Salt Life

St. Petersburg, Russia-Day Three

We started our morning at 9 a.m. in our hotel's breakfast room with some new American friends. Prior to leaving the US, Chris & Penny's former family coordinator-Sara, who works with two orphanages in St. Petersburg, connected us with these friends from her church in Virginia. We had a wonderful time getting to know this young family and will keep them in our prayers as they adjust to their new life in Russia. When it was time to leave, we handed them the many letters and gifts we'd transported with us for them to deliver on our behalf. We prayed together and then went off in separate directions. A great start to a new day half a world away from our family and friends!

We went up to our room to fetch our outer gear and our phone rang. It was Anya, a young Russian girl we were attempting to connect with through Sara. She was trying to arrange for us to visit orphanage #19. The only day the director had available for us to visit was Sunday--the day we had to leave! We were a bit disappointed, as our families' pen pals are at this orphanage and we were hoping to meet them. God must have had other plans, though, so we settled to meet Anya at 5 p.m. at our hotel and she would retrieve the letters and gifts we had for orphanage #19. Now we were set to start out on our walking tour of another famous part of this old and fascinating city!

We made our way first to Peter and Paul Fortress on the other side of the Neva River. We passed by the Hermitage, the Admiralty and St. Isaacs Cathedral before crossing the west bridge over the river. The fortress can be seen from a good distance, as it's tower is the tallest point in the city. As we entered the grounds of "Rabbit Island" and passed through the opening in the surrounding wall we could see right away that it was under renovation. Earth movers were working through the mud and snow and everything was a mess. We didn't spend a lot of time in the surrounding buildings, just the cathedral. Again, we paid our admissions and entered, taking in the beauty and detail of the architecture and design. Housed in the cathedral are the tombs of Russia's royal families from Peter the Great until the last Romanov czar, Nicholas II. We took a few photos and started back to our side of the river.

As we were approaching the East bridge making our way toward Nevsky Prospect, we were taking pictures of the walled Fortress and noticed a man jump in the icy river! He swam out about halfway and turned back toward shore. Once out of the water he ran around and around, rubbing down his most likely numb, and notably naked body! He did this for 10-15 minutes before stepping into his bikini briefs! Chalk up another "twilight zone" moment from St. Petersburg!

After about thirty minutes of walking, we arrived back on our street, just off of Nevsky. We had an early dinner at a little spot just across from our hotel - Cafe Vishnyovy. We had eaten here our first night in St. Petersburg and enjoyed the food, the service and especially the proximity to our hotel. This time our table was in the window so we were able to enjoy watching passersby as we warmed ourselves on the borscht and creamed mushrooms.

We paid our bill and made the quick jaunt across the street to our room at the Nevsky Grande. I retrieved the letters and gifts and hopped the elevator downstairs to meet Anya. She arrived promptly at 5 p.m. We said our hellos, handed off the items for delivery, took a quick photo and said good-bye. Short, but sweet!

Our last night in St. Petersburg, we took a long walk down the bustling Nevsky Prospect, an elegant and high end shopping district with designer boutiques and shoppes. We stopped in Dom Knigi - a landmark bookstore not to be missed! We purchased three chunky children's books for Roman and Jadon. Two were pop up's and one had pull-outs, very cute! We then found a shop that sold every kind of knife and hunting gear imaginable. A little eerie to be honest! However, Dave found a Russian made pocket knife (pocket is deceptive - it was very LARGE!) for Andrew. After our purchase, we decided we were getting tired and the cold was wearing on us so we started back to our room to begin packing for our long day of travel. Our taxi was due to pick us up at noon the next day for our 2:30 departure - we were ready to see our little nephews!

Labels: adoption

posted by Kushmama @ 9:03 AM