[Julia]

Well, I am still rather :googly: but since the bathroom is occupied anyway (damn sis ) I have some time to start writing. Hope I’ll have enough patience to finish this saga too Besides, now I only have two days for writing my diploma… but I still would like to write abt the trip as long as my memories are still fresh We’ll see if I am able to do it…

 

[Julia]

Leaving Moscow.

It was a tour organized by Loko supporters’ club so a usual train to St.Pete had several vans (6-7 I guess) full of Loko fans. Some fans also bought tickets for the same train on their own. As usual, I came very late to the railway station but fortunately my friends reserved a seat for me too so we could be together . It was great there in the van cos red-green scarves were hanging everywhere and such We had security guards in every van too, and ours was the nicest :star:. If I had to stand in a line waiting for something he always told to the guys who were before me to let me go first :happy:. And he ignored all the alcohol storage we had there too :howler:. We started… err… partying… just when the train started so by night everybody was pretty much drunk :rollani:. (I wasn’t :nono::stuckup:). A couple of hours after the train started, guys from Loko-TV came to our van with their camera. They made some videos there and also made a video of the scarf our ‘neighbours’ had on their window. It was a really :heart: scarf btw, the first original ‘summer’ scarf I really liked and I even decided to buy it . Here it is btw:

 

[Julia]

Then these guys noticed the way my flag was hanging

(smth like this: )

 

[Julia]

They liked it and asked me to put it away and then to hang it there the same way again while they were making the video of it :scared: By the way, in my compartment I met a man who once explained me all rules about going to the stadium and such when I was going to the first match in my life and asked for help on Loko guestbook :happy:. We’ve been talking almost all night long :howler: I also met some other people who I knew from the Internet there, was great to see them all again .
Also, everybody was given a red T-Shirt with "0/04/2005 Loko on Tour" (see my avatar) written on it roud:.

So, the night was great but the morning was horrible :skull:. Firstly, because we only slept for 1-2 hours, and secondly, cos everybody there had different kinds of alcohol (beer, vodka+orange juice, vodka+tomato juice, “pertsovka” - vodka infused on red pepper or such etc) and most people ended up consuming it all in random order :howler:. So even I had headache in the morning, which happens very rarely . Can’t imagine what others felt like… Anyway, I got over it pretty quickly but still looked completely :googly: when we arrived to St.Pete.
At about 7am we were standing there at the railway station, enjoying St.Pete's rain... and not having a clue where to go and how to kill time :howler:.

to be continued :shades:

 

[Julia]

Part 2: First hours in St.Pete (told ya it’d be a saga :howler: )

It was the first time I was in St.Pete and I had only vague idea of what could be of any interest there. I was rather enthusiastic at first but all my enthusiasm got lost when we got so cold that we only could run into the railway station and really had no wish to go outside anymore :howler:. Judging by the weather there, we weren’t any welcome there . anyway, it would be really stupid to just sit there… Besides, one of the girls who were with me, wanted to take a pic near the Hermitage :rollani:. So we planned to find a café to have a bite first, then to find the Hermitage and then to go to the stadium. Unfortunately, all plans went to hell when the girls decided to have a beer :rollani::wallbang:. I still couldn’t stand the smell of it so I just stood at the stall waiting for them. A guy came up to me asking if I was from Moscow (I had my scarf on). I said yes. It turned out to be a CSKA fan from Moscow region who came to St.Pete with friends to spend a weekend there. Then his friend came to us… and my girls too. Very unluckily the girls liked them :wallbang::scared: I didn’t give a damn about these guys so I just let them talk. It was about 8am. And just imagine, they were drinking that damn beer one bottle after another till 11am! Pretty soon I got totally cold and forced them to go into the railway station at least. Of course I didn’t like all this shit at all and did my best to finally make them go. If I only knew it’d happen this way, I’d have told the guy to **** off the first moment I saw him :wallbang:. I even left them and went to the shops in the railway station :rollani:. The bookshop is just :thmbup: btw. It’s sooo warm there . I even bought a city plan and a couple of postcards… And when I came back to those drunkards I saw a horrible picture :rollani: One of girls let a bottle fall and they were standing almost in a pool of beer :howler:. I really couldn’t keep myself from shouting at them then. Like “What the hell are you idiots doing, ‘the most intelligent and well-bred fans’ FFS!!” (these ******************** had scarves on too so I can imagine what people there were thinking :wallbang::depress: ). At that moment I really was going to leave them drinking there and to go to the city on my own. For the first time in my life I regretted I knew nobody in St.Pete :howler:. Anyway, my shouting was pretty effective since they started begging me to forgive them and swore they were drinking the last bottles. And then finally we left :rollani:.

