Day 12: The night in St. Petersburg was an extraordinary one. As we had our dinner with two other teams, we went to explore the city with them. Already after midnigh, temperature still was an enjoyable 25°C outside. We decided to jump onto a boat taking us along the St. Petersburg channels. At the beginning of the ride we passed impressive buildings and got to see the maneuvering skills of the captain of our boat (actually managing to scrape two bridge pylons). Upon arrival at the Neva River we were welcomed by a magical view of more grand buildings, all river-crossing bridges open and an armada of vessels on the water. Some of those set up as party boats, all of them with score of people on deck. On the shorelines big crowds too, enjoying the night with a joyful atmosphere in the air everywhere. The experience continued after the boat tour, with drinks and people-watching (read: high heel watching) on a bar terrace along one of St. Peterburg’s main streets. As we enjoyed our blue wodka, cherry martini and Guinness, at one point an open rooftop Toyota came racing by with a giant penguin sticking out from the car. This city truly is a remarkable place, even at 3 o’clock in the morning! On the way back to the hostel at 4, we bumped into some other rally folks who were heading to a karaoke bar. Sounded like fun, but we were keen on making our way back to the hostel for a few hours of sleep and then an early morning walk. Shortly after getting the wake-up call from one of our mobile phones, we discovered an awful truth: it was not set correctly to run on Moscow time. Gone morning walk. So instead we packed our stuff, did our trading challenge with the hostel staff and had just a short walk to buy postcards and stamps before heading out to Tallinn via Ivangorod. The ride was quite smooth and we hit the border soon. As we were allowed through on the Russian side, a thunderstorm hit the area. Later we would learn that lightning actually struck and caused a complete computer outage at the Russian border control station, resulting in a 4-hour lockdown and equally long waiting delays for the teams that tried to cross into Estonia just behind us. We got really lucky there! After throwing in extra detours to avoid the highways, we made it to the destination of the day: Glehni Loss, a small castle south of Tallinn, where we were welcomed by the cheerful organizing team. After taking the required team photos in front of the castle, we joined a bunch of other rally folks on the camping ground nearby. After the first reunion at Lofoten, this would be the second official opportunity to chat away with the other teams over some drinks and food and we were quite looking forward to that. -Faris
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 16:00:01 +0000
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