Off on the path to Siberia

Well after a night of no sleep, I left Berrymede, for the last time living there. I said goodbye to my room and the house with some sadness. The taxi arrived at 4.40am, and Graham and I took our 7am flight to Sweden then Sweden to St Petersburg, our first stop.
On the plane we met a Canadian called Martha. She ended up joining us for a few days and shared a room with us. On arrival in St Petersburg, as we queued. I stupidly mentioned about my bag being lost in Isreal. Well Martha and Graham picked up their bags but mine was nowhere to be found. what a surprise. It is scary how sometimes I say things and either I pre-empt them or I'm cursed.

After going back and forth filling out customs forms in duplicate, and completing the forms 3 times, as they didn't tell me how to fill it in, only the third person was nice enough to do that, I was finally able to go to the lost luggage office, where they had already located my bag and were arranging for it's delivery. Thank god we had booked a hostel.

We finally made it to the hostel. This was after being guided to get off at the completely wrong bus stop and aas a result to now having to negotiate the metro. The very kindly hostel owner brought us to another hostel as we were now 3. He gave us a mini tour of St Petersburg. He pointed out the smallest statue, as per the guinness book of records. This is a little bird about 7 or 8 inches in height positioned down a wall on the river side, 3 feet down from the top of the wall and about 2 feet above the water. This little bird is on a plinth and the idea is to throw coins. Should you be so lucky to have your coin hit the bird and stay on the plinth then you will return to St Petersburg. My coins didnt oblige. But there was always a queue, and some people succeeded.
21-22Sep. We were about an hours walk from the centre of the old town. So we did a lot of walking. The LP recommends a walk indicating sights to be seen along various streets. Each building was another revelation of what the city had to offer. The weather was very obliging and the sun and temperature were just perfect. Even got sunburnt.
St Petersburg is beautiful, well at least the old town. There are some magnificent buildings. Peter the great, his successors or indeed the weathly in general and even the Soviets, were not shy in showing their wealth and privilege. Martha left us to go in search of her tickets to Moscow at the Real Russia's partner's St Petersburg office. She didnt find it despite the help of an English speaking local.
23Sep: We spent a day in the Hermitage, formerly the Winter Palace, wandering it's huge cavernous halls and taking in the selection of paintings , sculpture and furniture on display. We met Martha half way through. She had finally got her ticket to Moscow. It turns out the phone no had changed but the office neglected to tell real russia and the helpful local actually only served as a distraction as the office was where it was supposed to be.

24Sep. Martha left St Petersburg and G& I ended up in the Peter and Paul fortress. From this we got a different view of the city. We even saw some of the infamous standing sunbathers taking in the sun along the beach by the fort. Apparently you get a better tan standing up. There were quite a few brown bodies but many were of the silver haired variety or maybe they were right but the sun was taking it's toll.
We found a few choclolate museums but I couldnt find any takers to enter. Bummer it would have been nice.
We also ran in to this Russian guide called Yuly. He was retired and ended up chatting to us for over an hour. He was a fantastic person to talk to. So intelligent and well read. He was suffering a lot because of the changes in Russia over the last 20-30 years. Pre Perostroika, he would have had a good pension but this was now not going to happen. A lot of the elderly were like this. Many forced to live on 1000 rubles even less a month. We saw many old Babushkas selling the produce of their garden or various handicrafts around St Petersburg. It was qute sad. 
Most of the beggars are also the old or infirm. Many congregate around churches at service time.
The breakdown of communism, has in many ways, left sections of Russias citizens stranded.

If I had met Yuli at the start of our time in St Petersburg, I woudl definitly have taken him out to dinner and asked him to teach me Russian. It would have been a fabulous way to talk to a local and learn at the same time whilst still helping at least for one person.

Today we got on the Metro again and ventured to buy our first train tickets. We wrote what we wanted on a postit and handed it to the lady behind the counter. After some conversation we finally figured out that the 8hr train we wanted was booked but we got on a later train which was 12 hours. To be honest the longer journey was better and it turned out to be half the price. Result. We are on our way.