Yellow Blue Bus, St. Petersburg

Day One, off the ship in our first port

No joke:  Russians love their vodka.  By contrast, the Irish love their potatoes but don't seem to drink them in nearly the same quantity.

We met a young couple in the park and took a lot of pictures with them, and vice-versa

Vivi loved the flowers

The mummy in the Hermitage: so scary we had to see it twice

Ollie gets inspired by day...

...and by knights

The frame is actually more impressive than the original painting, which has become so diluted as to be practically invisible

Lucky children in the harbor

You can get two types of car in Russia:  the family wagon...

...or the regular version

The cradle rocks above the abyss,

and common sense tells us

that existence is but a brief crack of light

between two eternities of darkness.

Matthew Silva in front of Nabokov's father's office stove

Myself in front of one of many Dostoevsky markers

Matthew and I did the Crime and Punishment walk at least six times trying to figure out the route of the famous numbered steps scene from the novel (based on actual St. Petersburg geography), but never actually figured it out.  Or else Raskolnikov was either a.) very very tall (and took huge steps), or b.) was running (in his imaginary walking of the route in his mind).

One of Dostoevsky's many residences in St. Petersburg

Dostoevsky's hat!

Dostoevsky's study

Momler and Adler on the bridge

Family on the bridge with MV Explorer in far background

Family in front of the Peter the Great statue

Mosaic tiles

are

the original

pixels.

Church of the Spilt Blood

Oliver rides his first Segway

And so does Momler

Kids in front of the Hermitage plaza

On the tourist map, but virtually unfindable, is the "Steve Jobs Memorial" which Jasper and I took one hour (and lots of luck) in finding.  It is inside the courtyard of a technical college, and nothing outside the building alerts you to the fact that it is inside.

Russian donuts

That's not photoshop: actually the number of plates full of donuts that we ate on our last morning

Happy family, minus Constance

Small, off the beaten track, but well worth visiting, especially since Russia lost 27 million in WW2 and won the war against Germany far more than the Americans and Brits did.

This museum is still being added to on a regular basis, as new architecture unearths old burial and refuse grounds full of war paraphernalia.

Tallest to smallest on the river's edge

By the end, we were all Russian navy sailors (the shirt borrowed from the French navy, with 21 stripes to honor Napoleon's victories, and turned into a 1.) women's shirt and 2.) civilian's piece of clothing by the radical Coco Chanel in the early 20th century.  These shirts are five dollars in Russia.  By contrast, the J. Peterman catalog will sell you one for $59.

Embarkation

Our family represents 1 percent of the entire ship's population.

The map above our beds in cabin 4099.

While ours is a large ship, there are, of course, much larger vessels.  Here goes the Queen Elizabeth 2 aided by a tugboat on her way out to sea.

First dinner on aft deck six, starboard side.

Our ship, the MV Explorer, built in Germany, chartered out of Nassau, Bahamas.

Embarkation line.

Embarkation terminal, Southampton.

Another famous ship that left from Southampton... this was actually the framed image just above the men's urinal in the Grand Harbour Hotel, the last thing I saw before getting on the shuttle to the embarkation point.  

Something you'll certainly need for the journey.

Mercer, our eldest son, quickly earned a reputation on the ship.

Our t-shirts from the back.

And the front

Classes began promptly the next day - here is one half of my morning class Media, Religion, and Culture.

Genevieve immediately began pumping iron to stay in shape.

And old ironsides of the German navy greeted us in the Baltic Sea.

Oliver, Genevieve, and Adler take to the upper deck play area.

And to looking serene as the sun sets after dinner on our first night out.