Wednesday, Thursday, Friday :)

Sorry I am a bit behind on the blog updates!! So we traveled by overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg, which was a really neat experience!! The beds on the train were super comfy compared to our dorm ones and I slept really well!
      Wednesday morning we arrived in Petersburg and met our tour guide and got on a bus. It was freezing and rainy all day!!! We got the main tour by bus and only got out once or twice due to the weather. We toured St. Paul and Peter's Cathedral, which I mentioned in an earlier post , but now I can include pictures!!!
      Yesterday we traveled by bus to Novgorod, a city 3 hours outside of Petersburg. It is a smaller town with a population of approx. 200,000 people and way too many churches!! The countryside was beautiful and peaceful!
      Today we went to the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood. Basically it was a church/ memorial on the site where emperor Alexander II was assassinated. The exterior is strikingly similar to St. Basils in Moscow, but the interior was overwhelmingly beautiful. After that we went to the Winter Palace and Hermitage, it is the palace built by Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, and also contains over 300 art exhibits! It is a series of 5 or 6 buildings and 1100 rooms. After this we went exploring around the town and I got my picture drawn by a street artist. 

me at the train station

me on my bed in the train 

St. Issac's in my camo rain poncho i borrowed from someone

St. Paul and Peter's Cathedral

Inside St. Peter and Paul's

me in St. Peter and Pauls

the ceiling

Anastasia Romanov's grave

me infront of her grave

the countryside

Novgorod

Fountain in Novgorod depicting round table

oon bridge in Novgorod

the river that runs through Novgorod

The Church of Our Savior of Spilled Blood

inside is all mosiacs

memorial to Alexander II

Inside, the floors are made entirely of marble

winter palace stair case

Throne Room!

Winter Palace

I tried attaching videos .......