A Glimpse of St. Petersburg

I've been dreaming about visiting Russia ever since reading Anna Karenina about 7 years ago; however, that dream never included -30 celsius weather.  The dream has now been accomplished.

I stepped inside St. Isaac's Cathedral, which actually was painted grey during WWII to avoid attention from enemy aircraft, and spent hours in The State Hermitage Museum with a collection just as impressive as the Louvre.

As a general rule, I typically like to go "rogue" while traveling, but we kept to the standard tourist path for safety reasons.  Regardless, it was beautiful, and I subsequently downloaded about 10 Russian novels, which I know I'll never finish.

Check out some photos below.  And, yes, it was just as cold as it looks :)

Winter in Helsinki

I just got back this morning from a mega-trip, starting in Helsinki and ending in Beijing via a lot of trains, taxis and airplanes (see itinerary here).  I've got lots of stuff running through my brain to blog about, but after a 3.5 hour red-eye flight home last night / this morning, I'm not sure now is the time.

In the meantime, here's some photos from stop #1 on our journey: Helsinki.  Apparently, Google's decided to make my photo snow.  Fun.

Note: I'm basically the opposite of a "snow bird"... let's call just call me a "tropics bird."  Snow is way more fun when you eventually get to go home to 80 degree weather.