New Complaints!!!!

Alright folks,
I thought that now that Spring is here, my incessant complaints would finally cease, but no such luck. I was going to write about my London trip, but it was actually kind of boring. However, since I promised, Here are the only two things worth noting about London:

1. The British people are afraid of school children. Apparently British school children are like one of the Biblical plagues when it comes to shoplifting. And here is the adults' way of dealing with it:

People, they just banned a whole shitload of customers from coming in to their store. Mind you they don't say "Only two school children allowed in the shop at a time." No, they say "Only two school children allowed." Which two school children are they referring to? And that's why they managed to have, and hold onto, a huge empire for so many years. Cause they know hot to get shit done!

2. All I could think when I was served this for breakfast was "I wonder if it was the British that taught the Mexicans to eat beans with every meal, or if it was the Mexicans that taught the British?" Either way, this was so disgusting that I had to debate whether I should eat it or regurgitate what I had eaten the day before on top of it. I doubt it would have made much of a difference:

And that's all I'm going to say about England.

Now, onto what's really important, the weather. Here are some pictures of Saint Petersburg winter, just so we are clear on the climate here.
So these were taken at the end of February:



This was taken at the end of April:

I went to London right after snapping this shot, where it was SPRING. But as far as Saint Petersburg is concerned, it's still fucking winter and it's perfectly ok to snow it's ass off.

But then finally, at long last, Spring began in good old St. Pete's:

I hadn't seen the color green in so long, I forgot what it looked like. Also, at long last, the ever-elusive sun:

Ok, so Spring is finally here. Great! Now please take a close look at the two following pictures of the Fontanka:
1. So it looks pretty warm. Please note what the woman is wearing. Short sleeved shirt. Clear skies, lovely warm Spring day.

2. And then I literally turn around and take a picture of the opposite direction:

What the fuck!??? Maximize this picture and take a look at what the two dudes are wearing. Jackets. Because Saint Petersburg exists in the Fifth Dimension of the Twilight Zone where two entirely different weather fronts can exist in the exact same space. I was literally standing in one spot and just took a picture of each direction. I swear to god I didn't photoshop the actual pictures. What the hell is this? Wizardry?

Ok, and now I'd like to seriously discuss something that's been driving me batshit crazy over here. See, people here walk everywhere. Because the subway stops are far and few inbetween, most people just hoof it. So naturally, when they tell you that something is just a short walk from your house, it's actually a good 30 to 40 minute walk. Again, reminder, I live in the Twilight Zone where time, apparently, speeds up and slows down depending on how long you've lived here for.

Recently, I was invited somewhere and told that it was literally on the next street over from my place. So I decided to go. I was tired after working all day and wasn't up for a "short" walk. I made the inviter swear to me that this place was actually near by. After walking for 30 minutes down this street, which actually was one street over, looking for building number 50, and noting that I was finally at building 32, and assuming that I'm close to my destination, I see this bullshit:

What??? The??? Fuck??? 32/11? What is that? And how many more of these are going to pop up before I get to 50? In NYC, they just sort of go 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. There's no fucking fractions involved there. I swear I almost started crying. I was so pissed at my mother by the time I got to the bar that I refused to speak to her for the first 10 minutes.
But I calmed down after a while. Here's a picture of me at the bar, just for posterity's sake:

Yeah, I decided that since I already live in a place where time and space don't matter, I'm going to live in 1976.

Another thing that I've discovered with the advent of warmer weather, is this lovely playground right underneath my window, where children like to hang out and scream as loud as they can when I'm trying to sleep on the weekends.

And I thought that I was over my whole child-hating phase...
I'm going to start throwing garbage down on them if they keep interrupting my sleep. Because I AM that kind of person.

One last thing. If you are planning to come here during the summer, be ready to see a lot of this all around the city:

The winters are so rough here, that every single summer, they dig up all the streets in the city to "fix" the pipes, and everyone has to learn how to not get their heels stuck in these little "bridges". I think they do it just to make the "short" walks even more "fun".