The beds in St. Petersburg

When I am travelling abroad I always try to get into touch with the locals, e.g. by staying at guest houses or homes, rather than staying at international hotel chains. Sometimes it makes the travels more difficult but usually not. In my family we laugh at our vacation in St. Petersburg 2007. We took the train from Helsinki to Russia and then metro/underground to the hostel we were staying at. Of course we didn't understand one word in Russian and nobody at the railway station understood English so it was a little bit difficult finding out which metro train to take into town but finally we found out and got to our hostel. We didn't realize at that time the difference in standards between Russia and Scandinavia. When you are staying at a guest house or hostel in northern Europe it is extremely nice, very clean and well taken care of and you have hot running water and nice beds. The hostel in St. Petersburg was nice and clean with nice staff but we smile when thinking about the beds in our room. My bed and my daughter's bed were so hard (bad) that we had the feeling we didn't sleep one second those four nights or so we were staying in St. Petersburg. :) But the city was beautiful and we met a lot of nice people. I remember especially the nice young guide we had on our sightseeing around town and the woman who shared cabin with us on the way back to Finland. Vacation memories - the most fantastic memories of all!