Firecones! This was taken with the flash on. It really wasn't that dark out when this was taken. Though this photo shows well about the darkest it gets in the middle of the summer here.
This is the bridge I walk across every day. Blagoveshenskii Most'.
Blurry, but there's still some cool things in this photo. Like the Isakievskii Sobor' (big cathedral, which is one of the tallest buildings in the city and there's a building height regulation to keep it that way). The big open square in the foreground is in front of the Hermitage.
The Hermitage at night.
More Hermitage.
Waiting to meet up with some friends, I walked along the Neva for a while and took all of these pictures. Then, I sat down here, down close to the river, and knit. I probably watched about 30 (mostly tour) boats come out of this little tunnel to wait for and watch the bridges go up.
Well, it's a good thing I live on this side of the Neva, eh?
This is one of the trees near the Hermitage, when you look toward Isakievskii Sobor'.
Yes, there are glow sticks hanging in these trees.
Taken at 6:15 in the morning. Looks like it's time to cross the canal and head home.
Ulitsa Dekabristov! Hey! I know where we are!
The Mariinskii, where we saw Gogol's 'The Nose'. This is basically the landmark I use to navigate myself when trying to get home from anywhere, but specifically the nearest metro, which is about 15 minutes away. I only figured out the lion bridge route last weekend; before that I just would wander around in the general direction of home and look for the Mariinskii and/or the Irish bar across the street.
Ulitsa Pisareva. (My street.) That truck says 'bread'. Actually, it says 'xleb', which means bread. Actually, it doesn't say anything because it's a truck and trucks don't talk.
I don't know if this picture is interesting, but I liked the sunlight on the building. The building I live in, in fact.
Well! There you are. I bet your eyes are all feasted out now. Which is good, because no one is getting any more photos until next week, at least. Unless I remember to take a picture of my soon-to-be-finished cardigan. Ah, yes! The button hunt was successful! Did I mention that? Rebecca and Lauren and I went to the yarn store on Saturday, and then I bought buttons next door. I'm not telling you (or Ravelry) about the yarn I bought, not because I'm hiding it from my stash totals, but because I haven't yet decided what is going to be for other people, and what I'm keeping for myself. Though I'll probably keep the 100g/666m of burnt orange 50/50 acrylic/alpaca laceweight for myself. I'm still trying to figure out (1) why I bought that and (2) what the heck I'm going to do with it. I feel like that's a little too odd of a purchase to burden anyone else with... I only bought one other skein so far, but I think during my next free weekend (which is not next weekend, because next weekend is an overnight trip to Novgorod), I'm going to spend the bulk of a day poking around various yarn stores. Which means, like the true geek I am, I'll probably spend that Friday night at home, planning out my route!
In other news, I watched part of Ken Burns' Jazz in Russian. It's super interesting, but I'd actually rather watch it in English. Not only would I understand more of it (though I'm understanding more than I thought I would, due only in part to my attempts to listen to the English they're dubbing over), but I would like to hear the voices of the people talking about the history of Armstrong and Ellington. They seem like cool people, and everytime there's a clip of Armstrong talking, I'd way rather listen to his voice than the Russian dude who doesn't have that cool rasp.
OH! A list for you. It's short, but good.
Great Babushkas I Saw On Saturday:
1. On my way to the yarn store, near the bridge with the lions, there was a babushka with a little bread bag, and she was doing the normal throwing crumbs at the pigeons thing. Except there were about 40 or 50 pigeons, and they would all clump around the crumbs like 5 year olds playing soccer (football) follow the ball.
2. As I was walking along the Neva as the bridges were going up, I saw several people wearing headbands with glow-in-the-dark flashing devil horns. A couple of them even had related plastic pitchforks. Then I saw a babushka selling them. She was, of course, wearing a headband as display.
Then, on a related note, this morning I read an article in a local paper (perhaps equivalent to the Sun Focus or something) about the only team in St. Petersburg to play American football. Now, I know you're reading this, Grandma, but you've probably figured out that we disagree on this subject, but WHY ON EARTH would ANYONE see that game and think 'oh cool we should play that', when their country is interested in good sports like real football and hockey. Also, they asserted that American football is like 'living chess'. ...Um, NO. I understand how people compare both to war, but I would say they're each like war in different ways. With football being the more about running around and knocking people over and chess being about strategy and brain activity.
Well, yes. Isn't that a lovely note to end things on.
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