What's new, part 1

      Wow! I can't believe that mom and grandma have already been gone a week from day! Some hours and minutes here go very slowly, and some days go very fast. The latter was the case while mom and grandma were here.
     Saturday after Peteroff I went to the hotel where mom and grandma were staying. Didn't do much that evening. I stayed the night with them, and then Sunday after breakfast we took a boat tour around the canals and the Neva river. It was so beautiful.

  After the canal ride we stopped at Saint Isaac's Cathedral. It was gorgeous inside. Many of the pictures were mosaics, rather than painted.

After Saint Isaac's we stayed at the hotel and rested until it was time to leave to go to the Russian Folk show. It was really interesting. There was a mix of singing and dancing.

After the show was sad, however, because we went back to the hotel and stayed together until about 11:30pm, when they sent me home.

    Monday after class we went to another art gallery, which is in an old palace.  Tuesday was "Russian Day" so we had the whole day off. Didn't really do much but catch up on sleep and walk to the supermarket. It was really nice! They had a lot of stuff going on in palace square like concerts, etc, but I just wanted to relax for once!
     Wednesday we visited another island (which is still part of Saint Petersburg). Saint Petersburg, interestingly enough, is made of 42 islands, or 101 if you count the ones that are separated by only small canals. On this island that we went to was a small amusement park. Most of the rides and such were in English. It was so funny!

Thursday we went and saw the Bronze Horseman, which is the Symbol of Saint Petersburg. It is a statue of Peter the Great. Catherine the Great had the statue made, and it says "To Peter the First" and underneath it only says "Catherine the Second," which forever puts Cathrine's name next to Peter's. Quite the move on her part, considering that she was German, not Russian. The rock base of the statue is rumored to weight around 1500 tons, and it was brought from Finland, I believe. It is quite the amazing statue.

 After seeing the statue we went to a play at Mali Theater. It was interesting, but hard to understand.