We dropped our luggage in a locker at the train station, found a coffee place with wifi and googled ‘things to do in St Petersburg’. Most of the tips were a bit standard, and since I wanted to give you guys a great story, I dug a little bit deeper. I found a guy who had been on an internship in the city and said that a ‘rooftop tour’ was the best experience he had in St. Petersburg. We immediately booked it via getyourguide.com and one hour later we arrived. On the way something really strange happened, we saw two Boeing747-size Russian bombing airplanes flying at a distance of about 50 meters behind each other. 30 seconds later, it happened again! So we figured it must be a glitch in the matrix.

Arriving at the meeting spot, we met the curious-looking guide. We were a little bit hesitant about what we had gotten ourselves into this time. We climbed up some wobbly stairs of a building that housed artists like ballerinas, painters and choreographers and ended up in a beautiful tower which functioned as a second world war defense tower during the time of the Nazi siege of Leningrad.  Nowadays the city council thinks that it does not fit the image of the city anymore, so they were destroying all of them. We were probably among the last people to visit the tower. Next, the adrenaline rush started. We walked through a dirty attic which was pitch black, ending up on a roof of an 8 story building. At first everything was fine, but then the roof started getting really slippery. I felt a bit of fear in my knees which did not help my balance at all. The guide helped me, treating me like I was an old grandmother. Sidenote: we actually had two 50+ people in heels with us and for them the climbing was peanuts, so I felt a bit stupid. Thankfully, my friend Sander filmed the embarassment. We realised this probably wasn’t the most legal trip, which was confirmed by the guide. The guide is by the way one of those crazy people who climbes cranes for fun. His stories were really interesting and unlike all of the standard tourist stories. On the tour we met a Russian girl named Natascha and we decided to spend the day together.

With Natascha, we went to the only Buddist temple in the North of Russia. It was very funny to see that one of the munks was walking around in Adidas sports pants. He was preparing a table and put some paper with text on every seat, so we figured they must have been having a beer cantus that night. On the way to the temple, we saw some Indian friends we met 2 nights earlier in the bar, big coincidence! Fun fact: the name of the girl was also Sander.

After the temple, we went to a restaurant  with torture as a main theme. So all around us were electric chairs and guillotines. The cocktails also had some curious names which are NSFB (Not Safe For Blog). Natascha wanted to go have a boat tour so we split up and went to a book festival with lots of guitar players. That is something I really love about this city. On almost every corner of the main street bands, singers or guitarists are playing. Unfortunately the artists at the book festival weren’t all that good and the singing was a bit too painful for our ears so we left and decided to find a pub.

We had some drinks at the pub and had a talk with the owner who often visits Amsterdam, where he had a lot of fun. I don’t think he remembers everything though.. There was also a Russian rapper next to us, who busted some sick rhymes. Also, Sander almost threw his beer on the ground but made a special ninja-move, which was obviously the second biggest adrenaline shock of the day.

Next, we went to the train travelling to Moscow. First I had a drink in the party cabin which had swimming clothes as a dresscode. When I went back to my own cabin, I realised that the Russian guy sleeping in our cabin is also an electrical engineer. He did not speak English at all but we had a nice, and also very slow, Google Translate conversation. He then showed us Russian-Chinese lessons, so needless to say we did not understand it very well. He was very nice though, since he offered us a lot of food and tea with cognac. Overall, I had an amazing day and I definitely made the best of the free day! Next stop Moscow.

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While the alarms on many phones today went off pretty early (including mine), the first real group “activity” was gathering at Flux. Once everybody was packed and ready to leave, we departed to Schiphol airport for our first flight. Although many people where half asleep, everything went fine. (Though some people had to be reminded to keep their luggage with them) 

The first country of our tour was in fact Poland, on our connected flight to Saint Petersburg. After wandering a bit on the airport in search for food it was off to the good old yellow M to get our lunches.

Once everybody was full again and ready to leave we gathered at the gate for our final destination. Due to a minor thunderstorms the flight was a bit delayed with 30 minutes but it was nothing major to handle.

The second flight went well and nothing major happened. Once we arrived in Russia our first encounters with the Russian traffic where far better then expected  from the widely know dash cam videos all over the internet. (Meaning we actually survived the bus trip quite comfortably) Once arrived at our hostel it was a bit of acclamatizing to Russia itself and trying our first Russian meal, the Stroganov. After the meals it was time to taste the russian vodka so “za zdrovo’ya !” and untill the next blog.

Martyn van Dijke