St Petersburg

Well between Warsaw and St Petersburg personal hygiene has gone out of the window... I ended up not having brushed my teeth for 3 days, no shower and wearing the same clothes for 5 days running. I guess i can officially call myself a traveller now. And growing hairy legs is all part of the keeping warm process.

Anyway when I arrived in St Petersburg I must have looked like a stunned rabbit! Everything was written in Russian, nobody spoke English, I needed to get Russian currency and a taxi to my Hostel, where i thought I had reserved a bed.

Luckily I had been learning some Russian so after wondering around for a bit, I managed to get an army officer to direct me, using my Russian for Taxi and Roubles. Then i got conned by the taxi driver who charged me 15 pounds to go 1 mile!

Lesson No 1. Always ask how much the journey will cost before entering taxi!

I got to the Hostel and found that it was still being constructed and that they were not expecting me at all. After some negotiation I managed to get them to let me stay in this brand new part of the building which had just been completed, although I had to walk through the building site everytime to get to my room and the bathroom and kitchen were shared by the builders.

Spent the next 3 days sightseeing in the pouring rain and have now got a soar throat and cold. It rains here 300 days a year!

All the museums and cathedrals were absolutely stunning, puts the Royal Pavilion to shame!

Well I managed to send a parcel back home today although it took over 2 hours to send it. I'll certainly be appreciating Royal Mail now.

Well I'm off to Moscow tonight, hopefully I'll get the right train station (there are 5 in St Petersburg!) and the train leaves at 11.15pm. It's a good job the nights don't get dark here, I'll be walking down there on my own with my rucksack. So another night of no sleep, another adventure!!