Finland is happening. Again. And this time it's on purpose!

Well hello again! Believe me, I'm as surprised as anyone to see this blog back, but in the last week or so my entire life has kind of turned upside down, and this seemed like a fitting place to document it. As my last post- in December 2011- said, I applied to a Masters program in Finland. It's been the ideal program that I've compared every grad program to for a year and a half. And after months of waiting and giving up and accepting a place at a school in England, I got an email last Tuesday informing me that I was accepted into the Peace, Mediation, and Conflict Research program in Tampere, Finland.

WHAT?? I was all set to go to University of Bradford. And as happy as I thought I was with that decision, I knew right away when I got the email that England isn't going to cut it. Not when my dream program is suddenly an option. If you know me at all you know I'm pretty indecisive. So of course I spent a couple days trying to make the decision as complicated as possible, and pretending I still wanted to go to England. And then I was talking to a coworker about it, and he stopped me and said "Sarah, why are you making it seem so complicated? It's obvious that you've already made your decision. Do what's going to make you happy."

It's not about the money I don't have. That will come from somewhere, even if I end up in debt for the rest of my life. Plus I have an extra kidney I can sell. It's not about the two years in a foreign country. Skype is wonderful and I'm blackmailing all my friends and family into coming to visit. It's not even about the fact that Finland is super dark and depressing in the winter. I dealt with it before and I'll be buying a sunlight lamp for this time.

What it IS about is the graduate program that seems like it's been made just for me. It's about the fact that I get to study conflict and peace with a specialization in Psychology. I get to use all that stupid research methods stuff that I hated but secretly loved and miss every day. I get to learn things that will make me a better person and the world a better place. And I get to do it in a country that I am way too interested in for my own good. I love Finland in the way I love the Cubs. They're the underdog and the butt of some jokes, but nobody can convince me that they're not great.

I am SO beyond excited, but with less than 3 months until I leave, I'm also so beyond stressed! I have to figure out where I'm going to live, how and when I'm going to get there, how I'm going to get a residence permit (I have to go to New York to get fingerprinted at the Finnish consulate??), what I'm going to do with all my possessions for 2 years, and how I'm going to tell my boss I'm quitting instead of taking the new position she wants me to apply for.

So I have a couple things to do, and would gladly take any thoughts, prayers, or extra money you feel like giving me. I probably won't be updating again until I leave, but I wanted to let people know my plans and if you want to see me before 2015 you've got 3 months!

It's over...for now.

I should be packing right now. Or finishing the paper I need to turn in before I leave in 11 hours. But I can't pack up my last things until I sort through all my random papers, including the notes I need for my essay. And I'm listening to a really good album right now, and singing along is not conducive to writing an academic essay. So it's time for one last blog.


Here is the obligatory "I can't believe it's over!" and "It went so fast!", but really, this semester flew by.  In a lot of ways I'm glad because I'm really ready to go conquer my last semester of undergrad.  And if I don't see my family soon I might cry; there's nothing like being thousands of miles away for months to make you appreciate your family.  It doesn't help that the holidays are here and I'm a sucker for family traditions.  I can't wait to go on a Christmas lights ride and probably make a fool out of myself singing at my church's Christmas Eve service (thanks a lot, Mom). I also have 4 months worth of starbucks to drink and 4 months of gossip to catch up on with my friends; luckily the two go together perfectly. Anyways, I'm very ready to go home.


Buuuuut I'm going to miss Finland a whole lot.  I'll admit that this was not my first (or second, third, or fourth) choice of place to study abroad, but it was my fifth choice and I'm infinitely glad that there was no room for me in the UK universities! I've always been really bad at stepping out of my comfort zone, and this experience   pushed me to do that in a way that no university in an English-speaking country would have.  I met some really fantastic people, and learned to slow down a little instead of always rushing around like a stupid American.  One of the biggest changes is that I'm no longer wedded to the idea of living in a big city forever.  It's funny, because all the Finnish people I met referred to Jyväskylä as a city, and it definitely is by Finnish standards, but it was a big step down from Chicago. And believe me, I miss Chicago like crazy and am super excited to be going back for one more semester. But I enjoyed this cute little city a lot.  The past week or so there has been a little Christmas market type thing set up on the main street of the city centre, and it was super cute.  Erin and I were walking past this red van the other day when Erin all of a sudden said "Oh!" and stopped.  I was confused as to what the hold up was until I looked into the van.

