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The rest of my trip, recapped...

We started our last day in St. Petersburg early and headed straight to the Peter and Paul fortress. Our St. Petersburg tour guide, Oxanna, gave us a walking tour through it and we got to see Peter and Paul Cathedral where many of the Romanov rulers of Russia are buried. It was very beautiful. We saw the statue of Peter the Great, where his head is much smaller than his body, and I guess legend has it that if a person touches his hand they will return one day to St. Petersburg. I touched it, so I guess I’ll be returning to St. Petersburg someday.

While we were on our tour, we were also trying to figure out how we could go see the Church on Spilled Blood and the market right near it. Our schedule was so fully booked that there was really no free time, which kind of sucked. Due to this lack in free time; some of us opted to skip the tour of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Instead we walked briskly to the Church on Spilled Blood and the market behind it. It was amazing up close and the market was pretty cool too, even though it was mainly filled with souvenirs. Everyone was pretty nice, for the most part, and instantly began showing you their merchandise and offering things to you. There was one booth in the market with a man who ignored Josh until he began picking out pins he was interested in. Then when Josh asked how much they were the price was outrageous for the individual pins, so Josh began to put them back where he found them. As he did this, the man began rambling on about how his pins are the real thing and if Josh wanted to go spend his money on the street for fakes that was fine…etc. He kind of frightened me and we got out of there as soon as possible and headed straight to the Hermitage, where we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the group by 1 p.m. for our tour.

The Hermitage was huge and Josh, Edwin and I wanted to see as much of it as we could. So, we broke away from the tour and proceeded to give ourselves a so called tour on speed! We walked briskly through as many rooms as we could and we were able to see quite a bit. The lay out was confusing though and we got lost and therefore visited some rooms multiple times. We weren’t able to see all of it as it has 1057 halls and rooms, but I was happy with what we did see. After the allotted time given to us for the tour, we had to return to the bus. I was feeling slightly faint because I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so in the courtyard Josh and I bought Cokes. The Coke was just the thing I needed to raise my blood sugar, so we took a couple more pictures and headed to the bus.

From the Hermitage we drove through the city and headed for Pushkin which is located approximately twenty-five kilometers from St. Petersburg. This is where we would have our farewell dinner and tour the Catherine Palace. At the farewell dinner Mike wasn’t feeling very well so he looked really sick the entire dinner and I was worried he was going to puke all over Greg, who was sitting across from him. There was wine and Russia vodka for people to try. Nate, Dana, Josh and I did very small shot of the vodka to try it and it was very strong and not very good! We didn’t have anymore. The wine was good though, even though it was red and I like white better. Other people were taking multiple shots of the vodka and it got kind of annoying after a while because they were getting tipsy and loud. We were presented with live Russian entertainment which made the evening fun. At one point, we were able to play along with them using wooded handmade instruments! The dinner was a pleasant way to end the trip.

When we returned from Pushkin, Josh and I decided to stay up until we had to meet in the hotel lobby at 2 a.m. We packed, watched the Eurovision finals, and hung out. At 1 a.m. we decided to go down to the lobby because we were all ready and didn’t know what else to do. We sat in the lobby and played mini Uno and waited for other people to arrive. Other people opted to stay up as well and were hanging out in the bar until we had to go. The bus was a little late, so when it arrived we had to rush to load and get on it. The reason we had to leave by 2 a.m. was because all the bridges in St. Petersburg go up at night and there are only a few opportunities to cross so we had to make sure we didn’t miss our chance. If we missed it, we would miss our flight. We made it across and headed to the St. Petersburg airport. When we arrived it wasn’t even open so we had to wake the security people and they didn’t seem very happy about that. After going through security we had to wait around for a few hours until they opened the rest of the airport. It was a long wait, but at least the hotel provided us with a breakfast to go. We also were able to watch a little Columbo in Russian, which was entertaining for a little while.

The rest of the day was spent boarding planes, going through security, and flying back home. We were met at the airport by Josh’s dad and sister. We drove to Crystal Lake and my parents came down later for dinner and then they took me home.

It was an amazing experience.