St Petersburg, Russia!!!

This is going to be a loooong post but I can promise you that it is worth watching the whole way through!!

May 20

We arrived to St Petersburg with the ship early Sunday morning and we took a cab to the hotel at which farmor and farfar (Kathy and Buddy) was staying. Marlee ran down the corridor when they opened their door. He was so happy to see them!! :-D

After some breakfast in their room we want out walking in the city to do some seightseeing. It was surely a lot of buildings to go visit!

Big paining on the Russian museum (unknown people in the front)

"The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood"
Same church as further down, but from
a different day and angle

A big square where Marlee ran and ran and ran...
and so did farmor (she did not have a choice :-)



The Hermitage

 Pictures from a boat trip

During part of the boat trip Marlee got to run a little inside the boat and he played with anothe little Russian kid. In the exitement he tried to open the door to the captain and I was not fast enough to stop him. This resulted in the guide yelling at him in English in the microphone. It was the only part that was in Enlish, the rest of the guided tour was in Russian, but surely interested to realise that you could catch up some facts here and there even on a Russian tour!



Some tsar build this fort to hide in,
across the river from his real home
(picture above)



May 21

More seightseeing... What else should you do when being on vacation to a new city!!??

"The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood"
from a different angle

Inside "The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood"
It was decorations covering  both walls and the ceiling!

Time to leave St Petersburg... We got on the boat in the late afternoon and what a great evening we had on the boat, just wait and see...



Maybe not the most beautiful view from the boat
but I think this is pretty in its own way



Marlee playing with Lego on the boat

When we went outside on the boat deck Marlee put on a real show and really charmed the Chinese tourists. I do not know how many of them took picture and video and laughed. We had a lot of fun to, both wathing Marlee, and the Chinese tourists :-D These people were all very nice and friendly!


Question: How many Chinese tourists can you see
who are taking pictures of Marlee?



After a while the women started dancing, too, and they tried to engage Marlee in their show. He was not quite sure that he wanted to though...

Some fun and useful information for anyone who would go to St Petersburg:

• There are a LOT of very nice building!!
• Hardly anyone knows Enlish, not even people workin in tourist places such as the boat or hotels
• No ATM accepted any of our credit/debit cards, neither Americans nor Swedish cards
• In a lot of shops you can only pay with cash, no card
• Most shorter taxi trips in the city is 300 rubles, never less
• The three girls in the reception at the hotel worked in 24 hours shifts!! Only one of them new any English.
•  I am never been worried that someone would take Marlee but I never let my eyes off Marlee in St P.
• Minimum price we paid for a taxi was 300 rubles and most short trips in the city was 300 rubles.
• Everything on the ship with St Petersline was very overprized. However, the breakfast buffet was quite good!
• The playground on the boat was very good! It is possible to leave your kids there for 10EUR but I did not do that. 

Next stop Helsinki, Finland!