 

[Julia]

Part 3: Zenit fans before the game.

When we were leaving the railway station we came across a group of girls maybe 2-3 years younger than me. One of them noticed our scarves and as I was walking by her I heard her say ‘look, Loko fans here! Let’s beat them!’ :rollani:. But the reaction she got was ‘eh? What? Who? Where?’ so by the time she explained what she meant we went away :howler: Those girls really should be more organized if they dream of hools carriere :dielaugh: . Actually, it was the only time when Zenit fans were hostile towards us. Other fans we met reacted in an opposite way. They said hi or such… and when we were looking for a McD and asked smb at the bus stop about it, one guy came up to us, he thought we were trying to find the way to the stadium and told us what bus to take. His scarf was a bit unusual though, so I looked at it longer than usual . He noticed it and laughed ‘Ha, scared? Don’t be ’. Nice guy :thmbup:. Twice cops asked us to put away the scarves… but we never did :stuckup: Although I did feel :nervous: when we came closer to the stadium . (But it’ll follow a bit later, after I am finished with the part about our walk around St.Pete ).

 

[Kostja]

(trying to throw away the nostalgie) Ah, this reminds me of my University years and lengthy voyages to Kyiv (and not only Kyiv) football clashes... roud: Proceed, Julja, proceed...

 

[Julia]

Proceed, Julja, proceed...

damn, you just chased away my inspiration! :wallbang:

 

[Julia]

Walking around St.Pete.

So, when we were at McD’s I examined the city plan I had bought and found where the Hermitage was… It was rather close to where we were but it was too damn cold to walk there. Fortunately, I noticed a bus that could bring us to the Hermitage :shades:. By the way, streets in St.Pete (well, at least Nevski prospect and the center ) are so clean compared to Moscow streets But also so empty… It was Saturday but in some places we could hardly see a person walking on the street It felt so weird, with almost the same shop windows and billboards as in Moscow but with so few cars and people in the streets…
Anyway, we got out of the bus a bit sooner, before it came to the Hermitage, b/c we wanted to take a few pics on Dvortsovaya Square too. The pictures aren’t good though, because as I said, the weather was really shitty. It was so cloudy that I only saw the sun again when I got up this morning… I am serious . So all pics are rather obsure .
Here’s Dvortsovaya Square anyway:

 

[Julia]

then the girls noticed some carriages nearby and wanted to take pics at them :rollani:. I won't post this pic here but you can see it here if you want. And if somebody can tell me what these carriages are for, I'll be very grateful Cos I am still racking my brain about it :howler:

PS. Let me know if the link works or not cos all I can see is 'powered by...'. But it must be my firewall...

 

[ginger_ale]

better like this
:shades:

 

[Julia]

it'll be the same if i dont add any pics there p

 

[Julia]

Then, after we walked for 30 meters, girls became thirsty again and got some more beer :wallbang:. I was ready to kill them… They didn’t want to drink their beer walking so we found some benches to put our stuff on and stood there (again, it’s was too cold to sit and it started raining every 5 mins :wallbang: ). Actually I don’t regret it cos some funny things happened when we were there at those benches. A dog came running to us, it was such a nice dog… and we gave him the grilled chicken we had left. And took a picture with him too :howler:
We also took pics with some Piter cops :howler: They were so funny :thmbup: All the time we sat there, they kept walking around and in the end we started talking. So now I have a pic with 4 Piter cops, the 5th was taking the picture roud::howler:

 

[ginger_ale]

the 5th was taking the picture roud::howler:

what are u proud of? :howler:

 

[Julia]

lol the roud: smiley was about having a picture... terribly worded again :howler:

 

[ginger_ale]

ah, alrightie then I just thought u are proud for Piter having such clever cops so they are even able to take a pic

 

[Julia]

:dielaugh::dielaugh: but come on, they do have clever enough cops then :howler:

 

[ginger_ale]

u think 1 is enough for the whole Piter? :lala: Как в том анекдоте про лампочку

 

[Julia]

well if they seldom take pics with people who come to Piter, then 1 is enough

and enough flood :nono:

 

[ginger_ale]

okay, go on with writing :shades: