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Without any text to help distinguish this scene as St. Pete's, this could just as easily have gone in my London residency photos!
I’ve finally made it to St. Petersburg after my protracted flight schedule…and after 30 hours being awake, I’m really starting to feel the pain!
I started off early this morning, leaving for the Philly airport around 11 a.m. From there it was to Newark, which was delayed 30 minutes, but luckily it only takes 30 minutes as well! From Newark it was to Dusseldorf, Germany, which takes about 6.5 hours. When that flight landed, it became 6 a.m. German time. Fast forward through 5 hours of downtime in Germany, then it was finally on to Russia. 4.5 hours later, some rush hour traffic, check-in…that puts me at 30 continuous hours of being awake. That’s probably a record, I’m not one to stay awake for long periods of time!
Also a record is that of all my residency trips, I’ve never done a three-legged journey. That’s not particularly amazing, but you what is amazing? My luggage took a different 3 legs to meet me in St. Petersburg! Apparently, my luggage went from Newark, NJ to Munich, Germany to St. Petersburg. How, I don’t know; even more amazing is that my luggage beat me to St. Petersburg. At first, I thought my luggage was lost, as it wasn’t on the proper carousel, but instead Lufthansa decided that my luggage should have it’s own adventure. Who am I to argue?
To get from the St. Petersburg airport to the Corinthia hotel, eight of us rented a van. Stepping outside of the airport, I got a weird flashback of the Delhi airport. There seemed to be utter chaos in the parking/traffic pattern in front of the airport, people were parked in all directions, sometimes driving lanes opened up, and yet it all worked. After pulling away from the airport, the Delhi flashback had ended, but a new one began…
Cyrillic writing aside, driving through the city reminded me of London, down to the matching of the River Thames with the Neva River in St. Pete’s. Same classic architecture, same building materials…the people do look different though. In London, you’re more apt to see people running and riding bicycles; in St. Petersburg, the only sport that’s being indulged in is chain smoking. The logos also messed with me a bit…it’s funny how corporate branding without a strong logo really must include writing. We must’ve passed by every major European bank that has a branch in Russia; without the text I recognized, I really struggled to figure out who was who.
Of course, I’ll have 10 more days to figure out what St. Petersburg is really about, which should include seeing some impressive historical sights. But my first impression? Not so impressed. You’re going to have to work hard Russia, you are the last stop on the CCMBA overseas adventure!
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