We met up with Riccardo who had just finished his last exam.
Hostel pop life.
I left out most of the cityscape photos because there were many repeated from the last trip here. But there were definitely some new sights because we had a few days as opposed to the 5 hours this time. We heard of a Russian flea market just across the canal. Outside there were tons of fruit stands and flower peddlers. Inside the zeppelin hangars were not dirigibles, as one would expect to find, but hundreds of people buying meats, cheeses and preserves of every variety. The further from the river we went, the more unique some of the wonderful items for sale became. One could find "Guchi" blue jeans, past-date dog food, a left blinker (or right, if upside down) from an old Volga, Red Army hats, track suits in every color and some gold chains to match and pretty much anything one could imagine and still some things from beyond. If ever you were to be missing a button on the zuit suit your "zany" aunt or uncle gave you for high-school graduation, here was the place to find a suitable replacement.
Stalin's layer cake
Our trip coincided with the Baltic-cup final match between the local team Skonso and the opposing team from Kaunas, Lithuania. Bitter cold didn't slow down the action any as there were two red cards and two yellow. Kaunas scored 2 goals before the half and Skonso recieved a penalty kick and shortened their trail. After endless attempts, moments of brilliance and punctuated by incompetance the final whistle blew at 2-1. The crowed dispersed and we headed into a palemeni cafeteria to fill up and warm up.
Before we could go to sleep we had to check out some of the nightlife offered. It lived up to the reputation. Now only if we could figure out how to avoid being arrested in the streets between the bar and the fast food restaurants...
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