St. Petersburg

After we pulled up to the train station in St. Petersburg, our guide met us on the platform.  Edward had only been for Moscow.  In St. Petersburg, we had Elena.  For those that know me well, you know I have to have a shower every morning.  I can't fully function through out the day without one.  To the point that I was dreading day one in St. Petersburg because the plan was to pick us up at the train station, take us to breakfast, then start the day.  We wouldn't be able to check in and shower until late that afternoon.  I sucked it up though...one day wouldn't kill me.  Our first stop was at a restaurant along one of the canals that had breakfast waiting for us.  The place didn't know we were Americans, only that we were coming from Germany.  So on each table, they had little German flags set out.

Breakfast was pretty good, standard European fare with meats, cheeses, bread and yogurt.  From there we stopped at a church to take pictures, as well as a few canals and bridges.

One neat place we stopped at was steps that lead down into the Neva River that flows through St. Petersburg.  On either side of the step were mini-sphynxes "guarding" the entrance to the river that were originally guarding a Pharaoh's tomb in Egypt.  From there we headed to Peter and Paul Fortress. It sits on an island in the Neva River, and contains a giant church inside.  It was originally built as a prison, and remained that way for over 200 years until shortly after the Revolution, when it was converted into a museum.  The church that stands inside it today contains the bodies of all the Russian Emperors and Czars, including Czar Nicholas II and his entire family, who were killed in 1917 when the Bolsheviks overthrew the monarchy.  Even the fabled Anastasia is buried there.

One neat thing about our visit there was while the guide was talking, we suddenly heard a loud roar over head as several fighter jets in formation flew by.  That weekend there was an air show, so they were practicing.  The really neat part was they were all painted in the colors of Russia's flag...Red, White and Blue.  And the day we were there happened to be July 4th.  Never in all my life did I think I'd be watching fighter jets painted Red, White & Blue performing stunts and flying over head on July 4th in Russia.

Elena then took us to a church nicknamed Spilled Blood Cathedral.  Along the way, we stopped for pictures at the Aurora, a battleship made famous because in 1917 the crew mutinied and fired off a single blank shot from the guns.  That shot signaled to the rebels that it was time to attack the Winter Palace and begin the Bolshevik Revolution.

Spilled Blood Cathedral is called that because Alexander II was assassinated there.  We didn't have time to go in, but we stopped along the way and took pictures from a distance, then went the actual church to take pictures up close.  After taking some pictures, we strolled around a small market that was there.  One funny thing we saw was a vendor selling Matryoshka Dolls that were painted like US Sports players.  They had Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc...  What made us laugh was when we were looking over them, we saw one for the San Diego Chargers and the Arkansas Razorbacks sitting right next to each other.  For those that don't know, I'm a big Chargers fan and Shanna's a big Razorbacks fan.

When we finished up there, it was finally time to head to the hotel and check in.  Like earlier in the week, everyone took a shower, had dinner, and went straight to bed.

The next day Elena and the bus picked us up, and we headed to Peterhof.  It was the Summer Palace of the Czars.  It was built by Peter the Great, and given a German sounding name because Peter spoke many languages, and liked to give things foreign sounding names.  Along the way, we passed several apartment buildings that had a cardboard lining around them to make it look like it was made of wood.  I think the main reason was for some privacy.  But one balcony had a giant hole cut out so their dog could sit there and watch traffic and people passing by.  Unfortunately the only good shot I got was from the bus with a tree in the way, but if you look close, you can see the hole and the dog.

When we finally arrived, it didn't seem like much.  But after we walked through yet another flea market, we finally got to the palace and it was breath taking.  The palace itself looked a lot like other palaces we've seen.  What really set it apart, though, were the amazing display of fountains.

We started with a tour of the palace itself.  It was interesting, but like with most palaces in Europe, no pictures were allowed.  When the tour ended, Elena showed us some of the fountains, including "trick" fountains.  One of the most amazing things about the fountains were they were built before pump technology had been invented.  It was built downhill from a water supply, so every fountain functions based on gravity.  It was incredible to think of that as you watched the high speeds that water flew out.

