after a night of shuffling apartments, no sleep, and feeling like i was in the poor district of rio do janeiro, alla met us in the morning to run some errands and show us around. first she took us to the "old kindergarten" school, which is awesome! the kids are so great and all the teachers are so nice to us and helpful and they feed us which is always a plus :) then we went to the metro for the first time! that was fun. st. petersburg has the deepest metro in the world!
that's alla on the side. we love her! the escalator is for sure the longest i've ever seen or been on. it was really exciting at first, now it's just the norm. fun fact: the hand rail things go faster than the stairs, so after a couple minutes you end up like laying down on the rail and don't even notice.
first glimpse of the metro!
after this, we had to go register with the university that we're getting our russian classes at (hate those) and get our student ID cards (they get us into some stuff for either free or cheaper). and after about an eternity there, we went to lunch and then we got to walk around the city center, and visit some cathedrals! :)
this is the first cathedral we saw and went in. it's right out of the metro exit. it's so beautiful! inside, there's a little babushka (crazy old woman, like a grandma) sitting by a water tank. she gives you a glass of water that is supposed to be good for your soul, you drink it, but leave a little bit in the bottom, because she splashes your face with it. if you don't leave water in it, or not enough, she fills it up about 1/4 of an inch or so, and you get that. we all got drenched.
fake building?
cool statues line a building!
there's 4 of these statues around the street, each of them with the man and horse in a different postion. maybe it's man conquering a horse? i dont know. but really, it looks like something that would be all over the place when horses conquer man and take over the world. like the wizard statue in the 7th harry potter movie.
all of the buildings in the city center are amazing, beautiful, and have incredible architecture and detail.
flowers make me happy. and all the flowers here make some sort of design or pattern here.
catherine the great's statue
i dont know what this is.... but i like it.
yay pepsi!!!! :D
i don't know what this one is either...
kazan cathedral- under construction :( we saw a wedding going on in here... it was sweet!
crazy story... so we get to this cathedral and 4 of us girls have ice cream so the security guard stops us and we stand there and finish it. well, this lady comes up to me and starts speaking russian and i just stare at her blankly (2nd day in russia mind you) and the security guard comes up behind me and starts shooing her away and arguing with her. she cowers over to her literally toothless boyfriend who starts yelling at the guard. they keep goin for awhile, it starts to stop and the guard walks away but then the guy starts yellin again and then they lunge at each other like they're gonna fight! it was crazy! the guy argues a little more and eventually they leave. we're pretty sure the lady was begging me for money or something, but either way i was grateful for that guard!
i should sell this picture to pepsi and make some big bucks.
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