Rivers of Russia

Disclaimer - Google Services have been really hit or miss here, no searching, no maps, no email, no blog - it's been quit infuriating. 
For the past few days we have been sailing along the Neva, Svir and the Volga Rivers.

Approaching the island of Kizhi with its 17th C. churches made from pine.

We've had a grand time with fantastic scenery. Reminds me a lot of home, with all the golden birch. We've jammed a lot into the past five days on the rivers: I painted a Matrioshka doll (really a bell since they ran out of dolls), enjoyed as classical piano show, taken in Russian language and history course, visited two UNESCO sites to add to my every growing list - Kizhi Island and Yaroslavl City.
Kizhi was amazing, and definitely a highlight of the trip. I would never have had the opportunity to see this place if I had come on my own to Russia. Thank you for including this marvellous place!
We've passed through numerous lock systems, a total of 16 I think at the end of the sailing. Mum loves these locks. She gets so excited when we come to one and is out on the deck taking photos and watching the boat rise up/sink down.
Another event mum had a time at was the Vodka Enrichment. This was a night where we learnt the history of vodka (it's not made of potatoes). We learnt different manners of ordering drinks with hand signals, how to take different shots - off your shoulder or elbow (mum liked these). We tried six different kinds - regular, nettle leaves, mandarin, black current, arrow root and chilli pepper. The hangover tip provided - drink a cup of black tea before you go to bed. After the tasting there was quite the party down at the tea centre heeding the advice.
The next day we entered the Golden Ring, and there were gleaming golden churches dotting the river banks. Some had beautiful blue and gold domes, others had the plain green ones. I heard that there was a meaning behind the colours of the domes, but I have yet to have unearthed the explanation.

We stopped at Yaroslavl, in the heart of the golden ring to visit these immaculate churches - the icons in them are amazing. One we went to is still an active church and when we entered, we were hit with a wall of the smell of incense and wax. A continual singsong was chanted the entire time. I bought my treasured icon at St. Elijah the Prophet - this place contained the most icon and frescos I have ever seen. Thus far Kizhi and these Yaroslavl churches are tied for the best of the trip.

Icons in St. Elijah the Prophet

Unfortunately the weather has not been on our side and our walking tour today was done in a torrential downpour. Ugh. Awful  though today mum and I managed to get an umbrella, which we missed out on yesterday. The walking tour was through the Kremlin of Ulgich, more gilded churches, some with services going on - ladies running in and out with lovely head scarves and constantly crossing themselves. This walking tour was followed with a house visit. I was a little uneasy about going into someones house as a tour... but it turned out to be dandy. The couple, Vladimir and Rita, invited us into their home, explained what they did (silver jewellers), treated us to cake, toasts of their homemade vodka and tea. It was really a nice visit... not sure how they enjoyed it. Vladimir had everyone circle their town on his map of the USA, took our photos and told us jokes.
Tonight we had our Captain's farewell dinner, and saw a bit of the sun - tomorrow we arrive in Moscow. PLEASE let there be no rain for our special walking tour!

St. Petersburg

Mum and I have spent the last four days in St. Petersburg for the beginning portion of our seniors cruise. It is a beautiful city, and it's a shame that we are here on an organised tour and cannot just go walk through town.
It's quite different going from doing whatever one wants while travelling, to being only allowed to do what is planned and having to stay with the groups - mind you Russia is kinda intimidating, and I'm glad there are people looking out for us, and who speak Russian with us always. I'm sure we'd be fine after a couple days... though it would taking a little more time to get use to the Cyrillic, than trying to piece together only a foreign language.

Anyways, we've seen the Hermitage, gone to a ballet performance, visited Catherine the first's summer palace, travelled through St. Petersburgs city centre, ooooed and awed at the Peterhof Palace and cruised through the canals of the city.
The Hermitage was amazing, it rivals the Louvre and the Prado for art collections, though the added brillance of the Winter Palace makes it that much more visually appealing. The ballet was of Sleeping Beauty - not the disney version, but they did play "I know you..." and I had it stuck in my head all night. The ballet tutus reminded me of parasols, amazingly beautiful! I'm glad I knew the disney version, had I not, I would have had no idea what was going on... obviously no words in ballets.
Catherine's Palace and the Peterhof Palace were both so indescribable  Catherine's was much more ornate and "gold" but Peterhofs had the most amazing grounds and fountains.
It's hard to imagine that people lived like that. To have acres of land full of fountains and paths to walk, giant ball rooms and all this amazing furniture. Peterhof Palace was only a summer palace, somewhat modeled after Versailles. The other pretty impressive thing was that they were all utterly destroyed during the Second World War. Roofs and walls missing, rooms gutted, just the shell of a building. Immediately following the war the Soviets began restoring the palaces, to promote their history, and brought all the building back to their former glory, with many original pieces of furniture. Quite impressive!

We did two city tours, one by bus and one through the canals of St. Petersburg. Apparently there are over 500 bridges here and is loosely compare to Amsterdam for its waterways. I believe it.

