St Petersburg - Friday 18 May

On departing our train we decided that with 4 huge backpacks, daypacks and numerous bags of market purchases, we needed a cab rather than tackling the metro. After bargaining a big burling Russian down to a very reasonable price, he pimped out one of his drivers who walked us a few minutes away. The four of us looked hillarious walking like snails in a line, with our backpack homes on our backs. We were passing nice, big shiny new cars, Hummers and such, so we were all wondering when we were going to get to sit in our nice big cab. You can imagine our surprise when the driver walked straight over to some old, beaten up car that looked like something Mr Bean would drive, and definitely wouldn't fit 4 girls, 4 backpacks, daypacks and the rest. Well it did! The girls put their stuff in the boot and it took the driver about 7 attempts to get it closed, I was stuffed in the front seat with an makeshift airbag that was my back pack...and we were off. I had the job of making small talk with the taxi driver who barely spoke English (turns out this is usually my job) and within 20 minutes we pulled up at our hostel.

We had showers, stowed our bags and then we were off to realise what St Pete's had to offer. So far, Russia has totally impressed all of us and Moscow and St Petersburg have been our favourite cities. I would love to return some day to experience it in the winter under blankets of snow.

Today we walked around the city that is often called the 'Venice of the North' as it sprawls across the delta of the River Neva, crisscrossed by river channels and canals. We walked for hours and found the beauty in this grand city. St Petersburg is Russia's second largest city and is located about 700kms northwest of Moscow. It is Peter the Great's famous city and was capital of the Russian empire for 200 years before the capital city was taken back to Moscow for the second time in 1918.

We saw the amazing Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood which is a St Basil's Cathedral look alike, but possibly more impressive, although seems a little out of place amongst the Baroque and Classical splendour of St Pete's. But who's to question that, it's all deliciously fantastic scenery. We walked to the Summer Garden and sat for a while taking in all the beauty, then walked around looking at other sites and buildings.

We met up with a couple that had been on tour with us - English Jim and Usha - and ate lunch of salmon caviar pancakes. Delicious!

Later in the afternoon, we bought tickets to the ballet - Swan Lake. After a day of trudging the streets in our thongs (thongs = shoes for those non-Australians reading this) we raced home to change quickly for the ballet, as we were running late. We ran a comb through our hair and changed tops, but didn't get the time to change shoes, so ended up attending the ballet in rubber thongs. If you didn't look at our feet, we were elegant enough for the ballet. Except for when we were climbing the elegant stair case of the theatre and one of my thongs fell off to expose very dirty feet from the days walking. Luckily everyone kept ascending the stairs in haste, but i'm sure there were some sidewards glances that I missed.

We found our $60 seats, that weren't the best as a bit of the stage was out of view. The upper balcony of the theatre wasn't fully booked so as soon as the lights dimmed for the first act, all 6 of us were off to better seats - the $100 ones, which gave us a fantastic view. I'm not sure if I can detail the emotion I felt watching Swan Lake, other than to say it was one of the most beautiful events I have ever experienced, and to not only be watching such a famous ballet, but to be watching it in Russia had a profound effect on the soul. It was truely amazing. I laughed, I cried, I smiled, I clapped until my hands were sore, and I will never forget how fantastic it felt to be at the ballet in Russia.