St. Petersburg

After Chase's Dad saw us off from the bus terminal to the sea station, we took our free cruise ferry to Helsinki. It was a huge ship, but not quite the Royal Caribbean. It was the holiday inn of cruise lines, with computer slots everywhere and all the food you have to pay for. Our initial excitement of getting aboard was dampened by the fact we have to take a special elevator down to our cabin floor, and the fact that its below the car decks. To be fair it was a nice cabin, with four beds and a bathroom and shower, which we shared with two other guys. Really not too bad for our last hostel. 15 hour cruise to Helsinki overnight, where we walked around a bit and got something to eat. I also happened upon Holl's Kiasmus museum, heavily used in examples in my architecture lecture. We caught the train to St. Petes in the afternoon, and sucessfully had our tickets and passports checked no less than three times along the way. At the train station, we were met by a man holding a sign with my name on it, a welcome entry to a Russian city. We took it straight to the hotel to meet my family and my grandma Case. We actually have an apartment on the upper floors, next door to Pushkin's old flat.
Today we went to Peter the Great's summer palace by way of Hydrofoil, where we walked around the amazing palace interiors and the gardens outside. Lunch on the gardens, then hydrofoiled back to see two churches, one amazing one which seems to be on the scale of St. Peters, and the other which looks like St. Basils but is completely covered with glass mossaic tiles inside, floor to ceiling.
The Soviets just trashed these amazing churches, putting an ice skating rink in one, a morgue in another, and an atheism school in a third. Thankfully, all of them have been restored to their old glory.
Tomorrow we see the Hermitage, the largest collection of art in the world.