From Russia, with love
Greetings from the trip to beautiful St.Petersburg! We had this year´s first trip to Russia provided by our partner, Timetravels.
Catherine´s palace
The trip was amazing! I truly recommend going there at least once in your life! The city is beautiful and there are so many things to see! ( our 2 night stay there wasn´t nearly enough!) We had guided tours around the city area and to the Catherine´s palace and the State Hermitage museum. There was also the option to book a ticket to the State Hermitage Theatre to see the ballet show Swan Lake. We also got some tips for where to go clubbing.
The first day we got there we had the guided city tour right after we got off the boat and later in the evening Russian dinner party. The dinner party was wonderful! We had vodka snapchs with before the dishes were brought out and I think there was like 5 different dishes included. There was also this traditional Russian band performing funny songs and getting people participating in hilarious contests. There was a game when where two people had to do back to back Russian dancing and when the music stopped try to pick up a rope behind them.The first one who got the rope won.
There was a “strong man” competition with two guys and two matroshka dolls, the dolls were filled with balloons and the guys had to squeeze the dolls hard enough to break them. It got really funny when the guys got another guy to help each one out! There was this cute cheek-kissing contest where you picked out someone from the crowd and put a pillow on the floor, kneeled on it and exchanged kisses then the last person to join got to pick someone else to kiss!
Performers of the Swan Lake ballet
Our first night out ended with a fabulous birthday party for two beautiful ladies, Joana and Diana (thank you for inviting me sweethearts!) at a local club called Ibiza. The club was awesome and so very different from the Finnish ones, all the ladies had to pay 700 rubles entrance fee and the guys (unfortunately) had to pay way more to get in. We got this fancy VIP booth and free bar and hookah and a fruit assortment included in the fee. Legendary.
The second day we had a guided tour to Pushkin and the Catherine´s palace and the ballet in the evening. At Pushkin there was this statue of the founder of St. Petersburg and it is believed that if you rub or touch the statues fingers, you will get good luck. I do feel I got lucky after it!! lol.
Founder of St. Petersburg´s pinky swear with me
The ballet show was the first one that I´ve ever seen. It was so beautiful and very grand. I feel so blessed that I got a chance to go to St. Petersburg and see a ballet show there. There is a reason why Russian ballet is ranked so very high.
We had a limousine ride and some champagne in the evening, it was so cool. It was the first time for me to be in a limo. A lot of first timers for me on the trip! The ballet, limo, St. Petersburg itself, Russian club..
OMG. I am next to a limo. ( I was actually in it too!)
The last day we had the Hermitage museum tour and the cathedrals tour. The museum was huge, there are over 1000 rooms in it. We went through like 20 or so with our guide. The paintings were very impressive and beautiful.
We got so lucky with the weather. It started raining when we were on the bus to the harbor, not before! We heard that the weather in St. Petersburg is like in London, mostly rain. The trip itself was awesome but the people who were there with me made it special, thank you <3.
-Terttu