Here is a little video all about your new age- 3!
Love you soooo much!
Uncle Matt and Aunt Ashley
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Three is a Magic Number
Happy 3rd Birthday, Magnus! We hope you have an egg-a-rrific birthday party today (ask Buba what that means). Don't forget to eat your birthday cake just like Uncle Matt taught you!
Here is a little video all about your new age- 3!
Love you soooo much!
Uncle Matt and Aunt Ashley
Here is a little video all about your new age- 3!
Love you soooo much!
Uncle Matt and Aunt Ashley
Happy Birthday, Lena!
Here is my favorite picture of our niece sporting a Daisy Hat...Happy 1st Birthday, Lena Mae! We hope you have a lot of fun at your birthday party today and wish we could be there to celebrate with you!
Love,
Uncle Matt and Aunt Ashley
Love,
Uncle Matt and Aunt Ashley
Thursday, September 17, 2009
St. Petersburg
We just returned from a long weekend trip to St. Petersburg, Russia! It took a bit of advance planning to obtain a Russian Visa, but with a little help from a company specializing in Visa handling and from my grandparents (who we met in St. Petersburg at the tail end of their 3 ½ week trip to Russia for a teaching exchange), we were in and out of the former USSR without a hitch.
St. Petersburg is a city with a pretty tumultuous history, as reflected by its 3 name changes: St. Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914 at the start of WWI, Petrograd to Leningrad in 1924 following Lenin’s death, and Leningrad back to St. Petersburg in 1991 around the same time as the dissolution of the USSR. We stayed right off of Nevsky Prospect, only minutes from the following sites...
We weren't really surprised about not being allowed to take pictures inside the palace (anything to sell a postcard); however, a couple of things made this palace experience different than others. First, we had to put on these booties to protect the palace floors (which is a really great idea because it seems like all Russian women ages 15 to 40 where stiletto heals that would destroy the beautiful parquet floors). Second, we had to purchase our tickets from the "Foreign Visitor" ticket booth where prices were almost double.
On the second day, Matt and I set out on our own to explore the Hermitage, which couldn't have worked out better, because it turned out to be the only rainy day of our trip. What we all think of as THE Hermitage museum is actually a collection of buildings located beside Palace Square. The intended purpose of this complex can be inferred from the definition of hermitage (a place to live in seclusion or a retreat); however, history tells a different story. Palace Square was the site of huge events in Russian history, such as "Bloody Sunday" (1905), when unarmed demonstrators were massacred by Russian troops, and the start of the Revolution (1917), when Lenin's Bolshevik supporters attacked the Winter Palace. Here are some pictures we took of this area the day before...
General Staffing Building, headquarters of the Russian army
On our third day, the beautiful weather returned and we decided to visit Catherine Palace, located about 16 miles south of the city, using public transportation. After taking the metro to Moscovskaya Metro stop, we sat under this huge statue of Vladimir Lenin while Matt searched for a bus to Catherine Palace...
The most magnificent part of Tsarskoe Selo (Tsar’s village) is Catherine Palace. Although Catherine the Great spent time here during her reign, the palace was actually designed earlier in 1752 for Tsarina Elizabeth and named after her mother, Catherine I.
The Royal chapel of Catherine Palace is topped with four gold onion domes that are apparently so beautiful that they are pictured on the cover of our St. Petersburg guidebook. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed to learn, upon our arrival, that they were completely covered by scaffolding, but Matt is holding up the guidebook below to capture what it would have looked like...
The main entry way...
The Great Hall...
The Cavaliers' Dining Room....
The Amber Room, covered in panels made of little pieces of amber...
The Green Dining Room, with stucco bas-reliefs on the walls based on motifs from frescoes in Pompeii...
The palace is surrounded by a huge park, pond, and several other impressive buildings. We explored just a small portion of the grounds; just beautiful.
On our final night, we had an Italian dinner followed by dessert and Jazz music in the hotel bar.
We had a late flight out of town, so we had some time to enjoy the hotel sauna, shop for a few more souvenirs, and have our picture taken in front of the beautiful church just one more time...
Thank you, Mimi and Herb, for everything that you did to help us experience St. Petersburg. We had a great time!
St. Petersburg is a city with a pretty tumultuous history, as reflected by its 3 name changes: St. Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914 at the start of WWI, Petrograd to Leningrad in 1924 following Lenin’s death, and Leningrad back to St. Petersburg in 1991 around the same time as the dissolution of the USSR. We stayed right off of Nevsky Prospect, only minutes from the following sites...
The Duma Tower, built in 1804 as a watchtower for fires and attached to a former local government building
Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, inspired by the colonnade at St. Peter's in Rome
The Singer House, built for the Singer Sewing Machine Company (1902-04), now a souvenir/book shop.
On our first day of touring, we took a hydrofoil boat through the Gulf of Finland to visit Peterhof palace.
Here are some pictures from our boat ride:
The Admiralty and St. Issac's Cathedral
The Naval Museum and red Rostral columns, originally used as lighthouses
The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul (with the gilded needle spire) within Peter and Paul Fortress (Petrogradskaya)
Kunstkammer (art chamber), St. Petersburg's first museum
Peterhof was commissioned by Peter the Great to celebrate his victory over the Swedish army in 1709. It was inspired by Versailles, which we really appreciated, since we didn't make it there during our trip to Paris.
The Singer House, built for the Singer Sewing Machine Company (1902-04), now a souvenir/book shop.
On our first day of touring, we took a hydrofoil boat through the Gulf of Finland to visit Peterhof palace.
