Allyson and Moema Visit

I know this is horrible, but I have no memory of the name of this place.  We drove to a ring road town outside of Moscow . . yeah . .  there was a monastery there .  . . 

 This place was really cool.  It is "New Jerusalem" and the church was being remodeled on the inside, but it was so beautiful.

We also went to St. Petersburg.  Here we are on the fast train.

 There was a TV screen up above on the ceiling which is why Oliver and Leah are so out of it.  It was some weird Russian cartoon and I think they were mesmerized and confused.

 The Kazan cathedral.  Levin and I didn't see this when we went before.

 The Hermitage

 Oliver was not so into Pizarro.  The kids were actually amazingly good considering how long we drug them from room to room of different art.

 St. Issaac's.

 We went out to see a palace Tsararsckoe Selo - the Tsar's Village.  It was a summer palace.  It is also the home town of Pushkin who you can see behind us.  We stayed (but didn't get a picture) in the Happy Pushkin Hotel.  The people were so nice and the hotel was cheap, but also nice.  We noticed that in a lot of the pictures Pushkin looked a little African.  So, somehow I was sucker who got to ask our tour guide (we had to rent a van to get there and a tour guide too) what Pushkin's ethnicity was.  Turns out his grandfather was African because "you know at the time of Peter the Great it was very popular to have servants from Africa."  I just think this is so interesting because Russians are so racist.  Speaking of racism, you may have noticed my brother-in-law is black.  We only had one scare with a police men where we all thought he was coming right at Moema, but he didn't - he stormed right on past.

 Here is the palace.  It was taken over by the Nazi's in WWII and was pretty trashed, but a lot of work went back into it to make it beautiful again.  The palace was built for Peter the Great's second wife because as a second wife she wouldn't be allowed to take over his chambers when he died, so he built this little place for her.

 It was incredible all the suffering St. Petersburg went through during WWII.  In the palace there is a room called "The Amber Room."  You aren't allowed to take pictures of it so I'll tell you about it here.  It was all these panels of amber that were given to the Russians by the Germans (I think) and one of the Tsarina's deicided she wantd them moved from the city palace out to this palace.  It took days and days for footmen to move these panels.  During the Nazi occupation the panels went missing.  They have never surfaced.  So the Germans donated a lot of money to the rebuilding of the Amber Room.

 I know - too many pictures of the outside.  Now to the inside.  Our tour guide was the woman on the right.  She had heard the Americans care a lot about customer service so she kept asking us if it everything was okay and up to our expectations.

 When I was looking through the pictures and saw this one of Leah and Oliver I remembered (as I have before when I look back at pictures) that my little Leah is just little.  So often I expect her to act like such a big kid but she is just a little kid.  I gotta go easier on her.

 Trying to get a picture of Autumn we had to get my ugly mug in there too.

 We had about 5 pictures of this same pose with Leah and Oliver refusing to look at the camera - Leah was actively hiding.  I think we had to threaten a spanking in order to get them to look at the camera. At least Leah is looking . . not smiling though.

 The church on Spilled Blood.  My favorite Russian Church I think.  I wondered when I saw it again 2 years later if I'd still feel that way, but I think I do.  I love Christ the Redeemer in Moscow though too.

 The Peter and Paul Fortress - a lot of Tsars are buried here and there is a prison a lot of political prisoners of the early Communists were held in.

 We thought the rooms weren't half bad considering the Gulags.

 At night Moema, Allyson and I got to go to the Marinsky theater to watch a ballet.  It was MUCH cheaper than the newly remodeled Bolshoi in Moscow.  It did look a little old though.  Leah's ballet teacher once told me that at least for male dancers he feels like at this time Marinsky has the better dancers, or at least more manly as opposed to "little boys" at the Bolshoi.  Who knows if Yuri knows what he's talking about.

 I think this is the inside of St. Isaac's.  Our hotel was near St. Isaac's so the outside picture I posted above was taken on a different day than the day we took these pictures.

That's it.  We had a really fun time even with traveling with 3 little kids.  It probably wasn't idea for Ally and Moema to have us tag along, but they did have a Russian translator, and Levin is an expert trip planner.  But we benefited from extra hand holders and stroller pushers.  And I think our kids may have been a little more well-behaved having an aunt and uncle around.
When Levin was in St. Petersburg for work he once got this "hot chocolate" that was like melted chocolate. I have been jealous ever since.  He tried so hard to please me after a kinda of gross meal (I was morning sick so lets blame that) in a Russian restaurant.  He took us to the same cafe - by St. Isaac's - and they not only were kind of snooty to us, but all the hot chocolate was gross.  The regular was kind of bitter and the melted chocolate . . . I don't know, it was kind of like warmed up gross chocolate pudding or something . . I don't know.  But we didn't even finish it and it was expensive so that tells you it wasn't so good.
Last time we went to St. Petersburg I figured I'd be back, but now typing this I realize I will probably never go back to the beautiful city.  If only they had better food there, but otherwise it is a fun and beautiful place - with sooo much to see.