July 26- From Russia With Love

So I am a pretty lucky girl. Usually I feel like I have to have everything planned out and I have to have a schedule to follow every day. This morning, however, I had no plans whatsoever and I just so happened to find an awesome group of friends who were going into the city to do EXACTLY what I was wanting to do anyway. I went to breakfast alone and just thought I would see what would happen. No one came up to me while I was eating, so I just decided to head back to my room and figure out what to do from there. As I was leaving, I happened to see Claire (the other girl from Montana) and asked her what she was doing today. She said her and her friend Natalia were going into town to see the St. Peter and Paul Fortress and the Church on Spilled Blood. Of course they invited me to go with them, and I said yes. Our friend Konrad joined us as well.

We took a trolley to the metro station and then took the metro into the city. The St. Peter and Paul Fortress is one of St. Petersburg’s oldest structures. The St. Peter and Paul Cathedral is also the burial grounds of the Romanov’s and the famous Princess Anastasia (it’s a controversy as to whether it is actually her body or not). The Cathedral was beautiful, and we also got to tour the Fortress’s prison as well.

St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral

How beautiful is this?

Tombs of Russian Nobility

The Graves of the Romanov Family

St. Peter and Paul's in all its shining glory

A view of the cells in the prison

Afterwards, we left the Fortress and walked down the Neva River a little ways to find Peter the Great’s Cabin. It wasn’t that great. It was small and that gate was locked so we couldn't even go see it up close

Peter's Cabin

Russian Ship

The Neva River

We then crossed the river by walking across a ginormous bridge. We were headed to the Church on Spilled Blood, but we took a little detour to go to the Summer Gardens. The gardens were absolutely beautiful. It was like a maze of shrubbery and fountains. It was a lovely place with a lot of statues and flowers and the like. We even saw a wedding party and a bride and groom. The lady’s dress was gorgeous, and I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful place to take wedding photos- minus all the tourists in the background. You’d think they could like section off an area so they could have a private photo session. I pretty sure I might have accidentally photo bombed a few pictures.

The Summer Garden

Yes, this is a statue of a man eating a baby...
In the middle of a beautiful Russian Garden

Claire taking a picture of this statue drinking some coke!

The Summer Palace

Me, Claire and Natalia

Then, we made it to the Church of Spilled Blood. When I first heard the name of this cathedral, I thought it was called “Spilled Blood” because of the blood Jesus would have spilled during his crucifixion. Interestingly enough, however, it was named for the spot where Tsar (Emperor) Alexander II was assassinated. He was the very well-loved king who emancipated the Russian serfs from slavery in 1961 (two years before Abraham Lincoln did so in the US). The Church is one of St. Petersburg’s iconic landmarks, and it was just absolutely beautiful. The outside was impressive, but the inside was what really blew me away. The entire interior of the walls are covered with mosaics. The building is huge, and each pictures is made up of thousands of tiny pieces of tile. It was incredibly exquisite!

The interior mosaics

A model of the church

It was so ornate!

The front altar

The Church of Spilled Blood

St. Petersburg is also called the "Vienna of Russia" because of it's many canals and waterways

 When we left the church, we walked down Nevsky Prospect for a bit. We window shopped a little, and even made a quick trip through a mall where we found a wonderful statue of a wiener dog.

He had a goofy face!

Perfect way to end the day!

We then took the metro back to the trolley, which took us back to the ship just in time for dinner. I had a great time today, and I really enjoyed getting to know Natalia and Claire more. I’d really like to hang out with them in the future, and it makes me sad that we only have three more ports after this. Honestly, I miss home and I’m excited to go back, but I also really, reaaaalllly don’t want to leave SAS either. I love doing what I’m doing, and I’ve met so many great people the past couple of weeks. I’m already dreading saying goodbye….

I won’t end the night on that note though. Courtney just unexpectedly came into the room and declared that she was going to Moscow! As spontaneous and crazy as ever, Courtney just randomly decided to join our friend Fasil on a last-minute trip to Moscow. Crazy kids. She only had a few minutes to get her stuff together because they had a train to catch in a few minutes. I hope they’re safe! Russia obviously is not nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be, but that can still be scary to make an impulsive decision to travel hundreds of miles to see one of Russia’s biggest and scariest cities. What could go wrong? (knock on wood).