Most of our fellow Road Scholars were heading back to the US from St. Petersburg, but we were heading to Paris for two more weeks. When we made our travel plans with the Road Scholar transportation office, they said our flight to Paris left at 7:20 AM. I thought for a nanosecond and said, umm, no, that would mean that we would have to leave the hotel by 3:30 AM. Is there anything later? And so there was -- a 4:30 PM flight arriving at 6:30 PM. We could leave the hotel as late as 1:30 PM. Crisis averted.
So imagine our surprise when we learned that of the 35 Road Scholars, 30 would be leaving the hotel at -- wait for it -- 3:30 AM, for early flights to the US! Three would leave the hotel at noon, and we would be the last orphans leaving at 1:30 PM. So that gave us an extra morning in St. Petersburg. So what would we do with our morning?
Aside from sleeping in several hours more than our counterparts -- many of whom said they would not bother to sleep at all -- we decided to take a walk to one of the sights we had not found time for before, the Yeliseyevsky deli store. This is the St. Petersburg branch of the art deco store we visited in Moscow.
On the way we passed a movie theater featuring the Great Gatsby and Ironman 3. We did not have time to see them, though.
Eddie Izzard? Have you seen his show? he does it in English and French. Perhaps Russian, too?
A street sight...
Inside this one seemed to be more of a deli than the Moscow store, which had grocery shelves filled with canned and boxed foods, as well as a refrigerated cases for fish, cheese and other fresh foods. Here there were tables to enjoy a cup of tea, pastry or sandwich. Sadly we had less than a dollar's worth of roubles left, and there was nothing that cheap in the store. In fact, nothing at all was cheap.
There were savory items as well as sweet...
caviar,
cheese,
There were more sweet temptations near the door.
A last look around ...
Back to the hotel, to the airport, and then, to Paris.
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