Remember the Days....

when you were anxiously awaiting to turn 21 so that you could be legal and go to the bar and order a drink, walk into a liquor store and get carded and kind of laugh at the cashier for asking for ID, order a drink at a restaurant knowing that if you were carded that you could legitimatly pull out your ID proving you were of age, well the time has come for a very special person to make the next step on that milestone path.

This special person is probably one of the most caring individuals you would meet at his age, thinks of everyone else before himself and will go out of his way to help you if you needed it. So on this day, June 30, 2008, we raise our beers and salute you Ryan and wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY. HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY! We wish you many more happy birthdays to come, success in your final year of college and a fantastic summer. We are looking forward to hopefully seeing you over in London at the end of the summer and will take you on a Pub Crawl to celebrate your 21st with you.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST BROTHER/BROTHER IN LAW!

LOVE- SCOTT, LIBBY & BAILEY(WOOF!)

Dove la mia automobile è?

Lei capisce? Exactly what I said this morning when I walked out of my hotel in Siena, Italy and where my car was parked was a MASSIVE mercato and not my car. I walked back towards the hotel and saw two policia so I asked them in my best Italian/Spanish mix where I need to go to get my car. Some directions in semi-english and I was on my way.

I walked in to the police station and was told by the policia I needed to pay a parking ticket which will cost me €36.00. I paid the fine and was told then to take the #5 bus or a taxi to an address on this slip. €10 on a taxi ride and I was now at the garage on the outskirts of Siena hoping to get my car. I walked in with the slip of paper the policia gave me and walked up stairs to the garage's office. The women at the desk pulls out a reciept book and now I knew I was in for it. Yes €85.00 for the towing from Siena centre city to 3km away. YIKES.

Talk about a hefty overnight parking charge.....€131.00

Here is to hoping that tonight will be much cheaper and that the man at the window where I pick up my parking ticket for the night understands what I am asking when I say "Can I park here from 20:00 till 08:00?" and the response is "Si".

St. Petersburg

After leaving Mockba and heading to St. Petersburg on Saturday afternoon we started the evening with a Russian ballet! We went to the Mariinsky Theatre for "Great Ballerinas of the Mariinsky Ballet Gala". Part 1 including acts from Swan Lake, Giselle and a few others and Part 2 was Ballet Imperial. We truly enjoyed the ballet and were pleased that we went. We had made a reservation for a traditional Russian restuarant after the ballet called Sadko which was amazing! I had beef medalions with potato pancakes and Scott had Chicken Kiev over mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables. We were eating our appetizer when two waiter/waitress decided to serenade us with some Opera.

Below is a picture of the Mariinsky Theatre and some of the ballerinas:





























Here are the waiter and waitress belting out the Opera at the restaurant near the Mariinsky Theatre.



























The bill came in a Russian nesting doll.














Sunday we left the hotel for The Hermitage. There was a long line out the building and we waited and waited and you get the picture....waited to get in. 2 hours passed and we were finally getting to the front of the line so we got in and walked around the palace and saw the grand ballrooms, etc and lots of foreign art and were highly disappointed that we actually decided to go in. Afterwards, we got some lunch and headed to the Church on Spilled Blood, where Alexander II was assassanated. The Church on Spilled Blood took my breath away with the sure beauty of it. The inside of the Church is full of mosaics which are absolutly amazing to see. After the Church we meandered through the city down little sides streets to find whatever was there. We went up to the hotels SkyBar which overlooked the city and watched the sunset at around 1:15am (yes that is correct). It is light in Russia in the summer time from about 4:30am till 1:15am and in the winter they the same amount of hours of darkness.

The Church on Spilled Blood:


You can see the detail of the mosaics which is from floor to ceiling in the Church on Spilled Blood.











Monday was a day of just walking around the city and seeing whatever else there was before leaving for London again. When we got to the airport it was interesting to be standing in line at the BA counter because depending on what line you got in depending on what seats you got. Each agent had a section of the plane with stickers on it. So it did not matter if you requested seats online or not since you got whatever they had. Very interesting.



We had a wonderful trip and were extremely happy that we decided to go to Russia! I will leave you with a few other pictures from St. Petersburg:



On the left is a view towards the Hermitage from the top of St. Isaac's Cathedral and on the right is one of the many beautiful canals in St. Petersburg.



















