Late nights and early mornings

It stays light here until about 11pm... which makes 3am feel like it's still early, and that it's not a bad idea at all to grab another $4 bottle of vodka. The best part of which is - Russian vodka doesn't seem to give you a hangover! (which may be why they seem to drink it ALL day)

We leave St Petersburg today for Vladamir, which is just outside of Moscow. This place has so much to see though that we don't feel like we've covered even just the start of it. We've been through only a few rooms of the Hermitage (if you walked the entirety of it, and looked at each piece of artwork for a few seconds, it would take you more than 11 years to get to the end), we've seen the Church on Spilled Blood (Em's new favourite building. It's like a fairy-tale castle, and looks a little like St Basils in Moscow), and we've eaten Beef Stroganoff in Stroganoff Palace (where it was invented. It was pretty tasty!)

At night we've checked out a Cossack show (Gwil got pulled up on stage!) and the St Petersburg Ballet's version of Don Quixote - Amazing!



Off now to follow the last few minutes of Rasputin's life. And they have Pavlov's dog in a museum here. Yes. The original Pavlov's dog, which has been stuffed!

Hope everyone at home is well and keeping warm. It has plummeted back down to 8 degrees here today. Fingers crossed for warmer weather near Moscow.