One trick fountain looked like a giant mushroom.  The "trick" was a person would step underneath to escape the sun, and the ground was one giant pressure plate.  Once you stepped on it, the water would flow all around the mushroom's edge, essentially trapping you inside.  The only way out was to step through the water.  They had modified it so that the water was constantly flowing and visitors could see it.  It was a hot day out, so I took advantage and dipped my head in the cold water.

Another trick fountain was one you didn't see.  There was a long path through the trees, and the fountain was on a timer.  Once an hour, it would go off and completely soak anyone walking down the path.  Times were clearly posted, as well as an alternate path to follow if you didn't want to get wet, so the only people getting soaked were the ones that wanted to.  I thought it was just a little sprinkle until I saw people leaving that area.  They were completely drenched...there wasn't a dry spot on their body.

Another trick fountain again centered around a bench.  There were stones placed in front of the bench, and it was originally set up with some of the stones being pressure sensitive.  You step on it, and jets of water flew out of the bench at you.  Now, though, the stones don't cause the water to shoot out, it's controlled by a guy sitting near the bench.  It was popular with little kids who would take turns trying to figure out which "stone" caused the water to spray, then laughing when they got squirted.

Eventually we made our way to the end of the path where we ended up at an overlook with a view of the Gulf of Finland.  It eventually dumps into the Baltic Sea, but we couldn't see the Sea from there.

After that we had some free time to walk around.  We passed one area where you could rent costumes and dress up for pictures.  They even had costumes for kids to wear.

Finally we headed to the bus, and drove back to the hotel.  After having beautiful 75 degree sunny weather the entire week, we finally got a little rain on the drive back.  But it lasted about 20 minutes, then was gone, and was beautiful the entire rest of the week.

That evening we decided to check out the outdoor terrace bar on the third floor of the hotel.  It didn't have much of a view, but it was still nice to sit outside with a breeze blowing, relaxing after a day of running around.   Shanna, myself, and two friends from the tour group we'd made that week decided that we'd all try some of the local caviar.  I didn't know this prior to our visit, but apparently Russia is famous for it's caviar.  I'd never tried it before because eating fish eggs doesn't sound appealing, but when in Russia...

I went down to the store at the bottom of the hotel and bought a little can of it.  It was NOT cheap, so I was glad we were splitting it with other people.  When our waiter came around, we asked him for crackers to eat with it, and if I didn't know better, I'd think that request personally offended him.  Apparently it's their custom to eat it with pancakes.  Not the fluffy pancakes we eat in the US, but the thin kind more commonly known as Crepes.  So we ordered some Crepes, a round of Russian Vodka, and tried it.  I have to admit...I really liked the Caviar.  I didn't think I would, but it was good, and went well with the Crepes.

After that we called it a night.  The next day was our last full day in Russia, and we were on our way to visit the Hermitage Museum.  It's one of the oldest and largest museums in the world, founded by Catherine the Great.  It contains 3 million pieces in it's collection.  There were some really neat things in there, including paintings from Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rafael.  The only person missing was Donatello!  It also had the only Michelangelo statue in Russia called The Crouching Boy.  I had posted on Facebook that we were in St. Petersburg, and Esra, our guide from when we visited Istanbul, told us we had to visit the oldest carpet in the world that the museum has...because it's Turkish.  So when we arrived at the museum we made sure to grab a map, and found it.  They had closed off the most direct route to the carpet, so we had to climb up the stairs to the second level, walk from one end to the other (the place is huge) and find another stair case to take us back down to the first floor.  When we found the stair case, it too was closed.  We finally found another stair case, and made our way down.  As we navigated through the rooms to the carpet, we finally got within one room of it...and the way was closed off.  Apparently for that day only they were holding a concert, and the room that contained the carpet was closed to the public.  Go figure.

