Dawning of a new acquaintance.

The Hotel Residence enjoys a privileged neighborhood to the north of the city. the area has been smart residential at one time and pockets of order are stained by soviet style blocks of battleship grey laced with streaks of rust and spidering cracks. Walking about the flotsam of architectural fashions give the city a slightly abandoned feel. Rusting sheet metal roofs with their careful creased ridges, such a feature of russian rooftops, are brushed aside by fresh contemporay corrugates elbowing their way to dominance. The houses range from fresh painted Lombardian villas to those squat ‘blockhouses’ beloved of the Austrians – heavy pillars topped to the eaves by dark beams.

Leaving the civility of the hotel I head for the Arc d'Triumph – the heart of Francophile Romania. My snapping draws the attention of a cluster of plain clothes Police who take the opportunity to film me. Resisting the temptation to wave/perform I turn south towards the city centre. Fallen heroes sulk in courtyards and each building competes in grandeur the closer to the epicenter of the '89 revolution. On the eve of accession to the EU, preparations are well underway for public concerts where bullets once flew. Romania's skin may have changed but my first impression is that no particular identity has emerged or indeed ever existed. Chatting to a Roma ship's captain on the plane he explained that his country is a backwash of peoples - Turks, Gypsies and Slavs. The language seems rooted in latin with generous contributions from the Italians, Portuguese, Spanish, Russians and of course the French.

My route runs North to South with some loops to catch the odd church and museum building then a long detour to see the remarkable former abode of Mr Ceaucescau – the Parliament building. En route the streets are clean if in poor repair. That very soviet attention to futile detail abounds – steam ducts painted to look like mushrooms and hopelessly impractical plastic park kiosk-type devices. In the oldest part of the city narrow cobbled streets are pockmarked with gaping holes and ruined buildings. Guttering and wires dangle precariously. Turn a corner and its ‘tres Parisien’ with signposting, boutique shop facades, western banks and car showrooms. Eastern Orthodoxy stands alongside brand new glass and marble edifices, the former enjoying nothing of the popularity of the latter.

Huddles of gypsies selling cheap jumpers, bras and clumps of mistletoe punctuate my passage around the city. They are a very separate people to the other Romanians – men and women are very dark and swarthy. The younger generation are slender but seem to become heavy from their late twenties. Easily menacing eyes follow my passage and I can quite understand why Europeans fear their wider diaspora in Europe. They seem distrustful and one cant help but feel as though you are being priced up. A pretty feral bunch really.

Ample opportunity to study further over a very good lunch in a café in one of the large shopping centres. Having walked the best part of 12km across and around the city, just sitting watching the burble of life is fascinating. Youth is pretty much like youth everywhere. The boys here are modeled on Italians in every sense – more hair gel than sense and vary from the Lebanese to the Turk in appearence. The girls seem particularly subservient to their men and respondent to any whim. Their standard of dark eyes and olive complexions breaks occasionally with the passing flashes of green eyes and an almost Scandinavian complexion.

English is widely spoken – at least there’s the impression that it is well received in school as I have seen none of the usual language school flyers. Buying an SD card for my camera, both assistants strike up a coherent conversation. Looking around I can imagine that a language has to be the best investment for a Romanian. Their own language lends itself to an understanding of French or Italian so with the addition of some basic English, I’m sure they can get by just about anywhere. And from the 1st of January 2007, I’m sure they probably will; from holding a paltry 1 million passports 3 years ago, 6 million have been issued in the last year alone.

Stopping off at a rather grand bookshop I get caught by a table strewn with sepia copies of photos of the old days – astrakhan toting dignitaries in their carriages, fierce looking (Kazakis?) on horseback and clusters of awkward village girls in traditional dress. Black and white oilfield scenes remind of a time when oil made its first big boom in these parts in the early years of the 20th century. Today LUKOIL declares flashing neon dominance from every other rooftop. I buy a couple of road maps and would happily head out of Bucharest right now. Browsing through coffee table format tourist books about Romania, one could be forgiven for thinking that their pages were drawn from several countries such is the variety of not only buildings (churches, monasteries, castles and keeps) but landscapes. From the reedy mud flats of the Danube estuary to the snow clad cliffs of the Carpathians to the almost Swiss pastoral views of haystacks and herds. So much to see and Bucharest lacks magnetism. Actually it lacks soul more than anything.

By now it’s dark on the street and I follow my steps back north towards the hotel. Preparations for tommorrow’s big party have lost none of their tempo. Earlier in the day the city’s narrow streets were echoing to sound checks, break dancers polishing their routines, lighting engineers talking excitedly into their walky-talkies and dangling climbers trying to get huge EU flags to stay stuck to the wall of yet another government building. As night fell the city returned to some semblance of calm only to have the sky slashed by lasers and enormous searchlights. The blue and yellow of an electronic Brussels flash across the heavens. Whole buildings are painted in light and the stage lights blind passersby as the now half frozen and grumpy light engineers add the finishing adjustments to their earlier efforts.

