Long walk

With Nikki off on her business trip I took advantage of some great weather this weekend to walk and explore the city. With Victory in Europe day fast approaching I thought it a good time to make the trek to Piskarevskoe Cemetery, a solemn memorial on the northeast side of the city where approximately a half million of the estimated 2 million victims of the siege of Leningrad are buried in mass graves. After looking at the maps I though I could make it to the cemetery in a morning walk and then walk a little ways back and take the metro the rest of the way home, I should have re-evaluated my own walking motivation. Some of you will remember the last time I competed in an army ruckmarch competition it didn't work out well for my foot (see photo of foot here). But that was with full gear and weapon etc. etc. So I set off at about 9 in the morning and met this blockade out my front door...

You see there was a race course with runners sprinting at top speed, as they run around the corner they cross right in front of our exit onto the street. The race coordinators were so kind as to put up red and white tape across my exitway, so getting out the front door was a lot like playing frogger with really fast people.After about two hours of walking I noticed that the outskirts of the city on the "Vyborg" side are fairly suburban with lots of parks spread out among industrial factory sights.And their was a stark contrast between the very beautiful architecture of the older center city and the utilitarian architecture of most of the housing in the burbs..

Also, some truths cross all boundaries, here are construction workers that I walked past twice, separated by about an hour for each pass, much like construction workers all over the world, why work when their is a pretty park, and a deck of cards....Anyhow I walked for about 2 and a half hours and realized I was still easily an hour from my destination, so I turned back and walked about another half hour to the closest metro stop and took advantage of public transportation to get home, I made a new plan to take the metro as far as I could and then walk the remaining hour or so to get to the cemetery the next day and that worked out much better, My next post topic will be the cemetery itself, after I finally made it all the way there with a little help from the metro.