St. Pete Day 4

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Wednesday started off with me skipping breakfast to work on my presentation. I managed to get a decent connection to the internet from my room, so I started screen capping some web sites I wanted to demo, as I knew I wasn't going to have internet access while presenting. I spent about two hours doing this, then met Chuck and the faculty down in the lobby to go to Herzen. We arrived at Herzen to be greeted with a new schedule, showing that Chuck and I were presenting after lunch. We also found out that we were presenting for Alexey's group of IT people after lunch as well, and concocted a schedule to try to meet both of our obligations. We attended Dr. Connor's presentation about the power of dead bodies in politics, a Russian presentation about the St. Petersburg Subway system, another one about the foreign policy of Soviet Russia in the 1950s, and one more about teaching globalization in Law.

We then took a break for lunch, though Chuck and I sought out Alexey so that we could make sure our laptops would work in the classroom where we'd be presenting. We were going to have their remote Vyborg campus teleconferenced in via the Polycom unit, so our laptops needed to output an S-Video signal so that the remote site could see our presentations. Fortunately, I brought my video adapter with me for my PowerBook, but the crappy Gateway laptop that Chuck got stuck bringing didn't have S-Video out, though it had Composite out. Chuck thought that we might have a converter left over from the Moscow Polycom project, so he hauled ass from Herzen back to the Hotel to get it, while I set up my AirPort Express and surfed the web. They'd put the firewall from hell back in place again, so I was pretty much limited to what I could do through my web browser, but I was at least able to read my e-mail.

Chuck showed up 20 minutes later, sweating and panting for breath. We tested his laptop, which worked fine, and then set off for the Politics Conference, where we were presenting first.

I was up first, and gave my newly revamped presentation, focusing primarily on political weblogs, their potential uses in academia, and the usefulness of RSS. I then packed up my dog and pony show, and rushed off to Alexey's area, as Chuck began his presentation behind me.

The group for the second rendition of my presentation was much different than the first. Instead of professors, I had mostly female English students in attendance, so I sort of glossed over most of the political stuff, and talked more about Academia, and how students can use the technology. I went over how they could all get weblogs from Blogger.com, and they at least pretended to pay attention, writing down the URL. I got a few laughs by showing them some of the tales from the UNI students on the China Diaries weblog we're hosting at UNI, and then Chuck arrived to give his second talk.

I happily abdicated the chair, and let Chuck do his bit about Internet Usage and Trends in 2004, as well as showing off some non-browser-based internet applications and how they can be used for information gathering.

After the students all filed out, I checked my e-mail and discovered a message from Chris (NY) inviting us to join him for dinner at Tequila Boom, a Mexican restaurant here in St. Peterburg. We got Alexey to give us some rudimentary instructions, and I located where we wanted to go on my map of the city, we just had to get there. Chuck and I set out on foot, and found our way there with no problems, it turned out to be a 25-minute walk, or so.

Along with Chris (NY) was Canadian Chris and Katherine from Denmark walked in soon thereafter. We were presently joined by Kai(sp?) from South Africa and Antoine from France, making for Coalition of the Hungry strong enough to invade a Middle Eastern nation. Oh, wait, we didn't have anyone from Poland. Never mind.

We ordered some chips and salsa, and I ordered a Corona. In Russia, beer is often cheaper than water, especially in restaurants, where instead of serving the "Aqua Minerale" bottled by Pepsi (which is cheaper than bottled water in the US), they're prone to giving you a bottle of Perrier for 85 rubles, when you could have probably gotten a bottle of beer for 40. Of course, since we're dumb Americans, limited to saying "vaa-da biz-gaza" (Water, no-gas) and we don't find out the price until we get the cryptic receipt, we may just be getting screwed.

For the main course, Katherine and I both selected "Gringa", which was two wheat tortillas filled with cheese, lettuce, and seasoned pork, and topped with a slice of pineapple. It was really pretty tasty. We also split a potato filled with chili and sour cream, which was good too. Chuck had a big burrito, which he said was good, but was way more food than I could have eaten.

After eating, we headed off for a bar called "Time-Out" because Katherine wanted to play pool, and they apparently have a pool table, which doesn't seem to be all that common in Russia. I then learned something new about St. Petersburg. As the bar was some distance away, the group decided we would travel by taxi, which is something I hadn't done. Now, by taxi, they didn't mean a licensed cab, which is apparently quite expensive. No, in St. Petersburg, it's apparently common to just hail a random car, pay the driver 100 rubles, and have them take you to your destination. I was somewhat hesitant to do this at first, but they all assured me it was quite common, and generally considered safe, and given that we were going to outnumber any driver three-to-one, I went along with it.

