Itchy feet

How does one prepare for a voyage into the unknown? It's less than a week now until we fly off to our first port of call, Moscow, and there is much to be done! I write this in my family home in Leicester, an increasingly rare occasion when my parents, my brothers and I happen to be under the same roof at the same time! I've been in England exactly a week now, but it feels like a lot longer.

Having been in Germany for most of last year, coming back to England last week was a culture shock. Though the cultures are relatively similar, each time I return to England's shores, her idiosyncrasies become more and more apparent. London is increasingly referred to as Europe's biggest police state, and England as the country with most CCTV cameras per square kilometer, and it feels like Big Brother is watching us more intently than ever. On the London Underground we are nagged incessantly by warnings to report anything 'suspicious looking', and to keep an eye on our possessions. This, indeed, is the place where two years ago, Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was gunned down by policemen in an Underground station in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings for being falsely suspected as a terrorist. No wonder people here look cheesed off, and unwilling to look each other in the eye, burying themselves instead in the latest Harry Potter book.

My first two days here were tied up trying to get my Russian visa. The London consulate is an impressive building on the edge of Kensington Gardens. At various travel agents here, I was informed, with typical English pessimism, that getting a Russian visa is notoriously difficult, and indeed it has been. The first day here I queued for half an hour outside the consulate without success, obliging me to extend my stay in London (a pleasant evening spent at my grandmother's house).

The next day I arrived at the consulate bright and early with my luggage, ready to get a train to my family in Leicester as soon as I sorted my visa out, only this time I was turned away for having luggage with me; no large bags are allowed in the consulate building! With little time before the embassy once again closed its doors for the day, I began to panic. A few years ago, in a safer world, I would have easily found a locker to store my bag at the nearest tube station, but in terror-obsessed, bomb fearing, twenty-first-century London, public lockers no longer exist! In such desperate circumstances, I was forced to break the rules slightly. With the aid of charm and a generous tip, a waitress at a Cafe opposite the consulate allowed me to store my bag in the broom cupboard. And at long last I handed in my papers and passport, and my visa should be ready for collection tomorrow!

The next few days were blissfully chilled out in comparison. My family and I spent last weekend in Sidmouth, in our holiday home on the south coast in Devon. Sidmouth used to host one of the the world's most celebrated folk festivals, but this year's was a squib in comparison. Still, there are much less enjoyable ways to spend a weekend than to slouch in an English beer garden, sipping fine ale whilst chortling at burley, bonnet wearing West-Country folk as they dance away to bag pipes and harmonicas!


And now, back in Leicester, my thoughts turn at every second to our impending European adventure. In preparation for next week, I'm immersing myself in all things Russian and Finnish, trying to learn some basic Russian, reading Gogol's 'Dead Souls' and listening to Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. Sibelius, Finland's greatest composer, has been in CD player non-stop for the last two days. His late symphonies are works of organic, natural beauty, in his words 'a glass of fresh spring water' in comparison to the overblown works of his contemporaries, Strauss and Mahler. In a few weeks we may well be traversing the magnificent Nordic landscape that inspired these works of beauty. But before Finland comes Russia, and yesterday Semfira managed to secure us our accommodation in Moscow and St Petersburg via Couch Surfing! The wheels are in the motion; tomorrow I'm back in London to pick up my visa, back in Darmstadt on Monday, and we sett off from Cologne airport on Wednesday morning. And there is much yet to be done....!