April, 27th,2014 St.Petersburg, Russia
Nevsky Prospect - The Street in the front of Corinthia St.Petersburg Arrived in St Petersburg around 1640hrs with two of my other colleagues at work on a business trip. This was my 2nd trip to LED, since I first went there in August 2011 for initial Catering Tender evaluation. Stayed at Corinthia Hotel St. Petersburg" in the city. After checked into the hotel, I went out with a few cabin crew to have a dinner at a Russian Restaurant near by the hotel. After hanging dinner before leaving the place we had dinner, I realised that my wallet with cards and cash was not in my trouser pocket any more. It was a horrible feeling as I had my entire per-diem, and my Credit Card, UAE ID, Driver’s License, e-Gate card, Medical Insurance card and Liquor permit in the wallet. Thinking that I must have dropped it, I asked the waiters, whether they found any wallets, they all said no. In the end I had to given up my hopes of getting the wallet back and returned to the hotel. The following morning I woke up around 0400 and called the Credit Card issuing bank and blocked the card. I missed my breakfast in the hotel that morning and left for work at 0800 in the morning. We visited Transpit our current Caterer. The food preso and the Ops evaluation were done and we finished around 1700. After getting back in the hotel, I spoke to the concierge to see whether he could help me to find the restaurant that I lost the wallet and indeed he did. He was so kind enough to call the place and inform about loss of my wallet and the guys at the restaurant said that they got it! I praised the lord Jesus ! I hurried to the restaurant to collect my wallet back. All; but cash was missing from it and honestly, I didn’t mind that I lost all of my cash, as everything else were in tact inside the wallet. I had a feeling of releived and thank god! The next day, we checked out from the hotel and drove away straight to the second Flight Kitchen to get on with our work. I noticed, the place has improved their infrastructure since I last visited. We finished our work round about 1500 hours, leaving a couple of hours for us to get the airport, go through check-in and other formalities, before get on the flight to Dubai at 1830 hours. All in all the trip was good, except the horrible experience I had. Any one in my industry might think this is a Catering Hi Loader (Truck) that transport airline food trolleys to load onto the aircraft; but nah! This was spotted on the streets in St Petersburg.