Touring in the Cold ... An Oxymoron!!

So, today we decided that we wanted to see just a few sights of St. Petersburg and get pictures with Alex before we leave... not knowing when we will be back again.  The other option was to sit in the hotel room and walk around the hotel time after time after time.  But, given the frigid cold, I'm not so sure if that monotony wouldn't have been preferred!  :-)  We also needed to go back to the OkeN Supermarket to get a few groceries items we forgot yesterday... one of those being diapers.  Of this I have no doubt, since Alex left the orphanage, their diaper budget has surely been at least halved!!  To put it bluntly, he is a poopin' machine!  I think he can just look at food and it somehow manifests in his colon!!!  :-)

Anyhow, long-story-short, (this is the beginning of the story where our sense of adventure outweighed our sense of reason) we took the subway downtown, walked the 1/4-mile to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (<- right here is the exact point where the sense of reason began to level-out), took about 15 pictures, walked the 1/4-mile back to Nevesky Prospect (the main street ... this is also the point in the story where the sense of reason won out and said it was time to get out of the frigid cold), went to a cafe to thaw out, then returned to the subway to go to the grocery store, then back to the hotel.  It was not all bad, but I think it took me 3-hours to thaw out once we returned.  Alex was bundled up snug-as-a-bug-in-rug ... between his thick coat and snow pants, etc, etc he was plenty warm and comfortable...even to the point that he fell asleep in the snuggly sling he was in!!

Back at the hotel again now, laundry is done, and another day is under our belts... tomorrow we might just get on the subway and ride from stop-to-stop just to see the underground "world" ... it's cheap entertainment (and it's warm down there)!!  :-)  We go to get Alex's Passport on Monday!!

So, here are a few of today's picture memories...

Hard to really appreciate from the picture, but this  clock tower  is all lit up.  They really do a bang-up job decorating for Christmas!  Lots of trees, lots of lights!  Also, this picture was taken right about 10a... notice how dark it still is?

Leslie and Alex in front of one of the many Christmas trees throughout St. Petersburg

Leslie and Alex in front of a facade of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Thawing out at a local Cafe

Alex said "enough" and decided it was time to nap.  This was a very difficult picture, because we had returned to the warmth of the subway tunnel and my lens was sp cold it was fogging up as quickly as I could clean it!