Amsterdam

(Berlin - Amsterdam 577km/358 Miles)
Total distance traveled = 14,745 km/9162 Miles

By this point I was getting a bit tired of constant travelling. Although I was stopping in cities for a few days, I wasn't really resting. I felt that I needed to see as much of the cities as I could, so was constantly walking around seeing the sights. I had planned to visit other German cities, a couple of places in the Netherlands, and perhaps even Belgium. But at this point decided I'd rather take a more direct route and spend more time at home. I got a train to Amsterdam, and at the same time booked a ferry back to the UK - timing my arrival in Warrington with my mum's birthday.
I know that some people take a year out and travel a lot more than this, but I'm not sure I could do such a long trip. Maybe mixing in more relaxing beach destinations, or staying in places longer would help. Equally, perhaps it's my personality and other travelers don't feel like that have to try and see everything in one go.

Amsterdam didn't impress at first. It was busy, raining, and the first parts of the city I saw were the areas full of 'coffeeshops' and the red light district. As I wandered around looking for the hostel, I wondered why I'd bothered coming. It got better though.

The hostel was away from the squalor and situated near a nice park. It was modern and clean, but a bit big. What am I saying, it was massive. Easily the biggest hostel I've ever been to. This meant it had more of an impersonal hotel feel. Lots of the people staying there were in big groups (school, college, hen parties, stag parties) which meant it was les likely that you'd get chatting to strangers. Although I did speak to a couple of Spanish guys, a Scottish lad, and a Japanese guy, this was more from my efforts to talk to people rather than a friendly atmosphere bringing people together.

Away from the centre, there were some nice areas of the city and during my stay I found some quiet streets, nice little shops, and interesting architecture. There didn't seem to be as many 'must see', 'big' sights compared to the other places I'd visited on the trip. This meant I felt I could relax a bit more and take my time looking around over the three days I was in the city.

I visited the Rijksmuseum and saw Rembrandt's 'Nightwatch', Ann Frank's House, and the Van Gogh Museum (suprisingly it wasn't busy!). I also went out for a few drinks and sampled some of the wares at a couple of the coffeeshops.

I left Amsterdam by bus, and boarded a ferry in Zeebrugge back to the UK. The bus was full of drunk lads who had been on a stag night. Luckily the ferry was big enough to avoid them and I had a few drinks before my last night on the road (or should that be sea).

Not so many photos this time...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Amsterdam/?albumview=slideshow

Berlin

(Brest - Berlin 699km/434 Miles)
Total distance traveled = 14,168 km/8803 Miles

I woke up in another country, again. This time I hadn't changed all my money. Thinking I might have to pay something at customs or crossing the border, I kept the 70,000 or so Belarusian Rubles I had in my wallet. There's a 'National Health Insurance' scheme which all visitors to Belarus are supposed to have. I'd heard a few travellers saying that they'd been told they had to buy this. Nobody mentioned this to me though (probably as I was leaving the country and it was too late), and so I was left with all these rubles and nowhere to change them. I don't think it's possible to change them anywhere except within Belarus, but 70,000 is only about £8 (1,000 yen) so it's not that big a loss.

After grabbing a McBreakfast, I headed to my hostel in Berlin. It wasn't really near the centre, but the city itself is quite spread out meaning I'd have to use the metro quite a bit anyway. The hostel itself was nice, but there wasn't much of an atmosphere there. I chatted to a few people on the first and third night, but generally everyone seemed to spend their time out in Berlin.

There was a lot to see and do in the city, so I ended up staying an extra night. This was also partly to get a cheaper onward train. During my time in Berlin, I visited...

A Dali exhibition - bit disappointing as most of the exhibits were sketches, not paintings. Also a bit expensive compared to the other exhibitions in the city.

The Bauhaus Archive - more interesting than I expected. There was a lot of information in the small, Bauhaus designed building. It helped to show how influential the movement was in modern design.

The German Guggenheim - exhibitions constantly change, the video one there when I visited was OK, but nothing to write home about.

Topography of Terror - A museum dedicated to the Nazis rise and reign in Germany. Very interesting and lots of photos/documents, but pretty heavy going. Not just the topic, but the length and number of texts meant that this felt like I was reading a badly written textbook.

The Berlin Wall - lots of different sites for this. The most interesting were a place where the wall and its 'death strip' had been recreated, and the preserved area with wall murals in the East of the city. Lots of photos of these murals in my gallery!

The Neu Gallery - One of the better galleries from my trip. Quite a range of different artists, lots of exhibits, and not at all busy. They linked a lot of the art to the historical background in which it was produced, which helped you to understand the artist's reason for producing the work.

I also went to a couple of weekend markets, the monument to Europe's murdered Jews, Brandenburg Gate, the site of Hitler's bunker, and lots more places. Berlin was really interesting, and it felt like there were a lot of different sides to the city. Unusually for me in a city, I felt I could have stayed a few extra days and still found more things to see.

Photos of the city...
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Berlin/?albumview=slideshow

Some photos of the graffiti/street art in the city....
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Berlin%20Graffiti%20and%20Street%20Art/?albumview=slideshow

Brest

(Minsk - Brest 345km/214 Miles)
Total distance traveled = 13,469 km/8369 Miles

As the journey was only 4 hours, I chose the lowest class. There wasn't actually much difference between the train and previous ones to be honest. Rather than having a lockable door there were extra beds along the side of the train, making the passageway a bit smaller. There were no English speakers though. Most of the other trips I'd found that people knew a little. This might have been a problem if I was on the train for longer, but equally it may just have been the other passengers and down to luck of the draw whichever class you're in.

