Cyrillic everywhere!

Here I am in what they called the Northen Venice - St Petersburg. It has been great so far. Arriving here from Tallinn was a bit of a journey. The Rusisans have their ways of slowing everything down starting from immigration. Our bus was stuck between Estonia / Russia for just under 3 hours. The actualy passport control itself was actually rather effective and quick - I had no idea though what were were waiting for after that. I'd actually forgoten to write down the address of the host company that 'invited' me so I decided to look completely stupid and copied the Cyrillic on my Visa onto the custom card and just handed that over to the immigration lady. She gave a dirty look - asked me a few questions (well, tried to...she spoke Russian, I speak English....didn't quite work out so well). Anyway, I got through. Was slightly worried and thought I might have to resort to my 8 quid/1MB mobile internet! Arriving in St Petersburg, I went to the wrong hotel. No one informed me that my tour had changed hotel last minute. So going around with my backpack across town was FUN (NOT!!!)

The Metro in St Petersburg is amazing! Deepest in the world. No end in sight on the escaltor!! And the platform is really wide. Can't wait to see the one in Moscow - apparently supposed to be so beautiful. Photos are illegal though - but before I knew that, I already snapped some shots on the first day.

The last couple of days, I have pretty much just been sight-seeing. Walked heaps. St Petersburg is big and the Metro are far apart. Met some locals who I had lunch/dinner with. Hang out with some people from my group (Only 6 people all together) - though mostly I have been walking around by myself in town - which is really cool.

Mostly, people aren't madly friendly but the younger generation tend to open up more... I suppose it's because of the history. In any case - I really enjoy comparing the Cyrillic characters on my map and that on the street. I can't read anything and use it only as a visual. I love listening to Russians speak. Love looking at people on the Metro. The thing I noticed is that everyone will stand to the right when they're coming down the escalator, allowing people to pass on the left if they want to walk down faster (though the escalators themselves move at a speed twice as fast as the ones in London already!) - but on the way up - everyone stand on both sides of the escaltors - NO ONE WALKS UP!!! I guess the depth explains it.

Off to Moscow tonight - it will be a mad dash with short time there but my first Russian train is about to depart.....