Here are some pictures from our boat ride:
The Admiralty and St. Issac's Cathedral
The Naval Museum and red Rostral columns, originally used as lighthouses
The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul (with the gilded needle spire) within Peter and Paul Fortress (Petrogradskaya)
Kunstkammer (art chamber), St. Petersburg's first museum
Peterhof was commissioned by Peter the Great to celebrate his victory over the Swedish army in 1709. It was inspired by Versailles, which we really appreciated, since we didn't make it there during our trip to Paris.
The approach to the palace is lined with lush forest...
Matt and I in front of the Grand Cascade, made up of 37 gilded broze sculptures, 64 fountains, and 142 water jets...
In the last picture, we were covering up the best part of this fountain, the gilded, 'roid raging, lion fighter...
This is the view looking out from the palace: The Marine Canal leads out from the Grand Cascade to the Gulf of Finland.
Views from the "backyard"
In the last picture, we were covering up the best part of this fountain, the gilded, 'roid raging, lion fighter...
This is the view looking out from the palace: The Marine Canal leads out from the Grand Cascade to the Gulf of Finland.
Views from the "backyard"
The Neptune Fountain, built in Nuremberg 50 years before Peterhof even existed
We weren't really surprised about not being allowed to take pictures inside the palace (anything to sell a postcard); however, a couple of things made this palace experience different than others. First, we had to put on these booties to protect the palace floors (which is a really great idea because it seems like all Russian women ages 15 to 40 where stiletto heals that would destroy the beautiful parquet floors). Second, we had to purchase our tickets from the "Foreign Visitor" ticket booth where prices were almost double.
Once returning to St. Petersburg, we stumbled upon a man playing with his pet bear in the grass. Toto, we're not in the EU anymore...
Matt and I then set out on our own to view the Church on Spilled Blood, also known as the Resurrection Church of Our Savior. The foundation for this structure was laid in 1883 on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. This will definitely be the most memorable sight from our Russian adventure...
In case you were wondering, jewellers' enamel is used to create the brightly colored domes.
Matt and I then set out on our own to view the Church on Spilled Blood, also known as the Resurrection Church of Our Savior. The foundation for this structure was laid in 1883 on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. This will definitely be the most memorable sight from our Russian adventure...
On the second day, Matt and I set out on our own to explore the Hermitage, which couldn't have worked out better, because it turned out to be the only rainy day of our trip. What we all think of as THE Hermitage museum is actually a collection of buildings located beside Palace Square. The intended purpose of this complex can be inferred from the definition of hermitage (a place to live in seclusion or a retreat); however, history tells a different story. Palace Square was the site of huge events in Russian history, such as "Bloody Sunday" (1905), when unarmed demonstrators were massacred by Russian troops, and the start of the Revolution (1917), when Lenin's Bolshevik supporters attacked the Winter Palace. Here are some pictures we took of this area the day before...
Palace Square
Alexander Column, dedicated to Tsar Alexander I for his role in defeating Napoleon
Mimi and Herb in front of the Winter Palace
General Staffing Building, headquarters of the Russian army
Of all the world famous museums we've seen over the past 2 years, this seemed like the most impressive building and largest collection. The Hermitage collection is made up of 2,500 paintings, 10,000 carved gems, 10,000 drawings, and a bunch of silver and porcelain purchased by Catherine the Great between 1764 and 1774...she was a busy lady after overthrowing her husband. It's vast collections and lavish palaces like this that make it not so hard to imagine why there was a Revolution in the first place.
Before we even got to the artwork, we walked through the Winter Palace State Rooms:
Hall of St. George
Throne Room
Sketch for Composition V (1911) by Vassily Kandinsky
Thatched Cottages (1890) by Vincent Van Gogh
The Litta Madonna (circa 1491) by Leonardo da Vinci
Statue of Jupiter (1st-century A.D.), made of marble and painted plaster
Since it was still raining after 2+ hours in the Hermitage, we decided to go to the second notable art museum in St. Petersburg, the Russian Museum (we took this picture on a different day)...
Unfortunately, an entire wing of the museum was closed (of course it was the 19th and 20th century wing that we were planning to visit), but we enjoyed seeing some earlier work by Russian artists anyway...
The Russian Hero by Mikhail Vrubel
Portrait of Rene Nothaft by Boris Kustodiev
Not sure why, but that night, we had fireworks right outside of our window (in front of the Russian Museum).
We also had this view of the Church on Spilled Blood from our hotel room...
On our third day, the beautiful weather returned and we decided to visit Catherine Palace, located about 16 miles south of the city, using public transportation. After taking the metro to Moscovskaya Metro stop, we sat under this huge statue of Vladimir Lenin while Matt searched for a bus to Catherine Palace...
The most magnificent part of Tsarskoe Selo (Tsar’s village) is Catherine Palace. Although Catherine the Great spent time here during her reign, the palace was actually designed earlier in 1752 for Tsarina Elizabeth and named after her mother, Catherine I.
The Royal chapel of Catherine Palace is topped with four gold onion domes that are apparently so beautiful that they are pictured on the cover of our St. Petersburg guidebook. Needless to say, we were pretty disappointed to learn, upon our arrival, that they were completely covered by scaffolding, but Matt is holding up the guidebook below to capture what it would have looked like...
The main entry way...
The Great Hall...
The Cavaliers' Dining Room....
The Amber Room, covered in panels made of little pieces of amber...
The Green Dining Room, with stucco bas-reliefs on the walls based on motifs from frescoes in Pompeii...
The palace is surrounded by a huge park, pond, and several other impressive buildings. We explored just a small portion of the grounds; just beautiful.
On our final night, we had an Italian dinner followed by dessert and Jazz music in the hotel bar.
We had a late flight out of town, so we had some time to enjoy the hotel sauna, shop for a few more souvenirs, and have our picture taken in front of the beautiful church just one more time...
Thank you, Mimi and Herb, for everything that you did to help us experience St. Petersburg. We had a great time!
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