St. Petersburg, Russia

Heavy rains delayed our departure from Houston by more than 5 hours. I must give kudos to Lufthansa for taking good care of me and my fellow passengers by providing complimentary beverages and sandwiches while we waited in the terminal. Other airlines in the International departure area with similar delays did not provide any amenities and their passengers were very aware of the difference in treatment. We were also provided coupons for a meal in Frankfurt while waiting for our rebooked flights to St. Petersburg. I must also commend Visitrussia.com for their handling of our delay. While rebooking our flight from Frankfurt to St. Petersburg, I called Visitrussia.com's St. Petersburg office to notify them of my change in flights. Previously I had only dealt with their US offices. I was immediately connected with an English speaking representative who instantly found my reservation, took my new arrival time and assured me transportation would be there to meet me. And they were. Even the Lufthansa agent was impressed.

We arrived in St. Petersburg around 11PM at night. One of our bags did not appear on the carousel. Not only did all the other passengers leave but all the airport personnel seemed to have disappeared too. I pushed aside the plastic strips to peer into the baggage loading area I saw nobody! Not a soul. I took a second look to be sure when something caught my eye just below and to my left. There, wedged between the carousel and the floor in the loading area was our errant bag. I had to crawl half way in to extract it but it was there and now it was in my possession. We made our way out of the holding area and found our driver patiently waiting for us. He whisked us to the Peter Palace Hotel where we had a good night's sleep. Our driver, Alexey, and Personal Guide, Natasha, met us the next morning. They would be with us all week. Our adventure was about to begin.