Stunning St. Petersburg, part 2

[ I added another 100 photos to my St. Petersburg photo gallery]  

This will be a short post, to get caught up.

On my final day in St. Petersburg, I managed to get up early to pack my things and make it to the meeting spot a few blocks away for a walking tour from Peter’s Walks. The tour lasted about 5 hours, and we walked through the less visited parts of St. Petersburg, South of Nevsky. It was interesting to see some of the large local markets (akin to farmers markets in the US), and some of the apartment blocks. Our group was mostly Americans, with a French family mixed in. Our guide was excellent.

After the tour, I walked around more on my own, crossing over the Neva to “the spit of the island”, where all couples go to smash champagne glasses as part of their weddings.

The view of the city from the other side was also great.

I also climbed up St. Isaac’s colonnade, to get views over the city.

My train to Moscow left at 12:20am from the Moscovsky station, near my apartment. I got there an hour early to make sure I’d be relaxed and things would go smoothly. Of course, they didn’t. When the time came to board the train, I walked to the platform and found my carriage. But nobody was getting into our carriage, due to a person at the front not having the right ticket, but refusing to get out of the way.

We stood for about 5 minutes while the attendants tried to get the person to move aside. The other passengers started shouting at him, so he finally got out of the way. We were now about 5 minutes from planned departure time, and 80 people needed to get on board. Then most of the passengers were being handed their tickets slowly; I don’t know why they didn’t have their own tickets in hand. I finally cut in line, since I had my ticket in hand, to make sure I got on the train. And then I became the guy with the wrong ticket. The attendant said “No this train”, and pointed to a different platform. Crap. With 2 minutes before departure, and 2 loooonnng train lengths to traverse, I had to sprint with all my gear. I got to the right train in time, and they had me board the front car. I then had to shimmy my way through 15 carriages with incredibly narrow halls, where Russians were usually hanging out (and of course they didn’t step out of the hall and into their suite when I came by).

I banged my way through the entire train. This totally sucked. Drenched in sweat, I finally found my car and suite. And of course there was another problem… There are 4 beds per suite. In my suite sat 4 people, a family. After standing for a few minutes to cool down, we started to talk a bit. The family booked 3 of the tickets in the suite, and a 4th down the hall. Since I didn’t really care, I offered to take the other spot down the hall. This turned out to be a mistake, as this new bed was a top bunk, versus my bottom bunk. The bottom bunks have more space. The top bunks aren’t Big Mike size. They’re a little too short, and too narrow. So I didn’t manage much sleep, but overall the train was ok. My 76 hour-long ride to Irkutsk from Moscow is to be in one of the nicest trains in Russia, so hopefully I’ll manage more sleep there. And I hope I’ll make a few less mistakes on that one.

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