In Soviet Russia..... Vodka drink you!
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2009
1
2
40
Trip End
May 26, 2009
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St. Petersburg,
North-West Russia,
Russian Federation
Sunday, January 18, 2009
We had a good last day in Tallinn, as it was so cold (-7degrees according to a sign we saw) we spent most of the time moving from one coffee shop to another, playing cards etc when we were there and then seeing some more Old Town. It was all very pretty with allthe old buildings and walls. Although we do keep thinking that -7degrees is positively balmly considering Monglia is having high temperatures of -15 at the moment!
Last night we hung around in the restaurant we were eating in and the bus station as we had a midnight bus to St Petersburg to catch. Although we very nearly missed it as we were looking at the wong bus and didn't realise ours was about to leave! Thanks to Emma R's vigilance though we legged it to the right one with a minute to spare.
There was a very friendly guy on the bus who talked to us for ages, ufortuneatly though his English consisted of onlya couple of words and our Russian amounts to "bye"and "thank you" but anyway we had a very long conversation where only which coutry we came from was established.
We arrived at the border to Russia at about 3:30am and were met by a stereotypically chirpy Russian border official. We had to all get off the bus with all our bags andgo thorugh customs, we had to all then wait in a room whilst the KGB or equivalent searched the bus with torches to find drugs/illegal immigrants/etc. Oh and the Russian border guards are everything you imagine them to be, furry hats and all....
At about 7am we reached St Petersburg, we got the metro to the right station using our pro cyrillic writing skills, the metro station we got on at puts Londons ones to shame, it looks amazing. We then used our map and compass reading skills to find the hostel, and managed to walk in completely the wrong directions for 10minutes. After correcting ourselves and learning to use the map and compass combo we found the hostel, which is 1950s-tastic and in apparently typical Soviet hotel fashion, had no hot water for a shower.
Today we have been wandeing around the city, which is all very nice, looking at the frozen canals which aer quite impressive. Tomorrow we are going to do some proper sightseeign and finish off with a trip round the vodka museum!
Love Emma W, Emma R and Becca
Comments
Hi girls
I think the idea is to drink loads of vodka to keep warm. So go for it - good excuse. Is it cheap?
Bet you wish you'd done the girly guide thing now! You would be able to use a compass, map, bus timetable, oh and tie knots!!
xxx
Hello girls
I'm impressed that you had a compass!
Keeping Warm
Hey must be good to get started on the trip. Try the Hermitage for keeping warm... Cultural bit!
Retro is good!
That room looks...awesome...
Haha! Nice to see you're mixing with the locals...if you can call it that :D
That frozen river is very pretty :)
Love claire x