Just a note to everyone, we're going to do a blog per place rather than per day and it's written by all of us :)

-----------------------------------------

Arriving and day one:

We boarded our train bound for St. Petersburg and quickly found the Russians don't like the cold! They heat all indoor areas to 30c and never have open windows! This definitely felt like the longest journey for that reason.

The journey was 8 hours, where half way along the Russian boarder control get on board to do all the passport checks (men with guns come and take our passports off us!!). This was a little nerve racking but turned out to be fine.

While on the train we noticed that the couple next to us had a trans Siberian handbook with them. We got chatting and they were from the UK doing the same trip as us. It also turned out they were staying in the same hostel! It was really nice to chat with them, didn't make us feel so mad about what we were doing!

We arrived in St. Petersburg at midnight and had to negotiate the taxi to the hostel. This gave us a real taste of Russia! They are absolutely mental drivers, chain smoking and swerving everywhere! After some confusion finding the hostel we got here about 12.45. Our hostel is basically a three bed apartment packed with bunk beds; ours being for ten people. We had a quick chat with a few room mates and then went to bed. They are strict here on respecting other guests and you are expected to be quiet no matter what time you get in. We are well aware this is a luxury and will not happen often, buts it's lovely for the start of our trip.

After a good (and stationary) nights sleep we headed to the train station to sort our tickets to Moscow. We had been warned this is easier said than done so asked the hostel staff to write what we wanted in Russian. The first ticket operator turned her light off as soon as we got to the front of the queue - obviously break times are taken seriously. After a bit of confusion over payment, we got our tickets.

We spent the rest day walking round the city and went to see the Church on the Spilled Blood. This church was built on the spot that Alexander II was murdered by a terrorist group in 1881. It took 24 years to build and 27 years to restore. It was absolutely amazing to see, we also got to go inside and see all of the paintings and mosaics which had been restored from the originals.

When we got back a few others at the hostel were heading out for a midnight boat ride. At about one in the morning all the bridges open up and everything in the city is lit up. This is something that all the locals come out to watch, bit odd as it's just a bridge opening, but they love it. Like true Brits we wandered around to get the best price! It gave us a chance to see St. Petersburg in the dark. It was absolutely amazing.

The seven of us then boarded and thought we may as well take a few of the blankets on offer...thank god we did, it was freezing! I am not ashamed to say that me (Laura) and the girl I sat with took 3 blankets between us. We had to play dumb and hide one when a member of the crew said it was one each. I should confess there were children in front of us who had to go without. But, like I have said many times, I don't like children that much when I am not in school. To all the mums, don't be horrified - the man went to get more blankets!

The tour turned out to be a real surprise. It sounds cheesy but seeing this amazing and beautiful city lit up with all the lights reflected over the water was magical. I think it's something that words and pictures could never describe. You all need to come and see it for yourselves.

The bridges turned on sparkly lights as they went up and the buildings looked stunning. We ended up getting home at 3am and quickly decided it was one of the most amazing nights.

Day two:

We took a bus tour around the city, it was really lovely to see it in the light. We went to all the major sights and got to learn a bit about the history of the city.

The first place we visited was St. Peter and Paul's fortress. This is the oldest building in St. Petersburg, planned by Peter the Great as a defence against Sweden. It never saw action and was used as a political prison until 1917. It was really nice to have a wander around and see all the old buildings.

We then got back on the bus and saw some more sights. We decided to jump off at St Isaacs cathedral where you can walk up and get views all over the city. The more time you spend here, the more mesmerising it is. Most of the buildings were designed by Italian architects and you can definitely feel their influence.

Once we finished the tour we headed to a Russian restaurant for dinner. We managed to scrape a bit of Russian together to get our dinner and had a lovely meal of (mainly) Russian cuisine.

Day three:

We woke up at 7.30 this morning so we had time pack and get to the train station before we started the day. We successfully bought our tickets between Moscow and Irkutsk which is the first part of our Trans-Siberian experience!

After that we rushed down to the Winter Palace to start our day. Just approaching the palace was stunning, the aquamarine walls and white pillars are trimmed with gold and really are beautiful. We were warned about huge queues but only waited 20 minutes. We decided to get an audio tour which was a phone we dialled codes into to hear info about different exhibits. We are so glad we did as we learnt so much from it. The palace holds the Hermitage, which is Russia's largest museum. It gives you an opportunity to see the inside the palace but mainly contains a history of art from Western Europe. It would take far too long to tell you all we saw but we loved looking at all the art and learning about the artists. Our favourites were Van Gogh and Monet.

We spent 6 hours walking around the palace and it was absolutely amazing. We cant recommend St. Petersburg enough. The whole place is beautiful. As a group Russian people do appear to be rude, but on an individual basis they are all really helpful. We thought the language barrier would be a real problem but its something we don't really notice now. It been really interesting to learn about a different culture, things like blowing your nose loudly in public are considered rude and women should not sit on pavements.

We're leaving to Moscow at midnight tonight on another night train. Will blog again then!