saint petersburg.

i am in saint petersburg now, i arrived last night, or early this morning, from moscow...so where did i leave this? probably in nizhny novgorod, with A and her cool adventure travel friends...on my last day there i got to take a boat on the volga to a village just across on the other bank, then ate more croissants and met up with A and S for a very trendy russian thing: sushi! we had sushi and then played bowling, it was fun! then i ran to the train station and spent yet another night on the train...to kazan this time. i got there super early in the morning, luckily my host A was there...i am so lucky! i managed to take a nap at her apartment before heading into town, accompanied by her...yes, she was my tour guide for my entire stay, how nice!!! so i visited 3-4 mosques there, also got a little book from an eminent person in one of the mosques, there's even a picture of him and khatami in the book he gave me! kazan is very modern thanks to all the new buildings that were built in 2005 to commemorate 1000 years of independence from russia...yes, because that is tatarstam, different language and they also have their own flag, which sadly reminds me of Berlusconi's Forza Italia (political party)'s one...i also tried some of the regional specialties as far as food, more fried stuff for me! the caucasian people at the market were calling me by the names of the national team football players, they (the caucasians) seemed friendlier than most russians i've met on this trip...hehe so yeah why are all the whites called caucasians when we have to fill out forms and stuff? apparently it's the fault of this german doctor who went to the caucasus region and found the men there to be in perfect health and to represent the standards that he was looking for...but it's ironic because they are not white! oh well...
after kazan i spent one day in moscow, wonderful T showed me around, victory park was really nice, and st basil's is always the shit...then my mood got buried underground when we got stopped and checked by police and since i don't have a visa registration i was fined...thanks to her "we could" bribe him to not write a report and pay HIM 1000 rubles (35-40$) instead of the official ticket, which is 3000rub...so you can imagine how happy i was!!!
now i better go because the time at the cafe is over, i found this computer on, somebody forgot their credit on this machine, can't complain! they also have a megascreen with the world cup on, so i switch between internet and football, how wonderful!!!
i arrived here in st petersburg and my host T is awesome, she came to get me at 4.35!!! we had chai at her house, and then i took a super long nap...then i started walking around on my own...st petersburg (SP) is really nice and very scandinavian-looking-like, less impressive than the center of moscow but it seems more relaxed...although most russians i ask things to really do not give a shit...it's been a constant on this trip, i have to admit it...i don't know why, but that's how things are...not only could they care less that they do not speak a word of english, but they seem like they couldn't care less about anything but their lives...oh well, who can blame them i guess? sadly that's been my experience with russians on the street...
ok i better go for real now, onto mexico-iran, or at least a little bit (1st half for sure) because then i am headed to T's house and hopefully i will get to cook something...i am starving!!!