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Saint Petersburg, Russia
On arrival in St Petersburg we checked into Baby Lemonade hostel, a Pink Floyd themed hostel which was suitably surreal given our sleep deprived state, and headed straight out to explore. St Petersburg is an incredibly beautiful and buzzing destination thanks to the combination of its coastal position and waterways, stunning historic buildings and lively street culture, from pop up swing dance to saw playing. One of the most visited sights is the Church on the Spilled Blood, an elaborate 5 domed building, which despite the dark name is all the colours of the rainbow and contains 700 sq metres of mosaics. The name refers to the assassination attempt on Tsar Nicholas II which occurred on the site in 1881. The Church took 24 years to build, and following decades of neglect in the Soviet era, another 27 to restore. After a good 4 hours of menadering we had worked up an appetite and thirst, so headed off in search of the Travelling Bag of a Pregnant Spy Bar, recommended by Sister K. This place looks like a cross between a steampunk installation and an S & M dungeon and has a menu that includes delights such as ear cream soup. Playing it safe, I opted for the Greek salad, having discovered that Greek salad in Russia replaces Russian salad in Spain as one of the few options available to veggies (Russian salad Spain style doesn't exist at all in Russia, which is no bad thing) and Dan opted for beef stroganoff. There were no strange surprises with the food though we were interrogated briefly by th pregnant spy post meal and snuck out of the Travelling Bag just as the cabaret got into full swing and the pregnant spy was playing with her first randomly selected victim. From here we headed to The Hat, as recommended by our hostel, a very smooth jazz bar where we could relax without fear of required audience participation! The Hat had one of the largest selections of whisky I have seen outside Scotland, had the vibe of stepping back in time to 1950's New York and the clientele, except us, were dressed for the occasion. The tiny bar was crammed and there was barely space for the various incredibly talented musicians that lined up to play with the band. We left before the bridges were lifted to make way for the Summer cruisers, leaving anyone departing too late stranded until 630am, and got a good nights sleep in preparation for the train journey to Moscow. Da svidanya St Petersburg
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