Hannah - St. Petersburg: July 30, 2015

Hey all! So we're finally in Russia! And wow! It's essentially what I thought it would be. Rainy...and gloomy...and Frey...and kinda depressing. But its a city full of life. Since Russia is a verrrrryyyy strict country, we had to have a guide throughout our three day stay. After breakfast we went through customs. They took a long time because the customs officer had to stamp ten billion things (not really) and she had to do a lot of immigration card stuff...a lot of stuff I don't really know. Once we were through, we found our guide, Maria. In Russia, we actually have three families doing stuff together. The Coco's with 5, us with 3, and another couple (Diane and Bob). Once we were on our van, we rode around St. Petersburg, taking photos along the way. After about an hour of van touring (luckily it was when the rain was) we stopped at a church. The front of the church was painted entirely of gold, with intricate engravings. Why was it so elaborate? It was the burial ground of Russian tsars and royalty. From Peter the Great to Nicolas the Second (the one who was murdered, along with his family, and their remains weren't found for a few decades...but either Anastasia or Maria never was found) that was actually in a fortress. Fortunate for us, we arrived at the center of the fortress at 12:00; the time when the daily canon is shot. Boy was it loud. I saw the blank shoot out, well the blast from it, then about one second later this noise that you could almost feel blasted. The cool thing about the fortress was that we got to walk on the wall and get a semi aerial view of sr. Petersburg (granted St. Petersburg is a big city) after the fortress we went to lunch at a Russian pie cafe. Now don't think of the named can pies. Oh no! They were way different and so much better. This cafe not only had fruit pies, but also meat pies. I guess pie is the wrong word. Think of an apple strudel. You know how the filling is in between layers of light and crunchy bread. That's basically how these "pies" were. I had a cheese and onion pie, but there were also need pies, salmon pies, plum pies, and apple pies. Our entire meal of 3 slicesvof non sweet pie, and 3 slices of fruit pie was under $5. And the food...was fantastic. After lunch we went to an artillary museum. No offense to the people that like that sort of stuff, but I'd say about 3/4 of the information went right over my head. There were a lot of tanks, missed, canons, and so much more. After the... Oh so extensive artillary museum, we split into 3 groups. One group went to a history museum (the couple) one went back to the ship (my brother, the oldest boy from the other family, and the dad) and I went and painted a matroyska doll. It was really neat because it was basically in a little cafe. We did have a translator because the actual painter could speak English. We painted for about an hour, then we had to stop...sad day I didn't finish. But we got to have traditional Russian tea and blinis with cream and fruit sauce. It was oh so delicious. After painting, we went back to the ship. I was going with the Coco's to the Russian ballet, so I had to skip assigned dinner and go to the buffet before meeting the family. When we arrived at the theater, it was already pretty full, but luckily we found some good seats. The first half was super duper long...like maybe an hour and 15 minutes. But the dancing was incredible and the music. Oh! The music. It was so wonderful. I forgot to mention that we watched Swan Lake. When the two hour-ish ballet ended, we headed back to the ship and arrived at 11:05 pm. So late!
Well, after a wonderful day in Russia, I'm ready to go back tomorrow. Yay!