St. Petersburg

I took a small trip to St. Petersburg for a long weekend. There I spent some time with the family I lived with last year, the social worker that I met through working with the street kids, and my great aunt. I roamed around the city in a daze, as if in a permanent state of deja vu: my trip here just 1 1/2 years ago seemed like a passed life. I walked around metro stations looking for the kids that I worked with, but was disappointed to find out that they had split up and some of them had moved on to more serious drugs while others had a warrant out for their arrest.

I have to say that although St. Petersburg is beautiful, it is no place to be in the winter: it was freezing!!! I hung out with Arseniy there (he was in town for school) and basically we spent our time moving from one cafe to the next, because being outside was unbearable! For some reason, I can't get all of my pictures from up, but here are the ones that attached.

The half-frozen Neva River.

Arseniy and I doing what we do best: Eating blintzes at Teremok.

Self-portrait (Arseniy and I bottom left) on the Anichkov Bridge.

Medniy Vsadnik (statue of Peter the Great on horseback) and the Isaakov Cathedral .

Isaakov Cathedral

My grandma (Baba Gala's) cousin Ina. At 18, Ina was left alone in St. Petersburg to live through the German blockade. Even having lived through a complete nightmare, and having lost almost all of her family, Ina is one of the most cheerful and optimistic people I have ever met.

The Neva River

Statue of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in front of The Russian Museum.