I don't really get it, but whatever works. The sheep seemed pretty happy to be in the van, and they certainly wouldn't come out and let me pet them, which was too bad. I only wish they had been llamas...

Finland also left me feeling really multilingual; as I've discussed (or complained about?) many times, I took both a Finnish and a Chinese class this semester.  At the end of the day, I'm glad I took them both, but it's going to be interesting to see what, if anything, I do with either of those.  It shouldn't be too hard to keep up my mad Chinese skillz in America-Chinatown anyone?- but a quick google search the other day told me that there's not a whole lot of Finnish classes offered around Chicago. I mean, voin puhua vähän suomea (I can speak a little Finnish), but that's not going to stick if I don't keep learning in some way.  So the only logical thing to do is come back to Finland, right?  Right.  I'm applying for a couple master's degree programs here and believe me, I'm as shocked about that as anyone.  But I really enjoy the culture, the country, and the language here, and I found the coolest study program.  It's in Tampere, which is a bigger city about an hour and a half from here. The program is called Peace, Mediation, and Conflict Research.  It's a multi-disciplinary program that looks at the history of conflict and lots of theories of mediation, and they want people with a bachelor's degree in psychology, which God willing I will have in 5 months.  Obviously there's a good chance that I'll do what I do best and change my mind, but at the moment it is something I could definitely see myself doing and liking a lot. 

That's probably about it for the moment (the album is over so I'm out of excuses not to write my essay), but thank you all so much for the thoughts and prayers I know you've been sending my way all semester.  I've had so many cool experiences and learned so much that a blog just doesn't cut it to explain, and if I tried to I would just ramble on all day. So instead you can find me and I can ramble at you in person!

Lost in Helsinki

This all started in April. Some of you may know about my slight crush on Adam Levine. Some of you may have never heard of Adam Levine.  But back in the spring when Erin and I were busy both adjusting to the fact that we were going to Finland and being in love with The Voice, some random googling told us that Maroon 5 was coming to Finland while we were here. It seemed serendipitous, and the plotting began. So this has been in the works for about 6 or 7 months now. Well, yesterday was the big day, and it turned out to be a much longer day than either of us expected.


Let me start by saying that Erin and I are two of the biggest planners I know.  We both like to know what's going on and have a plan at all times.  So you'd think we would have had the day planned to the minute.  But we decided that we were just going to go down to Helsinki (it's a 3 1/2 hour train ride) in the late morning and explore the city until the concert. Of course we got there and it was pouring rain and blowing wind all over the place.  So we wandered around the city center for a bit, and realized that it was very near where we had explored last month on our way to Russia. No problem, since it was gross out anyways- we found a McDonalds (one of about 12 in the city center) and I google mapped our route to the concert venue.


We set out for the venue, which was called the Cable Factory- because that's what it used to be.  Eventually we get to an incredibly shady complex of buildings that includes several people doing graffiti along a giant wall. Turns out they were allowed to be there; it was even marked on the map of the complex. We were early so we figured that there was just nobody there yet. Weelll, after about an hour more of confusion and wandering Erin found someone to ask, and learned that there are 2 places in Helsinki called the Cable Factory, and they are on opposite sides of the city. Naturally, we had gone to the wrong one. So we booked it back to the city center, quickly learned how to use the Metro system, and found the right venue. Then we waited in the cold for another 45 minutes.

