I’ve spent my vacaion in the most beautiful and cultural center of Russia – the city of famous Peter the Great, Saint-Petersburg. I met a lot of interesting people, got many useful contacts and met my internet friends, people whom I’ve never seen before (admit, that’s emotional).
Well, my vacation concured with the Victory Day, and famous May holidays, when people get a lot of weekends and try to spend their time with travels. Saint-Petersburg was full of those people. Just overcrowded. So, 2 weeks before weekends there were no any cheap hotels, and I was looking for apartment to rent.
I used to rent apartment for this city with the help of “V Pitere“, and I’m a patron already. But this time I was informed about no free apartment.
I started googling, and contacted to many different services that help to rent hotels\apartment. Such as Victory Day was coming, prices rised up, so the chipest hotel room was available for $230. That was not my choice.
“Hotel Expert” company showed enthusiasm to help me with my situation. And that was useful experience.
1. I was needed to define, are they true, or this is fake company (withdraw my money and disappear), such as post-soviet countries are famous for their tricks with money.
I was digging the Internet to find any good and bad testimonials on different forums, blogs and news comments. 95%/5% that was my conclusion for “good/bad” and I asked to give me a voucher for paying a deposit.
2. I live in Ukraine, and try to make a diposit for a russian company’s service. That means that I need to pay a diposit through the voucher. But I spent one more day to figure out that russian voucher is not acceptable for ukrainian banks. There were no some special digits, so I tried to ask for visa-payment.
3. Yes, they agreed to pay with my card. But the process took 2 more days to create account and approve the payment. Not convenient, but it works.
You know, I’d like to give you some tips about how to get to your apartment in russian city.
1. Call to the company after you arrived. That will make easier for you to find them, such as website address is not correct sometimes. (in my case, 2 of 3 offices worked). Ask them, how to get to their office, such as there can be additional locks on the doors. Ask them door’s code, if needed.
2. Tell your story about who you are and do not hesitate to insist upon helping you: it is strange, but sometimes they are just lazy to work or to find needed information.
3. There are two ways, how to get to your apartment:
a) Get keys in the office, get master-key for arch\entrance door locks (old city is famous for its buildings with archs), ask the number of arch\entrance;
b) you will be met by the chambermaid. But this case is not so easy: ask about where will the chambermaid wait for you, ask cell-phone number of chambermaid (just for case, when you can be lost), and ask our rent service codes (digits) for arch\entrance door locks (such as you will be needed to get to a building).
***
Quite convinient for me was using metro tokens for calling from telephone booth on the metro station.
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If you need to buy a SIM-card, an you are international tourist, be ready to have troubles. You need to be registered in this country to buy a sim-card for a cell-phone, otherwise you’ll be turned down.
Use metro to be sure that you’ll be in time in the certain place: traffic-jams are essential for city life.
General opinion about city: great, great place to refresh your brains, meet a lot of interesting people, visit museums, historical places, submerge into the history of 300 years old russian window to the Europe.
I have been to Saint-Petersburg up to 10 times, and I will go there more and more. That is real city with intelligent people, that I really like.
Hello, everyone, especially those, who have never been to the Kingdom of Netherlands.
This is my first post in the fresh and light blog, and it will be about my mentality breakdown in a new country, the Netherlands. Do not pay attention on my school English, it’ll be fixed with the lapse of time and everyday practice.
I have already been working for 2 years as a Technical Writer for my company, called “Componence“, and finally, I’ve got a chance to visit our head office in the Netherlands, and go high of the new culture, technologies and European style of attitude to work.
You can read thousands of reviews about Netherlands, millions about Amsterdam, Internet is full of that.
I do not speak for everybody from Ukraine or ex-USSR country citizens, I just want to share with my own observations during business-trip to the modern kingdom.
As for me, I recognized some interesting differences between the Netherlands and Ukraine:
- people
- city
- transportation
- food
People
I’m not a big fan of history and old places to visit, so when I arrived to International Airport of Schiphol, my first question was “How to get to the center of Amsterdam”, where a lot of people from another countries could hang out. I stopped two guys, walking by the sidewalk:
“Excuse me, guys, are you local ?”
