Look who Nikki found hanging out in a new park we explored

All the greenery is springing up all over the city. With the now 19 hours a day of sunlight daily the parks are in full bloom, we discovered a new one the other day and lurking in the park Nikki discovered a statue of the father of Communism himself..

I am sure there are statues of Karl Marx all over Europe especially in Russia, but this is the first that we have seen, the white stripe down his face is bird droppings. Insert your own metaphysical interpretation of that event here...

In the same park Nikki also discovered this little tyke walking his puppy, quite the cutie.
All in all a beautiful day in St Petersburg... I think it is safe to say that for next year if you are searching for a beautiful time to come to St Petes, we can say after May most of winter should be gone...

Beware what lurks in the closet....

Here is a photo of one of the sections of our closet in the bedroom, seems pretty normal, unless of course you notice that there are mans clothes hanging in it (this is the first place we have lived together where I have access to the closet in the bedroom, quite a victory really!) But that is not what this post is about. Notice that some of the clothes hangers are red and yellow, we bought them here. I think the white ones came from the states. Recently I had an interview with one of the University programs I am applying to for next year, so I decided to wear a nicer shirt that I hadn't worn since we moved here. To celebrate the interview Nikki took me out for a sushi dinner that night.

I took every precaution to protect the shirt from splashing soy sauce.

So you can imagine my surprise when we get home and I notice a red line across the back of my shirt. I do some exploring and then discover the source of the magically appearing red line...

It actually comes from the clothes hanger.... I mean really, the clothes hanger? We are cautious of local fish products, we don't drink the tap water, we don't buy a lot of electronic products here. (mostly because they are too expensive) But I never would have thought that the clothes hangers would be too poor of a quality not to bleed colors onto the clothes that hang on them... foolish of me.

Around the City last weekend

The sky provided us with rain, sun, and some quick moving clouds. Here is a view down the Griboedova Canal.

The side of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, (Drill down for link to learn more) we had walked along this canal many times and never noticed this. Amazing when it stops raining and snowing and you look up more often what you see.

We ate at a restaurant we hadn't been to before with some friends and friends of friends. It was the first vegetarian restaurant we have been to in St Pete's. We took the opportunity to enjoy some seafood and soups, and of course some on the house vodka shots.

Binge and Boat

Notice that on this floating refreshment station where boats pick up their refreshments, the beer kegs are positioned for convenient transfer to the passing boats, maybe this explains why all through the evening we hear the sound of the boats rubber rail bumpers banging into the canal walls making the turn in front of our house....

Just Missed... Brit, Brit

This summer Nikki will be the maid of honor at her sisters wedding, we are excited to see the family for the wedding and are incredibly excited for Sarah and Barry to start their life together. However one unfortunate part of traveling to the wedding is that we will miss the Circus tour of Britney Spears coming through ST Petersburg...... This scheduling conflict is tragic for one of us and a blessing for the other one of us, I'll let your imagination guess which one of us got lucky by this stroke of fate.
With that said I think it would be very interesting to watch the Russian crowds reaction to this American pop star.

Neighborhood getting ready for tourist season

Since our arrival here in January the building next to ours has been adding another floor to the top and a new roof. Our building is the green three story with the 4 white columns to the right of the picture. For the first time this weekend the blue scaffolding that has been in front of our neighboring building was removed, which makes me excited for the prospect of the construction being complete. The roof looks in place and I hope the elevator and wall supports come down soon. Another new addition which you can barely see in this picture is the two white tent tops on the bridge right in front of our building, under those tent tops is a beer garden/cafe. It reminds me so much of the grand place cafes and beer gardens that My family so much enjoyed in Mons and Ath when we lived in Belgium. Nikki and I have yet to enjoy the outdoor cafe, but I bet it won't be long....

Favorite day of the week, got even better

Thursday is our favorite day of the week for one reason and one reason only, it is the day our mail arrives. We love our magazines and of course our Amazon.com addiction gets fed through our Mail Box. Anyhow yesterday I went to the mail room not expecting much as last week was a big week for magazines and we have received all of our recent Amazon orders, but to my surprise there were three care packages from the states, Thank you so much Mom and Dad, thanks to you we can now make poppy seed, and our baked chickens will be a little less dry and Nikki always loves her flavored coffee creamers. Thanks!

All Things Russian

The beauty of living overseas is that everyday I am able to learn and or see something new. Here in Russia many of these things make me laugh, which is totally fantastic. Below is what I am assuming is a contraption to help the tree from falling over, interesting right?

This tree saving devise looks like it is a holding the tree together- wonder what happened?

Love the Russian bird feeder... Nothing weird about this picture but I am just so thrilled that the rivers are not frozen over that this becomes a blog worthy scene. With the thawing of the rivers comes boats! The rivers are now crowded with mini boat tours. Rumor has it that the bridges are now up at night too, but sadly Josh and I haven't stayed up late enough to witness the event!

You never know what you will find when searching the local news

While the rest of the automotive world is trying to create the environmentally friendly automobile apparently one russian citizen has been hard at work getting the automobile back to a more natural state, behold I present to you the wooden wheel re-incarnated. It is not just for chariots and horse drawn carts anylonger.

I have no idea if this is a hoax, I found the picture while searching the news on Pravda.ru which does have an english section as well (look for the EN in the top right corner) if you are ever inclined to scan what is making the news in Russia. I wonder how it drives?

Morning Walk

Just a few days ago it was flurrying in our courtyard, I felt sorry for my landlord who had planted her flowerbeds before this snow, little did I know she knew that her timing was right. These blooming flowers beckoned us out of our apartment this morning for a walk, we took a lot of pictures. I won't bore you with the commentary, but here are some of our photos, it was a great walk and the city is looking great with the spring weather.

Everything is in bloom here in Russia as you can see from all the trees and flowers here in our pictures. In this particular picture you can't quite tell but there is actually a tree growing out of the roof of this building!

One of the funnest things to Josh and I is how much the Russians pose for pictures. It is not uncommon to see couples spending an exorbitant amount of time taking pictures of each other in public. They have no shame- So naturally Josh and I spent the entire morning walk taking pictures of each other- We were really just trying to

blend in.

These are our most dramatic shots....

Who knew 200 pounds could move so energetically? Here Josh is trying out for the Russian Dance team.

After our walk we had worked up an appetite.