Number 14: Graffiti 

Quick observation here: Finnish people really like to pregame things. And then throw their empty cans everywhere. I'm not saying all Finnish people, but these ones. Which is funny because Finland on the whole seems pretty environmentally friendly. Oh, and they also like to clap in unison, sing karaoke to house music, and pass out- all of these things I witnessed at the concert.


The show itself was great; it only started an hour after the ticket time so that was a fun wait, but once it got going it was wonderful. The opener was mediocre but not bad, and Maroon 5 was everything I dreamed of. Let me just show you my favorite video that I took. I dare you not to fall a little in love with Adam Levine.

After Adam finished conducting the audience, we peaced out and had a couple hours to kill before our 1:30am bus back to Jyväskylä.  Erin and I both really wanted to go to the well known ice bar in Helsinki so we wandered back to the city center to find it. When I say wander, at this point I mean hobble, because we had already walked several miles and then stood for 3 hours. The ice bar turned out to be really difficult to find, and was closed when we did find it- it's only open 2 days a week in the winter, probably because you could take a beer outside anywhere in Finland and make your own ice bar. So we hobbled back to the same McDonalds and killed time until about 1:10. Then we tried to find our bus. Except that clearly it wasn't that easy. We went to the wrong bus station and missed our bus. Which meant we found the correct bus station (only about a 3 minute walk from where we were- so close!) and continued killing time until 3:00am, when the next bus left. Things I learned during that time- Finland has some very drunk people, and of all the foreign languages that a man could start muttering to nobody in particular, Russian is the scariest. 


Fast forward to 7:45, and we made it back to Jyväskylä.  Then a quick bike ride home, finished some homework, took a shower, and I was ready to face the day on 2 hours of dozing. A day that included a Finnish exam. So clearly, Erin and I are magnificent planners, and I am way too old to be running around on these adventures. But I'll leave you with this and say it was worth it. :)

PS totally off topic, but it snowed for the first time the other night! It was so pretty! Until I realized that Finnish people believe neither in shoveling nor salting. But they do throw gravel down, which seems to do nothing but make my bike tires veer in even more odd directions than they usually do. And then it melted. The snow, not the gravel. That appears to be sticking around until... Spring? I may never know.

1 month to go! And other ramblings.

1 month from today I will be on a plane back to the United States. If you asked me 5 times a day how I felt about that you would get a different answer each time. Sad to leave, excited to see my family, dreading attempting to pack my life into suitcases again, etc...  I'm trying not to reflect on the whole experience too soon, because I still have a month left and as much as it feels like I'm almost done here, I've still got lots to do.  


Case in point?  In the next 2 weeks I've got 4 papers to write and about 6 exams.  For some reason my Finnish class has 4 different finals, which I'm not down with at all.  Two of them are spoken exams, which I'm preparing to fail with great enthusiasm.  I'm already having flashbacks to when I was a music major for a semester and I had to do sight reading and other performance exams.  You'd think that for as dramatic as I am I would love to have all the attention on me, but really it just makes me want to pass out.  I also have a Chinese final that apparently has a spoken component, but that class has continued in the same way I've already written about (a total cluster....), so who knows what's going to happen there?  Although, I professed my love for my teacher the other week (Wǒ ài nǐ! was one of the phrases we were learning that day) and he reciprocated (a kind of choked "me too! hehe"), so my thoughts of coming to Finland and falling in love are right on track.  My Special Education class is also coming back to haunt me, with a book exam next week.  Throw in some Psychology papers and I'm looking at a fun next couple weeks.


I've also begun compiling a list of observations on Finland, and some of the quirks that I've become accustomed to but won't necessarily miss when I leave:

• Finland is a very environmentally conscious country, but we don't do reusable water bottles or coffee mugs here.  I have seen exactly 2 travel coffee mugs, and they were both  being used by Canadian students (one of them was drinking Tim Hortons coffee from it. I wanted to cry).  Everyone simply refills whatever disposable bottle they bought that day.  Obviously people in America do that too, but there are no nalgenes or camelbaks or anything.  It's just an odd contrast from North Park, where your social status is pretty much defined by what eco-friendly drink carrier you have.  On that note, I got a very strange look from a Finnish friend a couple months ago when I was drinking out of an old jar. Oh, we don't do hipsters here? ok.