So, we hailed a couple of cars, which is accomplished by standing alongside the road with your hand out until one stops, at which point you negotiate a price and a destination, and you get in. There were so many of us, we had to split into two cars, but we made it to our destination just fine, though our car was a hatchback that was somewhat cramped with three of us in the back seat.

As we arrived at "Time Out", which is normally a student hangout, a student coming out of the bar told us that it wasn't a good night to go there, as it was filled with Georgians. People from the Caucus region are generally looked-down upon by other Russians, so I didn't think much of that, but as we walked in, it looked like a pretty rough-and-tumble bunch. They were all in the main room, watching soccer on the big projection screen, so we headed for the back to check out the pool table. It had already been claimed, so we wound up just grabbing a beer (I had a Heineken) and waiting. Eventually, we gave up on waiting for the pool table, and decided to go to another bar that Katherine knew about, with an unpronounceable name, but they celebrate New Year's Eve there nightly. Maybe Alexey will read this and post the name in the comments, otherwise, it shall remain a mystery.

We hailed a couple more cars, and I scored a really nice new sedan this time, and set off for this bar. We didn't have the exact location, but Katherine got us close enough that Chris (NY) was able to extract the location from an inebriated passer-by.

We eventually arrived at the bar, which is marked by two large hares outside, and is decorated inside like some sort of twisted Alice in Wonderland nightmare. There are doors located in random places throughout the metallic-finished bar, combined with giant rabbits with exposed rib-cages hanging from the ceiling. We had to pay a 100-ruble cover-fee, which may or may not be something aimed at foreigners, we suspect it was, but eventually secured a table and began to consume vodka.

The staff of this bar are all dressed in sort of a bunny-pajama outfit. Nothing full scale and hot like an Easter Bunny costume, just a sort of white coverall with a cloth rabbit ear headdress. Are rabbits related to New Years here? I don't know.

So, we had several rounds of vodka, with red grape juice to wash it down (I so would not want to throw this up) and eventually our inhibitions had been lessened enough that Katherine was able to goad us into dancing.

In Russia, even uncoordinated fat white guys like me can dance. Chris (NY) told me this before the dancing started, and I soon realized it was true. I'm guessing that since there aren't many African-Americans in Russia, the standard of acceptable dancing is much much lower than America. You can pretty much go out on the dance floor and convulse like an idiot, and you'll be just like everyone else. I'm not saying that dancing cool is a blacks-only thing, just that they have perhaps taught us white folks a thing or two about good moves. In Russia, there isn't really any racism towards blacks, they're considered "cool", but are somewhat rare. As it happens, we met a Nigerian guy who'd just moved to St. Petersburg three weeks before, and he was working in one of the bunny-suits at the club, and yes, for the record, he danced much better than the Russians.

Eventually, the bar staff hauled out a Christmas tree and put it in the impromptu dance floor. I learned that since religion was somewhat repressed during the Soviet era, here it's a New Year's Tree. They also apparently have New Year's Klaus, which is Santa Claus, only he gets a week off to recover before having to deliver their gifts, I guess. We all danced around the New Years/Christmas tree some more, except for Canadian Chris, who wouldn't even participate in the awkward dancing, and just kept saying he was embarrassed for/by us.

Around midnight, we got a bottle of "Sparkling Wine" as apparently the French have enforced their ban on the word Champagne here as well, and we all rang in the New Year dancing to remixed Christmas Carols, with a dance beat. If you've always wanted to rock out to Jingle Bell Rock, come to St. Petersburg.

Eventually, Chris called "Yuri" to come give us all a ride home. This is the same Russian he had called on our previous night out, though Chuck and I had walked home then. I asked Chris about Yuri, who apparently is a guy who knows how to get things done. As best as I can figure it, he drives people home from bars professionally, generally from a specific Irish pub, but he is apparently willing to freelance, at least for Chris. He also can arrange, uh, female companionship for you, and he apparently has a book with prices for this purpose.

We didn't avail any of his other services, and he rapidly deposited us at Kazaan Cathedral, which is near Herzen, where Chuck and I managed to get back to our rooms without incident. I did remember to take a shower before going to bed, as there isn't any hot water in the mornings, and then I slept the deep sleep that only massive quantities of vodka can bring on.