My assumption was valid:
“Yes, how can we help you ?”
“I need to get to a center, Dam Square. Where do I need to head on ?” , – I read about that square, so I wanted to get there first. Moving from center is always easer for me to navigate through the unknown city.
“It depends on next: how do you want to get there ?”
“By feet”
“No, no man, it can take up to 2 hours by feet. It’s better to catсh the train. You need to go…”
I was standing there and thinking about so many things at that moment:
- random guys speak English great;
- they gladly explain me they way, and I really can rely on that (I confirmed that later);
- they are not lazy to explain me something in details (in my opinion, taking into account, that Amsterdam is full of tourists, aboriginals can get tired of frequent asks to help);
And the last scream:
“Have a good day, man. Enjoy our city!”
Wow. What a great attitude !
***
I was wondering all the time:
- “Hello” sounds every time you enter a store, cash-desk or just, museums, etc.;
- Salespeople say “Thank you”, when you give them money. Isn’t it strange and pleasant ?
- You can often hear “Have you good evening” after any conversation.
- People are polite and patient, even if you feel that here’s a moment to fly into a rage.
City
- I have never been asked “Will you buy it, or you just wasting my time ?”
- I have never been asked to make no shots in the museum\store\street\station.
- There are many signs on the streets to navigate the city fast
- Well, if you want to smoke – you are welcome: cigarettes cost just 4 euros )). That’s nice, as for me: less people are willing to buy poison.
Well, there were annoying facts too:
- Stores work mainly from 10.00 to 18.00, and one day a week – till 21.00. As I understand, that can produce more time for private life and bring up children, making sports or just have no feeling that all your time belongs to your work. But you need to buy something after working day – you will be frustrated. Well, “Albert Heijn” supermarket works till 21.00 every day, that rejoiced my hearts (read “stomach”).
- You cannot drink beer outside. So I was needed to hide a bottle in a paper bag. But I have heard that even this trick is not allowed.
- I have found a special place in the train station of Utrecht city, where ladies can use curler (is already there) to prepare their hair just in the hall of the station.
- And , of course, it is clean everywhere.
Transportation
Yes, they use bicycle a lot. May be that’s why I have seen so many slim girls. In cities, there are special roads for those who ride a bicycle. If a street is mainly for pedestrians (no cars), road for bicycles is made in the center of the street, sidewalks are at the sides.
It is pretty convenient, that trains, trams, buses works in time: if information table displays arrival time “15-43″, the train will come in 15-43. If bus departs at 20-15, driver will not wait for 2 additional minutes, such as the schedule is sharp.
Trams are fast (up to 90 km\hour), and it is common to travel through towns by tram. Yes, tickets are pretty expensive, so be sure you have got enough money to pay the fare. The Netherlands are divided into zones. To travel through zones by tram, you need to be “strippen-kard“, and stamp several stripes for a zone in a special device, that you can find in every carriage.
Take a look at the picture: have you ever seen so many “Stop” buttons in a tram?
***
Interesting accident occured, while I was waiting my bus departure. I set in the end of the bus, and there were some guys more, sitting next to me. Everything was fine, but the bus-driver was louding all the time to a speaker something about comfort and troubles. I didn’t pay attention on that, untill my neigbor stand up and get off the bus.
After he has left, bus driver apologised for this man, and explained that he couldn’t sacrifice to passengers’ comfort: bus cannot be packed with people, sitting all squashed. Can you imagine? Just 1 superfluous person, and there is a conflict.
One more interesting advantage: autobahn is equipped with noise insulating fence. Isn’t it a caring for people ?
Food
I was lost in the marked, so I bought everything randomly. Grocery store is full of delicious and fresh food: candies, cheese, fresh smelling bread, baked right in the store, fish, meat, beer, wine, peeled potatos.
I have not seen overdue products. May be I am lucky ?
As you see – there’s no any description about tulips, legalized drugs and sexual culture. I just can tell you, that there are a lot of rumours about it, distorted gossips. If you want to know, what it is, – there is no another way except doing it yourself: visit the Netherlands and extend your vision.
