Russia

My most recent adventure has been a road trip to Russia! Now, this was not just me and my friends renting a car and going to Russia or anything, it was a whole organized trip that is put together for (mostly international) students in Sweden. We took a ferry from Stockholm to Turku and we all loaded onto two busses and headed for the Russian border. Crossing the borders were crazy.. this was the first time I have crossed a country's border on land (well, except Malmo to Copenhagen, but you don't have to do anything to go to Denmark from Sweden). First we crossed the Finnish border, got stamps there, and then made our way down the road to the Russian border, where we had to show our passports 3 or 4 times before we could be on our way.

Crossing the border you could definitely tell we were in a different place. There was garbage all over the side of the road, and everything looked darker (the sun had gone behind a big cloud- with perfect timing). There were parts of cars scattered places, and at one point there was an entire car rusted through and through just hanging out in a ditch.

Before we knew it we were in Saint Petersburg, where it was rainy, and it was approaching night time. We checked into the hotel, showered, and headed out for dinner. The next day we went to Catherine's Palace and then we had free time, which we used to go to the Hermitage. Then it was dinner, and an overnight bus ride to Moscow... a very, very bumpy overnight ride to Moscow.

Moscow was awesome. The sun was out, I was walking around red square in a t-shirt.  We took a tour of the Kremlin, which was cool, and then had free time to walk around and whatnot.  I liked Moscow better than Saint Petersburg, maybe because of the weather, but it was just bigger and more interesting and cleaner it seemed like.  The University building was breathtaking.  We spent one night in a hotel in Moscow and then the next night we had another (very bumpy) over night bus ride back to Saint Petersburg. 

I loved Russia, I want to go back.  There were things I didn't get to do in both cities that I want to do.. like go inside St. Issac's in Saint Petersburg, and go to Victory park in Moscow. 

well, look at my pictures!