St. Peter— Who would have thought that we would find a pickled one?

St. Peter— Who would have thought that we would find a pickled one?

Ol’ St. Peter was awesome.  We had 5 days time there to take in the sites. Not nearly enough if you measure successful tourism by the percentage of museums seen.  Every day consisted of seeing a museum or two, a very long walk or two, a siesta and cervasas on the river beach and a good long night with other hostel folk.

Epic:

 Good hostel folk:

 Us and Rasputin out on the town:

The Hermitage stands out, obviously, as a huge highlight. It awesomeness is only surpassed by its grandiosity.  Each subsequent room gives you another reason to say the word opulent. Whereas most of the art wouldn’t go well with the garden gnomes and flamingos of America there were plenty of beautiful art pieces/ rooms to keep a person occupied for a day or more.  Even if you sprinted through the museum you would still spend a couple hours of your life.  We suggest it.

The view from above:

 Some sort of sea monument that was awesome:

One of the next stops we made, thanks to our favorite little hostel lass, was the Museum of Erotica.  The big (pun intended) tourist attraction is the pickled penis of Rasputin. The museum really wasn’t much to write home about, it was made up of a vast amount of statues related to sex, penises and vaginas—heavy on the penises though.  The best part of the experience was the awkwardness of the museum being not just a museum but also an STD clinic. Throughout the small building there were waiting chairs and nervous looking patients waiting for their big checkup—an odd combination to say the least.

Deep subways, good folk:

 Chris with Rasputin's manhood:

 Propaganda museum:

Peter’s fortress was another highlight of everyday actually because it had a nice beach you could relax at and enjoy the few of numerous monuments like the hermitage.   Also, it proved to be quite humorous with the fact that eastern Europeans seem to love their banana hammocks.

More epic places:

Us and the STD nurse:

The hostel life seemed to be the best part of St. Peter for us though.  One of my favorite parts of doing trips like these is the culture you seem to find throughout all the different hostels in which you stay. It is always a crap shoot whether or not you end up with a good staff and good fellow travelers. St. Peters was one of those moments where the stars aligned and everyone was just awesome.  It is always a crap shoot like I said but we you get a hostel that is great it makes a crappy hostel or two worthwhile.  You find people from all over the world that are cut from the same cloth or from something entirely different that you weren’t expecting. Hotels (old people traveling) are outdated and anti social. They encourage you to hide from the new world around you.  If you want to travel and experience I believe the hostel way is the best.

Dostoevsky crew:

 Get learned time:

Anyhow, on to Moscow,

Aaron