Thursday, May 31, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia



Ah, we've reached the end of our Russian Adventure! We forgot to check the train schedule when we arrived at Peterhof, so we ended up spending about 40 minutes waiting on the platform. Luckily, the weather was nice, so we could just bask in the sun. Well, for the most part.

At one point during our long wait, an apparently very drunk (and/or very crazy) Russian man came up to us. He kept trying to tell us things, while we kept repeating 'we don't speak Russian!' At one point he tried to give us a book, which we took at first, but, then, realizing he seemed to take this as an invitation to stay and babble at us, we tried to give it back. I don't remember exactly what went down, but I do remember thinking the Russians around us found it highly amusing :p hehe

When we got back into St. P., we once again had incredible trouble locating our transportation. Our bus tickets weren't particularly specific, and we wandered around the train station trying to figure out where the bus terminal was -- pointing at the Russian word for 'bus' in the guidebook I had on my Kindle. We didn't get more than some vague pointing. I was, of course, getting frustrated, though we weren't particularly worried. The bus tickets were very cheap, and our visas had another 24 hours on them. But still, we really didn't want to miss our bus just because we couldn't find it!

Finally, Rasmus noticed a girl with a suitcase standing around on a curb in front of the station, as if waiting for something.  On a whim, he asked her where she was going, and, yes, she was waiting for our bus! Woo! That's when we noticed the inconspicuous sign with our bus company's logo right where she was standing. (Also, one of the guys we try to ask for directions had actually pointed in the direction of the sign, but it kind of looked like he was pointing across the street.....)

Anyway, one very long bus ride (and stops at the Russian and EU border patrols) later, we were back in Tallinn! And so ends the Chronicles of Russia :p

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

....And so does Rasmus....

Leaving Peterhof, St. Petersburg, Russia -- May 2011

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Monday, May 28, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia


We saw this guy from far away at first, and were very happy, later on one of our meanderings to this train station or that, to catch a view up close and personal of Trinity Cathedral.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia




Peterhof Palace and Park was our last stop in St. Petersburg -- and really, Russia, for that matter. The grounds were massive, and they were filled with fountains of all shapes and sizes. We wandered around most of the afternoon. Relaxing on grass next to the see, and even playing in the children's fountain a bit. Spring wasn't quite in full bloom in St. Petersburg as it was in Moscow, but we were still very happy to see plenty of green -- and that the fountains were turned on!

Friday, May 25, 2012

Video of the Day: Copenhagen



Amber showing off her considerable talents at karaoke at Sam's Bar in the city center of Copenhagen. Happy Birthday, Bam Bam!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Peterhof, St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011
The view of St. Petersburg from Peterhof palace & park. And an ominous black bird.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Peterhof, St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011

The church at Peterhof. How often do you think they have to clean those domes for them to be so incredibly shiny??

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011

One of the few decent pictures we have from inside the Winter Palace. I bought tickets to the Hermitage Museum online just before we left Tallinn, expecting to receive the e-tickets instantaneously in my email. But, when finished with the payment, there was a note saying we would receive them within a couple of days. So, when we left, no tickets. Then, at our bed and breakfast just before we were leaving to go to , I asked if I could borrow there computer for a moment to check my mail -- still nothing. We decided to just go wait in line. One of our classmates told us they got in for free with their student ID (the good thing about buying ahead of time was that we could jump the long entrance line).

However, the line went far more swiftly than I would have expected. We waited for 20 minutes, showed our student IDs, and got in for free. We spent a couple of hours roaming through the museum, admiring the building as much as the displays themselves. And, when we got back to Tallinn, I still had not received our tickets, so I wrote them and asked if they could cancel them, which they so kindly did! So everything worked out quite well!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Pavlovsk, St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011
So, our little guide suggested three park and palaces to visit around St. Petersburg: Peterhof, Pushkin, and Pavlovsk, rather in that order of importance. Since we only had two days, we decided to visit just the first two. Ah, but Russia knew better than us.

Our book told us which station to go to, which was the same for both Pushkin and Pavlovsk, which were just a stop or two apart. We stood in line at the counter to buy tickets, pointed to the name of where we wanted to go in our guide book (since it was written in Russian there) and the lady, without saying a word, held up a nice English sign that told us to go up stairs to buy tickets to Pushkin. So, we went upstairs, bought our tickets (with the aid of some excellent sign language), and then we just had to find our train. As we stood around discussing whether or not the train in front of us was the right one, a very nice gentleman took pity on us. He asked "Pushkin?" and when we nodded, he confirmed our train.

So we hopped on and sat down. As the train started to move, hawkers took turns advertising their wares in each car. There was everything from plant bulbs to fabric to DVDs. And we ran into another problem -- while we had the name of our stop, we didn't know how many intervening stops (only the approximate travel time to Pushkin), and had trouble figuring out the names of the stops the train was making. After one stop, I thought maybe that was it, but wasn't sure and started having a loud conversation with Rasmus about it. About if that was Pushkin, the next one should be the one for Pavlovsk, and if so, we should just get off there. But when the train stopped, we were again unable to tell what the stop was. They may have announced stops over the intercom, but we couldn't understand any of what they were saying and couldn't separate the stop name from what was probably "the next stop is...." And when we could find a sign with the station name through the window, it would of course be in Russian, and it was difficult to recognize Павловск as Pavlovsk when we had just a moment.

Thankfully, our loud confused talking had again provoked the sympathy of another. The lady who had been sitting across from us for the trip met my eye, pointed out the door, and said "Pavlovsk." I smiled an exuberant "thank you" at her, and we hopped off the train.

