Sokos Hotel Olympic Garden St. Petersburg

... to snooze for weary travellers sine beds ! Anyway we finally managed to get into our rooms and get some sleep.

That left the evening for some further exploring. We made our way up to Nevsky Prospekt, the Oxford Street of St.Petersburg, which at night was lit up beautifully and joined the other tourists – all Russian obiously. Alongside the many bakeries, internet cafes, sushi and shisha bars (Russians seem obsessed by them) lay fantastically ornate ...

... big or dramatic as the Red Square one in Moscow taking place simultaneously but still interesting to watch especially against the back drop of the ancient buildings such as the Hermitage. In fact i think some of the vehicles may have been stolen form a museum.

The Hermitage is a classical building that houses fine art collections from around the globe. If you are in to that kind of thing there many similar places ...

... The mission: find peanut butter. A friend told us about a supermarket that was rumored to have peanut butter on Nevsky Prospekt (one of the main roads here). Why, you ask, is this a requisite "mission?" Well, in Russia, Peanut butter is a hard commodity to come by. It is popular but not often sold in stores. I suppose they just don't have peanut butter factories in Russia quite yet. After stalking through the target grocery store for a few minutes we ...

... since there was such a big fuss about it. I looked around and no one did anything, they only watched. He tried to take off and as he crossed me I grabbed his should and shouted "Give her back her wallet!" He stopped, stared wide-eyed and just looked at me. Maybe he was shocked because I yelled at him in English, I don't know. I figured that he wasn't going to just give it back, so as he stared I reached underneath the brochures and took the wallet from him. I looked at it and ...

... Open the Jaws of the Lion. The system of waterworks has remained unchanged since 1721, conveying water over a distance of some 12 mile without pumping stations. Once again, the grand scale of opulence is beyond belief. After such a busy day, we quickly got ready for the ballet which I was really looking forward to. We were taken to the Hermitage Theatre which started as a personal theatre of Catherine the Great. It continued as a private theatre of the ...

... of the Savior on Spilt Blood, and finally the Peter and Paul Fortress, where I toured the area, and then lounged on the beach while watching a local speed boat race before getting back on the ship to leave Russia. I didn't get to see many parts of Russia aside from its two largest and most prosperous cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) which is quite unfortunate because it probably relays an unrealistic opinion on the countries development. However, when ...

... Well a group stayed even later at the club including Imogen and the French couple (Philip and Nicolas, the ones we were with on the canal cruise). Nicolas had been at the bar all night repeating over and over: "Paris is the most beautiful city in the world" Naturally people would argue posing arguments of if you haven't visited them all how could you know, etc. All this was met with his drunk and stubborn statement. Eventually he started ...

... Eingaengen stehen die Leute rum und warte darauf, dass sich die Tueren oeffnen. So, und jetzt macht jeder LeserIn bitte mal die Augen zu und zaehlt langsam 90 Sekunden ab. So lange dauert es bis man die wahsinnig langen Rolltreppen vom U-Bahnsteig bis zur Erdoberflaeche heraufgefahren ist. Tolle Lampen in der Mitte und eine Frau, die Propagande verbereitet. Julia besteht aber darauf, dass es sich um Werbung handelt. Ich finde die andere Variante besser, schliesslich sind wir in Russland.

... they are open. Finding the 20th century western art is a joke - thankfully we find the ONLY computer terminal in the entire Hermitage - it's way over in an out of the way place in the eastern wings - and it actually has paper and is actually printing - in English! We get a map with our route marked on it that helps us wind through at least (this is not made up - I actually counted them) 4 blocks of buildings to a completely hidden stairway that leads us up ...

... the mass, the atmosphere was a bit distracting as people entered and exited the church while others prayed on their own. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the experience. We walked around the rest of the monastery which had a large cemetery. After a quick lunch at Subway, we took a car to the airport to fly to Moscow. Our flight was fine although the numerous and inefficient security check points can be very tiresome and annoying. Once we landed in ...