St. Pete Day 3

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Today started with an ice-cold shampoo. Hot water is a rare commodity here at the Herzen Hotel, especially in the mornings, and there was no way I was taking a shower in that water. It isn't just that we run out of hot water, you turn the handle, and nothing comes out. The water you do get, from the cold side, isn't merely unheated, I swear it's actively cooled, it can't be much above freezing. We've discovered that hot water seems to be plentiful later in the day, so you just have to remember to take you showers at night before you go to bed. I had forgotten that the night before, thanks to the Vodka, so I settled for a shampoo of my hair and selective use of a washcloth. My scalp literally went numb from the cold water while trying to rinse the shampoo off, which is an entirely new sensation for me. I don't suggest you try it.

After regaining sensation in my head, I went downstairs for the usual breakfast, with pancakes and jam this time as the main course. Chuck and I then met downstairs with Alexey, who thought we were going to briefly meet with the IT staff of Herzen, before doing some sight-seeing. Much to our surprise, our schedule was suddenly changed, and we were going to be attending a conference about "Democracy, Technology, and Sustainable Development" with the UNI faculty.

More to our surprise was that we were going to be presenting at said conference at an unspecified time in the very near future. I wasn't really dressed to attend a conference, much less present at one, but we didn't have time to change, so off we went. We do have presentations, which we already gave in Moscow, and we planned on showing them here to the IT staff, not faculty, so at least we have something to work with. I was somewhat surprised to discover I had no network access in the room that we'd be presenting in, though I was going to have it for the planned IT talk. I was even more surprised that the interpreter I thought we'd been using wasn't present. To add to our frustration yet further, we weren't actually on the program for the conference, so we didn't know when we'd be speaking, though I got some amusement from one of the other faculty members having suddenly been presented with a new topic for his speech, which was vastly different from both his area of expertise and his prepared material.

So, as I tried to wrap my head around giving a speech, which now had to be twice as long, without access to the internet, to a new audience, at an unspecified time in the near future, while wearing jeans, I began to get somewhat flustered. Fortunately, it worked out that Chuck and I aren't actually presenting until tomorrow, so I have some time to monkey with my presentation a bit, and wear the proper clothing. It turns out that we're still presenting to the IT people, immediately after the conference, and that I will have network access for the second presentation.

The first presentation of the conference was about out-sourcing of call center jobs to India, and was pretty interesting. Then we had a break for lunch. We were told that there'd be a special lunch for us back in our hotel cafeteria/restaurant, but when we arrived, there were no tables set up for us, so we wound up crossing the street to eat at a fake British pub called The Office. It was taking a while to order, so two of the UNI faculty who had to present departed, though a few of us remained, finding lunch much more interesting, and by that point, I'd had enough surprises that I'd been "flexible" about for one day, I wasn't giving up lunch on top of it. I decided just to have some french fries, and a coke, and then went back to my room and ate my leftover pizza from the night before.

I spent some time getting organized in my room, then met Chuck to go visit Quo Vadis, the internet cafe on Nevsky Prospect. We got online for an hour, which was about 80 roubles ($2.85) and I got a little work done. I also managed to find the St. Petersburg access number for the pre-paid dial-up provider I used in Moscow. Quo Vadis is really a nice, well-run internet cafe, and the machines are wiped after each user.

I then returned to my room, and attempted to get online. The phone jack in my room here is unique, to say the least. It has the old-style 5-pronged Russian connection, as well as two of the newer RJ-11 jacks just like you'd have in any house in the US. I couldn't get a dial tone out of either of the RJ-11 jacks, and my 5-prong to RJ-11 converter wouldn't physically fit the construction of my jack. I finally resorted to getting out my Leatherman, and disassembling the jack, where I discovered that whoever wired it didn't bother to connect the wires for the RJ-11 connectors that were part of the the phone jack. Since all the wires looked the same, I just opted for installing my converter now that the exterior had been removed, and I was able to get online with my laptop at last!

