New Year's 2015 part 2

Our new place

I found it curious that instead of one big blanket, there were two little ones.  Even on the twin beds, there was just one little blanket that you would unfold and use.  It did not tuck in at all and there was no flat sheet.  Also, the pillows here are big and square.  

Since the wife of the guy who works with Chris is German, a lot of the stuff in their house was German.  I That this was super funny.  I'm guessing it is German/Russian...  It's Chamomile baby bath.  For bad babies???  

 St. Pete Metro

Mosaic of Peter the Great.

Another cool mosaic.

The escalators going in and out of the metro are super deep.  Standing at one end, you cannot see the other.  

Each of the light poles are numbered.  This is so that you can tell how deep you are going down.  Each pole is appox 14 feet apart.  The deepest one we saw was 29 light poles, Chris said he has seen one that is 35 poles...  14 feet times 29 light poles is 406 feet.  That is 135 yards.  That makes it deeper than a football field...

While we were in St. Pete, the price of the metro token was going to go up on January 1st, from 28r to 31r.  People were stock piling them.  They would come in and buy hundreds at a time.  It got to the point that they were running out of tokens and didn't have any for people who were riding that day.  So, they rationed them.  You could only buy one at a time.  This was a big huge pain since we would have to wait in this pushy shovy line each time we wanted to ride the metro.  I tried to buy 4, one for me and each of the boys.  The lady refused to sale them to me until I had each of the boys come to the window so she knew they weren't all for me.  The price hike was $.06.  

This is a monument of Anna Akhmatova, a modernist poet.  She is well known for her controversial works, most notable her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror.  Akhmatova's first husband was executed by the Soviet secret police, and her son and her common-law husband spent many years in the Gulag.  This monument is placed directly across the Neve River from the Kresty Holding Prison where her common-law husband and son were held.  

I am standing where at the statue looking across the river.  In the middle of the picture you can see another monument that looks like a seal.  It is actually a sphinx.  On one side it is normal and on the side facing the prison it is a skeleton.  There is a plaque there with quotes about the evils of political repression and like this Sphinx,  it may look good on the outside but inside it is evil and terrible.

Misc shots of the city

A beautiful walk home

If this window could talk, I would love to hear about all that it has seen.  

One morning I looked out our window and saw these two cars pull in, men in suits got out and came into the building.  I got a super scary feeling thinking about what it must have been like to see cars pull up like this and wonder if your neighbors had turned you for something.  The panic that people must have felt, hiding the forbidden items...  Maybe I watch too many movies.

Gateway to Moscow.  This is the road that leads to Moscow.

This is how they hang Christmas lights on their trees.  It looks like it would be much easier to put up and take down.