We have flown from Portland to San Francisco, San Francisco to Helsinki Finland, Helsinki Finland to St. Petersburg. receive the Arctic Circle, so even though we were on a 10 hour red eye, the Sky was always light. We have now been here in St. Petersburg for two days. And it has been one fun adventure after another.
We are staying in Airbnb in the part of town that the writer Dostoevsky (crime and punishment) lived in. It is dreary early 19th century tenement buildings, one right after another. But we are close to everything in the heart of the city. They are refacing the interior of the courtyard of our apartment building. Here is a pic of me standing in it.
We got in just in time to catch the Spain versus Portugal game. We walked around until we found an Irish pub and watched it from there.
The pub was full of people from all around the world. We had a protein rich Russian salad called oliver to hold us over till we could find more food after the game.
Everything here is beautiful. It is a city of canals, and stunning architecture. Every corner you go around has new beautiful towers, spires, turrets or an intricate design for you to see. On our way to the pub we were entranced by the gilded golden spire of the royal naval building.
Walking around in the late evening I stumbled upon St. Issac’s cathedral in the dramatic dusky sky.
The interior of the buildings are just as captivating as the outside. We ate at a trendy café chain called Mickey monkey. We got back to our studio at around midnight and tried to catch up on sleep.
I think it’s been true for 200 yrs. You can go into any big city, find an Irish pub, get a pint and speak some English. Was a great help after the 20hrs of red eye travel!
Amazing that churches like that are still around, after so many years of religion being more or less banned under communism (at least, that’s my understanding of the situation). How lucky for us now that they weren’t all torn down or converted into government offices.
I think more or less banned is about right. Sounds like one could be privately religious and there were some purges and they wouldn’t let you even be a school teacher. There are definitely people in the churches now!
FYI: we are all viewing your posts as the first part of every day’s standup!
Lol. That’s great! We are on to Moscow tomorrow. I’ll post on the train ride. 200mph bullet train!