First day:
At 1:00 am, we left Dubna to go to St Petersburg on a bus. We arrived in St Petersburg in the early afternoon where we met our tour guide Anna and then we went to Peterhof, which is a palace that was used by the tsars and tsarinas as a summer residence. We were all impressed by the magnificent interior of the palace and also by the beautiful fountains and gardens, which surrounded Peterhof. Afterwards, we returned to St Petersburg where we checked into the hotel we were staying at. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out together at the hotel

Second Day:
On the second day, we went on a tour of St Petersburg where we saw many places, including St Isaac�s Cathedral, Cathedral of the Resurrection (Our Savior-on-the-Spilled-Blood) and the Neva River, which runs through St Petersburg. Then we took a tour of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Peter and Paul Cathedral where all of the tsars and tsarinas after Peter the Great are buried. We learned about the Romanov family there. Then we took a river tour of another river in St Petersburg. After that, we returned to the hotel to rest a little bit since we were going to take a night tour of St Petersburg that night.

Well some of us did rest for a bit but a lot of us just hung out together. After a few hours of rest/talking, we set off. First we made a photo stop at �The Birthday Cake Church�. Continuing our cake theme, we went to an excellent cafe where we got some coffee, hot chocolate (which was literally hot chocolate), ice cream, cake, etc. Then we made some more photo stops at the Sphinx by the Neva River and at the Bank Bridge to get some financial luck and to play some more hacky sack.

Day 3:
We went to the Winter Palace/Hermitage where we spent most of the morning touring the museum. We enjoyed seeing many pieces of art by world-renown artists, Leonardo da Vinci, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and many more. After the tour, we climbed to the top of St Isaac�s Cathedral so that we could get a panoramic view of St Petersburg. The view was absolutely beautiful and we all got magnificent pictures of the city. We continued to look at cathedrals by going to the Kazan Cathedral and the Cathedral of the Resurrection (Our-Savior-on-the-Spilled-Blood). Then we went souvenir shopping at an open-air market and a department store. After shopping, we returned to the hotel where we found a stray cat while playing hacky sack.

Day 4:
Our last day began by packing up, checking out of the hotel and leaving St Petersburg for Tsarkoye Selo/Pushkin. Once we arrived there, we went to the Pushkin lyceum where we learned about Pushkin and the education that he had received there. Then we went on to tour the Catherine Palace, which was another magnificent summer residence of the tsars and tsarinas. We toured the building and were impressed when we learned that it had been almost entirely rebuilt after World War II. Afterwards we toured the gardens of the palace, which were simply and ornately beautiful.

After a quick meal, we left to go back to Dubna. The trip to St Petersburg was one of the main highlights of our trip and it is definitely as beautiful as people say it is. We were impressed by the immense beauty of the city which was evident everywhere. It was hard leaving this amazing city. Ljudmila and Lilia really did an awesome job of organizing this trip because when we left, we felt as if we had seen all of the beautiful parts of St Petersburg.
Thank you!