St. Petersburg Pt. 4

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Durning the last few days I had kept my eye out for prices of souvenirs in the area because I knew I wanted to buy some. We first walked to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood to look at the souvenirs, but they stalls weren't open yet so we just walked to St. Isaac's Cathedral. Some advice: only buy tickets to see the views from the top. Don't buy it to see inside the church. The inside was beautiful and it kept us out of the cold for a little bit, but it wasn't worth it. Although, they will give you a discount with an ID. The views were spectacular and I felt like I was in a book. It's also kind of scary though seeing the view down to the bottom.

Afterwards, we decided to have lunch at Теремок (Teremok). It's like a Russian McDonalds, and unless you are a food snob, you should definitely try it out. The food is really cheap and delicious! After we ate lunch we went back to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood to look at the souvenirs. If you don't make it to Pushkin the cheapest souvenirs are at that church and at the tunnel at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and Sadovaya Street. We then went back to the hostel and warmed up with some hot chocolate before we set off for our cooking class.

We then showed our metro skills by navigating all the way to where our cooking class was. We took the class at Кулинарная школа № 1. We wanted to take a Russian cooking class, but they didn't offer any. I love soup, and we learned how to make 11 different soups, so it was worth it. The class was fun, but it was all in Russian, so unless you have someone who can translate for you I don't suggest you take it. We got to try the soups after so that was good. They were all really delicious.

When we returned to the central area we were craving dessert, our life story. We walked down Nevsky Prospekt until we saw something we were interested in. We came to a place, I believe it's called Cafe Maria (Кафемериа, Nevsky Prospect, 66). You have to walk through a convenient store to get inside, but you can see it from the sidewalk. It is definitely not anything spectacular but the dessert and tea were really cheap and good! I'd definitely recommend it if you are looking for something more Russian than touristy. We headed back to our hostel where Carrie was being super creepy (talking to herself, reading her "Bible," and drunk). That night we really thought we were going to be killed by her. No joke.