White Nights in St Pete

Well for those of you keeping track Boro managed a 0-0 draw with Bolton. The game wasn't as dull as the scoreline suggests and it gave us an excuse to stay at the Dickens pub for extra deep-fried Latvian garlic bread.

Football could hold us no longer in Riga (even though the Dickens was showing Boro's game last night - 2-2 with AK Graz for those taking notes - played at the Arnold Schwarzanegger Stadium, seriously - check here...). Our appointment with HiG was duly approaching so we hopped a bus for six hours to our last EU outpost of Estonia. HiG arrived on time to the tiny Tallinn airport. We welcomed him and a supply of Marks and Spencer Teacakes and headed back into the city. The bus journey took only about 10 minutes as the airport is only about 3kms from the edge of the city. After dumping off our gear we all headed out into the evening to find some food and drink. After quite a bit of fruitless searching (a lot of places in Tallinn shut at 10pm, so had their doors locked for 9:30) we managed to refuel at a Tex-Mex eatery.

Next morning found Banz with a bad headache and achey joints. After ensuring that it was a bit of a cold and not a hangover, HiG and I left him to recuperate whilst we explored the Old Town. The area itself is quite compact and so after a couple of hours wandering about and checking out a couple of churches we had seen most of the Old Town sites. We then went in search of the Central Bus Station for our tickets for St Petersburg for the next day. We checked before boarding the tram that it was heading to the bus station - though of course we didn't specify which one and ended up at a suburban, rather than inter-city station. After jumping on the tram back the other way (and giving the locals some amusement at our pitiful attempts to validate our tickets) we were on our way. 10 minutes later and we had our tickets and were ready to leave the next morning at 11:00.

The bus journey to St Petersburg was rather uneventful. So uneventful that the bus pretty much didn't even stop for longer than one five minute period to stretch our legs between Tallinn and the border, and then again when we had to go through Russian customs.

Russian customs was surprisingly quick and efficient. Where's the whole queueing experience we've been expecting? One amusing "highlight" was the fact that Banz and HiG had to have their bags x-rayed whilst when I mimed to the operator putting my bag through, he just waved me through the beeping metal detector.

Upon arrival, we were able to distinguish where the Metro was (in cyrillic, Metpo) and after being pointed in the right direction by a local arrived at our stop and soon after our hostel for the next five nights.

All three of us were starving by this stage and found a local eatery with buffet style meals. We broke their system though when we had our hot meats and cold salads on one plate and then realised that the hot veg options were next door. The food isn't kept hot and so has to be microwaved once you have all your food on the plate. Queue our three plates having side orders of salad scraped onto secondary plates before being microwaved and returned complete with a stern Russian look.

We're taking it easy today and are going to have a more indepth tour tomorrow when we join a walking tour from the Hostel.