Top Ambassador St Petersburg St. Petersburg

So here I am with only 3 days left in this long trip. It is hard to believe that it is coming to an end. I have some museums visits and the like to write about here but today I just wanted to write a couple of lists...

Things I will miss about Russia:

1. Russian language - pretty self explanatory. I know that when I get back to the States it will be so strange to hear English around me in place of the swishing sounds of Russian and will be even ...

The Bell has Rang. High School is over!

I was sitting in a high school class room just two days ago. My dad wanted to move away three years ago, but he adopted me instead so he stuck it out in a city that had grown tired of for another three years to let me finish High School with my friends.

He bought a tri-deck motor yacht earlier that spring in Italy and it was now fully crewed and stocked and waiting for us to board in St. Petersburg ...

... we got over the the Political History museum which I remembered from two years ago was very interesting. In the museum there are a lot of icons and exhibits that explore the methods used by Stalinist government to oppress Russians during the purges. It was extremely interesting to see how Russians today relate to and view such a difficult time in there not-so-distant history. By the time we were done it was almost 5 am and we decided to head to the bus stop to get home. The most ...

... London. I think he's trying to make me feel better and only in my DREAMS would London take it. And I hope I DON'T dream that as its quite a boring dream. The next day I went to The Hermitage which was unbelievable and really inspired me. There were so many rooms and so much gold gilded everywhere with chandeliers! Dutch, Flemish, Russian, English French and many other rooms. Big slabs of marble and some Lapis Lazuli which I love. There was ornate armour, oil paintings, tapestries ...

... them incorrectly. I also tried my hand at bargaining with Russian souvenir sellers. I did a not bad job but think I could have done better. Early on I was a bit to generous but got really ******* the bargaining as my money disappeared. So I think I did not too bad with the bargaining. Of course they could all speak English so it helped. There I leave you in St. Petersburg and I turn my head west out of Russia and into Estonia but I will save that for another blog entry.

... out how I was going to spend the little time there that I had before the tour started. As I glanced up from reading the brochure, we were driving by the huge picture of Chairman Mao at Tianamen Square! We turned left just past Tianamen Square, and my hotel was just down the street. After I checked in and got in to the room, I turned on the TV, and within a minute or so, the video 'We Are Ready', came on. It is the video that was made for the Beijing Olympics and when I saw it ...

... will probably have a piece if not a room full of them here, from Davinci to Degas or Van Huygens to Van Gogh. Given how prised any single one of these paintings would be in the little galleries I had visited in the Baltic the overall effect is quite overwhelming and it's easy to become blase. Dinner is the only truly bad meal that we have in Russia, although uniformly if it's not self-service the service is dire. This restaurant seems to ...

... and coffee, which is all I need to be happy! They'd also serve something hot each morning, which ranged from crepes, to an egg thing, although after the egg-thing I decided to steer clear of the hot foods! Our first stop this morning was the Peterhof gardens. The drive was almost an hour, and on the way Anna told us all sorts of things about the Russian tsars. It was really interesting, and I tried to listen, but about half way through the drive my ...

... che devono anche venir messi in asciugatrice ci vuole un po e nel frattempo siamo qui in internet, poi andremo a cena, ritiriamo i vestiti e piu tardi abbiamo il treno notturno per mosca, dove arriveremo domani mattina. Qui e stato bellissimo, speriamo che mosca non sia da meno!