St. Petersburg (Part II)

We awoke this morning to a text from Marina saying we were leaving at 10. I had to try several times to wake up the boys, and then they yelled at me for not waking them up earlier. W.T.F.

The two boys who went to the strip club... well, one had an ok time, and one had way too much fun. One spent about $90 and then just hid in the corner playing solitaire. Another decided that he spend about $500, buy a bottle of champagne, and go off into the mist with some girls. Dun Dun Dun. Long story short, certain things are more ok at strip clubs here than they are in the U.S., he ended up naked in a hot tub with two girls, too drunk to do anything too productive, and (per the credit card reciept he saw the next morning) $2500 down.

So, we went from here to get breakfast down the street at what we thought was a bagel shop. It was more of a Starbucks... a coffee shop (I think called Coffee Shop) with like 6 menu items. A bit overpriced, but the food was decent. I am starting to feel an affinity to Russia street food. Or so I say until the brainwashing aliens I daily consume make it to my brain...

From there we went to Peter and Paul fortress. We went in the Cathedral, and that was pretty neat. It looked NOTHING like most Orthodox churches, and more like a Catholic Church from the Continent, for obvious reasons. For reasons I don't quite understand, we ended up spending like 30 minutes in the gift shop. I went to go snuggle a kitty that lived there for awhile.... ah, Saint Petersburg and its cats.

We then visited a torture museum. I mean, one of the boys had a point... you see one torture museum, you've seen them all. But as someone who has been quoted as saying that the only place my life could logically lead to is Inquisition Porn, I always like to keep up on my research. I think the best part was the voice of the English audio tour seemed to enjoy his job too much, and was very giddy when he explained such things as "water torture." I mean, literally, giddy.

Us girls also went to an exhibit they started today on dresses of the late Victorian Era to 1930's. It was mostly pictures, and tons of exhibits of shapewear (corsets, bumrolls, crinolines, and the like.) The boys opted to stay outside.

We also went to some other random museum there. At first, I was pretty unimpressed... it started off like a military museum/random early history museum. But then things got cultural... womens clothing, purses, dining services. The best part was def. this 7 foot tall, scale model of an 1880's St. Petersburg apartment block.

Then we visited the prison. Honestly, not too interesting. There were dozens upon dozens of cells, more or less decorated exactly the same, on display. I was mostly just annoyed that they were bigger than my dorm room.

So, we decided to walk to a big battleship about 15 minutes away, but it was closed once we got there. So, we came home to Nevsky Prospect. We went to Teremok, but I wasn't quite hungry, so... came home and took a nap. I just walked down to KFC a little while ago, had a little snacky, and made it home. All by myself. No kidnapping attempts. I feel myself getting more confident, little by little. Also, fun fact: there is a Sex Shop in the alley below our hotel. I really want to go, but Sex Shop down a dark ally in a foreign country sounds like a bad idea.

Right now, we are all just chilling, watching the ManU game, waiting for it to end to go out to ze bar/club.

From what little I've witnessed, St. Petersburg seems like Boston to Moscow's New York. A little older, maybe a little cleaner, but nearly as exciting. And things it better than everyone else. With less immigrants.