St. Petersburg!

After a flight from Barcelona to Berlin and Berlin to St. Petersburg I finally made it! I had to stay the night in the airport. My flight got in at 2:30am and I didn't really see a point in getting a room for just a few hours-especially after I had gotten my luggage and took the trip from the airport to the city center. I am not sure whether I am proud or embarrassed. I guess I will say proud! I got to FaceTime Amy and the kids this morning. I miss them a ton. Coming back will be special.

At 6am, I took a city bus and a metro to get to my guest house on Vostanniya ulitsa. The place is pretty shabby and might spook most people who have never been to Russia. Especially after having my own room in each of the hotels we stayed at in Spain. I woke up Irina, my host, and she showed me the keys, my room, where I can find some Tapochki (sandals) for in the house and then said that she was going back to bed. After getting almost no sleep last night and about 5 hours the night before, I went to bed too and slept until Tatiana, the HOPA representative, showed up at 9am. She registered my visa while Irina put on a kettle. After, Tatiana left, Irina drank chai and I got to chat a bit and I tried what Russian I have left since I studied it about 5 or 6 years ago. As expected I don't have much vocabulary and I have trouble putting adjectives in the right gender, BUT I have been complimented a couple of times on my pronunciation. YAY! The weather is cooler here as you would expect and it has even rained off and on all day. 

   Nevsky Prospekt

After chai I packed my backpack and headed down a couple of blocks to Hotel Life where I caught up with some other English types (Ok. Really a Canadian and two Finns--who spoke good English) who were also waiting for the Peter Walks tours. The tour guide who walked out, Eugene, looked ruff and my first thought was that he was not real. The first part of the tour also focused on courtyards and some sketchy places of St. Petersburg, but as we worked our way to the center of the city and nearer the Hermitage, I could see that our tour guide actually did know his stuff and wasn't just swindling us. We saw: Nevsky Prospekt, the outside of the Dostoevsky museum and one of his apartments, the Swedish quarter, several parks, buildings by foreign architects like Rossi and Ferrand and a lot of misc. Rossi's so called "perfect street" pretty interesting. It is supposedly as high as it is wide and 10Xs that same measurement in length. At one point we stopped for lunch and I got a cheese and egg roll that tasted delicious and a small glass of kvass to wash it down. After the tour ended at the Hermitage, I walked to Vasilevsky Island, checked out the Bronze Horseman, strolled up Nevsky Prospekt stopping at Dom Knigi (lit. House of Books) and Gostinny Dvor, a shopping mall since the time of Catherine the Great.

   The Perfect Street

    The Bronze Horseman 

Now I think I am going to take it easy tonight and go to bed early as I need to catch up on sleep and save my energy for the Hermitage!