Well, all has gone smoothly so far. That is, all the flights and blah blah were just fine, tho tiring. It was nice to be called "Monsieur" by the French airlines folks, and I even tried a bit of my highschool French in return.
So far St. Petersburg is . . . well, dreary, poor, faded. . . kind of reminds me of India in some ways: lots of folks trying to 
be hip with ten-year-old styles, a little bit gangster, and lots and lots of peasants everywhere. There is also a similarity of beauracracy, even with computers things seem to involve a lot of time, lines, and paper. But I am just getting used to things, so I will see more of the history after I finally crash and sleep. I think that I am 8 hours ahead of Hamp.
In any case, it has been a long trip. . . strangely, the flight being only 6 hours to Paris meant that I arrived in Paris at 6 am, so I didn't really have a chance to sleep, and then it was the flight to Russia for only 3 hours and so I still haven't been able to sleep. Somehow I am used to 13 hour flights that I can get some sleep on. Soon, soon. . .
My hotel is not too bad for $150/night-- very conveniently located near a subway stop, a few local shops to buy bread, meats, cheese, vodka, beer. . . and my room overlooks the Neva River, which is nice.
OK, enough for the moment. I am here and safe and so far all the travel arrangements have been working just fine, so hopefully the other plane and train tickets will also be OK.
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