Staintly in St Petersburg

Trip Start Apr 07, 2009
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Russian Federation  , North-West Russia,
Tuesday, April 14, 2009

From Finland to St Petersburg we had a 1 hour change in time and even crossing the border on the train you can see the differences in the two countries, Russian buildings just looked older, greyer and a little run down.
Anyway bang on time we got into the city which was pretty late at nite, managed to find the metro no problems and a few stops and change over's later we found a steel door into the Hostel... First impression was what a kip as the 2 story internal entrance into the building was half falling down and looked awfull... but once we went into the hostel.. guess it was like a big ass apartment, it was lovely and well warm too.. First thing first was a beer for me and karl... And a well deserved nites sleep. Up and about the city the following day taking in the sites. The peter and paul fortress which holds great panoramic city views and several museums and churches... The Fortress sits out over the Neva river which was still part frozen over... ice must be pretty thick seen as some guy was standing out in the middle of it painting a picture.. lol.. From there we went on to the Sate Hermitage and the winter palace,,, All these buildings are well impressive and after taking in the Kazan cathedral which was impossible to take a photo of, we went in seach of Tickoff... a micro brewery pub... could we find it... no and we ended up having a beer in some other dump before accidently finding the bar hidden in the back of an office block... Russians just dont do directions very well.. everything just seems hard to find and seen as the language is in cyrilic you cant read the names or even pronounce it... so when u want something it involves a lot of pointing and nodding... very few people will have any english so it makes geting about and going places very interesting but a lot of fun...
So after a few mega strong beers in Tickoff it was back back to the hostel... With relative ease we bought an overnite train ticket to moscow... we got what we wanted written down and sorted.. Myself and karl were laughing even as you stand in a que to buy ur train ticket the Russians just skip you... Train and metro stations just seem to be a free for all. We spent more time out in the city the following day and got to mention the depth of the metros ... they have the biggest escalators in the world bringing you down underground. Onto the Night train Moscow bound...
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