We decided to sight-see alone today, which worked out quite well. We woke up at 10am, ate breakfast, and were ready for an English boat tour at 11am. It was a great tour with only us and two other girls on the boat - which was much better than the crowded boats we saw with Russian tours. After the tour, we stopped to have ice cream on the street (there are ice cream vendors EVERYWHERE). We walked to the Admiralty where we ate lunch outside in the park. Then, we went to St. Isaac's Cathedral. We decided not to pay the extra 50 Roubles to take photos from the colonnade and we were disappointed. There were beautiful views and we would have liked to have some photos. Then we went to Dom Knigi (the most famous Russian Bookstore) where Kristen bought some souvenirs before returning to our apartment to freshen up.

At 6pm we met Ivan's parents who took us to a concert at Suvorov's training facility for young soldiers. The facility has a gorgeous concert hall and the concert was a flute and organ duet. They played Mozart, Bach, and others including a variation on themes from the opera Carmen. For the encore, they played Flight of the Bumblebee! It was incredible. Again we went to Serpuhovskaya for dinner and were driven home by Alexey, who was on his way to the train station to pick up Nina, his wife. We ended up going to bed around midnight again.

Labels: Europe 2008, Russia, St. Petersburg