St. Petersburg: Day 1

Well, today went a lot better than yesterday if for no other reason than I was at the right place at the right time. It is true, that while the dry run yesterday went off without a hitch, today was not so lucky, I did forget to wear my boots. So that being the only problem, I'll take it.

We landed in St. Petersburg after an easy 2 hour flight from Copenhagen and immediately got onto our tour bus. We drove around a bit and got some bearings while Jon, our professor and tour guide, gave us interesting tidbits about St. Petersburg and how to operate within it. There are certain things, he says, to avoid. For instance, there is something called the Leningrad Amoeba. This is a little bugger that lives in the water and will make your life a living hell if you drink the tap water. So bottled water/vodka only. He also told us that to get a ride around town you just hold out your arm and someone will pick you up. You negotiate a price with them (generally not more than 200 rubles or 7 bucks) and you go where you need to. He said at no times to get into any car that says "officially licensed taxi" or anything of that sort. He said that taxi's as we know them are here to rip you off. And if you see a meter just walk away. Kind of counter-intuitive but hey, it's Russia.

After driving for a bit and stopping off at Moscow Square to look at one of the few remaining statues of Lenin, we headed to the hotel where we had a couple of hours to ourselves. I took the time to take a much needed nap and woke up in time to meet everyone for dinner.

Dinner, as you will see in the pictures, was a standard Russian meal. Heavy good food. Jon taught us all the proper way to drink vodka whilst in Russia which is to say you never sip it and it must be drank in one shot. Always with food and never, under no circumstances, is it to be mixed with anything. They measure vodka here, not on taste as we tend to do in America, but instead on the purity of the spirit. What this means is that they judge a vodka by how little a hang over you get from it. My kind of town.

Anyway, dinner was great, good food, fine conversation and I am exhausted. It is only 10 here which means 8 in Denmark, but I am ready for bed.

Tomorrow we see St. Petersburg/Stalingrad/Leningrad/St. Petersburg!