One neat thing Elena told us as we walked through the rooms was that during World War II, most of the art was evacuated by train to other places to keep them safe when the Germans invaded.  The museum itself, though, was not maintained.  With the harsh winters and humid conditions, there was extensive damage to the wood flooring and walls.  They have since restored it, but left one panel unrestored so you could see the difference.

When we entered the Rembrandt section, we got to see the famous Prodigal Son painting, but the more interesting one to me was the painting called Danaë.  In 1985 a man visited the museum and asked to see the most valuable piece they had.  He was taken to this painting, where he proceeded to toss acid on it and slice it with a knife.  A security guard was able to stop him, but the acid that spilled on him cost the guard his hands.  After 12 years, they were able to fully restore the painting.  You can still see some streaks where the acid ran down it, but for the most part, you'd never know anything happened.

When we finished at the museum, we visited St. Isaacs Cathedral, the largest one in the city.  It was huge, and like most European cathedrals, ornately decorated.  The architect whose design was chosen for the church first broke ground when he was 30 years old.  He said at the time that this would be his life's work, and he was right.  It was finally finished when he was 70 years old, and he died shortly after it's completion.  One of the interesting things about the church was the giant dome in the center of it.  When the church was first built, the center of the dome had a large dove in the middle.  When you walked to the center of the church and looked up, you could see it.  During the Soviet Era, when religion was frowned upon, they removed the dove and replaced it with a giant pendulum.  After the Soviet Union collapsed, the pendulum was removed and the dove was put back.

When we left the Cathedral, the touring was done for the day.  The group mentioned to Elena that we were interested in a boat tour, so she said she would arrange it for the next day.

It was finally Sunday, our last day in Russia.  Elena wasn't picking us up until 1pm, so we had the whole morning to ourselves.  We slept in, got some breakfast, and met Penny and Adam in the lobby.  There was a metro stop next to the hotel, and we wanted to find this grocery store Elena had told us about.  It was built in 1902, but over the years, fell into disrepair.  It was recently renovated, and now looks great...and exactly like it did when it was built in 1902.  Thanks to Edward showing us around in Moscow, it was easy to figure out the metro.  And just like in Moscow, the metro lines are located FAR under ground.  It was a good 3-4 minute escalator ride down and back up.

We got off at the right stop, and after figuring out the map, we were able to find the place.  It was called  Kupetz Eliseevs, and it did not disappoint.  When you walked in the doors, it was like stepping back 100 years.  There was a self playing piano playing "old time" music, everything was beautifully decorated, and the food they offered looked amazing.  Fresh meats, cheeses, macaroons, live oysters, and of course, caviar.  The caviar was insanely expensive.  A 500G (17 oz) container cost almost $1,500.  They had a cafe inside too, so we sat down and ordered coffee (juice for me) and some sweets.  When they brought me my apple juice, it was unlike any apple juice I'd ever seen.  Instead of a clear amber color like I was expecting, it was green and cloudy.  I took a sip, and it tasted like an actual apple.  It was delicious!  They must have taken an apple and juiced it.  It was so good.  When we were done, and ready to pay our bill, they brought the check out in an engraved box.  We put our money in, closed the box up, and gave it back to the waitress...it was kind of neat.

I also finally found a souvenir I wanted here.  I didn't want to buy something just to buy something, so I was waiting until something caught my eye.  If nothing did, that was fine.  But they had a neat decanter with their logo engraved on it, and some martini glasses to go with it, so I picked that up.  It was either that, or the bottle of Cognac they had that came out to approximately $14,000.

When we left, it was about time to start heading back to the hotel.  We got there, checked out, and when Elena came, we loaded our luggage into the bus.  From there we went to one of the canals to begin our boat tour.  The bus couldn't pull right up to the canal, so we had to walk a bit.  On the way, we passed a huge event where people were racing on what looked like snow skis with wheels.  They were FLYING by us!  Eventually we made it to the canal.  As the boat got under way, Elena told us about some of the buildings we were looking at.  To be honest, though, everyone was just enjoying sitting back in the sun while cruising the Neva River.