• Food is really fresh here and I get the impression that everything is way less preserved than American food.  But I simply cannot fathom how I use milk on Monday night and it's totally fine, and then go to pour it on Tuesday morning and it is not only bad, but coming out in chunks. Usually at home you can get away with drinking milk for a couple days after the date on the carton, but here it's game over sometimes before the date on the carton.

• Finnish people really like to stop and chat with their friends. Fine. But on multiple occasions I've been needing to, say, walk up the stairs in the library and have had to awkwardly walk between a conversation because we need to stand about 5 feet apart in a well traveled area and chat.  No hate, Finland. Just an observation.

• I may have mentioned my piece of crap bike before, yes? Don't worry, it's still truckin along with no gears or front brakes. So Jyväskylä is a pretty bike-friendly city, since bikes are the main mode of transportation for students.  But for some reason curbs at corners are obnoxiously high, and I'm just waiting to go over one and my bike to fall apart beneath me. Granted I think my bike was made before they started putting shock absorbers on bikes so that may just be me (and all the other exchange students who bought barely-functional used bikes).

• Finland doesn't do previews before movies. At least before the movie I saw, but it was at midnight so it may have been different. Previews are my favorite part!

That's about all I've got for the moment, and the workmen across from my apartment are in high gear so I'm going to go watch them (not in a weird way; they're just so efficient!) for a bit and contemplate starting one of my papers.  I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Love the hot mess that may be your family, because I know I will be missing mine in a week! And I need to find a good live stream of the parades...


Oh, and because I always try to include some picture evidence that I'm having the time of my life:

 I thought this was yogurt and granola. It was soured milk and granola. Read labels much? It might not have tasted awful, but the consistency was that of mucus so I didn't get far enough to consider the taste.

My computer thinks it's cute and won't turn this, but it's horrifyingly clear what it is anyways. I may have spent a couple hours last night as a Finnish teenager. It was a cultural experience for sure. No regrets.

One time, they gave me a Russian visa- Part 3

Thursday Night
I forgot to mention in the other post that before we left St. Petersburg we took a cruise on the rivers and canals (remember, it's the Venice of the north).  It was cold but pretty, although at that point I was really exhausted and might not have appreciated it as much as I should have.  I'll have to go back and do it again in the summer.

Friday
We got to Moscow on Friday morning and just like in St. Petersburg, we went straight to a city tour.  It was a Friday morning in Moscow though, so it was mostly just sitting in traffic.  our tour guide went so far as to fill us in on the cars that people in Russia drove so that we would know what we were spending the majority of our time looking at. Moscow has a population of 10 million, and with tourists and people there on business, the population is probably closer to 15 million on any given day.  I believe New York has about 8 million people, so Moscow is huge.  Our first stop on the tour was the Red Square, which is right in the heart of the city.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, as it turned out later) there was a big festival in Red Square that weekend so we couldn't actually get into the square.  So we detoured through a giant and totally outrageously priced shopping center to get to the other side of the square.  Seriously, this mall had Porsches sitting in the middle of it.

On the other side of the square was a big garden with a war memorial, but we also could not get into that, because there was a military ceremony going on.  There was a huge military presence in Moscow, and particularly around the red square.  I don't know if it was because of the festival going on that weekend, or because the Kremlin is right there or what, but the military was everywhere.

Then we waited in line (or in a clump, because Russia really does not do lining up very well for some reason) for the Kremlin for a while.  It may have been the 2 functioning metal detectors, out of the 6 available ones.  This was about the time when I once again wished I had brought my coat, because as it turned out the tour of the Kremlin was all outside. 

