Our flight to St. Petersburg was very early, so we planned on sleeping until the last possible moment. Instead, we were up at 3:17am where a full breakfast was waiting for us (I shudder to think what time Aunt Vera got up to prepare such a feast, but was grateful for her thoughtfulness). The taxi came at 4am (public transportation doesn't run that early) and we were at the airport by 4:30am. However, registration (the Russian equivalent of checking in) didn't open until 5am, so we had 30 minutes to kill in the airport.

We had all worked very hard to pack as lightly as possible, since we're all paranoid about airlines losing checked bags, but Claire was required to check her carry on bag even though it was only a little bit more full than Susan's (and Susan didn't have to check her bag). However, once we were on the plane, we discovered that Susan's bag didn't fit in the overhead bin, so she was left with it uncomfortably protruding from beneath her seat. That helped Claire feel better about having her bag checked and we were glad that none of our bags got lost.

Susan and Kristen had seats together while Papa Viktor and Claire were across the aisle sitting next to a Russian photographer named Oleg, who, thankfully for Claire, spoke English. It was a short flight and they served us a nice breakfast of a sandwich (Susan's favorite) and juice.

Ivan's brother, Alexey, met us at the airport and drove us to Ivan's parents' house (Serpuhovskaya) where we were able to relax and eat lunch with Ivan's parents and Alexey (the younger brother, Zhenya, was there at the beginning, but he had to leave for work). After lunch, Alexey drove us around the city and took us to the grocery store (hurrah!) before helping us check into the apartment that we were renting. Susan and her parents had rented an apartment through the same company last summer and everything went great, but this summer there were quire a few headaches associated with the check-in. However, finally everything got figured out and we were able to relax for a few hours. Before Alexey left, he loaned us a phone to use during our stay, which helped us coordinate our trips with Ivan's parents.

At 5:30pm, we met up with Ivan's parents to stroll through the city. We decided to take a boat tour of the canals, but learned that we had missed the English version and the next one wouldn't be until 8pm, so we decided to try again tommorrow. Instead, we walked to the Summer Garden where it's beautiful and green with plenty of statues. We wanted to go to St. Isaac's Cathedral, but Papa wanted to go home and eat so we walked to the Bazaar near the Cathedral on Spilled Blood on our way to the metro to return to Serpuhovskaya, where we ate dinner and hung out until late. By then, the metro was closed, so Zhenya drove us home. However, we found that during check-in, they didn't give us a code to the front door, so we weren't able to get in. It was late, but we called her (with Alexey's help) and finally got in, got ready for bed, and went to sleep very late.

Labels: Europe 2008, Russia, St. Petersburg