I'm away til Tuesday so in the meantime you can all talk amongst yourselves. Your task is to say hello and describe yourself in ten words or less!

I'll start - I'm Shauna and I'm going on holidays today, SO THERE!

Hehe.

We've already established I'm stingy and not fond of traditional holiday souvenirs. So while my Contiki comrades were gathering up matryoshka dolls by the armload on Red Square, I was more guarded with my precious roubles. I was inspired by Rory's wife Jane who has amassed an impressive collection of international candy wrappers from her travels, from Melbourne to Madagascar. For the sake of my hefty butt my policy was usually to take one bite, spit out and scream, "They used to QUEUE for this shit?!", then carefully fold up the wrapper.

Here is a smattering of sugar from Scandinavia, Russia and Eastern Europe.

Purchased in Stockholm at sunset, just after I took the dead rat photo. "It was poor taste," declared Rhi. "Unlike these Non-Stops. You know, I really can't stop. Damn Swedes."

This is when I decided that Finland RULED! If you see one of these in a shop it's compulsory to yell, "A HAA!" like you're Hercule Poirot and you've just cracked the case.

Another Finnish delight.

Purchased in the same Helsinki spree as the above. Pretty kacky indeed, unless you're a licorice lover.

Finland had the best chocolate of all the countries we've flitted through this year. How can you go wrong with a chocolate bar called I LOVE CHOCOLATE? Because we all do! If you're ever in that part of the world be sure to sample the delectable hazlenut goodness of a Geisha or the squishy malty whatever-it-is of a Tupla.

Meanwhile dirt, gravel and perhaps the cremains of former dictators are essential ingredients in what passes for chocolate in Russia.

 

But you get a nice picture of the Kremlin in your choice milk or strawberry.

Did you know that polar bears love chocolate?

And so do grizzly bears!

My first bar was destroyed when I left it on the coach, having lived in the UK so long I'd forgotten the effect that direct sunlight has on chocolate. Fortunately the Startled Baby Chocolate was widely available.

Purchased in Minsk for 740 Belarussian roubles (18p). Truly, truly vile.

Meanwhile in the Baltic States...

From Estonia, this short and stumpy sellout. I mean, chocolate covered yogurt thingo.

From Riga, Latvia. We imagined this to be some Soviet relic, as if saying to the comrades, "Dude, you don't want to be going to the Bahamas. It's all brown and shitty there."

Have any of you ever played online poker? Purchased propecia for a baldy head or cialis to bring life to a flaccid member?

Me bloody either! I wade through 100+ spam comments a day. I don't know if is this is above or below average, but there is nothing more pathetic than humping the chair with joy to see What's New Pussycat New Comment Posted in the mail, only to find it's ol' bob@y639o.com or top@tredgf.com AGAIN, wanting me to play some virtual blackjack.

I'm running MT 2.661 and dutifully erasing the shit with MT Blacklist, but if I fall behind it's a nightmare, there were thousands after three weeks in Russia. Help me, smart computer people. Would it make any difference if I forked out for MT 3.1? Or should the blog pack up sticks, move to Guatemala and start fresh?

The award for Most Baffling Support Act goes to Minnie Driver, actress turned songstress, who is currently warming up the crowds for The Finn Brothers on their UK tour.

As we have been reminded in every bloody interview of late, Minnie has been singing forever and had a recording contract long before she ever made a movie. So we vowed not to write her off too quickly on Saturday night. She floated onto the stage to hopeful applause, reduced to a cloud of curls and a pair of levitating Hollywood teeth that gleamed like a halloween decoration under the dim blue lights.

Rhi and I squinted to give her the once over. "Wow, she looks just like a person."

"Except for her stomach. I'd buy her album if it came with a FREE stomach as flat as hers."

Her songs were... how can I put this nicely? Dull as dogshit. Her voice was husky sweet, the band was tight, she smiled and shuffled with lovely breasts that didn't move. But the songs had the uninspired "Woe is me, I'll cry into my cup of tea" depths of Dido.

This next one's about the end of a bad relationship. Of course I won't name names!

"Oh go on, Minnie! Name names!"

"MATT! DAMON!"

Now this is the title track from my album, 'Everything I've Got In My Pocket'.

"What has Minnie Driver got in her pocket?"

"A shredded photo of Matt Damon?"

Her set was mercifully brief.

"Well, nice one Minnie. That was pleasant enough."

"Yes. But if she wants fodder for a second album she'll need to shag someone more exciting than Matt Damon."

The Finns, on the other hand, were good value. Whether they're in Split Enz or Crowded House or solo or in their current brotherly incarnation, Neil and Tim in concert are the musical equivalent of coming home to your favourite comfy slippers and a cup of tea. They've never lost their charm or witty banter, and played an elegant mix of classics and new stuff. Neil was youthful as ever, sporting a dodgy vest and bouffy hairdo that harked back to the early Crowdies days. Tim really stole the show for me, he looked a new man. Last time I saw him at the Opera House Farewell he looked truly haggard and struggled to hit the high notes. Eight years later he was all energy and crazy dancing with a floppy mass of silver hair. If he wasn't older than my dad I might say he was rather sexy.

I went bezerk with the camera, and here is a gallery of the least dodgy shots. I still haven't mastered the art of staying still, resulting in some freaky distortions. The happiest accident came during Dirty Creature. Tim danced round the stage being endearingly sinister while Neil strummed in the background - somehow it looks like he's about to rip his brother's head off.

The two worst things about living in Britain are The Darkness and the darkness.

It was pitch black when I hopped out of the cot this morning. Another two weeks and daylight saving will end. The will to live will be lost and I'll resume being a grumpy bastard and peeing in the wrong loo.

It chucked down en route to the bus stop yesterday. Edinburgh rain always manages to find the most annoying angle of attack, it feels like needles being shoved into your eyes and nose. The girl in front with the Oompa Loompa orange complexion was wearing sandals. I have been here 18 months and sooner or later I will snap and scream at one of these human honey-glazed hams "AND JUST WHERE DO YOU EXPECT US TO BELIEVE YOU GOT THAT TAN, DICKHEAD? CERTAINLY NOT THIS COUNTRY!"

It is much more practical to be the deathly shade of white that I have cleverly cultivated. When you're walking to work in the dark it's highly reflective, thus slightly reduces your chances of being mowed down by a Lothian Bus.

Och well. The darkness is a small price to pay to live in a town where you can buy televisions and darts in the same shop.

There's some new developments in the Mysterious Trampoline/ Disappearing Dog Debacle of 2003.

Sometime towards the arse end of winter, the trampoline disintegrated under the weight of shagging students and the steady stream of toddlers dive-bombing off the wall. It vanished from the yard soon after that. Then suddenly, right in the middle of summer, Rothwell reappeared.

"Rothwell!" I cried, "Where have you been?"

"That is none of your concern. I have come for the bacon. And the name is Chip, remember?"

Please share your theories on this unsettling Dog/Trampoline business. I fear it is something as boring as Rothwell's owners keeping him inside over the winter, but it pains me to think it could be something so mundane and logical. All I know is that I have never seen the dog and the trampoline at the same time. Think about it.

That last entry just came out all wrong and really should be flushed down a Lithuanian Multi-Story Toilet. Anyway, I have gone Flickr crazy and have been uploading photos of various travels, including this set about the dodgy Vilnius hotel. Use the 'Next in set' links on the right to navigate, otherwise it can be confusing.

The hotel seemed so scary at the time, but now I look at the photos and think the rust and mould are charming. Every single room on our floor had a different front door, all desperately clinging to their frames like a teenager to a Bad Boy boyfriend. Methinks the owners went to Crazy Vlad's World o' Doors and snapped up all the seconds.

There's a few dozen new pics up there now so have a cruise of the tags. I'm about to start spewing up the bazillion photies I've been hoarding over the past 18 months, so be warned!

Recently a kind person had linked to this here site and called it a "travel blog". I liked how sexy and glamourous that sounded, and thought very smugly, "Why, woohoo. Indeed it is a travel blog. Long gone are the days of blogging about death, depression and supermarkets!"

But then I wondered if I had earned the title of "travel blog", and even though I am allergic to numbers I came up with some exciting statistics.

In sharp contrast to the Baltic Binge were our Russian Rations. The Big Red Machine has come a long way since the days of the lengthy food queue, but if you're seeing the country on a Contiki tour you don't really encounter the gourmet stuff. Our guide warned us at the border that Russian tourist accomodation was expensive so we weren't to expect much for our included meals. But the guide had a habit of lowering our expectations so we thought we'd end up being pleasantly surprised.

