Just another day in St Petes

There is so much to see here in St Petersburg.  My last adventure was a very successful one.  We were able to see quite a few things, which I will share with you, and find something that we really wanted.  That will all come later.

We rode the metro and then got off the metro at Площадь Ленина so of course one of the first things that we saw was a big statue of Lenin.  There were a bunch of fountains around and the “Finlandski вокзал” which is to say the Finland train station.  All of the trains that go to and from Helsinki go to that train station.

We then walked along the river and then all the sudden we didn’t have any more sidewalk.  There was construction and so then the sign that we saw earlier made a whole more sense.  The side said something like the sidewalk up ahead was really tight or something.  But I really didn’t understand the sign.  Upon getting closer we realized why it said what it said.  It actually meant that the sidewalk was closed and that we should go on the other side of the street.  Well, we didn’t want to walk all the way back to where the crosswalk was so we just j-walked across the street.  There a couple people that we saw j-walking at the same time that we were j-walking.  Here is a picture of the street.  The street was more of a highway than a street.  We just had to wait for the cars to stop coming and then crossed halfway.  Then waited again and we were home free.

In the midst of the construction I see a store that says “я heart sale” and I thought, “hmm this should be an interesting store.  I walk in then go to my right to go to the male section of this clothes store.  I was thinking that it was going to be like a t-shirt store maybe.  It ended up being a super expensive store that had huge discounts.  But discounts disregarded the clothes were still super expensive.  The jacket that I tried on was 70% off but it was still like 5,000 rubles.  So the full price of the jacket would be like 30,000 rubles which is a whole lot of money.  The jacket was very styling with its missing button and being too small.  So needless to say all of these things made it so that I didn’t buy this jacket.

We left the clothes store and then stumbled upon this theater that just happened to be playing Swan Lake, the play that the other ILP teachers were talking about going to see in Moscow.  So then I took a picture of that theater and later went to the website listed there.  It turned out that that direction was the wrong direction and we had to backtrack to get on the bridge to cross the water.

Coming back I see this guy with a Justice League America shirt on.  I just happened to have my camera out and on at the time.  So yep I took a picture of him in all its creepiness.

We then finally crossed the river/canal and got close to the Russian Cruiser Aurora.  This cruiser was used during WWI and WWII and now just sits on the Neva River in the middle of St Petes as a naval monument.  Unfortunately we arrive too late and so we could enter the vessel on this day.  But our trip was not in vain.  We visited the mini-рынок that was there.  I bought 2 magnets and Jessica looked at scarves and then joined Katie in looking for postcard.

Right across from Cruiser is the Naval Academy.  While we were by the academy there was a group of naval recruits that came out.  Unlike all the other groups that I have seen there were actually some girls in this group.  In fact there were like 3 girls.

We ran into this ran and Katie loved the stickers on the car.  There was the exclamation point which signifies the new driver.  Then there was also the “ш“ which Олег told me that the card had studs for extra traction.  But I didn’t see the studs on the tires. So I am kind of confused now.  Then there was also another sticker that I haven’t seen before.  It was the “woman driver” sticker.

We ran in to the Mosque.

Then for dinner had subway which was tasty but not as good as I remember it being here in Russian. I love my Italian BMT.

While we were waiting for the other teachers to come we stood on Nevsky Prospekt.  Jessica and Katie were minding their own business off to the side and I was looking for the other teachers.  While I was doing that I noticed this African guy with a bunch of flowers and it looked like he was trying to give the flowers away.  So I told Katie and Jessica and they walked past the guy.  He didn’t give either of them a flower.  But once they walked past they just kind of stopped and he looked at them for a while.  Then Jessica and Katie came back around trying to avoid the African.  It was pretty funny.

Once the other teachers came then we had a boat tour.  It was pretty sweet.  The only thing was that it was cold.  I was fine except for the fact that I didn’t have a hat or hood to cover my ears so I had to use a blanket which Marci made fun of me for how I wore the blanket.