Drowning in Swan Lake - Day Three

Another busy day with little relaxation.

Started by visiting St. Isaac's Cathedral today. It's the fourth largest domed cathedral in the world behind St. Peter's Basillica in Rome, St. SomethingorOther in Florence, and St. Paul's Catherdral in London...all places I visited but only saw one. Whatever, they're churches...you get the point. Walked up on top of the dome though and got a great view of St. Petersburg.

Next we visited Peter and Paul's fortress...have fun with the Mary cracks, dad. A tiny headed statue of Peter the Great was there because of some weird reason having to do with taking a casting of his actual head post-mortem and sticking it onto an already made body. Did I just make that up? Who knows...

We were able to take a boat tour down the canals which was well worth the 260 rubles. Nice to relax in the sun and get a different perspective of St. Petes.

We then "got to" see Swan Lake, which is an ancient ballet about a swan and a dude who loves it. Act II was the best nap I think I've ever had. I even got into the heavy breathing of deep sleep, which prompted Flynn to nunge me in the side to wake up...much appreciated.

The show actually started an hour later than we thought, so Brian, Rob and I went and sat on a park bench. Once I sat down I instantly turned into an 85 year old man. I stared at the pigeons, watched a young couple neck, and dozed off before gingerly getting up a bit hunched over and heading out of the park. It was a glimpse of what's the come in my life I guess.

Going to this ballet brought back Vietnam-like flashbacks about going to my sisters dance recitals from the age of 2-13. Sliding out of my chair, bored to tears, looking around, begging mom (in this case, Marianna) to go. I actually did ask her if we could leave early and sit at a restuarant nearby, like we did with Midsummer, but she made us stay. Luckily we HAD to leave during the second intermission (that's right, SECOND intermission) because we needed to eat before we got on the sleeper train to head home.

This train was much nicer...made in this century at the very least. Not as much time to party on the train because it was around 1 am, so I actually got a pretty decent nights' sleep in our smelly man cabin.

The joke on the way home was from the Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. "To Moscow," yelled Annabelle, in reference to the three sisters wishes to leave their small town and go to Moscow. The subtext was, "To Moscow...where the weather doesn't change every 20 minutes and you can flush toilet paper down the freakin' crapper."

So we made it back safely. Only one pick-pocketing instance, though it still really sucks that it happened. But everyone is alive and well.

I've pooped like three times already and the day's not quite done...it's good to be back.