Right, I am now in St Petersburg an Internet Cafe called Quo Vadis (little plug there, very nice place it's on Nevsky Prospect, the main street here). Actually it's just about the end of my second day here and it's scary. I don't know three words of the language (I think I can just about manage "hello" and "thank you" now) and it is incredibly confusing trying to do most anything. Things are improving though since unlike yesterday I actually kinda enjoyed things today.
Yesterday I flew in, which involved two planes and three airports, which wasn't actually as bad as I had expected I actually quite enjoyed the flights, meals were suprisingly good too (at least breakfast on the first flight was, lunch on the second wasn't up to much but not as bad as everyone says). The airports were alright too though not exactly exciting but no trouble either. Stockholm airport also introduced me to a novelty, the push button toilet which flushes for as long as you hold the button, not particularly exciting but it interested me. It all kinda went downhill upon arrival in St Petersburg however, though it looked beutiful from the air, white and glisening it didn't really live up to it once on the ground. The airport set the tone, grey grubby and tatty round the edges, though a beutifull sunny day with a blue sky. I got to my hotel to find it somewhat below what I had hoped for, next time someone make me go for a RENOVATED room, even if it costs a little more.
Today on the other hand I had a guide show me around a lot of the city and stuck my foot in the Neva (unintentionally, serves me right for trying to walk on water, even if it was frozen) on the whole enjoyed myself enourmously, even if both my feet hurt (and one is damp). I would like to point out that the weather forecast for St Petersburg is rubbish, overcast HA!, it's been beutifully sunny, though still rather cold, but nowhere near as bad as the forecast suggested. The guide also showed me to and got me a ticket for this rather strange folk show in one of the old palaces (St Petersburg must have the highest concentration of palaces I've ever seen, where Oxford has colleges, St Petersburg has palaces), including Russian champagne and vodka in the interval (Caviar too but I didn't have that for obvious reasons). After that I went looking for and think I found the Cafe Idiot which was reccommended in my Russia Experience guide as the best vegetarian place around. Unfortunatly as far as I could work out there was a concert there tonight and so I couldn't get in. I'll have to check the place out again tommorow, actually it looks like a lot of places were closed today, it not only being sunday but the day after women's day (apparently a major event here). I guess that isn't too bad since being shown around I wasn't going into anything much anyway, but I'll be going back to several places over the next couple of days to have a look inside. I'll try to keep you up to date on what I'm doing but I think this entry is plenty long enough and I havn't actually had any food since breakfast so I'm going.
Posted by Haifisch at March 9, 2003 07:08 PMHi, I just sent you an e-mail including a few vegetarian places to eat that were listed on the web, though you may not have any need of it. By the way I just noticed you have an English to Russian translator right here on your website - just click on those scrolling 0s and 1s and hold down delete until they're gone, then type in the English and before your eyes it's transformed into Russian (... or is it Japanese?)