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We didn't wake up quite so early today so we must be over the time difference thingy.
As we were leaving the dining room, it started to snow, the forecast was for a warmer day with rain! I guess that the Russian weather bureau is as competent as ours.
Today's main excursion was to the Summer Palace of Catherine the Great in the town of Pushkin. It was a thirty minute trip. This palace was almost destroyed during the war and has been mostly restored, it is an on-going project.
It snowed the whole way there, Kat and I loved it, not sure how Vlad the driver felt, it certainly didn't slow him down.
It was still darkish when we got there, so I didn't take any outside photos then. Inside we had to wear covers over our boots to protect the floors.
The inside was, well I can't really describe it, if you have ever seen any documentary on it you will know what I mean. There is so much opulence, the walls are covered in so much gilding youy eyes hurt, check out the ballroom! Booie hall could do with this sort of make-over.
After the palace, (Don't worry, it was daylight when we finished the tour so i did get some great photos of the outside) we had lunch in a tiny, cosy restaurant. Lunch was a selection of traditional foods including Borsch, some sort of meat or sausage wrapped in cabbage leaves and of course, vodka. It was good to see that the traditional dessert in Russia is ice cream! Minus two and snowing outside and they eat ice cream, Oh those crazy Russians.
On the way back, we passed a MacDonalds, and Olga told us that they just celebrated 20 years since the first Maccas opened, there was even a documentary made about it, they see Maccas as a symbol of freedom.
After lunch we were veging in our room trying to decide if a snooze was the next order of business when the housekeeping knocked and wanted to clean up and make the bed etc. well we decided to go for a walk (in a blizzard, well not really, it was just ordinary snow) we went over the road to have a look in St Isaac's Cathedral museum. Well these Orthodox types can teach the Catholics a thing or two about setting up a church. Like the palaces, the budget to build and decorate it did not have a limit, it was very impressive. There was even a service being conducted in a side chapel.
The area around our hotel was crawling with police as well, there was supposed to be an anti government demonstration somewhere this afternoon and the police busses were parked just up the road. I don't know how the demonstration went.
We are having an early night and used the time to do some washing, how the washing will dry in this climate, we have yet to find out.
- comments
Noela Hi, you crazy Russians! You don't do your washing... you turn the undies inside out every day! We have seen demonstrations but not to worry... only a few million on the streets! : ) You will never get sick of opulence... do you?? We've decided not to do the puddin' for Xmas dinner.... we already have too much! Noela x o