Started our morning in the middle of the night as we still are trying to figure out what the hell time it is. Our iPads give one time, the clock on the TV an hour later, and the cell phones yet another time. I had been changing my watch at each time change and somehow had kept up with reality - imagine me doing that! - as my watch and the iPads and guest services all agreed. Whew. Another crisis averted.☺

We passed our muster inspection, meeting our neighbors across the hall in the process. Teddy and Marguerite are from So Cal, and when they cruised to Alaska he got a flight home because he couldn't stand the confined feeling of being on a ship. A year or so later they took the QEII around the world and their four sons took bets on how long dad would last before he booked it home. No one won, except Marguerite, as Teddy stayed the course the full trip.

Off to see the Hermitage, pronounced arm-i-tage.

And, we're back. Two and a half hours walking thru multiple buildings with more art than one can imagine. The Hermitage is comprised of the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the New Hermitage, the Old Hermitage and the Winter Palace of Peter I.

I read an amazing novel called "The Madonnas of Leningrad" set dually in the Hermitage during the siege of Leningrad and also forty years later in California. It was a beautiful memory poem to the strength of the Soviet spirit during those heinous 900 days of bombardment and starvation during WWII. One way the narrator, a docent of the Hermitage, copes with the hunger and the fear was to walk thru the halls of the museum in her mind, describing each painting or sculpture to an invisible group of tourists. I'm blown away that anyone could have such an intimate knowledge of the five buildings comprising the museum.

And not in appropriate order, here's the run-down of some of the highlights:

Caravaggios on loan from Italy
Throne room and said throne of czars
Titians
Michelangelo sculpture
The Madonnas
Rembrandts
Egyptian sarcophagi
Opulent chandeliers
Ancient mosaics
The Peacock Clock
Great Hall after Great Hall
Ginormous vases made of lapis lazuli

On the bus ride back to the boat we passed the famous statue of Peter the Great, which was a marvel of its time. I believe it was the first statue that had a horse rearing on its hind legs, because they hadn't the technique to balance that much weight on such a small piece. Peter's legs dangle almost to the ground adding to the mystic of a giant of a man. (He was freakishly large, over 6'4" I think, which was especially huge for the time.)

No Sergeis on this trip so far, JR, but our tour guide this am was a white-haired gentleman named Vadim. I'm holding out for a Sergei.

Early dinner and then the ballet to see Swan Lake.