St Petersburg 2

The next day I met with Sasha, a Russian linguistics graduate who spoke surprisingly mint American English and had offered to show me round the city.

"Do you like walking?" she asked, "Cos we're gonna do a lot of it today".

Sasha was sharp of tongue and quick of foot. Amongst my favourite comments were: "What's with the nose ring, it's so ugly" and "get a haircut".

I held my own with a series of purposefully ignorant and mildly xenophobic comments. Great banter littered our walk (she walked insanely fast, with me in tired toddler mode lagging behind) as we dived-bombed into touristic bliss. St Peter & Paul Fortress was first on the march, it was where moy druk Dostoevsky was briefly imprisoned, and was followed by the rather large, impressive (and free!) Aurora, whose gunshot heralded the 1917 revolution. We power-walked through the centre of SPB (as the locals like to abbreviate it) and in the evening she introduced me to more couchsurfing friends at a meeting in a local bar, where I met another ex-pat who, like most, was teaching English here. There was a heated debate (not involving your "cool your boots, man" narrator) about whether English or Russian made the better TEFL teachers and I dragged myself back to Avtovo, looking forward to a pre-sleep scuffle with Schnapps.

Blinis, metro, coffee, metro, Nevsky Prospekt, metro, get off a stop too early, metro... and a day or so later I found myself back being verbally abused by Sasha, "Keep up! You're so slow", "why haven't you got your visa registered?". Ah yes, the visa registration...

Google this little gem and you will find a thousand faceless advisors clammering to scaremonger how failure to register every lungful of Russian air will see you jettisoned into the nearest Kartorga. Cut back to entry into Murmansk where I happily re-read Brynn Thomas "You must register within 3 days of arrival in each Russian city". Not planning on staying in Murmansk for 3 days, I believed I was safe until SPB, where I would look into registering. Unfortunately I relied on this one source for advice, it should in fact have read "all visas must be registered within 3 days of arrival into Russia". A really poor piece of wording in an otherwise excellent guide could have and could still cost me a hefty fine. But more on this story later (I miss BBC).

Sasha took photos of me posing next to graves of the talented in the Aleksandr Nevsky Monastery graveyard; Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Nikolay Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov (composer of The Flight of the Bumble-Bee - kind of a classical one-hit-wonder though surely? I doubt 2 Unlimited will recieve such a lavish burial). This was followed by a brief visit to another church - Dad I wish I could have donated my eyes to you for these as the churches were finally perhaps beginning to wear a bit thin. Too much of a good thing I guess...

"I'm all churched out! If you show me one more church, I'm liable to break". Just to test me she did, I just about held it together.

The next day we met and visited a book market, where I bought blank CD's emblazoned with old soviet banners (hope to be sending the photos back to you on these, Chruz. Mostly when I stop being frightened of the Russian post offices, the protocol of which is befuddling). Scene of the birth of Revolution, Palace Square for a military march (unplanned - always nice when this happens), I imagined it was a display just for me and took photos, clapped and realised how young the soldiers looked before recalling that most were forced into service by the 2 year manditory draft.

Hmmm. Ok, ok, I'll hold my tongue. For now.

Church of Resurrection - Savior on Spilled Blood - great from the outside, but don't waste roubles on the interior unless you're really bored. A glance at time running out and a rush to the Mariinsky to witness a soaring performance of Madame Butterfly. Sung in Italian and subtitled in Cyrillic I couldn't have been more confused regarding the plotline, though the fat guy spouting off about some heartache was pretty good I guess, no Thom Yorke though.

I made my way back to Egors (my 2nd SPB host) and prepared to leave for my third host, Olga. Olga is an ambassador on the couchsurfing project, an independent woman who knew how to have a good time. She picked up Bogdana - a cool indie-looking chick with a gorgeous smile - on the way. They chatted in Russian for a while before Olga declared,

"I will drive to the supermarket and you will buy us champagne"

My heart and wallet skipped a beat, before I realised she meant the cheap stuff and we settled into her gorgeous flat for a night of music, laughing, stories and preparations for Olga's impending birthday party the following night,

"You will come to my party and stay and extra night" she ordered. I was, of course, happy to comply and after bedding down at 4am, we arose at 10 with Miika, Bogdana's boyfriend to set out to the frankly beautiful gardens of Petergof and spotting Russia's most enormous beard and mullet combination.