Watch out Russia, Here We Come: World Cup 2018 Russia

Watch out Russia, Here We Come

The alarm woke us at 3:30am and within 30 minutes we were checked-out of our hotel and half-way across the road to the departure lounge ready to start the 1st leg of what would be a 24-hour journey to the Northern hemisphere. Check-in was smooth and efficient and before we knew it we were boarding the A380 aircraft and settling down for the 14-hour journey to Dubai. 

I love planes and flying, there is always a frisson of excitement and adventure whenever I get to do it and as far as I am concerned the longer the flight the better, although Fiona disagrees. This time I plugged in my noise canceling headphone, shut out the drone of the engines and the snoring of nearby passengers and managed to watch 5 movies and grab a few minutes of shut-eye before we arrived at our roasting-hot connection in Dubai. Our boarding time for St. Petersburg was less than 2 hours so by the time we had gone through security again and found the gate, we really only had just about enough time to check our  Facebook & Instagram before boarding started all over again. The half-empty flight to St. Petersburg was a leisurely 6 hours jump, (only 1 movie this time), Fiona got a whole row of seats to sleep in and I managed to get a couple of hours sleep before we were touching down in the Russian Federation for the first time ever. 

Everything went like clockwork again, straight through immigration with no issues at all and just a short wait outside the airport for a free shuttle to take us to our hotel for the evening. We were so tired and jet-lagged, our bodies felt like it was the middle of the night but it was only early evening, we only had time for a quick cup-of-tea before we both fell into a deep sleep for about 12 hours.

We awoke somewhat refreshed and had a leisurely breakfast before we got back on the shuttle to the airport where we would be meeting Yates off of his flight from Zurich. He arrived on time and was soon through immigration & customs, he found us easily in the terminal, and within an hour we were in an Uber heading into the heart of St. Petersburg. Everything had been going so well to this point....., what could possibly go go wrong..?

Firstly, I had the wrong address for our AirBnB apartment and got dropped off on a nearby street but just not the right one. Fully loaded up with all of our bags, (and remember Yates doesn’t do ‘travelling light’, he has as much baggage for himself as Fiona & I did between us), we wandered aimlessly up and down the street trying in vain to find the entrance to an apartment building that wasn’t there.  Phones out, Google maps open, checking email, once, twice, and the AirBnB app, and finally, I see my mistake and we have drag our increasingly heavy baggage around the block to the correct street and find the missing doorway.... Phew..., found it. We get to the 5th floor and knock on what I think is the right door, no answer.... I check again and see I am knocking on the wrong door, and start knocking on the right door,... still no answer...!! We pressed bells, knocked loudly, looked for keys under mats, still nothing. Phones out again, this time to call the hosts contact number, no answer.... 

For about 45 minutes we were sitting forlornly at the top of a stairway, the faint whiff of cat piss lingering in the air, wondering if we were going to have to sleep there for the night. Yates finally had enough and contacted AirBnB directly who told us to go to a local coffee shop for an hour while they chased the host down to get us into the apartment.  "Sod the coffee" I went straight for a beer while we waited around the corner in the quaintly named "Clean Plates Society" cafe, having stilted conversations with a CSR on a different continent, who finally managed to contact someone who could only speak Russian and then had to find someone to translate. By the time it was sorted out I was both struggling with my jet-lagged and slightly pissed mind as we made it into the apartment, only to find that the cleaner was there and would need 3 hours to prepare the place for us... Grrrrr..... Well, at least we could drop our bags off and head around the corner to a craft beer bar and enjoy a few more beers while we waited....  7 hours later than expected, we finally took up residence in our 5th-floor apartment in the historic centre of St. Petersburg.... It had been a very long and tiring day....

Now there is something I need to warn people about who may find themselves in St. Petersburg in early summer, the sun doesn’t set until around 10:30pm and even at that time, it is not what you would call ‘dark’. However, that’s not what I am warning you about, the warning is that the sun rises at about 3:30am, and when I say rises, it comes up like a rocket and is as bright as midday by 4:00am... We awoke the next morning to bright sunshine in a clear blue sky streaming through our curtain-less windows, (huh?), thinking it must be at least 10:00am only to find it was only 4:00am. Luckily we still had our eye masks from our recent flights which we hastily put on, but even so, it was hard to get back to sleep. Even now, a week later, it has been hard not to wake up ridiculously early, which was not helped by our massive jet lag.... Oh well, first world problems I suppose...

Since we arrived we have been finding our feet in St. Petersburg which is a remarkably beautiful and strikingly cosmopolitan city, the equal of London, Rome or Paris, with a cool vibe and a growing buzz of excitement around the start of the World Cup. Staying in the city over a week before our first live game has given us some time to first overcome the jet lag, but also to get our bearing and to see some of what this great city has to offer. If you like stunning imperial 18th century architecture, a palace on every corner, heaps of world-class museums and charming tree-lined streets leading to large open squares or parks, or stumbling across the occasion canal, then St. Petersburg is the place for you.  We have visited many of the recommended tourist sites, done a guided canal trip around the city, visited the world famous State Hermitage Museum, and found some great restaurants, (Russian, Indian, Irish, Georgian & Uzbek, American, so far), and a oddly large number of craft beer bars....

This has been over 3 years in the making to get to this point and we can’t wait for the World Cup to kick off tomorrow. We have a table booked at a favourite bar to watch the opening game between Russia & Saudi Arabia and on Friday we are off to see our first live game of this tournament, the ‘high voltage and potentially electrifying’ fixture between Iran and Morocco at the St. Petersburg Stadium. If you find yourself watching this game keep an eye out for us, we will be the only ones waving the New Zealand flag...