User blog:Jeremiah Garland/Leave of Absence Notice - June and July

Yeah, I know this is two months early, but I figured I would let everybody know now that I will be gone for the later part of June and the bulk of July.

I found out today that me, my father, a friend, and the friend's father will be walking, bicycling, bussing, and taking a train across Russia this summer. This is something I've always wanted to do and I'm so excited we've finally decided to do this. My father has a whole month off from work and we decided this is what we're going to do.

Basically, we start in St. Petersburg, go through Moscow, Kazan, Gorki, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and several other major Russian cities. We'll start off taking a train, but will have to bicycle, catch a bus, or straight up walk for the time in between. Finally, we'll end in Vladivostok (more than 6,000 miles from St. Petersburg) on the complete opposite side of Russia.

Will we got lost? Yes. Will we get cheated and robbed by some Russian highwaymen? Probably. Will we get ripped-off into spending 2000 Rubles for a single night at a hotel? Most likely. Will we get pulled over dozens of times by the Siberian police force? Yup. We will probably run into trouble from a neo-Stalinist radical paramilitary Russian clan? It's a good bet. Will we accidentally at some point unknowingly wander over the border into Kazakhstan or Mongolia? You know it. Will we have to squander for cheap food, spend nights in Soviet-era sketchy road-side motels, learn the basics to at least three regional dialects, and spend many a night awake in grade F trans-Russian train cars? Oyus. But, it's these horrible experiences that I am most excited about.

Needless to say, the wifi connection in Siberia and all the towns in between is crap. Unless we reach real civilization, I won't be able to come on here at all (a huge city like Novosibirsk might have decent wifi).