The tour was ok. I couldnt really make out what the guide was saying over the speakers, but the scenery was nice. The buildings here are so grandious and have lovely colours.

We are setting sail tonight for the cruising portion of the trip, starting on the Neva River in the Volga-Baltic system. Should be interesting scenery when we wake up tomorrow - it's dark now so we are missing a lot. I guess thats what happens when we pick the cheap tickets: not only do we get cooler weather (not a matter for us) but we get early darkness to less our view times.

Toronto

My time in Toronto has come to an end...
It was a a jam packed week, and a great one at that. I checked out the ROM on Monday, the AGO on Tuesday, went to class with Eric on Wednesday and a ball game last night!
Monday and Tuesday I spent wandering around the city and learning at the same time. The ROM was cool as usual - they had a travelling exhibit about South American dinosaurs! AGO didn't have anything spectacular, unlike when I went last year to see the David Blackwood exhibit. Though I did find an A.Y. Jackson painting of Yellowknife! I knew he went up there a few times to paint as there are a couple sketches of his at the Museum at home... but this one is fantastic! Those two days were also spent walking around downtown, checked out the waterfront and got my nails done (highlight of the trip?) Tuesday night we met up with a friend of mine, Terry, who took us out to dine in Greek Town. It really was Greek. Haha, I just thought it was going to be an area that was called that but wasn't really Greek... boy was I wrong, all the signs were in Greek, tons of Greek restaurants and Greek stores! It was pretty cool. Terry ordered an assortment for us, which was fabulous! Various dips, lamb, calamari, grape leaf wraps and pan fried cheese. All so yummy.

On Wednesday I went to York to sit in on one of Eric's classes. It was quite the jaunt out to York from Janes, but made it successfully and really enjoyed the class! It was his historigraphy class, the topic that day was Material Culture. My forte. It was neat, they had a huge discussion on the importance of them, and whether the "story" comes from the object itself, or if stories are imprinted upon the objects. Then we learnt how to describe an object without implying what you might think it is.
It was a pretty fun class, and made me want to go back to school, but walking through those halls with the vast amount of students didnt.
That night we went out for a Korean BBQ - soooo good!  Followed by martinis.
Yesterday was a final getting ready to leave day, I had some errands to run and a lunch date with Tim and Kate. It was a nice visit, saw photos of their girls and just caught up. I haven't seen Kate in about five years I think. We ate in the underground world of Toronto, so crazy. It is seriously another city down there - Tim said there are grocery stores, clothing stores, restaurants, everything. They connect to all the office buildings, the mall, the subway and numerous condos. Some people never have to go out side!
Then Jane and I met up with some of her friends and Eric for a ball game - Jays vs. Yankees. It was a pretty uneventful game. The stands were empty! Whole sections without a single person. The Jays won 6-0, so that was good. Nothing like going to a game and the home team losing :(

So after a great week in Toronto, I set off tonight for Russia!

Choo choo

On Friday I made a slight detour to Northern Ontario - The North as it's referred to around here.
I wanted to go visit my cousin Katie and her little family, which I have never met, well other than Pete at their wedding. Anyways, I had plans of driving up with my uncle, but those sadly fell through :( Instead, my other uncle suggested I take the train up to see her! Great idea, I love riding trains instead of buses. This suggestion was even better because to get to North Bay by train, I need to take the Northlander. This is a train operated by Ontario Northland, but unfortunately, it is being CLOSED this weekend. There will no longer be train service there. Tragic. See the website for more information : http://www.developingthenorth.com/ - I am not sure why it is closing, I was told for political reasons, and so I didn't ask.

Anyways, the train left Toronto on Friday morning and we chugged northwards through the changing foliage  It was really quite pretty. As we got further north, the farm fields disappeared and lakes and rock started appearing. Actually looked somewhat like home. The train was really a great idea, much nicer than taking the dreaded bus! The chairs we really big and comfy, they reclined and also had feet rests - blew the seats that I had on the train from London out of the water!

Arrived in North Bay in late afternoon and made my way to Katie's place. Her kiddies are cuties! I spent the weekend there with her, it rained and they were all sick, so we didn't do much. But that was perfect. After all the rushing around I've been at, it was nice just to chill out.

I came back down to Toronto on Sunday. Standing at the train station is how I imagine it must have been like across Newfoundland when they took out the train there. I've seen the pictures of everyone lined up to get their photos taken with it when it stopped for the last time. Similar to that, the train station was full of people taking photos when it pulled up. The train up was empty, but getting on Sunday it was packed. Turns out it was a lot of people just riding one stop over, for one last ride. Taking tons of photos. All along the tracks throughout the trip, there were people standing, waving, taking photos.

As I stated before, I am glad I decided to take the train - I would not have gone if I was going to take the bus. Plus it was beautiful! Well up until Gravenhurst - which sounds like it should be from Harry Potter. Then the trees turned into farms and the trees stopped being red :(

Done with the east coast

Well, I am moving westward now - left Newfoundland on Saturday via Nova Scotia, making my way to Ontario this evening.

