Things, of course, never really happen as I would want them to, and then things happen better than I would want them to.

If anything I want to say something like: Sorry, St. Petersburg, sorry for ignoring you, sorry for having you be the backdrop for endless hours running between subways, areas, pulling out guidebook translators that I never thought would come in handy.

Here's to calmness, to settledness, to the infrastructures of bureaucracy that I will jump through, to meeting strangers and have it be effortless, suddenly, knowing all the right things to say, here's to ffriendly candidness.