This morning I had problems locking my bedroom door, and the key lady
on our floor had to assist me. The lock
was old and stripped but she made it work.
Four key ladies rotate shifts on every floor of the dorm and are always
on duty.
Today’s breakfast was oatmeal and another hot
cereal that tasted a bit like grits plus containers of yogurt and boiled
eggs. Dry cold brown bread slices,
cheese, butter and boxed juice were also on the table.
Today we set off by bus on an all-day
trip to Peterhof – the
Peterhof is
the first great Imperial palatial buildings outside
We picnic on dry cheese sandwiches, fruit and
bottled water on a grassy hillside and watch the Russian people stroll the
palace grounds. After lunch we continue
our tour through the many castle buildings with our guide Anya. We learned about Russian leaders and
Catherine the Great and even her favorite dog Zemira,
an Italian greyhound. Though she had her
husband killed, Catherine had a porcelain statue made of her beloved dog. We learn the palace artifacts and painting
were shipped to
At 4 p.m. we took the hydrofoil back to the
city. We stopped in a cafe to rest and
later had dinner in the Literary Café where the famous Russian poet Pushkin had his last meal before dueling to his death with
his wife’s lover. I had blinis or pancakes with a mushroom filling as a first
course followed by fried salmon with potatoes.
I drank still mineral water rather than the sparkling variety, which
seems to be the local preference. Bread,
potatoes, and starches are favorites of the Russians. We saw McDonald’s golden arches on our
after-dinner city walk. We took a taxi
home and managed to negotiate price a price in rubles in advance. We had our directions written out for us on a
slip of paper in Russian which we showed to the driver. He drove as though we were leaving a
fire. We called it an early night after
we wrote in our journals.