только в России

My room mate Jeroen read in a book on St. Petersburg a sentence that went something like…you might not see something special every day in St. Petersburg but you will always be astonished about something!

Even though I think there are plenty of special things to see in the city, the latter part of that sentence is definitely true. Every time one of us comes back from the city centre, there’s always a funny story to tell!! “Danny, guess what happened to me today?!”

An example? Yesterday, Nikos and Anna went by the bookstore to return a book that they took by mistake. No books can be returned according to the bookstore’s policy, but for foreigners they can make an exception…

They had to follow one of the employees up the stairs until they got into a small office where they were asked to fill in 3 forms including passport details!! Half an hour later, a reluctant employee would give them the money back!

Something of continuous amazement for all of us is also the parking skills, or to be more exact…what Russians consider a parking spot. Even though there are designated areas for car parking throughout the city, it seems like Russians will park their vehicle wherever there’s an empty space! Whether that is in the middle of the road, on the pavement right in front the entrance of a building or on a path leading to a park…it’s all good!

We’ve also witnessed in astonishment how Russians call the attention of employees when they’re in need of something. They would just yell: Devushkaa!! without any hesitation from the one end of the establishment to the other!! To which once Jeroen actually saw an employee standing up for herself replying “Shtoo!!?” (means: what?!)