55.7558° N, 37.6173° E

So 2016, Christmas and New Years are over. And yet again, it’s time for new adventures.

I said in one of my Instagrams that a good New Years Resolution for a traveler would be to visit more countries than the year before, therefore we better start now! Doing a quick recap; our goal will have to be 12 since we managed to visit (in order) Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Australia, Hawaii, (Canada Sarahs home), Denmark, Ireland, North Ireland, Italy, Vatican City and (my home, Norway. I also went to United Arab Emirates and Nepal with a friend) last year. Posts with stories will come since Sarah has been a busy little bee and written five full (detailed) journals about these happy days all the way back to August 2014.
Anyways. Now I’ll be focusing on what’s to come. We figured a perfect way to start the year would be with a train journey, and what train journey would be better then the Trans Mongolian railway! This is something we have been thinking about for a long time and now we’re finally doing it.

We got the necessary visas for both Russia and China and we’re now flying in to Moscow. I’m currently writing this while sitting on the plane, just passing over Estonia.
We are so excited, and it’s actually quite an experience to have so many Russians around us just here on the plane. I love that language (Sarah finds it a bit scary)! We will have three days in Moscow before going on the train, and as you should while spending a short amount of time in a big city, we’ll be super touristy! It also just so happens that Sarah has a friend living in Moscow; and if that’s not enough, it turns out she’s living next door to our hotel. Talk about luck, eh! We’re expecting our next few days to be pretty busy, much to see and much to do!
About the train we’re not entirely sure what to expect. We have read a lot about it, and hopefully we’re ready for it. I myself bought a couple bottles of aquavit so I’ll have something to wash down the vodka I’ve understood is drank as water on these trains. We’re also reading up on our Russian, and so far I’m at least capable saying Na zdorovje, the rest will come after a few drinks with a bit of luck. We bought second class which means four berth sleeper. Since we’re only two, we’ll have to share.. But we read that’s part of this journey, therefore; that was an easy choice! Five nights the first part of the journey will take *hello yoda*, and this will bring us to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We’ll spend four days there, and then it’s off to Beijing, China for a week. We’ll be posting along the way, and we hope you will follow, we’re not relying much on wifi on the train though. We’ll do our best to tell whatever might happen. We’re quite sure there will be some moments that will make you laugh. Now we’re going in for landing, we’ll see what happens next!

Btw,  we just arrived at our hotel and got some wifi! We are also introduced to the Russian alphabet,  full on!

Robin