you can take the fish out of the water, but you can't take the water out of the fish

my mom and dad have always called me a fish because i've always loved being in water and swimming. it didn't matter if we were camping by a river, or vacationing on the oregon coast, regardless of how cold the water was, i ALWAYS got in and played and loved every minute of it. well... st. petersburg is right on the coast of the baltic sea/bay of finland, so how could we resist going to the beach?? 

 so we got off the metro and looked at a map and headed off what we thought was the general direction of the beach. we ended up taking a shady lookin street that led to these walls around the canal completely covered in graffiti and this is one of them. pretty cool i think!

 obviously, we made it to the water! it only took us like an hour to find where we could get onto the beach, but we did it! and it was so worth it. the water was a little cold, but not nearly as bad as i expected and it felt so good. i definitely could've gone for a swim in that water, except for that it's pretty polluted and disgusting.

 this is the result of me attempting to do jumping pictures in the water. none of them worked either....

 so pretty!

 i <3 the beach :)

 footprints in the sand anyone? 

 marigolds remind me of home and my mom

we stopped to get the sand out of our shoes and started to play a little frisbee. things got pretty rough.

russians do bread better than anyone i know. its an art form. not to mention delicious. 

bread for 3 in russia=bread to feed an army of children in africa.

so one day at the school there was only 3 of us girls for lunch. the other girls were all out doing something. the cooks there love us and we love them and they take pretty good care of us. they always give us tons of bread, and we like it because we always get fed soup, which isn't entirely filling and definitely not solid. i hate that. i like to chew. i wanna steak.... anyways. so we told them there was only 3 of us and this is the amount of bread that we got

3 more girls actually ended up showing up to help us eat it, but they got even MORE bread! for the first time, we snuck some bread home :)

excursion. success. worse than MT weather. st. pete's=good.

about a week after we got here (our first saturday), our cultural expert/tour guide sveta took us out on an excursion to see the city and show us where all the great things are! it was a happy day :) 

 this picture is slightly edited just for fun.... but not too much! this is the church of the savior on spilled blood cathedral. it was built in memory of alexander II and it got it's name because this is the site where he was killed. sorta. he was killed in 1881 during a war. people had attempted to kill him many times and come close, but here a bomb went off and he lost his legs. he lost so much blood here that he died soon after at the winter palace. so, he didn't technically die here, but you get the point.

 i'm pretty sure this is my favorite cathedral :)

this guy was so good! i love him! we actually saw him later in the day walking down the street.

 russians are super affectionate and lovely and all that. fun fact: escalator ride to the metro is like 5 minutes, so we frequently see people making out on it. one time in particular tho, these 2 people were GOIN AT IT! it was more than a little ridiculous. anyways.... the story behind these padlocks is that when a couple gets married they put a lock on or around this bridge and "seal their love", then through the key into the river. there was actually a couple doing it right after we were taking these pictures. it was adorable. we also saw like 20 other brides on this day

 so cute!

 i love this tradition!

 spilled blood from the back

 everlasting flame

 peter and paul fortress from far across the river

 so pretty! the picture doesn't really show it too well, but it actually is!

 russians tend to have some cool doors

 winter palace!

 so, i've always wanted a picture on a european cobblestone street and i finally got one! the pipe in the background isn't very pretty.. but that's ok. i'm sure there will be more of these

 these big guys are at the entrance to the hermitage. apparently if you touch their toes with your spouse when you get married, your children will be strong. obviously i'm not married, but i still touched the toes so hopefully my ovaries will unfreeze from all the times i've sat on the ground and i can have kids!

 winter palace square place... that tower weighs like 6 tons, stands completely on it's own, and only took 1 1/2 hours to put up! russians are genius.

 yay winter palace!

 so beautiful!

 this place is unbelievably huge!

so those green things are ships coming out of a lighthouse. i. love. them. 

 so pretty!

 sittin in front of the winter palace

 i like this building... and the statues at the top... i dunno what it is tho...

 finally up close to peter and paul fortress!

 the gold was so pretty against the dark stormy sky!

fun fact: back in the day, no buildings were allowed to be taller than this tower.

i love it in central where it's so pretty :)

oh.... so this is what learning in real life is like...

a lot of my learning in russia has come through trial and error. lots of error, then learning to get it right. i suppose you could say that that whole language barrier thing has been causing me some issues... how have i learned? let me count the ways... 

 first off. blini. i love blini. so much. it makes me happy. and it's hot. and delicious. pointing to a menu and communicating with no common language worked out great in this case. good lesson. i now know the russisan word for blini.

 scented toilet paper. it's smells good, but still not really sure that it's necessary.... altho, maybe it is for the russians. because they smell bad and dont shower or wash their clothes. overall, not a bad thing. simple pleasures if nothing else.

 kefir=BAD. nasty. this stuff is super thick and disgusting. carton looks like milk right? funny story... i poured it on my cereal and thought it was weird that it was sinking so slow... then i tasted it. sick. i wasted a whole bowl of perfectly good cereal on this stuff. i will never forget the russian word for milk now tho!

 russians park however the heck they feel like. really.... anything related to cars and driving they do whatever they want with. park halfway on the sidewalk, why not? implement that back home in the states?  questionable.

 russians find us just as entertaining as we find them. i take a picture of the unet guy, russian takes a picture of us taking the picture. winner.

russians like to have random street concerts. they also like to dress up like scooby doo characters. and...

.....sing men in black? what is going on here?? i like it. pure entertainment. 

 note to self: don't take a picture while you're eating. fail.

 mcdonalds=classy stuff in russia. looks better. tastes better. feels the same.

 forest behind the mall? love it. they have TONS of randomly placed sections of forest. makes me happy.

 "oh look at that something scary over there...."

 it took me like 5 tries to get this jumping shot. i suck. but i finally got it!

 russians also have dance parties in the street. keeper!

 yeah... we're with the band. :)

they gave us a button! go talk to the band, get stuff. huzzah!

overall, it's been a good time :)