Jet Lag and other marvels of modern transport

After a trip to the states for the wedding we find ourselves re-adjusting to 8 time zone jet lag one more time, but a great advantage to August in St Petersburg is that we are starting to see darkness again as the daylight is now barely 16 hours a day and getting shorter by over 5 minutes a day. This in comparison to June when we had 19 hours of daylight and the remainder of the day was duskish. The city really is beautiful in darkness. Nikki and I recently ventured out to see a famed summer tradition in St Petersburg, that being the nightly opening of the bridges to allow the big commercial ships to travel the Neva River unhindered by the city's bridges. I had seen this a couple of times earlier in the summer but I had always neglected to bring the camera, this was Nikki's first excursion to see the bridges open. They don't open until about 1:30 AM.

The sky was clear and the night was beautiful, notice we are back into wearing fleeces and long sleeves here in the Venice of the North.

We picked a spot with a good view of two of the cities bridges and many of the famous city sites.

We actually closed the outdoor bar/ boat deck that we were sitting at, as in it was only us and the bar tender brought us our check without us asking, prior to us finishing our beer, which for here is very abnormal. However the security guard allowed us to stay on the deck until the bridges opened. Somebody grew a little skeptical about these bridges actually opening.

Eventually we were rewarded with the amazing sight of the opening bridges. Notice all the boats watching the opening.

Now of course all the bridges remain open for a few hours every night, making it impossible for citizens and tourists of the city alike to cross into the cities islands or other banks, so of course many stories and family legends involve family members being trapped on one side of the river for a few hours. Most early morning walks or runs through the fields around here reveal young people who have missed the bridges opening sleeping in the park awaiting the bridge closing again to get home.

Regardless every night in the summer there is a little party at the bank of the bridges to celebrate the bridges opening. Notice the crowd behind Nikki, especially the man climbing the statue of the horse, the bridge opening spectators are quite a rowdy crowd.