Kэt says "мяу"

Ok, I figured out the deal here with the guides. Natalia, the tour guide agent, is a pretty cool gal. I've been chatting with her back and forth on email and she seems like friendly.

She emailed me back and asked how the guided tour on Monday went. She said, I hope you liked Alexandria. She is nice and pretty. You will like Maria.

So apparently its a good idea to have gorgeous college age girls walk you around and show you the city.
I am most definitely not complaining. Not. One. Tiny. Bit.

So I get up around 9ish and head down to the lobby for my next tour, Maria. So thing, long blonde hair, big green eyes. Again, like Alexandria, stunning.

So we headed out to walk down around the park where I am across from. This is the site of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Back in the 1700 when Peter the Great was around, the Baltic Sea was kind of cut off from Russia by the Swedes after they took the land. Peter fought the Swedes and kicked them out.

Deadly attack rabbit resting, their first line of defense.

The tiny island that the fortress sits on was positioned to be the perfect place to house the military in defense of the islands that make up St. Petersburg. So the buildings in the fortress were for armament, soldiers, cannon, officers, etc. There was also a church in the middle, which is where all of the great Russian tsars were buried and ornate tombs in marble above them. The fortress also houses one of Russia's mints for making coins. It was cool hearing the history of Russia and the great wars; while looking at the resting places of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Though, truth be told, the fortress was not all that big.

Peter the Great's tomb.

So we heading over to the metro so that Maria could show me around some of the cool place downtown. The stop was on the other side of the park, and it turned out to be the giant flying saucer that I had walked by the day before.

The metro station was actually one of the cleanest I've seen. It might have something to do with the fact that there are security officers at the top and bottom of the escalators, plus I've seen a pair of military in gear in both the metro stations we hit. The signs were large, clear and insanely easy. Both in English and Russian. She said that the subways were the deepest in Europe, mostly due to the fact that St. Peterburg is made up of 40 separate islands, and that they have more canals there than in Venice. So the subway has to travel most of the way under the water, which can be deep in places. 

We ended up next to Alexander's Cathedral, which was the huge structure on Nevsky Prospekt that I couldn't identify earlier. It is unique in that it was design by a serf that won a design contest in Russia. We then headed to streets just off the boulevard since I had already walked its length the day before. We checked out the national museum, Italian street, and an open market for souvenirs. 

My kind of restaurant.

It was pouring down rain at that point and Maria sounded like she was getting soaked. We walked around for about an hour or so and ran out of things to see. There are a lot of cool things to look at, its just like in Rome - they are a distance from each other. So you really need a car (or boat depending on the island) to check the places out. I let her off the hook an hour early on the tour. She did a great job, but the weather was kind of making things difficult to appreciate. 

Found a Russian matryoshka my friend Janie might enjoy.

I was left off at a Metro station near the last church I went to and headed down the street in search of food. I found an Italian restaurant that had a basic meal for 180 rubles. Tea, fried chicken with pasta, bread, the salami/olive soup with sour cream dollop, and carrot salad. Cheap eats for filling.

I headed back on the Metro (seriously, this is one of the easiest mteros I have ever seen - anyone could figure it out) using the subway token I had bought earlier. Back tot he homestead for a relaxing read in the warmth. Then I headed out and down the street for some food. There is a place called "Chili Pizza" that appears to be a chain that I seen when I first showed up in the city.

I was running low on money, but the bank was still open. To be more accurate, the ATM is behind a glass door with a guard working inside the bank behind a glass window. So basically a small glass walkway brightly lit and visible from inside and outside. With a guard to make sure no one is screwing around. The safest ATM I've ever been to in Europe (who the fuck told me this was an unsafe city?).

Chili Pizza had a separate sushi, pizza, and munchie menu. So depending upon whether you wanted traditional Russian food, sushi, or pizza - you just flipped to the correct tab. I grabbed a Pepsi and a medium smoked meat, mushroom, olive, salami, and feta pizza. It was tasty, cheap, and quick. I forsee another stop in my future.So tomorrow, off to Pushkin.