Qatar to St Petersburg

We didn’t have to wait around in Qatar for long before boarding the next flight. Just long enough to refresh ourselves, get a smoothie and stretch our legs a bit.

The next flight seemed interminable. It was only about 5 hours but I was quite over being squished on a plane seat at this point. We had a cute little Russian boy in the seat in front who kept popping his head over the seat and trying to share his elephant with Heidi. He reminded me so much of Caleb and Manda’s Noah.

Again Heidi was pretty good on the flight - she slept for a couple of hours. We were served breakfast for the third time 😂 Peeking out the window when we were flying over Georgia we started to see mountains with snow on top. Then coming into St Petersburg there was more snow and even massive lakes covered in ice.

Going through customs was pretty standard and we had a taxi driver waiting for us with Michael’s name on a sign. It was cool to be one of those people for once! It didn’t actually feel that cold walking outside - it was sunny but not windy. We felt a little conspicuous being the only ones in t-shirts while everyone else was rugged up in coats and scarves! When we arrived at our apartment however we certainly felt the cold as there was a bit of a breeze. I think it was about 6 degrees.

We thought we found the right apartment and lugged the suitcases up the stairs but then the number wasn’t clear on the door. So Mike and Kyria went off to find some wifi so they could contact the owner and figure it out Eli and I tried to keep Heidi quiet in the meanwhile but she would not sit still or be quiet! We just hoped there wasn’t anyone snoozing!

Someone finally arrived to let us in and showed us around. It was a decent sized place. We asked the lady a few questions about the area - she spoke some English thankfully. Then once she left we showered and changed into warmer clothes before heading out to explore and get some dinner.

Some observations - people don’t appear to wash their cars in At Petersburg which makes me feel better about ours and so many people smoke!

The area we are staying in seemed a bit more run down - but it could just be it’s spring and everything is brown and recovering from winter. The building look a bit sad and not particularly impressive.

Heidi was getting cold so we stopped at a cafe to get something to eat. We were struggling to find anything particularly Russian and ended up having hot chocolate with rum (not me!), soup and paninis.

Then we headed back to the apartment to put Heidi to bed. Mike and Kyria went out for another walk and the rest of us crashed pretty early. I couldn’t keep my eyes open past 8pm!Read more