When the boat ride wrapped up, we hopped on the bus and headed to the airport.  While it wasn't anywhere near as bad as our ordeal in Moscow, St. Petersburg airport has to be the worst airport I've ever been in.  And I didn't think anything could compare to the chaos in the Cairo airport.  There weren't any good signs telling you where to go, and it was a free for all.  On top of it all, the airport had no air conditioning.  With that many people packed into a small area, it was HOT.  We eventually found the right counter, but we had gotten there too early...we had to stand in the heat, waiting in line for the counter to open, for an hour and a half.  When it finally did, things went smoothly.  We checked our luggage, went through the passport control, and made our way to our gate.  Remember how I said there are a lot of American fast food chains in Russia?  Right next to our gate was a TGI Fridays.  We were all hungry, and chowed down on burgers and wings...a little taste of America before flying back to Germany.  The flight home was much smoother than the flight there, and before we knew it, we were in Frankfurt.  I've never appreciated being in a German airport like I did that day.  We hopped the train back to Stuttgart, and thankfully met up with Katia's husband, Scott, who was nice enough to give us a ride home.

Overall, this trip was incredible.  It had it's problems, but what trip doesn't?  We saw things that I never thought I'd ever see, and it's definitely a trip we'll never forget.  The visa process is a hassle, and it's not cheap, but if you ever have a chance to visit Russia, do it.  You won't regret it.

I'm not sure when the next blog post will be.  We both have 5 days off in September, so we're going somewhere, I'm just not sure where yet.  Stay tuned!

To see the pictures, click here or any picture above.

Moscow

Shanna & I have wanted to go to Russia for awhile now.  2 years ago we looked into it, but the cost was going to be more than we could afford, and the process of getting a Russian visa was daunting, to say the least.  Then a year ago we went on a tour with a company that took us all over Normandy and we loved it.  We found out they not only offered a Russian tour, but had a third party company that would take care of the visa for us.  It could not have been easier, and before we knew it, the day of the trip had arrived!

The flight was out of Frankfurt, so Shanna, myself and our friend Katia caught the train from Stuttgart up there, got checked in, and met up with our friends Penny and Adam, and Penny's friend Tara.  You might remember Penny & Adam from previous trips they've done with us to Croatia and London.  Before we knew it, we were Moscow bound!  Or so we thought.  As we approached Moscow, the pilot came on the over head and said that the weather wasn't great in Moscow, so they were going to circle around for a bit so it could clear.  15 minutes later he comes back on and says that they need to refuel, then they'll fly back to the main Moscow airport.  There are 3 airports in Moscow, so I just figured we'd land at one of the other ones.  But instead, they fly us 400km outside Moscow.  We land, and begin refueling at a remote airport.  Shanna was right, it looked a lot like the airport we use when we fly back to in her home town.

After 30 minutes, the pilot comes back on and says that the weather has gotten so bad in Moscow that the airport was shut down for the day, and that the air traffic controllers in Frankfurt had told them to come back to Frankfurt.  Since that required more fuel, they kept refueling.  About 45 minutes later, the pilot came on again and said they'd found buses to take us to Moscow.  We were relieved, because at least we'd make it to Moscow.  Had we flown back to Frankfurt, Shanna & I had no intention of staying with the tour.  We were already talking about finding a last minute vacation deal at the Frankfurt airport.

After taking forever to get through Russian customs, we finally made it outside the airport, only to find the "busses" were actually little 15 seater vans.  They had no room for luggage, so we had to stack everything in front of the seats.

Google Maps said it was 400km.  In Germany, assuming most of that was interstate kilometers, it would take about 4 1/2 hours.  But Google Maps factored in traffic, and that we'd be driving through some remote small towns...and calculated 8.5 hours.  I was hoping it was wrong, but sadly...it was dead on.  We left the airport at 10pm, and didn't pull into Moscow's airport until 6:30am the next morning.  We then met our local tour guide with a bus who took us all to the hotel.  In Moscow traffic, what should have taken 20 minutes, took an hour and a half.  So we finally pulled into the hotel around 8am...a full 14 hours after we landed at the airport in the middle of nowhere.