After a couple of quick postings here, I met the rest of the UNI delegation downstairs for our "special" dinner. What a great meal it turned out to be. A big van arrived to take us all to a restaurant called "Backstage" which is part of the Mariinsky ballet house here. I managed to avoid all the appetizers, which were various forms of invertebrate sea life, stuck with the good bread rolls, and waited for my entree. I ordered a beef fillet in pepper sauce, which was excellent. I told Alexey it was the best beef I'd had in Russia, and as he'd ordered the same thing, he said that it was the best beef he'd had in Russia in his 26 years of living here too. I had plenty of white wine, and we had great conversation at my end of the table, between Chuck, me, Dr. Vajpeyi and Dr. Connors from UNI, as well as Alexey, and a Russian woman named Galina, who I just met for the first time. We talked about politics, books, movies, history, and generally had a great time over the course of three hours. For dessert, I ordered a hot fudge sundae, which came with lots of little bits of fruit in the bowl under the ice cream. It was pretty tasty, though I wished I'd gotten the cheesecake after I saw how good Alexey's looked.

We made plans with Galina for some specially arranged tours later in the week. We're getting an exclusive tour of the Russian mint here on Thursday, so we'll see where all the coins are made for the entire Russian Federation. On Friday, we're getting a rare tour of the Yusupov Palace, where Rasputin was killed. Well, where they started to kill him at least, as he was allegedly poisoned, shot, beaten, stabbed, then thrown into a canal where he eventually drowned. Knowing the history of the Russian monarchy, I'm surprised it wasn't declared a suicide. In any case, I'm looking forward to those tours.

Now it's time for me to see if I have hot water and can take a shower...

St. Pete Day 2

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Day two started with us finding the rest of the UNI delegation downstairs at breakfast. There are several faculty members and librarians here as well, though each group has a separate schedule. Breakfast was an omelet, orange juice, yogurt, and bread and cheese. I skipped the omelet, and ate the rest, then got ready for some more sight-seeing. The morning started with a visit to Herzen, the State Pedagogical University that Alexey works at. He took us to see his office, and we learned why he is so thin, as it's a long walk up a lot of stairs to reach it. Since Chuck and I are internet addicts, we seized the opportunity to get online as soon as we saw a spare patch cable in Alexey's office. Chuck's laptop turned out to have a bad NIC, so my AirPort Express came in handy again, as I just popped it in place, and set up an impromptu wireless network for Chuck and I to use. The Herzen network admin helpfully poked some holes in the firewall, as they've got it locked down so tight we couldn't contact either an external IMAP or VPN server, but once he opened those up for us, we were right as rain.

We got about 15 minutes of network time in before Alexey showed us the video conferencing room that was set up here last winter by other UNI staffers. It was nice to see a completed room, and they've certainly invested some money in this room, and it shows. They've got echo-canceling acoustic tiles lining the whole room, and have put in a new projector, sound system, and even little booths for people to do simultaneous translation in. It was a pretty high-tech room, all things considered.

Alexey also showed us one of their computer labs, which was pretty nice, filled with new computers from a local white-box manufacturer. We talked some more with the Herzen staff, though most of the time was spent with the MISiS people conversing with them in Russian, while Chuck and I looked over the technology approvingly, then it was time for lunch.

For lunch we went to another pancake house, I think they're called Bliny (prounounced blee-nee), but I could be wrong. I passed on the herring flavored variety, and settled for a plain one with strawberry jam, which was pretty tasty. I added a Coke and some cabbage salad to the order, which made for a good lunch, all-in-all.

Alexey had to return to work, but he left us instructions to meet a tall, dark, and beautiful woman for our trip to the Russian Museum back at our hotel. We didn't have any trouble spotting Anna from Alexey's description, as she met all three descriptors spot on. Anna led us to the Russian Museum, where we pretended to be Russian in order to get in for a cheaper price. As I read the rules, however, our visa allows us to get in at that price anyhow, as only people on tourist visas are supposed to pay the tourist prices, and we're on work/business visas. Also, my Lonely Planet book says that in practice, the Russian ticket takers will also sort of encourage you to pay the Russian price, rather than the inflated tourist price, so it's apparently a pretty common dodge.

Anna proved to be a capable tour guide, though her voice was suffering somewhat, as she'd gotten tossed into the river/canal the night before while partying with some friends, and was trying valiantly to overcome the certain sickness that was the result. The Russian Museum is filled only with the works of Russian artists, and is quite interesting. The paintings are on massive canvases, and depict much of Russian history, as well as Biblical, Greek, and Roman themes. Pitr and Vladimir were with us as well, and after two hours, we'd seen the entire museum. Anna bid us farewell, Pitr and Vladimir returned to the hotel, and Chuck and I set off to poke about the tourist-trappy souvenir market that was near the museum.

