Top Ambassador St Petersburg St. Petersburg

... interior. Based on St Peters in Rome this Cathedral was beautiful inside and seemed to be still giving numerous services a day. Another Cathedral came next in the shape of St Isaacs, one of the largest and most adorned in the world, which was dedicated to Peter the Great. <br><br>At the end of the main street lies the huge Hermitage and Winter Palace buildings. Both are set on a large square and are very impressive structures. The Hermitage contains miles of exquisite ...

... sight of the assasination of Alexancder II.<br><br>We did have time for some souvenir shopping - my goodness there is a lot of it, matryosha dolls (those nesting dolls) laquer boxes, decorated eggs, furs of all kinds, porcelain, and so on.  <br><br>In some ways Russia was what I expected and in other ways not.  I mentioned the impressive architecture.  The traffic was crazy and like I expected - in many cases the biggest thing on the road ...

... fairly strenuously with the very intense Stravinsky ballet trio: Les Noces, Sacre du Printemps, and The Firebird. Stravinsky is known for breaking the ballet norms of "fluidity" and "grace." The first two ballets most definitely adhered to this characterization of the Russian composer. It was fascinating to see ballet in a way that I've never seen before, as an animalistic, tribal sort of ritual. The final piece, The Firebird was much more classical in style, full of flowing solos ...

... egg flavour would be not so good?). Luckily the horrible nights sleep we had first off changed completely as the massive group left - we really were the only ones in the hostel apart from one guy for a night. So while the beds were thin and flat and hard as a mofo, we were able to leisurely enjoy the kitchen and lounge area as though we were back home. Instead of dad telling us we should be adding more salt though, we had a grumpy cleaning lady who was never happy and followed us ...

... of the walking tour I did I got there easy as. Just walking up to the palace I was amazed. You walk through this garden and see this massive palace in front of you and it's trimmed with gold of course. I didn't go into the palace (it cost 500 Rubles I believe and money was getting a bit tight by this point) but I did go to the gardens behind the palace. Wow! Right behind the palace is a massive fountain and it is surrounded by a cascade of waterfalls. It's exactly ...

... and stores, and tons and tons of people. We walked up and down, just looking at all of the people and places. We stopped in a coffee house where the menu was written in English, Italian, and Russian, and I had what they called a chocolate shake, but tasted more like a mocha Frappucino. Still good after being outside. We left the cafe and happened to see our friend Aaron walking the other way down Nevskiy Prospekt, but didn't want to ...

... Northern Irish, both newly graduated on beginning the other finishing a year out. Liz a school teacher from San Fransisco, Bronwyn another Aussie heading home this time after spending time in Scotland. John and Laura, nurses from Newcastle who work enough overtime to go on extravagant foreign long foreign trips. At 15 people it is the biggest group that any of our Honchos have dealt with. On the balance despite some tortuous experiences ...

... de la promenade dans le parc plein de charmes bordant le golf de Finlande. (je n'ai pas verifie sur la carte mais c'est ainsi que l'on me l'a nomme). Je crois avoir rarement vu des fontaines et statues aussi majestueuses que celles-ci. C'est vraiment somptueux !! De retour a Saint Petersbourg, on retrouve Natasha et son groupe pour prendre un pot dans un bar. Le bar est tres original. Un etalage de sable dans la cour depravee de l'arriere d'un immeuble neglige, juste a ...

... and I am simply frightened to wonder what I will look, be and act like once it is all over. I might indeed be a completely different person, unrecognizable even to myself. ------- I'm falling in love with Russia, one babushka at a time. Each of the above experiences happened within a 24 hour period; I can only imagine whats next. Im taking it all and I'm storing it in my files. Russia is not so bad; so I tell everyone out there whos scared of the Motherland - PRAVDA, it is not so bad!