The last week at Granddads was pretty relaxing. I stuck it out indoors as Tropical Storm Leslie blew over. It was pretty uneventful in Central, just a lot of rain. St. John's got blown around so I am glad I missed out on that! Thursday Granddad and I drove out to Glover's Harbour to check out the life size replica of a giant squid which washed up on shore there in the 1800s. Hard to imagine that they swim in the ocean with us! Its tentacles measured up to 35ft long, with a body at 20ft long. I seriously reconsidered that swim I had in the morning! haha, nah, they're too big to make it in to the Exploits - or so I hope!

Saturday I flew into Halifax to visit Sean, Jacquline and baby Jacob for the weekend. It was a great time! They live in Wolfville, so I got to see the Annapolis Valley for the first time, very pretty. Sean was telling me that the area was a big shipping area during Loyalist times. Hard to imagine because the water was so low, thats because of causeways being built which caused more silt build up... or something like that.

Sunday we drove around and admired the area, and hit up a sunflower field maze. The same as a corn field maze, but with sunflowers. Pretty self-explainitory. Anyways, I was excited for this, and so was Jacq, sadly when we arrived and could barely see any flowers :( they were all going to seed, drooped over and wilting. It was still cool, but would have been sooooo much cooler had all the flowers not been dying. Another cool thing that Sean told me was that sunflowers are all tiny little flowers which make up the center, and those are what go to seed. The big yellow petals are actually leafs, not petals. Did not know this. That night we went out for a nice diner next to the bay, the tide was out and it was all mud. Super cool. It was like a liquid coulee. The diner was not only great, but it was eyeopening to what having a 11month old is like! Nearly impossible to dine with! Haha, I'm not knocking it, it was great.... but definitely a hand full and I am shocked they even suggested going out for supper.

Today my friend from Uni drove out and picked me up! We spent the afternoon driving around and walked out on one of the Acadian Dykes. Another engineering marvel!

St. John's!

On Friday I drove out to St. John's with Janine to visit university friends. Poured rain the drive out! (of course it did)
Arrived in St. John's that afternoon only to turn around again with Sam and Mark to go out to his parents cabin in New Perlican. It was a great time! Super nice cabin too. We played cards all night  with another couple they're friends with. The next morning we went into Heart's Content for breakfast - I love the names out here :) Then spent the afternoon shooting clay pigeons, and I hit one on my third try! The trigger was really hard, didnt bruise my shoulder, but rattled my teeth.

Drove back into the city that night and went to see Lawless. It was a really good film, well, Sam and I thought so anyways. Didn't go downtown though! I think it's the first time I've been to St. John's and not gone downtown.

Sunday, Sam and I met up with two other girls from our class and got all caught up, Maryanne I haven't seen since I left! It was nice to see everyone again:) Mind you, it was really weird to be with the girls and Ange and Jenny not be there :(
Had supper over at Linda's like old times, checked out Signal Hill at night (always nice) while I waited for another friend of mine to drive in from Paradise. We met up at Shamrock City for a drink. I guess that kinda counts as downtown? Anyways, it used to be a bar that Jess, Ashley and I went to a lot in uni, but now it's a live music pub. I much prefer it as the pub! The music was great! I am so glad I got to see some. I know I would have really regretted going into the city and not seeing any live music.

Sadly drove back to granddads this afternoon through blustery winds. Hurricane Leslie is supposed to hit the island tomorrow morning, though by the time I made it back to granddads, it has been down graded to a tropical storm.

Anyways! Another great weekend in St. John's. Next time I need to go in for longer....

Sandy Point week 1

Arrived at Sandy Point and surprised Granddad - and by surprised, I mean, confused him.

Spent the weekend waterskiing and visiting, all in anticipation for the big Labour Day festivities. 

Labour Day is a big deal around here, the day starts off with a parade lead by uncle David. He gets all dressed up in his Air Force uniform, and this year he awarded himself and ordered a bunch of medals to adorn his uniform with. Aunt Audrey wore his daily uniform, and Robert had an extra coat and cap. We all parade behind them with flags and instruments to each of the cousins houses along Sandy Point. 

After the parade comes the family picnic dinner. This year there were more than 80 people! Some new addendees, some who haven't been in a while (myself) and all the regulars. The day concluded with a horseshoe tournament, which saw a show down of all Peyton players, so guarantee no in-laws were winning (haha). That night I spent with Janine, we set off fireworks in celebration. 

After Labour Day, everyone headed home and the point went quiet :( That wasn't the end of my eek though: on Tuesday Janine and I drove up to Twillingate for the day and stopped at the Prime Berth - what a spot! We stopped to see the whale skeleton and were blown away by all the random stuff this couple has collected and set up on replica (or old) fishing stages. I've been scanning granddads old photos and Janine and I had a time one night making an Ugly Stick! We dug out all her old cassettes that we used to listen to (cept Ace of Base, the case was empty!) Anyways we had a great time! 

My fantastic first week ended on Friday when Janine and I drove into St. John's. - See next entry for that. 

Peyton Cousins - photo by Paul Daly - http://www.pauldaly.net/?page=contact