We had a little trouble because our tickets were for one stop less than we had taken the train, so the machines didn't accept them. There was a guard standing there who tried to explain this to us in Russian, but gave up and just let us through.

Since we were there, we decided we might as well visit the Pavlovsk park as well. Now, all we had to do was find the park. We walked out of the station, and saw a bus sitting out front.We headed over, and tried to ask him where the Pavlovsk palace & park were. He looked at us like we were mad. We stepped away from the bus, and looked around, trying to find some clue as to which way to go. Then we noticed that directly across the street was a gated wooded area. Pavlovsk park & palace was literally right in front of us. Which explained why the driver had looked at us like we were nuts......


Sunday, May 20, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Pushkin, St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011
Here I am at Pushkin - one of the many palace & park places around St. P - finishing up my Kit Kat ice cream cone. There was literally a Kit Kat jammed down the center of it. I think we may have a few picture of my progress with it as we meandered through the grounds.....just a moment here....

Ah, yes, here I am starting it off......



....and here I am with just my final bite to go!




Saturday, May 19, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia



Have you heard -- there's a rumor in St. Petersburg? We love St. Petersburg THIS much!

Behind me is the Winter Palace, which is now one of the buildings that makes up the Hermitage Museum. There is a street that runs just off the the right of the palace, and our bed and breakfast was just a short jaunt down that street.

Rasmus is in a rather foreboding-looking alleyway we came across.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011
This is probably my favorite of the churches we saw -- the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It reminded me a lot of St. Basil's in Moscow, except darker.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Video of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

And so, we headed back to the station, enjoying the thrill of the metro one last time.....





Said goodbye to Moscow and took the night train on to St. Petersburg:


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Moscow, Russia -- May, 2011
So, I had bought our train tickets to St. Petersburg online and printed off an e-ticket. The ticket had the name of the train station, so before we left Tallinn, I looked up the location and the closest metro stop. It was practically on top of the stop, so I assumed it would be simple enough. Wow was I wrong.

After seeing the Kremlin and walking around the the city centre a bit, we decided to be safe and go find our train station before exploring any more. As we exited the metro, I was very excited to see the name of our train station on a sign. But then, we walked out the doors, and were overwhelmed. There was a building to our right that looked like you might buy tickets there. Another building looked like a train station and had tracks, but was called something different. And a couple of other buildings full of hustle and bustle. I couldn't see a single sign for our train station (and, remember, all of the signs are in Russian, which made it all the more difficult to identify the correct name).

We tried asking several people, but no one spoke English. We wandered around -- looked at train times, tried to figure out if we were in the right place. We randomly ended up in one of the buildings, and found an official looking lady who was fixing an automatic machine, and she was our savior. When I showed her my ticket printout, she explained to us that what I had wasn't a ticket and pointed us down the hall to another office. We had to wait for ages to be helped, but, finally, the lady behind the counter was able to help us get our tickets (there was actually a self service machine for printing tickets, but, naturally, it was in only Russian, and we had no hope of figuring it out).

So after over an hour of fretting and scurrying about, we finally had our tickets in hand. Not long after, we figured out that our train station was right next door. We had failed to recognize it because only the dingy backside of the building was visible from the metro station exit we took. And on one of the screens -- our train!

After that, I calmed down significantly, and we had some pizza for supper and picked up some snacks for the train at a grocery store nearby. And that is where this picture comes in. We were quite exhausted after our long bus ride, wandering around, and train searching, but we still had a couple of hours before our train left. So, we had two choices: chill in the train station, or use up some of our metro tickets to see something new.

The latter won out. We got off the metro and a random stop near the center, saw the cathedral above in the distance - its golden dome glimmering in the sunset, and decided to take a closer look.

We also saw the Kremlin at sunset and (YAY for the gees) the library:







Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia


Moscow, Russia -- May, 2011
A finally look at the Kremlin before we move away from the heart of Moscow....

My awesome bag


And my freaking awesome back. Rasmus and I decided to travel super light for this trip. And one day, while checking out the new iPad's in the mall, I stumbled upon this bad boy. Isn't it freaking adorable? I mean it's Legen-[wait for it]-Dary! It will forever be my Russia bag. Forever and always.




Monday, May 14, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Moscow, Russia -- May, 2011
Headed into the Kremlin. Well, to be entirely accurate, I'm headed away from the Kremlin, but I'm pretty sure that was just for the photo op.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Picture of the Day: Pompeii

Pompeii, Italy -- October, 2011
Happy Mother's Day, Momma!

Miss you, Lady!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

Moscow, Russia -- May, 2011

Back in Moscow, we can see the opposite side of the Kremlin, and if you look just right of the trees, there are the guards headed off duty. They look a bit more humorous in the video:





And if you would like to see the Ministry of Silly Walks to which Rasmus was referring, check this out: Monty Python -- Ministry of Silly Wals

Friday, May 11, 2012

20

St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011



....we were pretty tired, and ready to find our hotel and our bed!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Picture of the Day: The Chronicles of Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011
A quick jump ahead to the next day. After a night train to St. Petersburg and a full day of sightseeing in and around the city, we decided to take a canal ride. Now, we saw a lot of tour boats meandering through the river and canals all day, and were envisioning one of these --
 


 Instead, we were led onto the boat above, complete with cloth napkins and slightly overpriced food. Unfortunately, the tour was only in Russian (though, I think they at least had English menus), but it was a nice relaxing way to see a bit of the city while refueling. ok, to be honest, they didn't really show us much pretty in terms of the city -- they took us through some kind of ugly parts so we could go to the mouth of the river and see the low sun shining on the Baltic. We got a kick out of the views, though, and had a decent meal in the meantime....however, by the end...