap and the country reminded me of Romania (probably
because my borrowed umbrella was flogged at the store) a little boring and the world’s
worst 4 star hotel. The business class flight home on the world’s worst
business class airline British Airways, and me being drunk before the take-off
(as we were tarmac bound for an hour in) becoming mates with the old guy next
to me which I kissed goodbye at the baggage carousel – it was all very boring
and non-descript! Russia 5/5 spuds, and probably up there with one of my
favourite ever holidays!
Day 3 – Macchu Piccu started with an early get up to take
the train one stop (104km mark) in order to hike. I was wearing my trusty
trainers and Bieber T-Shirt, Phoebs looked stylish in 2XU leggings, Bobby had
all the gear and a knee brace because he had done his ACL 6 months earlier
(positively sure that his OT would be over the moon he was trekking), and Rhys
was wearing RM Williams work boots. There were so many weirdos on the train
with all the gear, one guy opposite us was from Arizona and was saying he was
an Athlete so had to eat a lot constantly. Eye rolls. 