Entrance to the Kremlin.  Our tour guide tried to tell us that the wall surrounding it was over 2200 km long, but I think she meant 2200 m, because this was in the middle of Moscow, and the city isn't that big

Entrance to the building where the President does his thing.  If I learned nothing else the entire trip, I sure as hell learned that the double-headed golden eagle is the official symbol of the Russian state; I heard it about 40 times from various guides.

Russia has it's own liberty bell, except that they had to outdo us and actually take a chunk out of it.  This is the Tsar bell, and it was made for a niece of Peter the Great. It's also the biggest bell in the world, and was never actually rung- it broke while it was being made.  Probably because it was so gigantic and heavy.

Cathedral Square in the Kremlin.  It was interesting to see several old cathedrals just down the street from the current State buildings.

After the tour of the Kremlin we waited in the cold for a bit longer- to the point where I was ready to hitchhike to our hotel and just go to sleep- then finally got back on the bus and continued our tour.  We drove through more of the city and saw where the 1980 Olympics were held.  We also went to the campus of Moscow State University, which is at the highest point in the city, so there was a cool overlook where you could see the entire city.

The giant stadium in the foreground was used for the 1980 Olympics.  An interesting thing about Moscow for me was that even though it's such a huge city, it's layed out totally different from most modern cities I've seen. There are only a handful of "skyscrapers," and none of them would begin to compare to buildings in Chicago or New York.

This was supposed to be a statue of Columbus, but somebody decided that Russia should get it instead, so the head was changed and now it's Peter the Great

Eventually we got around to checking into our hotel, which was also built for the 1980 Olympics and was really nice.  We got a whole hour to relax (or should I say frantically shower and change and eat) before we headed off to the Moscow State Circus.

Now, I've never been to a circus before and the motivating factor for me to go was that it's apparently world famous, and we took the subway there, which is also world famous for its artwork and architecture.  The subway was nice enough although we didn't hit any stops that were really beautiful; I guess some of the other stations are breathtaking though.  Mostly it was just incredibly crowded at 6pm on a Friday.  So we got to the circus and I was prepared to be highly offended at the misuse of animals.  It was pretty good though, and the only thing that was really disturbing were the dancing bears. So sad. But there were also lots of really great human acts, including a fantastic group of African dancers and a girl who did that thing where you wind yourself up in fabric and then pretend to fall out of it but catch yourself by your feet when you're 50 feet in the air. Then we braved the subway back and left from our hotel to take a night bus tour of the city.  This is kind of where my night broke down, because people were highly drunk and obnoxious as I tried to enjoy the city and we didn't get back til 2:30am, and I am just too old for that.  But it was nice to see Moscow at night.


Saturday
We checked out of the hotel, sat on the bus for an hour while the hotel and our leaders searched for 2 missing passports (my worst nightmare) and then headed back to the red square.  We were actually allowed in this time, and it was a gorgeous sunny day, so it was worth the wait.

Obviously I was ready for this picture to be taken... Luckily St. Basils' is prettier than me on any day, so check that out instead of my awkardness

The war memorial was also open, so we saw the Eternal Flame.  It was really beautiful.

Then, as most of our group went to check out a bunker known as the Cold War Museum, Erin and I went on a hunt to find signs of America in Moscow.  We were pretty successful.  Burger King? Yup.

Dunkin Donuts? Yup, and way classier than any Dunkin Donuts I've ever seen.

And of course, Starbucks.  My incredibly expensive latte was so worth the price after 2 months away.  Are you seeing how excited I am, Finland? Why don't we push up the arrival of Starbucks from next spring to NOW!

After our pilgrimage to Starbucks we found some Russian souvenirs and then tried to avoid being trapped by portable fences and military people as they set up for the festival on the square.  I think I went through 5 or 6 metal detectors that night.  But it was all worth it when we finally saw what this festival was. 

The lights show was about 20 minutes long, and each piece of music highlighted one of the buildings on the square.  It was really cool.  Finally we made our way back to the buses one last time, and headed to find our night train back to Finland.