Thankfully we got in early enough to still get breakfast at the hotel, as well as take a much needed shower.  At 11am we all met in the lobby, got in our tour bus, and took off.

We started off driving around downtown Moscow. We got to see all kinds of neat buildings, including the former headquarters of the KGB.  We eventually arrived at the point I was most looking forward to, Red Square.  We've seen a lot of neat things since we've been here, and as a history buff, I've loved it.  But with the exception of the Berlin Wall, all the things we've seen have just been history I've read about.  Red Square is something I remember from when I was a kid.  I'll never forget Peter Jennings reporting from The Kremlin, or videos of the Soviets having various military parades on Red Square.  And whenever a reporter was in Moscow reporting, they were most likely standing in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, which is on Red Square.  When the bus parked, that was the first thing you saw.

St. Basil's Cathedral was built in the mid 1500's by Ivan The Terrible.  Legend has it that after the building was complete, Ivan had the architect blinded so that he could never create another cathedral like this one again.  While it's called a single cathedral, it's really seven different churches in one building...each spire is a single church.

After we walked past the cathedral, we were on Red Square.  The Kremlin was to our left, as was Lenin's tomb.  Our tour guide then gave us time to walk around and see the sites by ourselves.  We were to meet back up in an hour so that we could enter the Kremlin.  I hadn't realized until we arrived that The Kremlin is not a single building, but in fact is a giant walled off area...practically a fortress.  Inside the Kremlin grounds are buildings and churches.  All the Soviet leaders had their main office there, as well as the presidents of Russia who presided after the Soviet Union's collapse, right up to President Putin today.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in some of the churches there we went into, but they were beautiful.   One area we walked by was blocked off by the police.  Our guide said that usually happens when Putin is about to arrive in his Helicopter.  Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, we heard a helicopter approaching.  We never saw him, but based on all the cars that came flying up with lights flashing, and the TV crew waiting outside the Kremlin, we're pretty sure it was him.

After that tour, we got on the bus and the rest of the afternoon was a tour of the city by bus.  After the long night we'd had, that was fine with us.  We drove by a giant statue dedicated to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.  It was neat, but to me looked like a statue of Buzz Lightyear.

We stopped along the river that runs by the Kremlin, and got some neat shots of it across the water.  We stopped at a few more places for pictures along the way, including a bridge that has a great distant view of Moscow and the Olympic Stadium.  We also drove by (but didn't stop at) a giant park that is also a World War 2 memorial.  They had a neat statue that showed Russian warriors through out the ages.  One was a soldier from Medieval Times, a soldier from the war with Napoleon, and a WWII soldier.  The park, memorial and museum there are dedicated to the 27 million Russians who were killed in WWII.  That number is no exaggeration and shocked me.  I knew they had suffered heavy losses, but I had no idea it was anywhere near that much.  For comparison purposes, US losses were approximately 416,000.

Finally we arrived back at the hotel.  At this point, everyone was beyond exhausted.  We hadn't stopped moving since arriving that morning from the overnight bus ride, so everyone called it an early night.

The next morning we all met in the lobby, loaded on to the bus, and headed to Trinity Monastery of St. Sergius in a town called Sergiev Posad.  Along the way we passed several missile defense bases.  During the Cold War, had the US launched a strike on Moscow, these are the bases that would have had the job of trying to shoot the missiles down.  It's a huge monastery, and I had looked up pictures of it before we left.  It looked beautiful...of course, with how our luck had been so far on this trip, it should have come as no surprise that some of the prettiest buildings would be completely covered in scaffolding for renovation.  Next year is it's 650th anniversary, so they are getting everything all cleaned up for the celebrations.

The scaffolding aside, it was a beautiful monastery.  The entrance alone was breathtaking as you walked through.

