St. Petersburg

So I haven't made a blog post in almost 2 months. Oops! Time flies when you're having fun! I'll be making a few blog posts to catch up.
So I went to St. Petersburg, with my fellow Dickinson students, plus Sasha, the twin sister of our TA from last year. Her purpose was to basically make sure we didn't miss the train, forgot about excursions, or fall into the Nevsky river.
So what did we do? The classic activities, really. We had a bus tour of the city, went to Peterhoff Palace (getting there by the means of a speed boat down the river and over the gulf of Finland), saw where Rasputin was killed, went to the Marinksy theatre to see the ballet "Gisselle", and of course went to the Hermitage.

Petersburg in the wee hours of the morning, as we walked from the train station to our hostel.

Blue sky! Such a welcome sight.

Peterhoff, where all the glitters really is gold.

A friend I made on the Peterhoff grounds.

View of St. Petersburg from Peterhoff. Note the shining dome.

Marinksy theatre

Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood (Blue sky!)

View from boat tour.

As per request of my father.

Pushkin, the greatest literary figure in Russian history.

It was a good trip and the weather was much more cooperative than it was during my last visit last summer. But it was strange, coming back to Moscow, I was shocked how relieved I was to be back. Just last year, I would have told you I prefer St. Petersburg over Moscow. But Moscow is home right now and I wouldn't have it any other way.