And later on…

Red skies at night no doubt keep shepherd’s delighted making a dramatic backdrop. St Petersburg’s skies provide a memorable canvas pretty much year round. Summer blues of eggshell to Monet give way to cinnamons and lurid purples. Purpose undefined this ensemble is typically obscure consequence of that very Russian impulse to blot any open spaces with something big and useless. This one provides a baffling focal point to Pulkovo's domestic terminal and after careful consultation has ended up smack in the middle of taxiing aircraft....way to go chaps.

Did you ever notice glimpses of some other consciousness? By this I mean a sense of familiarity or importance which stands out in the flow of observations and information that surround us. A momentary suspicion if you will that this detail will come to have greater significance later in time whether on this day or in the near future. Such moments tend to disguise their relevance beyond subtly drawing attention to themselves. There has to be a trick to divining further to signpost the hours and days ahead.

I mention it as the short transfer time between arrival into Warsaw and onwards to the yet ethereal Bucharest caught both my eye and some subconscious tripwire. Snow, drunken Russians, petulant baggage handlers and cleaners conspired to land our LOT a healthy hour after the other LOT should have roared off for Transylvanian skies. Not a LOT of luck …... I’ll leave it there being as its late and the ridiculous is but a key stroke away.

Arriving in Warsaw delight spreads on learning that LOT have turned the tide and have held the plane for us. Such good news and 2 hours later I slip into a sleeping Bucharest. I join the snooze.

German efficiency evidently extends to telling fibs or at least in getting away with ‘let’s-land-an-hour-late-and­-hope-that-none-notices’. And they did. Land an hour late. They may have mentioned that we were late to everyone else, but as I was in La La Dire Straits Land (no visa required) I kinda missed it… if indeed it happened. Sneaker buggers.

An hour of baggage handling fun, a zoom across a bleak snow swept St Petersburg and I arrived at the apartment – scene of much drama in recent times and still something of a quandary. What a mess. Exiting interest seemed to have packed up everything – her stuff, my stuff and the landlord’s stuff – then decided what was worth nicking if it’ll fit in the car. Weird un-boxing your own stuff without having moved anywhere. Aside from boxes the joint was a mess and not a drop of water in sight. A quick twist of the stop cock rewarded me with a jet of scalding water scything past my right ear to splat the wall behind in a gentle rusty beige. How to scrub up? Open stopcock. Run to bathroom. Fill bucket. Run back. Mop wall. Easy.

Forever exhausted but tirelessly enthusiastic on matters of family, Viktor the Accountant processes tricky accounting situations for grateful clients while dreaming of his own hotel on the shores of Old Ladoga*, Viktor has been a friend for many years. As one of only two Russians that I trust he is a must see whenever I come to St Petersburg. We exchange champagne, whisky and news and plan (as we do every time we meet) to start doing some work together.

From Viktor’s office it’s a sprint home where flu and fatigue lure me into a quick nap. 2 hours later and Oleg the landlord appears to fix leaking pipes and change locks. In some otherworldly trance I head to Nevsky Prospekt resplendent with New Year decorations and traffic far heavier than the city’s founders could have forseen. The formality of passing muster to earn a Russian multiple entry visa is an annual chore. My application has trundled its way around the various ministries who decide such things in Putin’s new post Soviet Russia. A thumbs up from the KGB, natty certificate gets issued and the last stop is the only decent travel ticket agency on town. Dressed like a Bond girl, Natasha hands over the goods in exchange for a scribble on the visa roll and a bottle of FG. Such a pleasure.

By now my flat is hosting a swarm of neighbours, drills, pipes and a haze of expletives from the plumber who’s rampant binge drinking has been so rudely interrupted for the sake of labour.

*(A lake to the east of St Petersburg and the largest in Europe)

A café, Frankfurt Flughafen no less.

The pleasures of a fast run to Glasgow airport occlude with the sickly Frankfurtian realisation that two bottles of whisky are adrift in a Heathrow cafe. One's new yob habit of velvety audio swaddling has lent to a general forgetfulness....pleasant nonetheless. Especially for the lucky cafe waiters of Terminal 2.

Eminem sets the mental tempo as neue Germany swarms around me. Waitressing by Thailand, sweeping by Czechia, neighbours from Poland and lurid purple jump suit passersby could only be Russian.

Acht. Sext. Neun. A language just made for marching. Late 1920’s and a re-militarised Germany - get a big enough army and you’re just going to have to get all that marching to done; Poland's spacious countryside must have made perfectly good sense.

3 hours to kill before St P so had thought to wander into Frankfurt but my newly replaced and now securely appended whisky prohibits my leaving the airport.... fond as I am of the intended recipients......another few hours of zwei....funf.....bitte vas.....could be alles fur alles.

child's play I dont think

....so how can I get the damned snap to skip from camera to ether..?

Perhaps by threatening it....... yes that seems to have done it and one slips calmly into intrepid fumugatory mode. Dont like it blowing over'em that Gyppo lot.

Last minute shopping then an early nacht for the 06:30 and the first of six flights between now and the finale of 2006.