All of the vendors in the souvenir market were hawking wares that were almost identical, fur hats, nesting dolls, amber necklaces, and drinking flasks were everywhere. Dickering is a necessity in this market, and most of the vendors are friendly and speak English well enough to sell you their wares. We didn't purchase anything, however, as we were only on a scouting expedition now, and while I may pick up a few gifts there, most of them had the look and feel of cheap mass-produced goods, rather than quality items that I'd rather give as gifts.

We meandered back to our hotel, and decided to rest a bit before finding some food for dinner. I was craving American food, so I talked Chuck into a visit to Pizza Hut, which isn't too far from Herzen. We weren't sure what to expect, as even American chains are "different" in other lands, and I'd heard that the local KFC and Subway franchises were not much like the American counterparts. I'm happy to report that Pizza Hut is an excellent place for someone to get a great pizza in St. Petersburg. I bought a medium pepperoni pizza, and a couple slices of garlic bread, and Chuck had a pasta dish along with the salad bar. The pizza was delicious, just as good, if not better, than any American Pizza Hut pizza I've ever had. I ate half the pizza, then loaded the rest into a take-home box to stash in my refrigerator back in my room.

After dinner, we decided to see if we could use that wi-fi down at Zoom, and lugged our laptops the few blocks to the cafe. Unfortunately, the access cards they sold for the wi-fi didn't actually work, and we just kept getting "authentication failure" messages in our web browser when using the usernames and passwords from the back of the cards. The staff weren't able to help us much, as they're just reselling access from another company, but they did refund our purchase price on the cards.

As we were sitting there, my ears picked up the sound of American being spoke at a table near us, and I introduced myself. It turns out that the table was occupied by Chris, an American from New York, Chris, a Canadian from Ottawa, Catherine, a Dane, and Svetlana, a Russian. All of them are students at local universities, though Chris (NY) is actually two years older than I am. They've come to St. Petersburg to get their degrees, not just for a semester or two of study, and after some brief chatting, they invited us to join then at the yellow-floored place down the road for some drinks.

Chuck and I joined up with them there for some Vodka, with cherry juice to wash it down, and I had a Long Island iced tea too, which was somewhat difficult to order, as the waitress thought I was actually trying to get an iced tea, so we had to point it out to her on the drink menu before we got our order in. After a few shots of vodka, we were sufficiently relaxed and started talking all about the experience of being visitors to Russia, both the good and the bad.

Eventually, someone (I think it was Catherine) suggested that we try another club down the road called "Lenin's Mating Call". As the name suggests, this club is an unusual experience. Chris (CA), Catherine, and Svetlana went ahead, as Chris (NY), Chuck, and I returned to Herzen to leave our laptops behind.

We caught up with the advance team at Lenin's, which is unique to say the least. The decor is faux-Soviet era, with lots of red velvet and busts of Lenin scattered about, quite posh. All over the top of the restaurant/bar area are LCD displays which show an interesting mixture of soft-core pornography videos, interspersed with Soviet-era propaganda films and slogans, generally in 30 second clips of each. The bathrooms, which have magnetic locks, also have little web cameras in them, so after you finish going to the bathroom, you turn around, and see yourself on camera in the little LCD display in the door, and realize you've been watched the whole time (from behind). I'm not exactly sure why the cameras are there, but it's amusing, nonetheless.

Chuck and I learned that we will never want Juniper-flavored vodka again, as it's like drinking Pine-sol, though the unflavored stuff was pretty good. Canadian Chris and I had a political discussion, as he's apparently a Republican, even though he's from Canada. He admitted he doesn't pay much attention to his local politics, as he's in Russia for 6 years to become an expert in counter-terrorism.

Catherine and I talked a bit, she thought I was Danish when I'd walked in to the Zoom. I explained that I was one-quarter Danish, and that I called my paternal grandfather Bestefar, the Danish word.

Around 1:00, the rest of the group needed to disperse, as they raise the bridges in St. Petersburg at 1:30 to let the ships in and out of the city, and they don't lower them again until 3:00, so they had to depart in order to make it home. Chuck and I managed to make our way back to Herzen, where I quickly zonked out, with the help of all that vodka I'd had earlier.

