The Burg

We got on the Train to St Petersburg and what we were told about the people who took the train being very cultured and polite was contradradicted but the old fat snoring men. While on the train from Moscow to St Petersburg we met Eugene, a snowboard company owner from St Petersburg. He was really excited to meet foreigners and after escorting us to our Hostel, he gave us his number and told him to call him the next day and he would take us around. Score: free tour!

Or day started pretty late as we only got to St P in the afternoon, but we managed to find time to be supertourists

see some communist stuff

and most importantly, a bridge photo.



Some people call St P the Venice of the east (I may have made that up...) so we had lots of bridges to choose from.

The next day we met up with Eugene and his girlfriend Juliet. They were so nice and cute! They took us to the Hermitage (we didnt go inside because we are too cheap and uncultured), St Isaac's Cathedral, Vasilevsky Island, the Bronze Horseman, Winter Palace and Peter and Paul's fortress.

we didnt realise how awkward it would be to pose where Bloody Sunday happened...

Cat sighting of the day:

We went shopping for dinner and a nice Russian woman took us to this awesome fruit and veggie market that was really cheap. Then we made an epic dinner of leftover pasta and stirfry. An of course left over soy meat.

After our epic dinner we went out for our last night in Russia and our last night with Marius. Our new friend jef from Belgium came who we found ot was the 1999 Belgium ping pong champion!! a subtle photo shoot ensued.

The next day, all alone and with no buffer between us, me and Lee went to the Choral synagogue, which is the 2nd biggest synagogue in Europe. Again, we only found it with the help of a helpful Russian man. We bought kosher wafers which was quite exciting:)

Continuing with our jew-theme, we had hummous and pickle sandwiches in the park, until we were followed by a drunk Russian and moved to a canal.

we spent a couple hours at the political history museum which was cool but we died a bit by the end. So we decided to go home and chill before we had to leave St P, but before we did, we stopped by the statue of catherine the Great, Lee's alomst great great grandmother.

Leaving Russia was sad, we failed at finding our bus stop but finally were helped by a New Zealand couple. The border crossing included no crazy Russian officials so not too bad but we did try and watch the russian "just go with it" which is always fun.