Our first meal in St Petersburg started with local beer and delicious salad of tomato, cucumber and dill. "Woohoo!" everyone crowed, "They have vegies here after all!". Little did we know that was the first of around fifteen tomato, cucumber and dill salads we would be presented with over the coming weeks. The scent of dill still makes my stomach flip like a cossack.

We also ate a lot of mysterious crumbed meats accompanied with fried potatoes. It was fun to poke at the pinky grey strands and ask your dining companions, "Chicken? Horse?". By the time we got to Warsaw my mouth was full of ulcers and my gums ached. But who cares when the vodka is so cheap?

My favourite meal was one morning in St Pete's, when an expressionless waitress plonked the following breakfast before me:

The next day the little sausages were accompanied by cold peas instead of cold corn. Don't go thinking we didn't appreciate the variety!

Rhi and I are perfectly suited travelling companions. We have developed an uncanny ability to turn to each other at the exact same moment and say, "It's food o'clock!" Nine times out of ten we will also be craving the exact same dish. For us, famous landmarks and cultural experiences rank far, far behind FOOD when it comes to our globetrotting priorities.

This obsession stems from Our Wacky Childhood. Long-time readers will remember the jelly fruit, the brown orange juice and the onion-flavoured ice cream that the Mothership dished up over the years. It didn't get any better when we were on vacation. All my friends' parents would bring a hefty supply of snacks to shut up their kids on long car trips, not so in our family. We had strictly-rationed Lifesavers.

Once every two hours or 250 kilometres, whatever evil criteria the folks had chosen that day, we would be handed ONE (1) Lifesaver. This provided approximately 37 seconds of sugar in your mouth before it dissolved and the gnawing hunger returned. And of course they were the most BORING Lifesavers - Five Flavours or Peppermint, the only ones available in budget multi-packs.

To make it worse, my stepfather wasn't fond of pit stops. And why would he be? He was allowed to have a Lifesaver whenever he bloody wanted. He usually had two, a Five Flavour and a Peppermint at the same time! The freak. One time we'd been on the Road To Queensland for five hours, a total of six hours since we'd had breakfast. We whined over the din of our roaring stomachs, "When are we stopping for lunch?"

"Don't be so impatient! I want to make the border by sunset!"

When verbal badgering failed to deliver, we'd scribble signs and hold them up in the rear view mirror: IT IS NOW: SIX HOURS AND TWENTY THREE MINUTES SINCE WE LAST ATE! The sign was updated every ten minutes in scrolling tickertape fashion. We even took the liberty of writing the message in reverse to make it easier for the front-seat fascist to read it. Finally at the seven hour mark he'd pull into a Kentucky Fried (as it still was in 1986) where we would be allocated one withered wing, 3 chips and a thimbleful of water to sustain us til the 5 o'clock Lifesaver.

Consequently since fleeing the iron nest, Rhi and I have made it our Vacation Policy to eat what we want whenever the hell we want it. This was easy to do in the Baltics where restaurants were cheap and plentiful. We had an incredible three course Italian meal in Vilnius with wine for the price of a deep fried Mars Bar in Edinburgh. Well maybe not that cheap, but dining out is an extravagance when you're on a shitty temp wage in Britain. So we took this holiday as an opportunity to live it up and scoff the local fare. We pretty much resteraunt-ed it every night.

But my favourite meal cost the equivalent of £1.50 and was bought at this strange little shack at the side of a highway. According to Kristi, Nehatu was Estonia's burger joint of choice long before the Golden Arches were on the scene. Now that the country is over-run with foreign fast food, she says there's a certain retro chic/tradition/rebellion to stay faithful to the local chain.

After staring blankly at the menu for ten minutes, we ordered some sort of beef burger. Unlike Western fast food joints, there just one spotty teen behind the counter. She took the orders, dropped the meat into the fryer, scooped the chips, poured the drinks then assembled the burgers. She slid them into waxy bags with a slit down the side, like a paper cone. I wondered why this was necessary until she squeezed half a bottle of mayo onto the bun.

Kristi explained that they like their burgers saucy in Estonia. On the first bite, mayo came splooging out all over my hands. As I gnawed at the greasy meat the lettuce and mayo slid out of the bun, plopping into the paper cone. By the time I finished there was a good couple inches of lettucey cocktail gathered at the bottom. You could either slurp it down like a burger chaser or mop it up with stray fries. It was certainly different, but more infinitely more satisfying than a Lifesaver or a scrawny chicken wing.