Friday, June 16, 2006
Day 3
Monday 06/05/06
St. Petersburg Russia
weather:rainy,breezy 51*
Currency:Rubles/US$
Religion: Russian Orthodox
We arrived in St. Petersburg sometime before 7am. It was pouring rain and freezing!
The rain was coming down sidewise. There wasn't as much fog as there was in Estonia.
Just cold and wet.
We hoped the weather would clear up before our excursion into Pushkin for Catherine the Great's Palace. I had no idea what to expect.
We didn't have the excurcsion till later in the afternoon around 2:00pm. So Carl and I walked around the ship. We played ping pong on the Lido Deck (where the pools and buffets were).
It did start to clear up, weather wise with breeze and a little bit of sunshine as we headed for Pushkin on the bus. Pushkin is about an hour outside of St. Petersburg. But it took us a little over two hours due to traffic in St. Petersburg! It was TERRIBLE! Apparently though that is the normal.
There was some confusion about taking a camera. Our brochure and the ticket office told us that we were not able to take pictures on the tour unless we payed an extra $55. Well when we got on the bus our guide "Olga", told us it was only $5 to take pictures of the palace inside. There were only a small handful who did actually bring their camera. We were also told that it wasn't safe to care your belongings
Fortunately I was not impressed with Catherines Palace, nor was Carl. Some people that's their thing, all the gold and statues and gaudy furniture. It's a duplicate of Versailles in Paris, France. Only blue. There were two rooms at the end that were more simple and more Victorian looking that I did like a little better.
The city itself it quite depressing and sad. Nothing has been updated since the communists fell. The city was very dirty and the buildings were run down and broken windows and graffiti. It was very sad.
Oh we did see the LDS missionaries. We were bummed we didn't have time to stop and chat with them. They were on the other side of the street, but it was fun to see them there!!
It was intresting hearing other people on our excursion and our table mates say the same thing. Bob, Kathy,Skip and Jannette (our tablemates) also told us they went into the city more on their excursion and it didn't get much better.Marie the elderly lady that is also at our table was on our tour.
We had a band that met us at the docking port. Watching people coming back from their excursions was on of our favorite past times. We could watch from our veranda most of the time, otherwise we would go to Deck 3 or Deck 8.
Russia was very tight on their security. Not only did we have to have our passport but a photocopy of our passport to hand them at the immigration. It was a fairly quick process and we got a Russian immigration stamp.
Anyway I apologize the few pictures we have of St. Petersburg were of the port.
The funest part of the day was trivia in the Queens Loung with our table group! We have gotten to know them and hit off right away! They invited us to play trivia with them since Carl and Herb are big trivia people too. We came in 2nd next to them!
Monday 06/05/06
St. Petersburg Russia
weather:rainy,breezy 51*
Currency:Rubles/US$
Religion: Russian Orthodox
We arrived in St. Petersburg sometime before 7am. It was pouring rain and freezing!
The rain was coming down sidewise. There wasn't as much fog as there was in Estonia.
Just cold and wet.
We hoped the weather would clear up before our excursion into Pushkin for Catherine the Great's Palace. I had no idea what to expect.
We didn't have the excurcsion till later in the afternoon around 2:00pm. So Carl and I walked around the ship. We played ping pong on the Lido Deck (where the pools and buffets were).
It did start to clear up, weather wise with breeze and a little bit of sunshine as we headed for Pushkin on the bus. Pushkin is about an hour outside of St. Petersburg. But it took us a little over two hours due to traffic in St. Petersburg! It was TERRIBLE! Apparently though that is the normal.
There was some confusion about taking a camera. Our brochure and the ticket office told us that we were not able to take pictures on the tour unless we payed an extra $55. Well when we got on the bus our guide "Olga", told us it was only $5 to take pictures of the palace inside. There were only a small handful who did actually bring their camera. We were also told that it wasn't safe to care your belongings
Fortunately I was not impressed with Catherines Palace, nor was Carl. Some people that's their thing, all the gold and statues and gaudy furniture. It's a duplicate of Versailles in Paris, France. Only blue. There were two rooms at the end that were more simple and more Victorian looking that I did like a little better.
The city itself it quite depressing and sad. Nothing has been updated since the communists fell. The city was very dirty and the buildings were run down and broken windows and graffiti. It was very sad.
Oh we did see the LDS missionaries. We were bummed we didn't have time to stop and chat with them. They were on the other side of the street, but it was fun to see them there!!
It was intresting hearing other people on our excursion and our table mates say the same thing. Bob, Kathy,Skip and Jannette (our tablemates) also told us they went into the city more on their excursion and it didn't get much better.Marie the elderly lady that is also at our table was on our tour.
We had a band that met us at the docking port. Watching people coming back from their excursions was on of our favorite past times. We could watch from our veranda most of the time, otherwise we would go to Deck 3 or Deck 8.
Russia was very tight on their security. Not only did we have to have our passport but a photocopy of our passport to hand them at the immigration. It was a fairly quick process and we got a Russian immigration stamp.
Anyway I apologize the few pictures we have of St. Petersburg were of the port.
The funest part of the day was trivia in the Queens Loung with our table group! We have gotten to know them and hit off right away! They invited us to play trivia with them since Carl and Herb are big trivia people too. We came in 2nd next to them!
