Holiday Club St. Petersburg St. Petersburg

It is remarkable that we even got to St Petersburg. We had been told to go on the Metro to Oktyabrskaya and find the train station from there, which was complete lies as there is no such thing as a train station there. We asked anyone we could find and they all looked dumbfounded, they all said Leningradski was the station that connects with St Petersburg. This was the complete opposite side of Moscow to where we were and we had about 20 minutes to get there. We ran down ...

... from you or me, and will be there to feed you their favourite choice morsels of mystery food (hello, penis!), take your jeans off and dry them when you feel cold and miserable, or engage in a little conversation with you and then get you and your bags to your final destination. <br><br>I admit I was a little nervous before leaving home, because I didnt know what to expect. I shouldn't have been. The world isn't filled with mass murderers and ...

... time with Alicia wishing she was a ballerina again. On the way home threw some coins at a cat for good luck, and just as the sun set at 11:30pm we returned home. Natalia's breakfast today had a lettuce salad with shredded bacon, great cake and scrambled eggs. So nice to have a big homecooked meal to start the day! Packed our room and checked out Yusupov Palace. Cost a bit to enter but the 28 or so rooms were so beautiful and again a bit 'grand ...

... is allright. Small numbers, but the tour leader is a bit useless. But we are getting by. Tonight we are off to see the Ballet (Swan Lake) at the Winter Palace. Tomorrow we head for Novgrod, then Moscow. With any luck, we will have improved access to the internet once we hit Moscow so we can let everybody know where we are and update this blog thing with adventures to-date. All the best, Paul and Shellie.

... platform several hundred feet below the ground. There, with the rush hour crowds swirling around us, we grouped to be given instructions as to exactly when and how to board the train. Of prime importance was keeping the group together. Wow, shades of the old Soviet Union. Keep the group together! No one off on their own! We boarded the train precisely as directed and rode several stops, jammed in with other riders in a packed subway car that we felt quite ...

... back to Petrograd side to see Peter and Paul fortress (the oldest building in St. Petersburg), Peter¡¯s cabin (where Peter the great supervised the construction of St. Petersburg) and the Cruiser Aurora (a famous Russian warship from the Russo-Japanese war). We stopped for supper at a very intriguing restaurant called Russky Kitch. As our guidebook states, ¡°The self-proclaimed ¡®period of perestroika¡¯ caf¨¦ raises bad taste to an ironic art that ...

... the train as well, but we don't know when, and never got a chance to say goodbye to him. We arrived in Moscow at 4am, and were picked up by the driver and taken to our hotel. At the hotel, our tour leader Svetlana, for the last leg of our tour, met us. We were given a couple of hours to have a sleep, and then we were to meet in the lobby at 10am for a tour of Red Square and the Kremlin. After being on the train for four days, Juanita and I pooled our dirty clothes and started ...

... viele Polizisten und Agenten im Zivil unt**wegs, wie Demonstranten. Lokale Medien v**schweigen die Aktion, nur eine Zeitung und ein Radiosend** b**ichten. Inn**halb von ein** halben Stunde sammeln sich rund fünf Tausend Menschen. D** Ruf ist d** alte: "Das ist uns**e Stadt!" Umgeben von Polizei, marschi**en sie langsam durch die Innenstadt, die Route führt weg vom Newskij, hin zu einem abgelegten Park. Die Erinn**ungen von Anfang März, als Tausende Demonstranten ...

... nothing to look forward. There is also a lot of cigarette smoking especially among the young people. They are all slender and appear in good physical condition but they are just drunk all of the time Some of the parts of Russia that we have visited look very much like 3rd world countries., and they seem so different than the two big cities. Well more touring tomorrow. We did find the internet place today so looks like tomorrow will be travel log day.

Went out to the summer palace this morning, or Peterhof as it is more commonly known as. Summer playground of the royalty. Decided to take the easy (but more expensive) route by catching a ferry. We were told that they left every 30 minutes and was 500 rubbles ($25 AUD) - well, 750 rubbles ($70 AUD for the two of us) and about an hour later we arrived!! They guys who took the metro and bus had arrived before ...