Well the day finally came, I didn’t bottle it at the airport, and I landed safely in Russia!
I was met by my driver that had been arranged through my hostel, a Buddhist monk named Andrei, who very kindly told me in his broken but good English, about all the buildings and monuments we were passing. I had to laugh as he tried to parallel park his car, he was in and out so much even the guy in the parked car behind had to get out and knock on his window to tell him he was stressing him out the way he was trying to park!
But, I ended up in the right place, and that I was thankful for 🙂
After checking in to my cosy little room overlooking Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, in my eagerness for food I thought I’d take a stroll to a local supermarket. On the way back I saw a stall with an old Russian lady selling cherries. Mmm I thought, fancy a few of those. Momentarily forgetting the currency exchange rate, I handed over what I thought was £3, and pointed at the cherries and said ‘pazhalsta’ (please, phonetically, in Russian).
She scooped with two hands a large amount of cherries into the bag, then another two-handed scoop, and then another huge scooping onto what already looked like hundreds in my bag! I chuckled as I worked out I’d given her £6, and walked away cracking up with an entirely full carrier bag of cherries!
Well, it certainly lightened any tension I was feeling, and walked down the street chuckling away at my ‘cherry faux pas’!
Needless to say, as much as I love cherries, I wont be eating all of them! And anyway it has proved a nice way to talk to people by offering them a cherry or two!
ontheroadwithclaire 
You’re a brave lady, all be it a cherry-laden one. I’m going to enjoy this blog. 🙂 N
Nice to hear…will look forward to your future antics…be safe…x
Lookk forward to the rest of your journey love , those cherries mske me laugh xx
Well done Claire this is the start of a fun filled experience im sure, rather than bringing me back a stick of rock you can bring me back some of them cherries xx
Fabulous – so impressed by your get up and go – not something I could do – looking forward to more blogs Xx
Hi brave a fearless traveller. You made me laugh out loud maybe you could pay for degree in cherries👍. Have fun x
People must have thought I was a loon laughing down the street with a sack of cherries! Certainly lightened the very hectic day I’d had! X
How very amusing about the cherries! At least you won’t get rickets through lack of Vitamin C! Glad to hear you’ve arrived and are already speaking the lingo! James
Well done Claire good luck with your travels we miss you already
NIce one Claire – loving the blog. Keep up the good work and lovely to meet you earlier at Nikita’s.
Oi oi matey I’m reading your blog to boys as bed time stories!! We think it’s wicked n much better than any school book or fairy tale! Loving your wrk girl miss u n looking forward to gd knees up n dance when you get back!
Loves ya babes
tam,wes & harv xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx