Russia

Ok... I am a bit behind.

[Actually only about a month and a half] but behind nonetheless.

I've run out of time to make the Russia video so here are the highlights;

Waiting at midnight for our 2am bus;


6 hours by bus put us at the Narita airport where we waited for our flight to Beijing [3 Hours].


In Beijing we waited another 2 hours and then caught the 9 hour flight to Moscow;


And immediately went to the train station to catch an overnight train to St. Petersburg.
First views of St. Petersburg...


Saw this in the train station:


All the train stations are gorgeous:


My first meal. Russian food is scrumptious! Think loads of rice, meats, creams, pastries and dark teas. mmmm....


The Group:

ABOVE: From Left... me, JD [Idaho native- now a NishiAizu ALT], Fay [English- now a Bange ALT], David [Oregon native - now a Shiokawa ALT] and Ben... David's friend from Nizhny who traveled with us a majority of our time in Russia. Having someone who speaks fluent Russian was a Godsend. Literally NO ONE speaks English. The language is so far from English that people sitting next to me could very well have been saying awful things about me and I would have no idea. English education is existent as an elective, but not readily taught in schools.

Our first day sightseeing St. Petersburg we saw this;








The Green building above is the Winter Palace. Mom, you would have LOVED it.
In St. Petersburg we rented an apartment. Here is a picture I snapped of Faye in the windowsill.


My breakfast practically every day: Rice with meat, a fried egg, pastries with semi-sweet sour cream insides and black tea.


All I am going to say is that it was NOT my idea to spend the crappy rainy day sightseeing and then spent the next day, with the most PERFECT weather, touring the insides of the winter palace.




The winter palace has the largest collection of art in the country. rooms upon rooms... all intricately decorated full of art. Here are some of my favourite pieces and rooms:











The last exhibit was a collection of kids drawings. I loved it!


We then toured the surrounding area:



There was a wedding party drinking vodka right next to us. Typical!



And then we caught our train for Nizhny:



Da is Yes in Russian. This is YES! juice.

We met the nicest lady on the train. She doesn't even know what an impact her and her giving nature had on me.


Then I wrote postcards and watched the sunset.


[Jamal's birthday card. It says: DONT WAKE THE BEAST!]

Nizhny has some pretty neat graffiti around:






And the main street has some fun statues:





view from the WW2 memorial:


This is Anton, who lives in Nizhny also. He met us there and traveled with us to Moscow. He was awesome and great company!

the likeness was too funny.



About to catch our train to Moscow:

GIANT Mural in the station:






On the train:


Moscow:





There are a couple of trees on this bridge. Each has hundreds of locks that couples have put on there and
symbolically thrown the key in the river. I wasn't convinced.






And then I saw the reason I came to Russia....



We were a bit tired from travel so we took the night easy and had some delicious eats. The next day we returned, ready to go [and dressed a ton cuter.].









Said my last goodbye to Russia [And a hello to 25 hours of travel!]...



My loot: