We go to the 'ermitage. I see some Da Vinci's (they only have two) a gallery of Rembrandts, and tonnes of Greek and Roman Art. Apparently I missed the impressionist gallery, though I may go back with a map since we (as students) get in for free. I missed Botticellis!

I lead us all on a wild goosechase in the 'Petersburg 'burbs for an hour or two (sorry guys!). But it does mean we find another western style shopping centre and a supermarket tha literally sells everything! There were skis, and vegetables, and you could get beer or wine from a keg/barrel and have it bottled in front of you ( Read more... )

After class we head to a cafe (stop for some photos outside Mariinsky palace) that serves free shots of vodka with our first round of alcohol! We are right merry by 8pm and have a very good night (though I get segued into a two hour conversation with the Swiss about photonics). Our waitress's name is "Julia", which is strange since the Russians don ( Read more... )

We have two new people in class today. Class was more difficult today. Afterwards we headed to what I thought would be a cafe and turned out to be an upper market restaurant. It lives up to its name however, "Russky Kitsch". It is horribly kitsch. There was a Honda Goldwing in the dining room! We left there to head to a place called biergaarten, ( Read more... )

So we start the day by going to buy tickets from a travel agancy that said we could buy them after the holiday. Of course, with our luck, they don't sell them apparently. They tell us to go to a certain hotel, which one of the girl tells us that she always buys her Helsinki tickets from there. We go to the hotel in the afternoon but of course they ( Read more... )

We go to the university today as finally the holidays have ended. We get there and realise that we have forgotten our insurance papers and photographs which are needed for registration. We head all the way back home and back again. We go to Kofe haoos (coffee house) on the way back to get change for the metro and this place is expensive! Well the ( Read more... )

We book our flights to Geneva Switzerland from Helsinki and plan the Europe part of our trip that we've now decided on. At night we head to arestaurant in our rough guide, which turns out to be non-existent. We end up heading to some restaurant on Nevsky which plays really bad music (Dead or Alive "you spin me right round", Basement Jaxx and even " ( Read more... )

In my usual morning stroll I see some guy with a gun. Not a policeman, just some random guy, get out of a car with a rifle and then stroll into a building. WTF ( Read more... )

We wander around the local cd/dvd stores. They sell mp3s on cds here! How convenient! They must only get the shit English music here because they have Celine Dion. I find a copy of Baldur's Gate II with the expansion and bonus packs all conveniently on one dvd for $10! This place is so dodgy ( Read more... )

We journey out to a shopping centre close by that is in our lonely planet as it is meant to have a 24 hour western style supermarket in it's lower level. We find it, but have to wait outside as the shopping centre is close with no apparent way to make it into the supermarket. It opens and HOLY SHIT it has automatic sliding doors! The first I have ( Read more... )