Home again...For now!

Josh and I returned to the states on May 22nd after a long three days in St. Petersburg. I was unable to get to any computers there due to the fact that our schedule was so packed. Therefore I will recall my last few days abroad from the comfort of my home. Something is better than nothing!

After Tallinn, we drove toward the boarder heading for St. Petersburg, Russia. The same procedures we had been having to go through all the days before still applied as we had to go through 2 borders. First, we had to leave Estonia and then second we could enter Russia. It seemed to go smoother entering Russia this time since we had just gone through the process a few days prior. We all knew we would have to get out of the bus in order to get our visas and passports inspected, so it made things move faster. This time it only took us about an hour and a half to get through, instead of about 3 hours. Also, we didn't have any problem with nuclear radiation women...a.k.a. Lorraine, one of the women in our group!

Once we were in Russia, we had quite a bit more driving to do until we would reach St. Petersburg. Hours later, upon entering the region of St. Petersburg, we headed for Peterhof where we would meet our guide, who would be with us for the rest of our trip. I can't remember where we met our other guide, but somehow we ended up with three guides for part of the day on the 20th. When we finally got to Peterhof, it was raining and we had to go on the tour of the palace first before exploring the grounds because it was closing. It was beautiful and after we toured the palace we were guided through an area with many old artifacts and it was interesting, but since he was stopping at every one it began to get long. When he was finished, he lead us to an area where we were to eat lunch and use the bathrooms. He then parted ways and we were left with the two guides that would be with us the rest of the trip. The food wasn't anything great. It was hard to tell what you were actually going to get since it all looked like something you recognized but it turned out to be something completely different. I got some rice that was cold and spiced and what I thought was chicken, but turned out to be fish. Then Josh went to the bakery and got us some pastries. The first one I ate was ok, but the second one was really really really great! Since Josh ate the really great one first it made the ok one seem not that great at all!

When everyone was finished eating we all loaded back up on the bus and headed to St. Petersburg. On the way we made a slight detour and stopped at this open air museum of a wooded village. It was special because no metal was used when the housed were built. It was a last minute addition to the trip and therefore admission was not included in the trips cost, so if people wanted to go in they had to pay. It wasn't very expensive and Josh didn't want to stay on the bus, so we went in. We looked around and then I shopped in the little stores they had inside. I got a cool wooded barrette, a wooded necklace, and an awesome wooden bracelet. The only reason we had made the stop was so that our professor's wife could sketch and paint a scene from inside. It wasn't that bad and we enjoyed ourselves.

When we returned to St. Petersburg, the local guide had to get off at Nevsky Prospekt in order to get home so she invited all who were interested to get off with her so they could explore the main drag. Josh and I got off, because we wanted to find the store that Josh wanted to go to. Greg (our main guide) took us to the metro station and showed us how to buy the tokens and told us what we needed to do to use them, so we could all find our way back to the hotel before midnight when the metro stopped running and all the bridges rose to allow boats through. We walked up and down the main drag and couldn't find Josh's store, so finally we gave up and headed for the large department store on that street. It was set up very odd. Instead of having a large open area to walk and then being able to chose which stores you enter, in this department store they set it up so you are walking through all the stores. This means that periodically you are walking through security areas as well...When you leave one store to enter another right away. Josh and I had walked through many of these and as we were reaching the end of the line of stores, we walked through the last security bars and I set off the alarm.

I was really freaked out, because I did not want to mess with the Russians and I didn't take anything! There was a security guard was standing right there and motioned me to come to him. He didn't speak English and so to compensate he used a lot of arm gestures and tried to speak slower Russian. I wanted to prove to him that we hadn't bought anything, but it was difficult to get across. He asked me..."Book?" and after I understood he was asking if I have a book I said Yes, and pulled out my St. Petersburg guide book. He looked excited for a minute as though that was what the problem was, until he moved the book through the sensors and the alarm didn't go off. Then it was back to square one. After a little more of this, he called on his walky-talky and then seemed to motion to us that we could go. We were a little confused and turned around and didn't want to leave if that's not what he wanted us to do, so we slowly started to walk, but when we saw another guard come...This one was more like a police officer...We started back toward him. The newly arrived guard came up to me and asked if I spoke English and I got excited and said yes...But that's all he said to me! Then he motioned me to follow him and he took me to the dressing rooms in the nearest store. He then motioned me to take off my coat, so I did and handed it to him. He handed it back and motioned to show him what was in it and I hung it up and pulled the empty pockets out so he could see that there was nothing in it. Then he took it and walked to the detectors and I heard the alarm go off, so we knew it was the coat...But I was confused because there was nothing in the coat! So when he came back by me he hung up the coat and searched it. He ran across the tags and hidden among those tags was a tag that said, "Please remove after purchase." I had never seen it before and I had been wearing the coat for a while now and it had never caused me any trouble before! So, he got a scissors and motioned like he was going to cut it as though he were asking me if it was ok...And I said yes! Cut! After it was cut off and I walked back out of the store the alarm didn't go off...So everything was fine again! BUT, what luck huh! The coat causes a problem nowhere else but in Russia of all places it decides to set off an alarm!! It was an interesting experience!

After that we decided to go to the market to get some food and then go back to the hotel! We found the really good beer (Edelweiss dunkel - dark) we had in Kalliningrad, so we got some of those. We also got some candy and other snack type foods. Then we walked to the metro and ran into Greg as we were trying to figure out where we were supposed to go...Nothing had English on it. We had to ride an escalator to the third platform and then we found our right train. Both coming out of the metro and going into it was awesome. We had to ride an escalator down (to get in) and back up (to get out) because it really deep underground...It was really steep!

We got lost walking back to the hotel that night, so we ended up walking the long way while carrying our food...It was crazy. By the time we got back all we wanted to do was just sit in our hotel room and relax, while eating random food we had bought. It turned out to be nice.

I have to go...So I will write about my last day in St. Petersburg later.

Shannon