Fri17Jun16: Brussels - St. Petersburg

Up this morning at 6am, packed and took the 6:30am shuttle to Brussels Airport, checked-in with Brussels Airlines (don't you just love the English corporate names! in a country that officially speaks only French and Flemish?), paid E50 for my bicycle box to be shipped, and went out to the departure gate for a relaxing breakfast.
They began loading our A320 on time, but we sat at the gate for several minutes.  Finally an announcement was made that there was a strike by ground crew that began at 6am that morning, NONE of our checked baggage was on the aircraft, and we now had to wait to be pushed away from the gate before the crew could start the engines.  Turns out that this airline charges for everything - water, snacks, beer, soft drinks, chocolate bars, etc. - but at least the crew was friendly.

We arrived 30 minutes late in St. Petersburg and were told that everybody had to register their checked-in baggage as LOST LUGGAGE and fill out the usual forms.  Turns out that the usual forms were one form for each bag - both carry-on (we had 2!) and checked (we had 2!) - and done in duplicate.  Since there were about 100 other passengers on the same flight similarly affected, and the airport didn't put on any extra staff, we finally filled out the 8 forms and had them stamped in just over 2 hours.
When we entered the Arrivals area, there was no sign board with "Ford" written on it.  A phone call by the girl at the Information desk revealed that our tour company (Budget Travel) had sent the limo driver home after 1-1/2 hours and we would have to get our own taxi into the city.
Just like in any modern city, road traffic in St. Petersburg is quite heavy at 5pm on a Friday afternoon, and then there's the pedestrians leaving their offices and running across the street at every break in the traffic.
Our taxi driver reached the Andersen Hotel about 6pm (twelve hours from the Novotel Hotel in Brussels to the Andersen Hotel in St. Petersburg, and only 2-1/2 hours of that actually in the air).  The taxi driver wanted to be paid, so I hope we can get reimbursed from Marina at Budget Travel, otherwise we've paid twice for the same trip. Supper in the hotel restaurant, 650rp (CDN$13) for a decent buffet meal, the room made lively by a bus group of teenage students on a field trip.

After supper we went out for a walk around the neighbourhood, found a 'bottle shop' for Mariposa Syrah 2014 (Chilean) wine, and a grocery store for a 2L bottle of water (tap water is not recommended in Russia because of the old pipes).  Then we went for a longer walk to find the Metro station, got turned around with the crazy street system, went further than expected in our search, but made it back to the hotel a bit wiser.