I had no map of Brest, but my notes and sketches came through again. The city was smaller and so had slightly smaller streets and more green areas spread around the cities. Later in the day I also found pedestrianised areas with lots of outdoor cafes and restaraunts.

I couldn't find a hostel in Brest and so booked a hotel. It also made getting the Belarussian visa a little easier. It was nice to have a bit of private space for a change, but it did mean that I didn't really meet or speak to anyone for the 3 nights I was staying in Brest. The hotel itself was a bit grim from the outside. Imagine a massive block of concrete. All very 70's and Soviet. The room was better than I expected though.

The main sight in Brest was the fortress,. Originally built in the 19th century, it was the site of a major battle in WWII, when most of the buildings were destroyed. It was a massive waleld area with some monuments to the soldiers who defended the site, and a few buildings still standing. It was a change to find a historical site that hadn't been completely commericalised or restored. There weren't many people around, so I spent a bit of time wandering around on overgrown paths through buildings riddled with bullet holes before I went to the museum.

Brest was even cheaper than Minsk, and I had some problems getting my head around how little things cost. I ate in restaurants that were listed in my guide as the best in town (pretty swish places) and still found it difficult to spend more than about 10 pounds (1,500 yen). In fact, it made me think I should've stayed a bit longer in the country.

On the final day I bought a few small bottles of vodka to take with me and wandered around a bit more. I stopped in about 3 different coffee shops while reading, at one a tipsy Russian guy started talking to me (mostly in German) and offered to buy me a vodka. Amazingly, this was the first time this had happened. I declined though, not least because it was about 1pm. Still, he paid for my coffee.

I did have to go through customs when leaving Belarus, but it was much easier than I expected. No questions, no bag search, just a passport check. When we actually got to the border between Belarus and Poland guards came on board with sniffer dogs and a few questions for us, but it was still much less thorough than I'd expected. I had the cabin all to myself and a sink too. It was so comfortable that I slept through Poland.....sorry Poland.

More photos
http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Brest/?albumview=slideshow

The entrance to the Fortress, complete with some nationalistic music being played on loudspeakers.

Minsk

(St Petersburg - Minsk 864km/536 Miles)
Total distance traveled = 13,124 km/8154 Miles

I arrived at the station about an hour before my train left as I was leaving Russia and entering Belarus. I had to get visas for both countries, and neither are known for being liberal so I was expecting quite a lot of paperwork and procedures. There was a sign outside the station for the customs office in Russian and English, but very few in the staion and all were in Russian. I eventually found the office with the help of a security guard, but it was closed. Slightly worried, so went to a ticket office to check what to do. Luckily there was an English speaking woman to help me explain the question. The cashier disappeared for about 10 minutes, then came back and basically said 'What's the question? you already have a visa'. So it seemed there were no procedures.
In fact, although they're seperate countries, there's no border control between Russia and Belarus. So I crossed the border without any checks on the train or in Minsk. Theoretically I guess it's possible to enter Belarus from and return to Russia without a visa, so long as you don't get stopped in the street by the police.

I was lucky on the train again in that I was sharing with someone who spoke pretty good English. He was a Belarussian who travelled a lot between the two countries with work, and so as well as chatting to me, he told me about places in Minsk, and helped me order the (free) meal on the train.

Arriving in Minsk, I found the hostel quite easily. It was dead in the centre of the city, in the shadow of the KGB building. It was another converted apartment, but not too cramped and pretty nice. The owner, Oksana, was very helped too. There was a German traveller (Franzen) and an Australian girl there when I arrived, then later a Japanese guy came for one night, and a Croatian too. I went out for a few drinks with the Japanese guy (Michihiro) one night too, it was nice to speak a bit of Japanese again!

The city was similar to Russian cities in that many buildings were new and Soviet style. The streets were wide and there were lots of expansive squares too. What differed was the cleanliness. I was hard pressed to find any litter or grafitti, and it was a lot quieter than I expected for a capital city. I'd planned the trip without knowing knowing much about the country, so I was pleasantly surprised. Everything was pretty cheap, and it was pleasant just to walk around the city and parks. There were unique elements too, like the proliference of Soviet symbols like the red star, or hammer and sickles. The functioning secret police is still called the KGB, and there's a statue to Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Russian Cheka - torn down in most other cities after the collapse of communism).

In the months before my visit there had been demonstrations, mainly fuelled by problems with the ecomony. The Belarussian ruble had been devalued by about 30%. This had made everything cheap for me, and people were desperate for foreign currencies too. Franzen spoke Russian and had a few friends in the city, and so he was able to change money at a higher rate (10,000 to the Euro, rather than 7,000). Oksana too was keen on me paying for the room in foreign currency.
I saw very few police over the first few days, then was surprised on Monday when there were uniformed police, military police, and undercover police around the city. There was some kind of event in the main square, and I guess a few officials - hence the security.

The city was a lot smaller than St Petersburg or Moscow and there were fewer specific sights to see, so my stay was more relaxing and I didn't feel like I had to rush around and see things. I hoped that Brest would be similar. It was around 4 hours away and I'd bought a train ticket for about 3 pounds! (400 yen).

Photos...

http://s214.photobucket.com/albums/cc250/davingtonsmythe/Japan%20to%20Russia/Minsk/?albumview=slideshow