I put Lani safely on the train to Prague and tucked her into her carriage. She had a very nice stay and drank some very fine Austrian red wine.

On Monday night we sat in front of the fire and watched the Winter Olympics and saw Austria win a gold medal in the team ski jumping.

I am going to Moscow with Cate in March. When I say ‘go with’ I mean that I will be there at the same time. Cate is actually travelling there direct from Istanbul and will stay in Moscow after I leave.

To get there I have to go through this excruciating Russian Visa process again. This time there is no travel agent involved so to get an ‘invitation’ I have to ask the hotel for one. To do this I have to send them my credit card details AND a photocopy of the credit card – back and front.

Are they insane? Do they really think I am crazy enough to send a copy of my credit card to RUSSIA?

Well – actually – if I want to go this is what I have to do. You don’t get any options dealing with Russia. You don’t get to ‘choose the option which suits you best’.

Thank the Ever Suffering Easter Bunny that Rozalin is here to help me do all this stuff otherwise I would be Cactus!

I imagine my first impressions - obtained in January will be will be confirmed - that Russia is FUBAR and will be like that for a very long time to come.

I remind the readers that we are off to Copenhagen on Thursday. I have high hopes that I will be able to blog from such a civilized country where there is so much polished wood.

Incidentally I saw the Danish women’s Curling Team in action and those chicks are hotties.

I know that many of you have watched curling and wondered what the people are doing with the brooms. And – you have never bothered to investigate have you? Well – I am one of the very few people who know and I am going to share this knowledge with you. (Well – I am going to give you the link to Wikipedia).

Curling

So now when you are watching curling with someone and they say ‘WTF are those sweepers doing?’ you will be able to answer the question with some degree of authority.