St. Petersburg - Day 5

I let Big Boy sleep too late today; he got up after noon. I may still yet run today, even though it's almost 10:30pm. The sun is still up, after all. We had the most perfect weather today. A few puffy clouds, about 70, breeze but not wind. I did our laundry and hung it out on the communal balcony. Remember how I said we had to walk up 10 flights of stairs the other day? The apartment and the balcony are on the 10th floor. Ugh. I found it less scary when I put my back to the railing and faced the building as I hung clothes.

As the weather was so cooperative, we decided to go to Peter & Paul Fortress and then take a look at Peter's cabin, both of which are across the Neva River. We were still too far inland to see the Gulf of Finland, but I still want to do that before we leave. The picture here is more than we saw, the middle tower to the left of the tall spire was covered for ремонт, or remodeling. Between the four tour buses parked inside the fortress, the various bobcats hauling construction materials everywhere, and the paint fumes, it was a little less impressive than we'd hoped it would be. The entire thing is paved in cobblestone, though, using real stones. Not bricks, stones. It's an impressive feat of masonry, but it's not much fun to walk on, and, as Big Boy reminded me, they used to do military drills here. We didn't go in to see any old dead tsars, we just looked around inside the fort and then outside at the river.

We had less success with lunch today. The first place we tried was really busy and had no available tables at 3:30pm. So we found a second option, a Georgian place, which had great choices on the menu. For example, pike, perch, mutton, chicken, shrimp, and "Boiled Tongue with Garnish." We were also a little low on rubles, so we shared a cheese bread, which was good, but not enough. On the way to Peter's cabin, we each had a Larabar. Thanks Lara! I also changed some dollars to rubles.

Peter's cabin was already closed when we got there. So, we walked back to the Troitsky Bridge and crossed the Neva. Then, on to the Summer Garden (Летний сад) and Summer Palace (Летний дворец). The garden was nice, the statues were plenty, and we were getting hungry again. On to Coffee House. After a snack and the realization that Big Boy should NOT order the French hot chocolate, which seemed to be dark chocolate pudding in a mug, we walked up and down Nevsky Prospect. Yes, again. Yes, we do this every day. That way I don't feel too guilty about skipping running again. We walked for 9 hours today.

Our new roommates managed to get back to the apartment alive. They're a father & son from Florida. Neither can read nor speak any Russian. After a week here and a week in Moscow, they're headed to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway. They don't speak Chinese, either. I wrote out the Cyrillic spellings of the metro stop they were headed to and the one for the apartment. After that, I walked them to the metro. At least they eat meat. And they did take my advice of avoiding at all costs the evil pay туалет and going to McDonalds or a coffee house to use a bathroom. Ugh. I think I'll have nightmares about that first one I used for years.