Back in Blighty

I left Russia for the Baltic states. I travelled through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All sharing the scars of a past of occupation and oppression. First by the Russian Tsars, then by the Nazis and then the Soviets. Tallinn is a beautiful chocolate box of a city and felt quite Scandinavian. All three cities suffer from large Russian populations who are not interested in integrating with the Baltic society. The Kremlin even encourages the Russian minorities not to integrate. Latvia has the largest Russian minority and has the biggest problem. The Baltic capitals also suffer from modern Western tourism, especially stag dos. There are strip clubs in each of them. Riga has the highest proportion of strip clubs a fact that made a local MEP complain to his Liverpudlian counterpart for spoiling his city. I travelled from St Petersburg, and between the Baltic States by Eurolines.

I continued into Poland which has suffered its fair share of occupation and oppression. It was a day long train journey from Vilnius to Warsaw costing 60Lt. We arived in Poland and then hit returning holiday makers who swarmed on the train. We were joined in our carriage with some very friendly Polish students who taught us some Polish. Although they did say that as I was from England I should be able to speak some Polish already. Warsaw was flattened during the Second World War and then suffered from Soviet building. Following the Second World War the old town was rebuilt and is UNESCO listed.

I caught an overnight train from Warsaw to Cologne. The train was six hours late. Unfortunately to make up time the train did not go via Koln. I got off the train with a German and a Pole who both wanted to go to Koln. It was raining. The Pole turned to the German and said in English, "English weather". It seems rain is indelliby associated with England. I had pre-booked a bus from Brussels to London but I missed the connection. I caught another train to Brussels and spent a night in a wet and dismal Brussels.

My welcome to Britain was not overwhelming.

"How long have you been out of the country?"

"Two years"

"Where have you come from today?"

"Brussels"

"OK go through"

The immigration official said this in the most boring monotonous tone imaginable. It seems my bounding off of the Eurolines bus into the arms of Blighty was not a feeling reciprocated by the authorities. The immigration and customs checks by the French and British took a combined two hours. Other than that the eight hour (scheduled to be seven hour) trip from Brussels to London was pretty uneventful as we glided under the Channel in the Eurostar. I arrived at Victoria Coach Station in rush hour and made my way across town on the tube (nearly squeezing a wide eyed women into a wall with my backpack) to Liverpool Street before catching a train home. It was good to hear the Essex accent in all its glory on the train home. My parents were surprised to see me. I made a point of misleading them as to when I would be home so that I could surprise them and have since been surprising friends and family. I don't believe I'll get as good an opportunity to see the look of surprise on people's faces when I walk through the door.