Petersburg, Moscow, and other stories

Here are the rest of my pictures from my trip! But before we get to that, I failed to mention in my last entry that I found out at the conference that two other Russia Fulbrighters have also been hit by cars so far this academic year! Neither of them was hurt, thank goodness, and it does make me feel like a little less of an idiot for having it happen to me. But it gives me no comfort regarding pedestrian safety in Russia.

Also, in a cruelly humorous twist of fate, I found out this morning that my supposed-to-be new advisor - who picked me up from the airport here and who has also been hit by a car, along with her boyfriend (he broke his leg, she got a concussion) - fell and broke her leg on Saturday! I can't even think of anything to say about that. Can someone please check and make sure a little black cloud of bad luck isn't following me around?

Anyway, here are the pictures:

St. Petersburg

A little smoggy, but beatiful, isn't it?


If you speak Russian to the guard-ladies in the Hermitage, they give you mini-tours of the rooms they're watching, AND they let you take pictures out the windows even if you didn't buy a photo pass.


Peter-Paul Fortress in the snow.


Me being super-touristy and American with Peter the Great. All three of us posed like this. I'm not sure how the Russians felt about that.

Moscow

In Moscow we came upon a large collection of snowmen crowding the sidewalk. They even made the grouchy Muscovites smile! Here, a sampling: a lovey-dovey snowcouple and some mohawked snowpunks.


Obligatory Red Square picture #1 - the State Museum, one of my favorite buildings. Doesn't it look so wintry?


Obligatory Red Square picture #2 - St. Basil's Disneyland Cathedralpark (well, that's what I think it looks like, anyway).

To respond to a comment from one M.S., we did go to the Letnii Sad (Summer Garden) in Petersburg, at my request. Going in the winter is funny, because all the statues (and there are a multitude of statues) are covered in giant gray boxes.

Ok, I think that's all for now. I hope I didn't slow anyone's browser down too much with all my photos!