I'm happy to say that my earlier misgivings about Saint Petersburg were entirely due to lack of sleep plus rush-hour madness: this place is very groovy indeed! It continues to be big, and the general architeture is exuberently baroque and, well, Russian, but the folk here are more laid back than I initially thought. We have seen sights and on Friday night ate at a bliny restaurant. I was amused, having ordered 'Tartarian fritters with chicken, meat, potato and cheese' to be presented with 3 findus crispy pancakes (very tasty I may add) - one chicken, one meat, and one cheese and potato. I never really pictures Mr. Findus galloping across the Russian steppe trying to get home in time for pancakes - ah well.
Today we were in luck, because it was the 303rd City Day, consisting of a large procession through the middle of the town. The steets were heaving, loud disco was the order of the day along with many weird and wonderful floats. I hope after a bit of practice the organisers will cotton on to the idea of tall, raised floats so that people other than the front row can see them. In the evening we met a friend of Ellen's dad called Elena, who is really nice and had a lot of helpful things to say. She is clearly a good judge fo character, having taken one look at us before deciding that our first destination should be a cake shop. We hope to meet up with her later and share good times.
Our HC hosts continue to be wonderful, with Vladi being the latest incarnation. An imensely groovy chap he is a busker (playing a self-modified balalaika, story teller and puppeteer and some time journalist. He has made us feel extremely at home and has the added good trait of not being A Morning Person! He is however an evening person and we were delighted to walk home at midnight last night (which was still broad daylight by the way - weird) to a small party in the flat; a most convivial way to round off the day. And indeed this article.