St Petersburg at last

---

We managed to get to St Petersburg okay after a small hiccup. Since the last blog i went and bought some new jeans as i somehow lost some trousers in Poland (as you do). Have since tried them on and they don't fit so back down to just 3 pairs again. Anyway, we spent the day mulling around the station and shopping centre and decided at 6pm to check on our train which was set to leave at 8.10pm. Only then do we realise that we need to be at a different station. On the other side of Moscow. Nobody explained this to us, unless they probably did but we didn't know what they were saying. Luckily a helpful man directed us to the metro and pointed out the station we needed. The metro looked really complicated so we decided instead to jump in a cab. The taxi drivers driving was mental. Despite this i still managed to fall asleep. I remember one minute fearing for my life and the next i was asleep. It was only a 20 minute journey aswell. Still, i did stay awake long enough to notice that some roads had 8 lanes of traffic. We never would have survived that in our car. Especially not the way these people drive. He got us to the right station though and a couple of hours and some disgusting microwaved chips later we were on our way. Slept the whole way on the train.

We arrived at St Petersburg at 4.30am (day 19). First impressions are good. Huge streets, feels more like America than Russia.. although i've never been to America. Another mental driver takes us to our hotel and we walk in and are told we need to wait until 6am for the reception to open. I'm getting used to dozing on reception floors by now. At first it seemed like they were fully booked but then all of a sudden the receptionist produced a key to a room. The rooms were a bit shabby but after Hotel L'viv a few days earlier, seemed like luxury. We must have been tired as we slept for another 6 hours into the afternoon. Finally got up and went for a wander. The next day we were due to arrive at our 4star hotel and will be there for 3 more days so didn't feel like exploring too much. Just did the usual and went to a few bars. Found an english bar first (which was overpriced, the only music they played was Seal but did have a toilet that was like a throne. You had to walk up steps to get to it. It made me want to sit down to wee!) After wasting too much money in the english bar we went to a couple of Russian bars before heading home to bed.

Day 20 - Saturday 20th September. We are only halfway through this day but thought i'd write a bit anyway. We got up early(ish) for breakfast. We had to leave the hotel and wander around into the front street to a restaurant where we could use vouchers we'd been given the night before. We didn't realise this at first so we must have been quite a sight as all 3 of us had just rolled out of bed. After my egg on non-toasted bread, we went and packed and were ready to head for The Nevsky Grand. We asked reception to call us a cab but i'm not sure if thats posible in St Petersburg as the security guard just escorted us outside where he tried to flag one down for us. This didn't work but before long he'd got some seemingly random guy to give us a lift. I now know why i keep falling asleep in cars, its because they have their heating up full blast all the time. Still, this random new friend got us to our hotel for free. Our hotel where we will be for the next 2 nights is fantastic. Its 4 star and i've got my own room and shower. Today we are just relaxing as tomorrow we are up early for breakfast before meeting our tour guide for a 3 hour tour of the city.

---