St. Petersburg, RUSSIA

UPDATED JULY 3RD AT 10:24PM ST. PETERSBURG TIME (GMT +4)
UPDATED JULY 5TH AT 8:00PM ST. PETERSBURG TIME (GMT +4)

Safely in St. Petersburg, in the north western part of Russia. Now this is a cooooool town with coooool people!! I immediately felt very comfortable walking around the city. Its just a nice city with beautiful buildings and architecture and stylish, wacky, modern, funky and very very cooooool people!! Why did it take me so many years to visit St. Petersburg?? There is much to explore so I need to go. It is almost midnight and still very bright outside. No wonder the Russians refer to this as the White Nights. Will write more later before I leave to Moscow in 5 days.

Did a trip outside of St. Petersburg today (Saturday...July 2nd) -- to Petershof....remember Peter The Great....his castles. Really nice.

MONDAY JULY 3RD
Spent all of Saturday walking around and seeing a lot of interesting places and took tons of pics. On Saturday nite, I went to a nite club/disco at 1am...thats when things start to rock, and left at 3am...to still find a very red glow of the sun setting in the west. The club was great, with lots of young people dancing and having a great time.

Vodka and Caviar is still king here....and found in all levels of qualities and varieties and prices in super markets. Beer in big bottles are consumed on the streets by many...seems like every 10th person walking down the street has a bottle of beer in the hand. Have not seen any bad or agressive behaviour in public...people are just having a good time in the sun. Since I arrived 3 days ago I have not seen any clouds...its a sunny 27 degrees every day and about 18 hours of bright sun light.

Today, Sunday, walked miles and miles and visited some cathedrals, boat trip on the canals, etc. I am truly having a great time.

TUESDAY JULY 5TH: This is my last day in St. Petersburg. Tonight at 11pm I am taking the night train to Moscow and will arrive at 7am tomorrow morning. Will spend 5 days there before taking the night train to Estonia. Last night saw the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and Choir in the big Concert Hall. Was gooood. Also today spent 4.5 hours in the Hermitage Museum...apparantly larger than the Louvre in Paris. Gotto go ...so will write from Moscow.