Day 4 - St. Pete

 The kids woke up super early today.  We had plans to stay close.  They have an apartment park, which we spent a lot of time at later in the week and then this neighborhood park.  We brought bikes and scooters for the kids and they played on the track and playground.  It was warm.  A set of American brothers also showed up~small world!  We also discovered that Putin isn't outside the Russian male norm for doing things shirtless.  We saw lots of guys shirtless including one who came to the adult exercise equipment in this work outfit, took of his shirt, exercised, put it back on and left!

 The blue van.  We stashed the bikes and walked to their neighborhood mall which was by Abby's preschool.

Several times I forgot to take a picture of our food until it was all gone!  Like at this restaurant, we got crepes and potato cakes.  Like Ikea, they had a kids supervised playroom.  We let the kids play while we drank hot tea and talked.  Then we walked around the mall some.  Catherine and I stood at a ticket seller to look at ballet tickets.  The ones online were so expensive but after looking at a ton with a helpful lady, we got a good deal!  We were very impressed with both Catherine and Justin's Russian.  They are amazing and it was so great to have translators, we never felt lost.

Walking back to the apartment through the tall birch trees.  We tried to rest before heading to the central of the city for a boat tour, which is something I really wanted to do.

We just missed the 6:30 English tour so we walked around for a while and

stopped in a cafe for a treat.  The girls shared this lady bug and I got a smoozie.  The bathrooms in Russia were really nice and I love the half or full flush option :)  After we all went to the bathroom we went back to the boat for the 8:00 tour.

Of course it was still super sunny and a lady spoke in English about all the things we passed on the canal out to the Neva River.

We saw all the main sites (and more) and enjoyed the nice sun and cool breeze.  However, the early morning and busy day was too much for Gloria and the child who hasn't napped since she was 2 and takes a long time to fall asleep in her bed, fell asleep on my lap rocked by the waves of the river.  She continued to sleep while Caleb carried her in his arms.

Thankfully we had Abby's stroller and she slept all the way to the bus stop and on the bus ride home and up to the apartment!

FB status:  Russians-they look like us but dress a little different, lots if random English words on clothes but not many on signs. People are polite on the subway and often carry flowers around!