Last night in St. Petersburg

Sad panda! Sad panda!

This city really has grown on me. The architecture is beautiful, the food is good, and the women are drop dead stunning. The history is interesting, I had no idea about a lot of Russian history - I have a much better idea on things now. And I got to feel the beat of the city. I could spend a couple weeks here and enjoy the hell out of it.

So up early(ish) this morning to head out to Pushkin. Met up with Alyona. She was a 20 something art student, dirty blonde hair, and light blue eyes with glasses. Cute as a button and cool to chat with. Kinda really liking this travel agency.

So we head down to the driver to head out to Pushkin, which is named after the famous Russian poet that is considered to be the father of Russian literature. The town was also called Children's Town, as it was where a lot of orphaned kids went after WWII. There was also a Soviet name for the place. So its hit or miss depending upon who you ask, what map you look at, or what city limits sign you see first. They use all three names, though the most common contemporary one is Pushkin.

Anyway, its about an hour out of St. Petersburg. The Summer Palace is located there and was where the royal families stayed when not in Peterhof. Peterhof was more used for entertaining foreign officials than anything, though the families did stay there.

Summer gate. Closed now so you had to hit the front door.

The palace was pretty cool and had huge ground that the locals would come to during sunny days or on weekends to get away and walk around. The palace itself was like a version of Peterhof. One half of the palace was in the classic Baroque style - basically way overdone gold everywhere. I'm not a big fan, and neither was Catherine the Great. She ended up adding on to the palace in a more classical style.

 A paper dress made to imitate Catherine's in front of a fireplace that would turn Elton John straight.

I lost interest in the Baroque sections, though the immense ballroom was something to be in awe of. If you stuck a disco ball in the middle of it - it would end up blinding everyone in the room. The other classical sections were all given themes. It was a really cool effect, giving each room its own flavor.

I'm blue, dah boo dee dah boo dah!

So we finished up with the castle and ended up wandering around the grounds for a while, taking a quick stop to have a ham sandwich and a latte. It was cool asking her about stuff and chatting about Russian life and how they did things.

Anywhose, we then headed back and I hung out reading the hotel room for a bit to chill out. After which I wanted to walk around the city for a bit. I walked the street next to Alexander's Park, then turned a left at the UFO Metro station. I then walked all the way up to Bolshoy Prospekt and hung a left. I knew that it would hit the stadium eventually, then I turn a right and head home. Kind of a trip between four metro stations in a square and a good 2-3 hour walk through the real downtown area (non-tourist). It was pretty cool just checking people out and enjoying taking in the views. It made me feel like I was in some East Coast city with people bustling to and fro from work.

I ended up almost to the far end of Bolshoy when I decided I wanted to get something to eat as I was somewhat hungry. I got some borscht, a traditional fried chicken dish with a sour cream sauce, some traditional Russian vodka, and a beer. It was tasty as hell, a higher end restaurant but not terribly expensive. It ended up costing me 1000 rubles, which wasn't bad at all for the amount of food I ate.

I like borscht, but I think I need to figure out how to make solyanka. It was the soup I kept eating that was made with salami, olive, lemon slices, cabbage, salted mushrooms, cucumber pickles, tomatoes, onions, olives, capers, allspice, parsley, and dill. Throw a dollop of sour cream in the middle and its extremely yummy.

Dang, just walked out of the hotel and took a picture around the corner. I'm going to miss this place.