Hello, St. Petersburg! And we have travel buddies!

We have been staying quite busy here in St. Petersburg!  So busy that I haven't had much down time to update the blog....but here's what we've been up to!

On Thursday we had a few hours between having to vacate our apartment in Berlin and needing to go to the airport, so in the late morning we made our way to a nearby playground.  The boys got to play for a couple of hours, we had a picnic lunch, and then we headed to Tegel, Berlin's international airport.

We stopped through Moscow to change flights, which meant that we went through Russian immigration there.  It was the most thorough passport inspection we've had to date (similar to the thoroughness of the visa application in the first place, which was a lot of paperwork), but everything was in order and eventually we made it through.  I'm slightly paranoid that we will lose the white migration cards that we received and that we have to give back in order to exit Russia, but they're tucked safely in our passports for now.

We got to our hotel in St. Petersburg very late, so it was about 1:00 AM before we made it to bed.  But we made it to Russia!!!


Friday we all slept in and decided to take it easy for most of the day.  We're staying in a chain hotel for this stop, and it has some amenities that we won't have everywhere--so I took advantage and got a run in on a treadmill.  In "normal" life I usually run 3 times/week, and I'm hoping to not completely stop running this year, both for my physical and mental health.  When I don't run for a while I get kind of cranky. :)  It had been a while since my last run, so it definitely felt good to get some kilometers/miles in.

In the afternoon we went into St. Petersburg just to walk around a bit and get our bearings.  We wandered on and near Nevsky Prospect, a large boulevard that runs through St. Petersburg and is lined with shops and small squares.  We found the Church of the Spilled Blood, which is modeled on St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.  We admired it from the outside and planed to go in at a later time.  We also wandered through the adjoining Mikhailovsky Garden, which gave the boys some time and room to run out some energy.

Saturday we got moving earlier because we wanted to take a day trip to Peterhof, an exquisite palace and gardens about 30 km outside of the city.  To get there, we took a hydrofoil from St. Petersburg directly to the Peterhof grounds.  It was about a 35 minute trip from the Neva River (in St. Petersburg) into the Gulf of Finland.  It was well worth the trip!

Peterhof is often called the "Russian Versailles" because of its opulence.  It was built in the mid-1800s and modeled on Versailles, and you could definitely see the French-style reflected in the buildings and gardens.  We spent our entire visit in the gardens because it was so large and spread out!  The fountains all run on a gravity based system with no pumps, which is impressive given how much water they move and how long ago the system was designed.

The boys' favorite fountains were, of course, the trick fountains.  These were designed to spray guests with water, often from hidden or unexpected locations.  For instance, this bench would originally shoot water up onto the person sitting on it.  For now, it squirted water from multiple sources, and there was a crowd gathered to watch people (mostly kids) brave crossing it.  You can see Colin watching others, and eventually he ran though, too (and only got a little wet).

This road was lined with water jets, and at a certain time they came on and really soaked the people standing between them.

There were also water shooting trees, and a mushroom-shaped fountain with a bench underneath.

In the evening, we returned to St. Petersburg and ate a quick dinner at our hotel because we had to go meet THESE FRIENDS!!!

And, not 5 minutes after they arrived, the boys started playing chess together.....so very Russian. :)

Helen and I met when we both lived in Norfolk.  We met because Colin and Benny were about the same age and we'd both go to a "story time" event at the library.  The other children, mostly little girls, would sit calmly in their moms'  laps.....while our boys ran laps around the bookshelves together.  After that, we spent a lot of time together at playgrounds, gymnastics classes, and even grocery shopping together (one of us would push the kids in a cart down the main aisle as the other grabbed what they needed).  Colin and Benny were "first friends", and even though we no longer live near each other, we all pick up quickly right where we left off.  I consider Helen one of my best friends and we're all so touched that she, Benny, and Alex made such an effort to come explore Russia with us for a while.

After Helen, Benny, and Alex got settled in their hotel, we headed out just to walk for a bit.  We wandered along the river, enjoying the sights and each other's company.  The sun was setting and the colors along the water were beautiful.  As were the smiles on these happy friends' faces. :)