St. Petersburg

Our first several hours in St. Petersburg were a bit of a culture shock...we went from countries where almost everyone speaks English to a country where English is rarely spoken. To make navigating our way from the train station to the hostel a bit more interesting, the alphabet in Russia is Cyrillic (фисвуап), so a guide book map with all English names is not really very helpful. However, we did prevail and eventually found our accommodation. To complicate our arrival further, we had to register our passport at the first hotel, but no one at the hotel spoke English. After a very animated Russian conversation using mostly charades, we determined that registration would have to take place the next day (it was closed on Sundays). We also weren't sure (and still aren't) whether we have the right "departure" card to get out of the country...seems the immigration officer gave us (and a number of other people on our tour) the wrong half of the documentation to keep. We will find out tonight at the border crossing to Mongolia whether we can exit the country without a nice little fine! :)

All these initial complications aside, we have been having a wonderful time in Russia and have actually found it to be quite European and up and coming. The saving grace of our first evening in St. Petersburg was a tiny cafe we found near the hostel that had miniature statues of Lenin's head hanging from the ceiling and racey political videos playing with Russian music in the background. It served amazing soup (something Russians are known for), meat pies and good beer for a very reasonable price. We retired early that night...needing a little time to adjust to culture shock.

The next morning at breakfast (which was an interesting spread...thank God for the yogurt and bread), we found a few people who were also going to be on the same tour and spent all day walking around the major sites of the city with Ali - a med student from England. We must have walked for 6 hours...and did finally manage to get a map with Cyrillic print. At 5PM, the Vodka Train tour began and we met our "honcho" (e.g., guide) Lera, a recent university graduate from the area, and the 13 other members of our tour...all 20-somethings from England, Australia and Europe. Lera took us to a Russian restaurant for dinner to sample the local fare and then to a trendy bar with live music...mostly a mix of Reggae and Rock sung in a Russian accent - never thought we'd hear Bob Marley sung in Russia! They even sang a version of Brittney Spears' "Baby Hit Me One More Time" as a rock song...very interesting.

On day 3, we went on an adventure outside the city to The Great Palace at Peterhoff (http://petersburgcity.com/for-tourists/environs/peterhoff/). This place has the most incredible fountains you've ever seen and there are hundreds of them! We spent 2 hours just roaming the gardens. I must say, this is a palace I could stand to live in! That evening, Eric found his saving grace...a Hookah bar! The poor guy had been going through withdrawls, so was in heaven when we stumbled upon this place and he was able to share a few rounds of Hookah with Ali, Paul and Caroline (an Aussie couple on our tour). I opted for the Che Guevara bar next door with a quirky Russian DJ playing doo-wapp music from the 1950's - again, not exactly what you'd expect to hear on a night out, but quite fun nonetheless.

On our final day in St. Petersburg, we roamed the famous Hermitage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_Museum) in the Winter Palace, the largest museum in the world. We saw original works of Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, DaVinci and more. In addition to viewing these amazing works of art, the palace this museum is housed in is spectacular. First of all, it's massive and incredibly ornate. Each room is decorated in a different style and you can imagine the many banquets and events that have taken place here for centuries. Once again, my princess longings emerged and I even made Eric do a quick ballroom dance in one of the main halls (he was oh so keen :). Our St. Petersburg experience was topped off with a performance of Swan Lake at one of the oldest theaters in the city. It was lovely, though we could only stay for the first 2 acts because we had to catch a night train to Moscow. Eric, this being his first ballet, was SO disappointed that he didn't get to see the finale of the men in tights!