Ooh it was only a few days ago but St P seems ages away. We had some really lovely hosts (Hi Vladi and Anna, Cat and Andy!) who looked after us really well and laughed at my attempts to speak Russian. At least I can say "I'm going to bed now" in Russian. We have pretty much got the hang of the Cyrillic letters, and a surprising amount on Russian is English written funny - we particularly noticed that traffic "stop" signs say "stop" in cyrillic, and lots of other words are the same, which makes it easier. I'm not saying I could read a book, but finding our way round the Metro and busses every day helps with the practice. The food is great, I've been having buckwheat kasha (kasha is any type of porridge) and kifirrrrrrr, kind of slightly thinner yoghurt, for breakfast, but I can't roll my rrr's, so I have ordered kifir and ended up with coffee - bleugh! Andy has to do it for me.
We had an amazing picnic at Peterhof, and didn't spend half enough time in the Hermitage, but I have consoled myself that I will go back one day..... We saw the finds from the Pazyryk barrow - utterly brilliant to come across them by chance in the museum when I had been reading about them a few months ago in England.
It was lovely meeting up with Elena again, and we walked for a while though woods in the rain (must buy boots, had to wring socks out and they dried all gakky in the morning after a night on the train), to the cemetary where many of the people who died in the siege of Leningrad in 1942 are buried. It made a big impression on me first time round and I really wanted to visit it again.
After walking through the cemetary again, I felt that I had come to the end of a jouney I started at Auschwitz. It is difficult to put into words, but it was a sudden realisation that the journey we (and you, vicariously) are doing is actually helping people to understand each other better, and that is a GOOD THING. It might help a little in stopping the kind of unimaginable terrors that so many people have experienced and in some places continue to do so. It's funny, but even the EU seems like a good idea if it prevents countries fighting, whatever else it does.
I really like the Hospitality club for helping with this journey, it is amazing staying with people in their homes, and the kindness we have been shown is astounding. Long evenings talking and exchanging views on everything from globalisation to goth music are definately the way forward.