St. Petersburg Conclusion

So, as I left off from the last post, we were waiting around in the hostel when Samwise came back. He told us about his adventures as he made his way back through that damn wind back to the Apple Hostel. We started talking with Alex some more and found out that he was planning on going out to a club with his friend Diana (the St. Petersburg friend). he asked if we wanted to go and, while I'd never been to a club before, I figured it would be a good learning experience.

First we went down to Кофе Хауз to have a drink and figure out where we were going to go. Diana told us that none of the clubs are really going to be open until 11 o'clock, so we went to a bar to pass the time. We stayed there until a little bit after midnight, and then the fun part started. We left the bar and basically started wandering, because even Diana didn't know where we were going exactly. Nathan and Alex took the point for some reason and started going in one direction, with the rest of us trailing. After a little while, Diana asked someone where the club's street is, and as it turns out, we needed to turn right about three blocks back.

Diana let the front guys know their error, and so we started back until we found that street, which was a pretty scary, dark, kind of run down road. In fact, that's something I've noticed about Russia - Moscow in particular - that is, that looks can be deceiving. What looks like a scary ass murder hold-in-the-wall could turn out to be a really classy 5-star restaurant. It's weird.

So eventually we found the club (it was called like L7 or something, I couldn't really read the sign) and got in this like, waiting square with chains around it. Anyway, once we got in, we checked our coats, and the game was on I guess. Nathan and Alex started trying to talk to some girls. They were talking with a couple of girls within a few minutes, that is until Diana's friend at the club walked up to them and explained that "That girl is my friend's girlfriend, and that girl is my other friend's girlfriend." They took the hint.

Meanwhile, Samwise got into the thick of things pretty quickly. I did not anticipate that kid being that confident on the dance floor. Whether he should have, I don't know, but that didn't really matter, since he had a dance partner for the night about an hour into the excursion and was making friends with random Russian dudes. At one point he even got on stage and yelled along with the songs...including the Russian ones (hint: Samwise doesn't know Russian THAT well).

And in the midst of all of this was my sitting in my corner nice and quiet. I'm an extremely shy person in public, so naturally a club would be about the least comfortable place for me (well, maybe a nudist convention would be a little more uncomfortable...oh man, a nudist club...ergh). Anyway, Nate Dogg and Alex kept trying to get me to come out on the dance floor, to which I politely said no effing way.

Eventually we got a couple of couches, so I sat down and started to get a little more comfortable and bob my head a little as songs that I knew started to come on. The closest I came to really going out and dancing was when Ride Wit Me came on, but I pretty much just dance to that one in my seat. That's kind of how the night went, but it was definitely a good experience, even though not a whole lot happened on my end. First time's always the toughest I guess.

Note: We went to another bar/club place yesterday, and I guess I kind of came out of my shell a little more. I will consider retelling that story as well, with pictures and video this time (at least, that's if I can get the videos from my friend).

Anyway, that was the last of the interesting things that happened at St. Petersburg. the entirety of day 3 was spent either relaxing or going to check out this big, expensive mall. My ankle was really screwed up from my boots and wearing two pairs of socks, so I couldn't walk far. I just wanted to relax, waste, time and get back to Moscow. I think that it was largely because of the weather at the time, but I strongly prefer Moscow to St. Petersburg. I'm sure the summer in St. Pete is great, but this sure as hell ain't summer.

However, even though I can't retell anymore good stories, I can talk a little bit about our living situation - that is, the hostel itself. Now, like the majority of Americans, my only experience with the word had to do with a particularly gruesome and terrifying (if you're staying in one) movie involving a lot of murder and pain. Naturally, our experience wasn't quite like the movie Hostel.

In fact, my favorite part of St. Pete (after the Hermitage and stuff) was the people we met. Of course I've already talked about Alex, but pretty much everyone we met there was very friendly and open to chat. We met a Canadian guy who speaks Ukrainian and his girlfriend (who argued with him ALL THE TIME over incredibly minor things. Even if she wasn't really disagreeing with him, she still disagreed. "No, well, yeah, but no!") We talked with a couple of Russian girls from Moscow who spoke almost no English. We watched part of the Russia/Czechoslovakia Olympic Hockey match (though I didn't get to see Ovechkin crush Jagr live, unfortunately).

The attendants were also very helpful (not to mention that a couple of the female ones were extremely attractive. Hey...they were). Whenever we needed help finding a place, they were happy to help. They chatted with us, and they let us hang around and leave our stuff there on Day 3 even though we weren't going to be staying that night.

Overall, it was a pretty good, but not great experience, though I think I would have enjoyed it about 10x more if it was warmer.