Then I collapsed.

Great trip, but extremely long and busy.  I would love to go back someday, and I would really love to go when it's not quite so cold.  Or at least when there's snow; this was just an awkward, ugly, in-between seasons time and even though everything was beautiful it probably wasn't the ideal time of year. So that was Russia, and eventually I'll get the motivation to update on things in Finland. Eventually.

One time, they gave me a Russian visa- Part 2

Tuesday Cont'd
After the bus tour of St. Petersburg we checked into our hotel, which ironically enough was called Hotel Moscow.  

We had some down time there and then in the evening we went to a dinner party that was held in an old palace (seriously, everything used to be a palace).  We learned how to make toasts before each course with Russian vodka and ate some Russian food.  Then a madrigal-type group came in and sang some songs and showed us some funny games.  It was really entertaining.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we woke up and went to Catherine's Palace, which is a huge estate in a suburb of St. Petersburg.  One weird thing I noticed was that as we left the hotel at 9am the sun was just rising.  Very strange.  But by the time we got to Pushkin, the suburb that the palace was in, the sun had disappeared and it was snowing!  Which was beautiful, but a little chilly for those of us who didn't bring their winter coat because the weather said it was supposed to be in the 40s all week.  So we took a tour of the palace and learned lots more about Russian history.  There is also a really famous room in the palace called the Amber room, which we were strictly forbidden to take photos in.  Apparently this room was entirely paneled in amber and it was really beautiful. But the Nazis invaded and camped out in this palace during WWII and the amber paneling disappeared.  To this day nobody knows what happened to it.  So when I become a treasure hunter I'll find it.  But we weren't allowed to take photos in this room that doesn't even have the original amber paneling.  Lame.

The outside of the main entrance to the palace

This room was entirely mirrors and gold and candelabras.  A little overwhelming.

There were lots of beautiful murals on the ceilings

Maybe one of the 2 Catherines that lived here, maybe Elisabeth, Catherine I's daughter?  I should have been taking notes.

Once we were through the tour we had some time to explore the grounds, which were really pretty.  This palace was used in the summer, and I wish I could see it in the summer because there were such beautiful lawns and plants everywhere.

Yeah that white stuff would be snow

After that we went back to our hotel and had some down time, which meant nap time!  Then that evening we went on a (Hummer!) limo tour through the city.  Not normally something I would be all about, but I'm glad I went; it was definitely a party!  

Afterwards we went to a club, and I got to experience the Russian nightlife.  I heard some crazy things about some of the other clubs in the city, but this one was pretty standard.  Then I went to bed.


Thursday
On Thursday we went to the State Hermitage Museum, which is right in the center of the city.  It's one of the biggest art museums in the world, and our tour guide told us the average tour is about 7 km of walking.  We saw lots of Russian architecture as well as Italian, Spanish, French, and Dutch artwork.  It was interesting and extremely long.

This was one of my favorite things; the picture doesn't show it very well, but the ceiling was painted to look 3 dimensional, which it did, but it was all actually flat. Neato.

Oh, did I mention this used to be a palace?

Look closely at the 2 pictures above; one is the ceiling and one is the floor, and they're exact mirrors of one another

Oh, just another Da Vinci, no big deal.

The outside of the State Hermitage.  It was on the Palace Square right in the middle of St. Petersburg

We had some free time after the museum, so Erin and I walked back over the the fortress of Peter and Paul, because we had heard that all the members of the Romanov family were buried there. Including Anastasia!  So we looked around the cathedral, and of course all the plaques were in Russian.  But we found dates on each sarcophagus.  None of them were remotely close to 1917, which was when Anastasia died.  So she is buried there, but not where we could see her. Bummer.  The cathedral was really nice though, and it was crazy to be walking among Tsars!

The giant fancy red one is Peter the Great (it's all about him in this city)

And after that, we bummed around the city center for the rest of the day and then took a night train to Moscow, which wasn't nearly as terrible as it could have been considering that I do not generally sleep on public transportation.  I'll do Moscow in another post, though.  

