Well, I must say, I really enjoyed our (far too brief) stay in Saint Petersburg. It was easier to get by without knowing Russian, but it still helps a lot to be able to read Cyrillic -- if you sound it out it often makes sense. For example, the title of this post. If you know С is S, н is n, П is P, р is r, б is b, у is u, and г is g, you can tell it's Saint Petersburg. If you don't, it's Kahkt Netepbeiper, and who wants to go there?

The first day we spent the whole day at the Hermitage, a former palace turned into a museum to rival the Louvre or the British Museum. Saw an actual Michelangelo sculpture, a Leonardo Da Vinci painting, many Van Goghs, and some very ancient things, including mummies. It's easy to lose a day there. Our second day, we wandered the main drag of the Nevsky Prospect, took a bus tour, and had dinner at a fantastic brewery/restaurant called "Puberty". They may claim it's a portmanteau of pub and liberty, but it doesn't make it any less weird asking Google for directions to Puberty. Seriously, though, delicious German and Czech beers, good pizza, good atmosphere. Apparently the sushi is good, too (sushi is quite trendy in Moscow and SPb these days), but we weren't in a mood for that.

While I was generally cool on Moscow, I really liked SPb and can't wait to come back.

Now, we sit on the Allegro train, which will take us to Helsinki in 3.5 hours at a speed of around 230 km/h. Very nice, brand new, practically. I love traveling by train, especially nice ones.

Onward!