"May in St. Petersburg" Saint Petersburg by niamey00

Linda, Janis, and I took a group of 6~8 graders on a CEESA cultural fair trip. To have a real adventure, we decided to take the overnight train from Riga. No one had too much sleep on the way to St. Petersburg....
When we arrived, it was raining, but as the day progressed, it cleared up and we had a beautiful weekend. It was even "hot" enough for the sunbathers to come out. Weren't we lucky?

Coming back on the train, we had some major difficulties. The Russian border guards wouldn't let one of our students out of Russia. According to them, he didn't have the proper stamps, etc. in his passport (lies). So at 4 a.m. in the middle of nowhere, he was physically pulled off the train. The guards spoke only Russian, of course, and when Linda was trying to translate for me what they were saying, they we yealling at her not to.
Luckily, everything turned out OK in the end. Janis grabbed all of his stuff and jumped off the train with the student, his mother drove to the border (5 hours), and met them. She couldn't drive across the border, so they actually had to walk it, like that 80s movie "White Nights."

• Pros:Beautiful city, great museums
• Cons:Overpriced lodging, incredibly rude people, massive red tape to get in or out of country
• In a nutshell:Go somewhere else, the Baltics are great