Novotel Centre St. Petersburg

... evening. So my sulking over my own stupidity was interupted by an invitataion to join them all in the kitchen for some chili and honey vodka. Since I was still in St Petersburg, it was my birthday and there will be more palaces and art for me to visit and admire on this trip, I sucked in my quivering bottom lip and drank with new friends. Great decision, as though the vodka was an acquired taste we headed out to sample the local beer and ...

... his underwear, parade around for a minute and then struggle into the top bunk.  I go to the restaurant car to join Mish and Petr, and end up sitting with them until 2:30 downing half a bottle of white wine and eating blini and red caviar, and discussing the sales of toilets.  When it was time to go to bed, I could hardly walk in a straight line back to my car, which was unfortunately at the exact other end of the train from the restaurant car. I wonder why I felt ill this morning....

... or "If you haven't paid, pay now!" When the conductrice walks by you either must pay the 20 ruble fair or let her scan your transit card (which is what I have). What amazes me the most about the conductrices is that they almost never forget who has paid and who hasn't. There can be 70 people crammed on the bus and very rarely have I ever seen a conductrice ask someone to pay who has already done so. I don't know if having someone walk around the bus asking people to pay is necessarily ...

... because they have this unofficial rule that one step has to separate you from the next person. On the actual metro it's completely different. Sometimes during rush hour you get packed in so tight your feet barely touch the floor. It's a nice way to meet young Russian men, girls. 8:45 - Hopefully I arrive by this time at a metro station Chernishevskaya because the school has a private bus that takes we students to the campus, which is another 5 ...

... here apparently second only to the Louvre in its volume, but more to the point the quaaaality of this collection is just mindblowing. On every wall and around every corner were pieces we instantly recognised, or at minimum the artists names. Maybe its a while since I've been to the Louvre but gee this is something else!!! Given the kids were with us, let alone my own limits, we had to choose where to devote our efforts for a few hours ...

... s Hungarian Dance, Brahms' Hungarian Dance #5, and ended with Porgy's aria from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. His accordion playing was remarkable and I think we'll have to get rid of the bumper stickers that say "Play an accordion, go to jail". Again we closed the bar at midnight just after the sky turned from red to gray. Ed ad I had gotten involved in telling the story of how we met. An early morning tomorrow at Kizhi.

... there in his studio with his models starting to assume their positions, he espied the table and in his best Dutch habits realized that it needed a table cloth on it, so he had someone go fetch a table cloth (folded up and put away until it was needed, as in all good Dutch households), unfolded it, covered the table, and painted just exactly what he saw. There is no doubt I exasperated Natasha a bit, but she did take it in good humor. Natasha left us after ...

... We went in and I felt like I had died and arrived in heaven. The mosaic interior (the mosaics cover about 7,000 square meters in total) and it's colorful depictions were too much to feel like I was still on earth. It is a happy place, my happy place. I will always remeber how I felt the first time I saw it, and how I still feel. This building speaks directly to ones's soul. After this incredible experience we countinued down the street, and made it to Palace ...

... a much less impressive place than Peterhof. Our guide noticed this discrepancy in the itinerary and mentioned it to me when we first arrived in St. Petersburg, so I immediately had her get to work on changing the reservation to the what I had originally intended. We learn that the only way our group can get admittance to Peterhof is if we flip today's itinerary with tomorrow's, so I announce the change and we head out to the countryside. Our first visit is the Peter and Paul Fortress on ...

... a long sales pitch to the unfazed occupants of the carriage, this being normal. They will complete their monologue from the head of the carriage and then begin displaying the goods they plan to sell by strolling down the carriage. Then the process repeats itself with somebody new. With different products. Be it food or Lego sets , the train is a rolling market of bandits and chancers. Musicians and beggars. The Palace ...