Yesterday we got into Saint Petersburg at about 9:00am, although we had to stay on the ferry until 2:00pm. We found a way to come visit Russia without getting a visa and instead we are visiting within a 72 hour time limit. We have pretty much exactly 72 hours in Russia as we will board back onto the ferry at 1:00pm on Sunday. We got into downtown Saint Petersburg at about 3 yesterday after customs and a short bus ride into town from the port. We got a chance to walk by the Hermitage and some other places on our walk to the apartment that we are staying at here. It is great because I can see the Church of Spilled Blood right out of my window and it is nothing less of beautiful. The way that Saint Petersburg is built up is quite different than anything I've ever seen. All around downtown are buildings that are similar in shape and size but all are about 4-5 stories high. It is sometimes tough to tell which buildings are more important than others as they all are impressively large. I have taken tons of photos throughout the past two days and they're all on the photography page. I have loved being able to walk through the town and really get to admire the Russian architecture. This morning we woke up and had some eggs for breakfast and then went to a little donut shop that we found yesterday. The donuts reminded us of beignets from New Orleans so we now refer to it as the Beignet Shop. They served some really good coffee there with lots of cream and sugar. We learned later today that the drink was actually some type of sweet, milky tea. After that we walked around for a bit looking for a boat tour. We found one after a bit of boat shopping looking for the cheapest boat tour for the best value. The currency here is quite affordable for us and everything has costs just over half of what it would cost in Canada. The exchange rate is $1.00 CAD = 46.69 ₽ (Russian ruble). We found a boat tour that cost 600₽ per person. The tour lasted about 2 hours and we got to see things such as the Hermitage, The Winter Palace and Peter and Paul's Fortress. We are going to go visit the Hermitage tomorrow and spend some time admiring some of the 3 000 000 art pieces there. I am really excited to see it because I have heard amazing things about the inside and some of the art displayed there. We got the chance to see the Ateneum in Helsinki the day before we left and that was a cool art museum to see as well. After the boat tour we stopped at a little Italian restaurant where we ate a delicious buffet of food. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town and Tarn actually got a portrait done of him by a street artist using pastel. His 13th birthday is tomorrow and that will be fun to celebrate! Russia has been an amazing experience so far and I cant wait to keep exploring for the next day and a half!