One time, they gave me a Russian visa- Part 1

In case you've just stumbled across my blog, let me fill you in.  I was in St. Petersburg and Moscow last week, and it was pretty great overall.  There were a couple little annoyances with some of the immature people in our travel group who only wanted to party, but fortunately the trip itself was still good.  Let me break it down a little- I'll do a couple posts on the different places I went, and I'll just post a couple pictures of highlights from the trip, and you can find the rest on facebook or wait til I get home.


Monday (the 17th)
We met on campus and took a couple buses to Helsinki.  It was the first time I've left Jyväskylä since I got here and it was nice to see some of the Finnish countryside.  It reminded me of everywhere from Michigan to Colorado to Maine, but there were also some distinctly European features, like the houses, which were small and cute and all different from each other- no cookie cutter subdivisions here!  Once we got to Helsinki we had about an hour to wander before our boat boarded.  Erin and I set off to find a really pretty building we had passed, and found that the downtown of Helsinki is ridiculously cute.  

I found a pet reindeer

Then we found the building we were looking for. Not sure what it is, but it's nice (although in retrospect it's nothing compared to anything in St. Petersburg)

Eventually we made it back to the docks, where our boat to Russia was waiting.  They finally gave us our passports back (Erin and I were 2 of 5 Americans, so it wasn't hard for the tour guides to find our blue passports among all the red European ones) and we went through customs-my worst nightmare.  Seriously, I get nervous just doing Canadian customs, and this is Russia!  But they let me through, and we boarded the boat.  

It was a pretty uneventful night, although we did see a really fantastic variety show that included some Russian dancers, a Russian singer, and a saxophone player who got assisted by a very persistent amateur dance couple from the audience who refused to leave the dance floor.  Then we settled into our hot and tiny room that was right over the engine for a good nights' sleep.

Tuesday

Woke up and had a wonderful breakfast on the boat as we watched the sun rise.  Then headed out to the upper deck for the first scenic views of Russia.

Once we got off the boat we went through more customs, which made me want to pass out again.  Erin and I made the mistake of going through the same line, and the 2 of us combined probably took about 10 minutes, while 20 European passengers probably could have gotten through in the same amount of time.  But we got in!  We met our fantastic tour guides, who made the week way more entertaining, then we went straight to a bus tour of the city, which was really interesting and a little overwhelming.  We hit the biggest sights and stopped at a couple places.  The one I found most interesting was the Fortress of Peter and Paul, which was built as a fortress but never actually used as one.

The Cathedral of Peter and Paul (more on that later)

Yup, it was a fortress

We saw lots of palaces, lots of cathedrals, a couple lighthouses, and a battleship as well.  This was also the first time that St. Petersburg was introduced to me as "the Venice of the North."  I had never heard that before, but I've certainly heard lots about it since then.  It's a little true though, St. Petersburg has lots of rivers and canals, and its pride is all the drawbridges running through the city.  I was probably less impressed by that than I should have been, since Chicago also has lots of drawbridges (is that not normal for cities?).  As we drove through the city, we got a history lesson on Russia and the dynasties of Tsars, which was helpful because it's been a while since I had a world history class.

St. Isaacs' Cathedral- PS sorry about the random black smudges on any pictures that I used the zoom on; my camera is on its last legs and has something permanent on the lens.

Lighthouses done in ancient style, with the fronts of conquered boats attached (well that's how they did it in ancient Greece anyways; these were just models)

the cruiser Aurora, which was a functional battleship but is now a museum.  That you get yelled at by scary Russian guards if you try to take pictures in.

Smolny Convent. Used to be a palace (like most other buildings in the city). Pictures can't do justice to the beauty of these grounds, even on one of the 50 sunny days of the year in St. Petersburg

Then, thank goodness, we went to our hotel, and I will continue the adventures in my next post.