ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

DAY #1

When we and the Michie's finished our shift at the Temple this morning, we grabbed our suitcases and headed to Sello to catch our train to Helsinki where we would catch the

FAST TRAIN to St. Petersburg. Funny that we 'picked' a lady close by to take a picture of the 4 of us....and she turned out to be a bit 'tipsy'!!! Can you tell....we plan to leave this picture slanted to remind us of that. Too funny.....

Just as were getting ready to get on the fast train, ALLEGRO, we decided to get a picture.

Sign in the train as we arrived in ST. PETERSBURG after a 3 1/2 hour trip. Can we just tell you that once we reached the Finnish / Russian border, the train car seemed to 'swarm' with border patrol....counted 6 just on our car alone! Not one single smile did we see!! It was nice, however, to have the paperwork and visas checked ON the train instead of having to wait in a long line at the border.

Once in St. Petersburg train station we were met by our hired driver to take us to the Hotel.

Christmas was celebrated here in Russia just last week......January 7th.......we are so glad we are here now so we could see all of the FESTIVE lights still up.

Everywhere and Everything had lights on them.........

and it seemed that every street had different designs on them.......WOW...just gorgeous!

Fun to see a familiar sign in Russian....and Christmas decorations on that too.

After we got checked in our hotel we walked around the Nevsky Prospect area......very nice shopping and tourist area. Some stores were still open....so we did a little shopping!

Can we tell you just how C-O-L-D- it is here.......soooooooo BBBRRRRR C-O-L-D!!!

And we thought Finland had a lot of snow.....well, we do believe St. Petersburg has us beat!!

The above is the HERMITAGE MUSEUM is beautifully lit up at night. We will be going there tomorrow (above).

And (below) is the very frozen NEVA RIVER looking across to the

PETER and PAUL CATHEDRAL

Like I said, everything has lights on it.....this is the PALACE BRIDGE......all festive looking.

Down the street, actually 2 blocks, from our Hotel is the ADMIRALTY, former home of the Russian Navy.

And after that FREEZING LITTLE WALK (and a little shopping thrown in) we were back at our PETRO PALACE HOTEL where we will call home for the next 3 days!

A wonderful DAY #1........more to come!!!