St. Isaac's Cathedral above






Someone walking a brown bear

Mockba

With 2 US Passports in hand and 2 hard earned Russian visas en tacked, Scott and I headed off on Thursday to Mockba, otherwise known as Moscow. The journey was 3 hours and 15 minutes from Heathrow and no issues on BA which was great.

Upon landing you had to fill in a 'landing card' and a 'customs declaration card', how hard can that be right? Wrong. We had been warned to fill out a Customs card to declare items that we were bringing in so we wouldn't be taxed for them on the way out so we figured better safe than sorry and filled out the small two-sided piece of paper. Little did the BA staff know that you actually need to fill in two of them since you have to carry one around until you leave. So upon meeting the customs lady at the airport who couldn't speak English we were turned away. After some English speaking help we were on our way.

We took a 45min. train from the airport to the Paveletskya metro station. From there we waited in line for our metro passes and off we went to find our hotel. Upon leaving our nearest metro station, Teatralnaya, we were greated by thousands of Russians celebrating Russian Independence Day.

Inside of Paveletskya station.

Inside of Paveletskya station.

The military were on guard for the Russian Independence Day celebrations.

After checking in to the hotel, we made a reservation at supposedly one of the Top 100 Restaurants in the world, called Pushkin Cafe. There are two levels to the restaurant and the ground level is the regular cafe/restaurant area and the upstairs is the "Fine Dining". So our concierge informed us that that upstairs attire was jackets for men so that was out immediately but we opted for the downstairs. The building was gorgeous (below)

To the left is the main bar when you walk into the restaurant. Above is the ceiling which was gorgeous with all of the detail in it. There were frescoes all over the restaurant ceilings and I didn't know you couldn't take pictures in the restaurant until someone else was getting yelled at, after I already took mine. Oops :-)

Below are our traditional Russian dinners: I had the meal on the left which was Russian Dumplings made of beef, pork and lamb with sour cream on them. Scott had the Pig Trotter on a bed of mashed potatoes. Both dinners were amazing and dinner was very reasonable. I would highly recommend it to everyone!!!

Friday we woke up and decided to tour The Kremlin and St. Basil's for the day. Good thing we got there early since the line for tickets was long.

Pictures (from top left): The Kremlin, The tomb of the unknown soldier, Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Church of Dormination, Ivan the Great Bell Tower, Cathedral Square Entrance, Onion Domes, Tsar Bell.

One of the funny things we saw in The Kremlin was this Thermometer (it goes from -40 degrees Celsius to + 50 degrees Celsius).

After touring inside the Cathedrals and walking around the Kremlin we walked over to Red Square. Pictures (starting top left): Kzan Cathedral, St. Basil's Cathedral (next 4 photos), Lenin's Mausoleum, Historical Museum (next 2 photos)

We then headed to a Russian Flea Market on the outskirts of town to buy some traditional Russian Souvenirs.

We saw this beautiful building and are unsure what exactly it is but it was picture worthy!

Our last stop in Moscow was the Former KGB Headquarters:

St. Petersburg to come!

Around London

Saturday Scott and I decided finally we would wake up early and head out to the Borough Market that everyone has spoken about. We were up and off on the Tube to London Bridge and were embraced by a nice day.



Here are some pictures of some of the vendors in the Borough Market:







Scott liked the Beer Vendor to the left with all of these beers from around the world.




To the left was lunch! Chorizo, rocket, cheese and olive oil on a portoguese roll..YUMMY!


This one to the leftwas of particular interest since it was a German Vendor selling Brats, hot dogs, etc!!


Then we walked to the London Bridge for a few photos of some London Attractions:







The London Bridge and the HMS Belfast




















This is Southwark Cathedral which is massive and gorgeous!








This police boat was off in a hurry with their sirens on flying up the Thames River.




































After some more walking we ended up at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre for a few more photos:




















We then rushed off to Bond Street so that Scott could get to his eye appointment for an update on his 2nd surgery for his right on. We got the "A" ok that things were looking good and he is back there on Monday morning for a check-up now.

Saturday night we went to see Indiana Jones and were highly disappointed but ended the night with a fantastic dinner in Richmond at Pizza Rustica!