Enjoying the last days of summer

With school starting and the chill in the air it is clear that summer is coming to a rapid end. So, when Saturday proved to be beautiful, warm day we decided to have a night out! We started with dinner at a new Greek restaurant- complete with dancing! There was even a wedding party there enjoying the fun.

Then we continued on to a roof top terrace of a nearby hotel to enjoy the beautiful view of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

It was a perfect place to enjoy some wine and cheese and watch the sun set. One of the most amazing parts of St. Petersburg is how the city looks at night, every building is illuminated giving the city a magical feeling.

And finally no night would be complete without fireworks. Last night was a particularly neat show- however, as you can see in the second picture, there was a significant amount of smoke that filled the air before the show finished.

Happy Birthday Poppy

Now that our precious niece has a little brother to take care of we realize that we should help out with what we have traditionally appreciated as one of Aelia's annual duties, (and again here) that is reminding the rest of us in the family that it is Poppy K's birthday. So always willing to help out, here is our attempt. And of course, happy birthday Dad.

Out and About

Nikki was feeling quite accomplished after she successfully haggled the price of a piece of art she has been eyeing for a few months into the reasonable level, it was a beautiful weekend day and we enjoyed our walking around the city.

Every once in a while there are quite humorous and descriptive signs in the city.

I wonder if this tour boat had advertised a first row seat to the cities canal dredging operations? Is is dredging or drudging or neither? I don't quite know the correct term.

But I do know that is a tire. Scooped up from the canal bottom. I guess that answers the question of what happens to tires you dump in the canal. Watching this made me make sure to ask where the fish I eat in restaurants is coming from.

Yummy

After 8 months of testing and tasting we think we have found our favorite dish here in St Petersburg. It is at our favorite Georgian place. The meal is a baked trout served with potatoes and vegetables (eggplant and peppers mostly). Nikki has even gotten used to the fish coming with its head still attached. (I am quite proud!) It is perfect for us as we can split the dish. This dish is not yet on the menu, the waiter was quite excited for us to try it out once and the next time we came back we asked for it specifically. We hope it makes its way to the menu soon...

Happy First Day of School!

The beginning of school is always an exciting time of year, not only for students but also for teachers!

Today I happily welcomed my newest class of first graders.

No school year would be complete without a class mascot- This is Bart saying hello.

Naval Museum

On Saturday of this weekend Nikki had a trip to Ikea with the school planned, which meant I had some free time to go exploring, I decided to go check out the Naval Museum here in the city.

It was a gorgeous day here in St Petersburg.

The museum housed models of every important class of Russian warship, some were quite impressive in scale and detail of the models. I was not able to take pictures of the most impressive ones as I did not pay what I determined to be the outrageous price to buy the right to take pictures (it was five times what I paid to enter the museum). Fortunately for this blog's sake there was one room in the museum where the employee whose job it is to make sure those of us cheapskates who don't pay for pictures don't take pictures, was asleep, hence I was able to snap the two photos below.

Anyhow the museum wasn't terribly impressive, but a great way to spend a morning.

Together we will overcome

This advertisement was allover the city a few months ago, recently I have seen it sporadically at various spots around the city. It is sponsored by the Bank of Russia and it says that Russia is the Land of opportunities and together we will overcome all. It is nice to have a positive message billboard to motivate you through the day, don't you think?

The beer garden

One of the most exciting things for us in the summertime is the presence of an open air beer garden about 50 feet from our front door. As summer closes we find it way too easy to sit outside and enjoy the sun with a frosty mug.

Heres to hoping all of you enjoyed your summer, and took some time to enjoy the things important to you. As Nikki heads back to school this week we can see the remainder of our first summer quickly slipping away.

from the water

A few weeks ago we took a boat tour around the canals of the city, it was a relaxing afternoon, we snapped a couple photos of things that we just couldn't see very well unless we happened to be in a boat or walking on the canal. It makes since that a lot of the really old buildings in town were designed to be beautiful from the canals, as originally they were to be the transportation in the city.

Melon Mania

As a significant majority of our posts revolve around culinary exploits it seems fitting that we share our excitement at the appearance of melons in our supermarket. Tis the season for good melons and while we can clearly identify the watermelons (although we have to be on the lookout for the yellow watermelons, of which we are just plain scared to try) the other melons that seem to be common in the store are just plain uncommon to us. Unfortunately they are all labeled the same at the store, they are simply called the Russian word for melon. Hence we have been experimenting.

It is quite a riot for us to watch the local women in the store as they choose the melons, some of them they smell, some of them they squeeze, some of them they knock, for us it is a riot as we are out of our melon element as we don't recognize the local favorites. I hope we didn't squeeze a melon that we should have shook!

Regardless from berries, to lettuce, to melons we have certaintly enjoyed the available variety that summer provides. As Nikki starts school this week and I in a couple of weeks we know that the return to darker days of winter is coming and with it the loss of our culinary variety.

What on Earth is this about...?

Ok so this picture is from the beginning of the summer and our journey to Tallinn, however I never posted it at the time because I thought I would figure out what this advertisement that appeared on EVERY PUBLIC Bus stop was about besides just being interesting and disgusting at the same time. Alas 2 months later I still have no idea what this advertisement is for, but I do know that if you zoom in on some of the baby characters on this poster you will be disgusted, don't say you weren't warned.

Artillery, Signal, and Engineer Museum

Earlier in the summer Nikki and I ventured into a new museum (well new for us) and many of you will be surprised that this is not the first museum I visited in the city as its grounds are littered with Armored vehicles from throughout history. It is the Artillery, Signal, and Engineer Museum, you can click here to see their english site. The display of armored vehicles and rocket delivery systems did not disappoint. I wish I could have come here as a young tank Lieutenant learning the art of identifying Armored Fighting Vehicles.

Here is an interesting display of World War II era training posters, on the best aiming points to disable the feared and fabled Nazi Tiger Tank.

That is just one huge missile transporter...

The temporary display (with his popularity in Russia I imagine it is more permanent than temporary) in the Museum was a tribute to Mr Kalashenikov, the inventor of the most successful (as in weapons produced) assault rifle ever made, the AK-47.

Now you might think that this was a completely boring adventure for Nikki, but fear not she found quite a few things to amuse herself.