DINNER WITH THE MILITIA We were invited to eat dinner with a few of the men at the militia training center. Once we saw the room, we were immediately amazed. They had so much food on the table. We start eating and soon realize that this is only the appetizer! It was a lot of fun for all eating, laughing and toasting. This was definitely a high point of the trip for everyone I think!

THE BALTIC SEA! Our group spent the day at Peterhoff and we also got to see the Gulf of Finland/Baltic Sea. Since I love the ocean, this was one of my most memorable parts of the trip, if only I could have gone in! After that we went to eat and finished our tour of the palace grounds. Before getting in the van we saw a camel!

THE HERMITAGE After arriving in St. Petersburg we soon went to the Hermitage. If you spent a minute on each item in this museum you would be there for 6 whole years! They had so many amazing pieces to see! There was paintings from Monet, Renoir, Rembrandt and even Leonardo Da Vinci! It was also really cool to see all those statues on the top outside!

RED SQUARE No, they would not let us in. How sad! That day Red Square was blocked off and guarded by the militia. Why you ask? Well apparently there was to be a sort of Gay Pride parade and the Fascist party had planned to come and cause trouble. In an attempt to prevent any riots or the like they decided to close Red Square for the day. An article can be found here:http://hrw.org/backgrounder/lgbt/moscow0607/2.htm We were still able to walk around the outskirts and also saw the tomb of the unknown soldier. It was really amazing to see everything, even if it was from the outside looking in.

Some Russians think you're going to get a cold in 60-70 degree weather! At the glass factory it was interesting but extremely hot in there! We stood by this window to feel the nice breeze and the tour guide came up to tell us (in Russian) to move away from the window because she did not want us to get a cold. AND again when we ate with our host family, it was extremely hot but they did not want to keep the window open because they thought we would get cold. Being in Russia without air conditioning in many places makes you realize how much we cannot tolerate hot weather.

RUSSIAN CIRCUS Has it always been like a sort of freak show? I had never seen so many different animals in a circus. The animals included bears that walked on two feet, hedgehogs, cats, dogs and a porcupine!

Why do I have to pay to use the toilet? The first time I payed to use a restroom was when I was in Murom. I think it was 10 rubles. It was cleanest restroom ever and obviously that was because we were the only ones paying to use it. Then we came across port-a-potties that you could use for 13 rubles! I try to not use those at home, so I would really like to know who would pay to use one of those!