The Hermitage, St. Isaac’s, & My Favorite Building – Sunday 20 September 2009

We stepped out of the bus on a brisk morning and began our trek to the Hermitage. Along the way: Now onto St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Personally, I think Church of our Savior Christ Jesus in Moscow has nothing on this cathedral. St. Isaac’s seems larger, and is definitely more impressive. Then the tour ended and we headed over to my favorite building in all of Russia thus far. I had only seen it from afar while driving on the bus, but I definitely wanted to see it up close. Andrey Voronikhin modelled it after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. So I guess I will like the Vatican. Two statues stand guard over this cathedral: And finally, Kazan from the...

Peterhof Grounds Saturday 19 September 2009

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside Peterhof. This is quite a bummer as I can’t say I remember what any of the inside looks like. All I remember is that there were 3 architects and so 3 different styles. The first was Peter the Great’s architect, and his style was mostly wood and the most conservative in ornamentation. There is only one room left now in that style, and it is my favorite style out of the three. The second style was a Baroque style made by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli for Elizabeth of Russia between 1745 and 1755. During this phase, the upper gardens were added and two wings were added to the palace to make it massive. It looked better as a quaint summer palace with Peter, but Elizabeth wanted more I guess. The last style was overseen by Catherine the Great and was in a Classical style. I remember everything looking exquisite and amazing, but no details. The funnest part was that because it was raining/sprinkling, we had to wear these booties over our feet which were alike to the exercise board that simulated skating and you watched that workout video that led you through the workout. As a kid though I would just put the cloth booties on and slide across the 6 foot plastic board, which is exactly what we did all through Peterhof. Which reminds me, there were a lot of hardwood floors. This is probably why I don’t remember too much as we were skating the whole time. But after we finished with the indoors, we got to take photos of the outside: We had heard there were trick fountains all over the grounds but we had yet to see one. After deciding to find one, we realized we didn’t know what to look for as it probably...

Yusupov’s Moika Palace Friday 18 September 2009

Here is the tour of Yusupov’s Moika Palace: That’s it for today. But after these credits I’m a pull a Hollywood and give you a preview of the next post: Oh, just because I’m going to forget when I eventually post stuff for the current week: Have you all seen Kanye’s “I’mma let you finish…” speech where he interrupts Taylor Swift receiving her award at the MTV Music Video Awards? If not, go search it. Then understand that this has become an internet meme and is now the best line to use in any conversation. It even reached the ears of Obama, and Obama gave Kanye West a suitable name. We use the line practically in every conversation; it’s the best way to politely interrupt someone. Anyway, the one in last night’s conversation was top notch. In fact, it’s the best I’ve ever heard. So this is how it went: Lenny and I are going off on the second statement in Sylow’s Theorem and are talking about orbits and stabilizers. I say something about the size of the orbit_N (giS) just as Adeel is walking by the door and he leans in just before I finish my sentence and says, “Yo, I’m real happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but Pluto has one of the biggest orbits of all time!” Starting out slow, and speeding up towards the end matching Kanye’s pace through the whole thing. It was magic. Pure genius. Comedy at its finest. Oh, more on topic, that first night in St. Petersburg we were at the hostel and went downstairs to take showers. We’re showering and Lenny says, “Caleb you’re a music major you should sing something.” So I bust out the American National Anthem. When I’m finished, feeling pretty good about the performance, I tell them they should sing something. Out of the blue,...

St. Petersburg Day 1 (First Half)

Our train arrived around 10am and I woke thirty minutes earlier to wash my face, get dressed, and eat some food. This was a good idea because when we stepped off the train we met our tour guide and off we went. No time to drop our stuff at the hostel. Into the bus and off to explore the city—reminiscent of somebody in my family during the Disney World Trip. To Dorothy’s credit, the tour guide did show us a bunch of stuff (so much that I took over 600 photos in 3 days, and am going to have at least 4 posts of St. Pete’s) and we had tons of fun, likewise at Disney World. We drove around the Winter Palace and parked behind it to walk through the square and grab a quick bite to eat for the kids who didn’t bring food. I snapped some shots of the Alexander Column and Winter Palace, and the building opposite the Winter Palace: We then went across the bridge to take some photos of the river and landmarks there. In these next few photos we’re going to play a game. It’s called spot “That Guy.” Some of you might be familiar with this game. It comes from those photos that people take while drunk, at a party, on vacation, touring, or all of the above. When they finally look at the photos they notice a random dude they’ve never seen before in the background of the photo smiling or making a face at the camera. Needless to say, we caught one of them in these photos. He’s in all three. See if you can spot him; it’s real obvious in the third one. We then drove further down the river and I took a photo in front of a fairy statue: We drove to a park and walked around...