Our guide from the previous day, Edward, gave us the history the place as we entered, then stopped for a brief bathroom break.  While I was snapping pictures, I noticed several Orthodox Priests walking around, including one guy that really stood out.  He was a mix of priest and someone off Sons of Anarchy with his leather motorcycle jacket on.  The long beard added to the biker look too.

We walked through the various buildings, which were impressive, but was really neat was the actual Church where they held services.  I've attended church services for various religions, but Russian Orthodox was not like any other that I'd seen.  When we walked in, there was a giant room where women were standing around singing while a priest did...something.  I'm not sure how to describe it.  He just seemed to be walking around a statue of Jesus on the cross, and chanting.  One thing we learned was that the altar is in a separate room from the worshipers.  In all of the Christian churches I've been in, the altar has been at the front of the church, and the people sit or stand facing it while the priest is up there giving the service.  For Russian Orthodox, everything done at the altar is in a separate room that the worshipers can not see.  The priest walks in to the room, performs the rituals, then comes back out.

One reason we always like personal guides instead of audio guides is you get stories that bring the history to life that you don't get otherwise.  This was a perfect example.  Our guide told his his father was an adjunct professor Moscow's main university.  In order to reach a level that high, he had to join the Soviet Communist Party.  That also meant renouncing all religion.  So when Edward was born, they snuck away to his grandmother's village, and had him baptized in secret there.  That way he could be part of the church without his work colleagues knowing.  He also mentioned that during Soviet times, it was primarily only the elderly who went to church.  Young people, and those of working age couldn't afford to attend publicly because it would hurt them socially, professionally and ultimately, financially.  When people retired, they started openly attending church because they no longer had to worry about work or school colleagues.

After walking through the large room, we got to the altar room.   To call it stunning would be an understatement.  The gold and art were amazing.

That was it for the tour of the monastery, so we headed over to the gift shop area and bought a few things.  We then walked outside where there was a huge market set up.  Vendors were there selling all kinds of souvenirs.  Some of it was junk, but some of it was pretty neat.  We walked across the street and found a hole in the wall restaurant selling food called "Pattys".  It was potato bread with all kinds of stuffings.  You could get it with a hot dog, meat pudding, cheese, apples, sugar, and more.  We bought several different kinds and loved it.

We had been there most of the day, and it was now time to head back to the hotel.  We got to enjoy some more of Moscow's finest traffic jams, and it took awhile to get back.  On the way back, Edward offered to arrange an outing if people were interested to take us to see a Russian Folk Dance.  Shanna & I weren't interested, so we passed.  Adam, Penny, Katia and Tara were, but when we got back to the hotel, we had 3 hours or so to kill.  Initially Shanna & I were just going to stroll around the part of town we were in.  While out, we ran in to Penny & Adam, and decided to head to find a pub nearby.  We ended up finding this cozy little pub up the block and ordered a few drinks.  The one thing about Moscow...stuff isn't cheap.  The average cost of a beer was $9.  I've paid that much (and more) for a beer before, but it was usually specialty beer, like an American Microbrew.  This was standard fare Russian Pilsner.  It was still nice to sit and chat around a cold beer, though.  One thing a lot of restaurants had in Russia were giant picture menus.  Shanna noticed a tray of six watermelon shots, so she ordered that for the table.  They were actually fairly refreshing on a warm day.  They had a watermelon flavor, plus an actual wedge of watermelon in each glass.

Here comes the funny part...our waitress didn't speak much English.  So after finished these, she came over and said something that none of us understood.  We assumed she had asked us if we liked it, so we said something like "Yes, it was good, thanks"!  Five minutes later, we see her walking around with another tray of the shots and we laughed, thinking someone else had ordered them...until she came right to our table and dropped them off.  So lesson learned...make sure you know what the waiter/waitress is saying before agreeing.   We stayed there for a bit longer, then headed back.  Penny & Adam went to the show, and Shanna & I called it a night.

The next day was our last day in Moscow, but it was going to be a LONG day.  The plan was check out of the hotel, load our luggage into a bus (this time a bus with a luggage area), and sight see all day.  At 11pm we would be dropped off at the train station, where we would take an overnighter to St. Petersburg.

Our first stop of the day was at one of the famous flea markets in Moscow.  This place was HUGE.  Shanna ended up getting some neat souveniers, including a few Santas.  In Russia, they have a custom of taking a block of wood and carving it into a Santa, then painting it.  Some are hand made, others are cheaper and only have stickers on them.  We first discovered these at some of the bazaars and Christmas Markets they have around Stuttgart, but they were always way to expensive.  Some of the really nice ones ran almost $1,000.  Here, though, we were able to find ones of the same quality, but for a fraction of that cost.  Shanna is good haggling...I hate it.  I'd prefer they just give me a fair price and I'll pay it.  I eventually had to walk away and let her haggle, because I didn't know if she really didn't want it, or was just using it as a tactic.  She'd say things like "I don't know...I'm not sure if I really want it".  I'd think she was worried about the price, so I'd tell her to just get it...which the vendor would leap at.  She was much more successful at bringing the price down when I wasn't standing there.

After we finished walking around, we headed across the street to what appeared to be a giant castle area.  I'm not exactly sure what the point of the place was...they had stores, but most people were closed.  They had some really neat buildings inside the courtyard area, but there was almost no one there.  No employees, no visitors, nothing.  We took some pictures and headed back to the bus at the meeting time.  From there we headed to metro entrance.  I didn't realize this before our trip, but Moscow is famous for it's intricate Metros.  They have beautiful mosaics, sculptures, stained glass and so on.  The really fascinating part was most of the decorations were put in during the Soviet Era, and the artwork reflects that.  There were Hammer & Sickles everywhere, as well as pictures of Lenin, the common peasant, the field worker, and all the other Soviet symbols of "the people".

We visited four or five stations, taking pictures at each one.  We finally ended in one of the shopping districts in Moscow.  It was a pedestrian street that had shops, cafes, and stores lined all the way up and down it.  They also had an amazing amount of American chains.  Adam was excited about his cup of Dunkin' Donuts Iced Coffee, and I was excited about our Wendy's for lunch.

After we finished up there, we headed to the Tretyakov Gallery, which contains a large collection of Russian art.  At this point, I was beat and my feet were hurting, so I wasn't really interested in an art museum.  Shanna walked through, though, and took pictures that are in the pictures link at the bottom of the page.

Our last stop in Moscow was back at Red Square.  We got some great pictures of Lenin's tomb, St. Basil's Cathedral, and the Kremlin walls with the sun setting.  We then found a great beer bar right near our bus and just relaxed for a few hours.  This bar had a GREAT selection of Belgian and Dutch beers.  They weren't cheap, but were so worth it.  Shanna & I each got a 1 Liter (33 oz) glass of Belgian beer that cost $20 each...but was worth every penny.

From there we took the bus to the train station, and got on to our train.  The standard cabin had 4 bunks in it, but we had paid to upgrade to a room with two beds.  I'm glad we did, because apparently the size of the room we wasn't any bigger, it just had 2 beds instead of 4.  As you can see from the picture below, there wasn't a lot of space.  It would have been miserable with 2 other people.

They hadn't turned the A/C on yet, so we were miserable in our cabin.  Then someone walked by and said the diner cabin had A/C going, so we all headed down there.  Turns out we weren't the only ones who found out...about half our tour group got word, so we were all in there.  It ended up being a lot of fun.  We ordered beer, and because it was Russia, we ordered some Vodka.  What started off as an attempt to cool down ended up lasting a few hours.  We eventually made our way back to our cabin, went to sleep, and woke up shortly before pulling into St. Petersburg.

I split the post up into two, but the pictures are all on the same page.  I'll link to it here, as well as at the end of the St. Petersburg post.

To continue reading about St. Petersburg, click here.

To see the pictures from the trip, click here or any picture above.