Got up at 9am and left to catch a free tour, walking to the tour, I saw St Petes in a new light after a good nights sleep, it seemed like a world away from Moscow, all the people and signs telling you what not to do had disappeared, I was panicking that without someone telling everyone where they could and couldn't walk we might all just start running around in circles like headless chickens bumping in to each other, a sort of survival of the fittest, or survival of the fattest with all the little skinny people lying around in the road and the fatties bouncing around taking everyone out, strangely everyone seemed to cope fine. There was an air about St Petes, I can't say exactly what it was but everything just seemed more relaxed and laid back, it reminded me of Sanfrancisco only without everyone saying "hi how are you" every few seconds and less seals. We got to the meeting point for our tour at the side of a canal, there we met two sweet, pretty American girls who were also waiting, one looked like Salena Gomez, and her older sister looked like the Jewish one out of Glee (I don't watch it - honest) I only remember her cos she's the one I hate the most, our guide was named Vierra she was young and bubbly, and tried to make everything interesting, about ten minutes into the tour the two sweet girls turned into rude b****es, I know this sounds harsh but they really were, Vierra was giving up her time to show us around for free and they spent their whole time questioning everything she said and trying to make her look stupid, every time Vierra stopped they would get out the guide book and read it then cross examine her, while she talked they just wandered off or completely ignored her, then once she had finished, they asked her all the questions she had just answered had they bothered to listen. Over the next three hours we sore all the main attractions, and there where a lot, every corner every alley way had a palace which was strange as there are strictly no queens, in our country these would be main tourist attractions here there where so many, people just walked past and some of the most stunning ones had really mundane purposes like storage or offices, my favourite site was the imposing and extravagant Church of spilled blood,with pink walls and giant brightly coloured onion shaped turrets,i could have just sat and looked at it for hours, maybe if all churches looked like this more people would go, Vierra said that at one time it was used to store potatoes, but i wasn't surprised as they do have a lot of potatoes. We went to a market where I tried a funny looking pickle that tasted a bit like a cucumber it was nice but not nice enough to spend my food budget on, much to the disappointment of the lady on the stall. At the end of the tour we gave Vierra a tip, the two Americans made a big point of how they were giving her a tip and explained to her why they felt they should give that much, it was £1.50 which might get you a mars bar in Moscow if your lucky, I would have gave it back to her and told her to put it towards a nose job but Vierra just smiled and said thank you. After the tour we caught the train to a boot fair, which was about 30 mins out of the city, for the first time this felt like the real Russia without all the tourists, its as if Moscow and St Petersburg are designed to show off Russia with the hope of distracting you with shiny things so that you don't get to see what its really like, it was a lot less showy and glossy the buildings where more run down and the people where dressed a lot more modestly, there where stray dogs wondering around and everyone was shopping or working rather then wandering around looking at things, the boot fair was huge, but there was no order to it, no neat rows, just plastic sheets laid on the mud all over the place that you tried not to stamp over, the stalls had everything from laptops and mobiles to random piles of rubbish that people where rummaging through like crazy as if there was some sort of treasure at the bottom, obviously I jumped in, if there was treasure I was going to find it first. Before leaving England my friend Gemma an expert in her field as a my little pony officialnado had told me that if I sore a my little pony in Russia I should get it and post it back as there where a lot of people who would pay hundreds of pounds for the Russian ones as they were rare, would you believe it amongst all the rubbish, there looking back at me was a my little pony, happy days my luck was in! I used my best Russian to aquire my treasure, but Steve was not feeling the bootfair, and was not impressed with my treasure, he seemed to be a bit too mad about me buying stuff and so thinking he needed to chill out, I started hunting and rummaging harder, I would find the worst tat I could then pretend I was considering it, mulling it over thinking about how I was going to fit it in my already full rucksack, all the time I could see him getting more wound up but it was too easy and I was having fun, waiting for him to flip, he never did but it was fun trying, i had already figured out exactly how i would spend my £200. After we went to a restaraunt called Zoom, outside it was decorated in loads of plants in pots all different shapes and sizes, inside it had all random stuff like books, games and teddies for you to play with while you ate, the placemats were large blank pieces of paper, and you were given pencils to draw and colour in while you waited for your food, I drew a masterpiece of Steve in St Petes, I thought this was a great idea, maybe we should have done this at the restaurant I worked at to distract people from the fact that the food took so long, we might have needed a bit more paper though. Everyone here seems so laid back I'm wondering if they put something in the brownies. Got an email from Gemma my pony was a fake, damn it, I hate it when Steve's right, still I had fun playing with it and gave it some Pinacalada at the restaurant and a bit of my mash as a kind of last supper.