This grand staircase greets you shortly after entering the Hermitage museum.

Greetings from Санкт Петербург (St Petersburg) where I’ve broken one of my cardinal rules of travel by dining at an American chain restaurant. I have two remaining shreds of dignity to hold in my defense. First, this is not McDonalds and second, Sbarro at least looks foreign when spelled with the Cyrillic alphabet. But the real reason why I’m here is that I saw a sign for free wifi as i was walking by, and it was beginning to spit wet snow outside.

My day started around 8:30 when my alarm told me to wake up and get ready for my train’s 9 am arrival in St Petersburg. I had taken the overnight train from Moscow, using the night travel to spare the precious few days I have in this country while taking in my first experience riding a sleeper car. I hadn’t planned to take this foray north, but after hearing several endorsements I decided to try to squeeze it in. The only problem is that I have no guide book for St Petersburg (in fact i didnt even have a basic city map), so I came here pretty blind.

This particular side trip began with the touch of misadventure I’ve come to expect. Jim and I took the metro from his apartment to the Leningrad train station. This would normally have been fine, but we had forgotten that (more…)