St. Pete Day 1

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We left Moscow right on time, with our driver managing to cram Alexey, Pitr, Chuck, and I into a Pontiac Transport van. He expressed much displeasure at the amount of luggage we had, as apparently he'd been told that since we has left the video conferencing equipment, we wouldn't have much luggage. In actuality, our luggage occupied the same space, it was just much lighter now. After some creative space management, we all got in, and began the mad dash to the train station. I don't know how fast we were going across Moscow, but my estimate is between 70 and 80 miles per hour, and as I was in the front seat, this was both exciting and terrifying, and I got a strange look from the driver as I was scrambling around for my seat belt, as hardly anyone wears them here. We got to the station an hour before our train was to depart, and spent a bit of time milling about, before we were able to board. Chuck and I wound up sharing a two-person compartment, which would have been spacious, except every single square inch of floorspace was consumed by our Luggage, which wouldn't fit in any of the niches made for it within the compartment. We just sort of had to dive for the beds from the doorway, but, as the train ride was from midnight to 8:00 a.m., we were sleeping almost the entire trip anyhow.

I've never traveled by train before, it was quite pleasant, almost magical to go to sleep in one city and wake up in another. The beds were comfortable, and we had a non-smoking compartment that was pretty nice, all things considered. One of the women who was in charge of our car came along as we departed and collected 160 roubles ($5.45) from us, but we had no idea what it was for. We found out later from Alexey that it was for our linens. Why they don't just build that into the price of the ticket is beyond me, it'd seem to be easier than having to take cash later, but we were fine with it, just didn't know what we were paying for at the time.

The next morning, the same woman woke us agressively. The train had been warm most of the trip, but about 2 hours earlier, I'd had to actually get under the blankets on my bed, as I was cold, and I was really in a deep sleep and didn't want to get up. I thought there was possibly some trouble now, as it seemed far too dark outside for us to be at St. Petersburg already. So, Chuck and I pulled ourselves together, and I reached for my watch. I was surprised to learn that it was 7:50 in the morning, and it wasn't light outside yet. St. Petersburg is quite far north, and it doesn't get very light here until after 8:00 in the morning.

We gathered our things together, and left the train, to be greeted by a breath of fresh cold air as we stepped on to the platform. You know how I said that Moscow isn't cold? St. Petersburg is cold. My un-scientific definition of cold is that if you can see your breath, it's cold. In Moscow, I couldn't see my breath. In St. Petersburg, you have time to make a nice sketch of your breath before it cools and dissipates.

Alexey and Pitr found us on the platform, and we set off to find our driver. He'd brought a Subaru station wagon to get us, and we got to watch another driver attempt to deal with all of our luggage, while still squeezing 5 passengers into the car. St. Petersburg was pretty sleepy at 8:00 on a Sunday morning, and the streets were quite empty as we made our way to the Herzen University Hotel.

Upon arriving at the hotel, we learned that our rooms weren't ready for us yet, so we had to check our luggage with the security guy, and then Alexey took us on a walking tour of the city to kill time. I was cold, hungry, and half-awake, but I learned that St. Petersburg is much more European than Moscow is. In fact, if there wasn't any Cyrillic writing in a photograph, you'd be hard-pressed to identify a scene from St. Petersburg compared to any other European city. After killing an hour, we returned to find our rooms were ready, and we got checked in.

We only had time to drop our luggage off in our rooms before meeting Rimma, who was to take us on another walking tour. I did manage to at least grab a Snickers bar for breakfast from the hotel store before we started out. We walked around the town some more, looking briefly at various cathedrals and buildings before being deposited at a restaurant for lunch.

I'm not sure what the name of the cafe was, but it has a yellow floor that's lit from below, and compared to Moscow, the prices are quite good. I had a caesar salad, a Pepsi, and a pork chop that was at least an inch thick, and was quite juicy.

We were originally scheduled to tour the Hermitage art museum that afternoon, but our guide didn't show up, so Alexey eventually came and gathered us up and took us to St. Isaac's Cathedral, where we climbed all 262 steps to the top for a breathtaking view of the city from above. I wish I'd known there were 262 steps before starting, as I wound up gasping for breath on the last 50 or so, not having any idea of the length of the climb we were in for when we started it.

Chuck and I each snapped off several pictures here before we made the trip back down. Next we walked to a lovely park filled with sculptures, I wish I could remember the name, but by this point my brain was pretty well drained, as were my legs.

We returned to the hotel, where I finally got a shower, changed, and then Chuck and I went to the Zoom Cafe for dinner. I had a ham and cheese sandwich on toasted bread, followed by a piece of orange cheesecake, and Chuck ate about three other things, as he was really hungry. We found out that Zoom had wi-fi, and inquired about pricing, so that we could come back later with our laptops and use it.

We walked back to the hotel and promptly went to sleep, having walked at least 7-10 miles over the course of the day.