St Petersburg

I went to the hostel in the morning and left my bag there. I then took the metro and bus to Peterhof. That is one amazing place! Beautiful fountains, statues and more. A boat ride brought me back to the city and it was a really nice way of arriving. I went to the hostel again and met up with the group. I was really lucky and got to share a room with a Russian born Israelite called Ilja. We hit it off and the rest of the group was also cool. Everybody met up at time except for a poor girl that faceplanted out of the airport and had to go to the hospital. She showed up later and was in good shape. After some brief instructions we went out for dinner and some beers. And then some vodkas. And then some more beers. We had a lot of fun and stumbled home in the morning.

The next day most of the group went to the hermitage. Ilja and I had already been there so we went to the Siege of Leningrad museum. It was a nice little museum with, among other things, pictures of all the generals that defended Leningrad, culminating in Zhukov on his horse at the very end. We walked over to the old steam cruiser Aurora. The ship made infamous by shooting a blank starting the Bolshevik revolution.  On deck we got surprised by rain so we decided to go for a guided tour in the engine room. Ilja, passing as a Russian, and me, passing as a student, got the discounts we needed and had a lot of fun. The guide was Russian, but since I had my personal translator, everything went smoothly.  We then met up with the others.

“What does penis taste like?” asked a young English girl in our group. Being an experienced traveler and all-knowing guide, the Uzbek Laziz wasn’t able to answer.  This is a bit out of context though, because we were dining and talking about different dishes in China, and dogs, crocodiles and dicks were brought up. It took ages before we got the food on table and when it finally arrived, they had of course forgotten the hungriest guy’s dish. After sharing our food with the always smiling, UK-based Malaysian Shafie, we set off to the hotel.
After a short briefing we went to take the train to Moscow. St. Petersburg was a fantastic city and I didn’t find it scary at all. There was so much nice architecture to see. Beautiful front facades, long columns, right-sized balconies, pretty backyards, and the buildings were nice as well. However, a friend told me that if you’re brown in the skin, that would be enough to get you beaten up in the streets. Luckily I’m so pale, to the border of transparent, that they left me for a Russian. I hope Russia continues to be like this. Checking out Moscow next!

Sorry, but I'm using picasa as backup as well, so you have to skip through alot of crappy photos. I'm kinda short on time. I'll fix it all later:)

Link to photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20110910StPetersburg?authkey=Gv1sRgCI-2n_bNsZr7lAE#

2011-09-10 St Petersburg