Officially as of today, we have been in St. Petersburg for two full weeks! It’s hard to believe that time is flying by so fast!
This past Monday, Sasha surprised us with a tour of Pushkin’s Museum, instead of our afternoon class. It was a great surprise! Pushkin’s Museum is located in the last apartment that Pushkin rented during his lifetime. The museum chronicles Pushkin’s life and gave our group a better understanding of why the Russians love Pushkin so much.
Tuesday, we toured St. Isaac’s Cathedral. It is the second tallest building in St. Petersburg…so what did we do? Climb to the top! The climb was winding and steep. It made a few of us quite nauseous. However, the breath taking view was well worth the climb.
After climbing to the top, we climbed down to actually go inside the cathedral. Personally, the most interesting part of the tour of the cathedral was learning about St. Isaac’s during WWII. The cathedral miraculously escaped being destroyed during the Siege of Leningrad, with only a few relatively minor injuries. Residents of the city consider this to be a miracle.
Earlier today, a few of us ventured to Nevsky Prospekt in search of a fun restaurant after class. We went to an Irish Pub called “O Hooligans”. We girls were very excited to learn that this week is “Fleet Week”! We hung out with a few American Navy officers who are actually based out of Norfolk, Va. Huge coincidence to be in the same place at the same time! Hopefully we will see more Navy men in the next few days before we depart for Moscow on Friday!
Caitlin Oakley