The palaces outside of St. Petersburg

 John and I were trying to take pictures off a moving bus, which never works out well and only with a digital camera would you try to take pictures of the stuff we did.  John and I saw some old Lada cars that are soviet cars that were cool to see still running.  We went about an hour out of town and our tour guide 

 was answering all of our questions about her country, her job, and was very knowledgeable with her English.  She said that she attended a school that was English heavy because she wants to teach it.  Our group did find one word that she didn’t 

 know and she had us write it down for her, so she wouldn’t forget.  We were talking about things you do out at your country home and one of them was bar-b-que and we had to teach her that the stick that you sometimes cook your meat on was a “skewer”.  I mean there 

are native English speakers who wouldn’t know that word and that was the one we found in two days that she didn’t know and wanted to know.  We arrived at Peterhof and while this summer palace of Peter the Great was set up so he could boat back and forth between St.

  Petersburg and his house, the house was not all the spectacular.  Now, when I say this, I mean as far as castles and palaces go…We couldn’t take pictures inside and it is all gold, white, parquet wood floors with requisite ballrooms and stuff, but the important part of this place 

was it’s gardens.  I could have spent the entire time out in the gardens and avoided going inside.  We were stuck in a line that ran throughout the house behind huge tour groups with guides that would point out different features which took 

 FOREVER!!!!  Why they couldn’t just let people move through at their own pace, I’m not sure.  There was a docent in every room, roped walkways that buzzed if you brushed the ropes,

and nothing to hurt anyway, so I’m not sure why we had to go so slowly through this place.  The fountains outside were spectacular though and made up for it.  We got to grab lunch and ate some blini to be authentic Russian instead of the 

picnic that we brought off the boat like some people.  Beer and blini with something in it that they called ham and cheese, but looked like couscous.  Our tour guide also let us pick on lunch and John 

 made it clear that we wanted fast more than anything in order to make the most of our time on the ground and this worked well both days.  She found authentic food for us to eat that was fast.   We've never been on a cruise

 before that makes the local cuisine look so good, but this one does because I have finally gotten tired of Italian food.  Something that you would think would never happen, but true.  As you can see in these pictures, the grounds of

Peterhof and it's fountains rival the gardens of Versailles and we were lucky enough to get the first bit of sun that we have seen this entire cruise for this day.