St. Peters-burg and first weeks in Moscow, Russia!

 A new chapter begins, I'm now living in Moscow Russia as a head teacher for the International Language Programs. I am helping 8 teachers that work in four different schools to teach English to the locals. So far, it's been a blast. Not to mention a whole new world. I've never lived in the city before, so Moscow (the New York City of Russia) is quite the experience.

 The day after we arrived, the other teachers and I hopped on a sleeper train to St. Peters burg. This city is incredible. It's architecture is so beautiful and the city is filled with canals, fountains and beautiful buildings.

                                           

This is the first European style city I've visited and everything from the grand architecture to there doors was everything I'd ever imagined. The first day in St. Pete we walked around and explored the city for hours and hours. When things started to open, we climbed a million stairs to the top of St. Isaac's Cathedral and enjoyed this view of the city.

We also had the pleasure of experiencing the famous Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood Cathedral. 

 It was SO beautiful! and even better in person. There were artists painting the Cathedral and street performers that just brought this building to life.

Inside, every single wall and inch of the grand ceilings were covered in detailed Mosaics made with tiny pieces of painted tiles.    

You get a neck ache by the time you leave from staring up at this art. You could stay in this cathedral for hours and hours and find new pictures depicting scriptural stories. 

Just down the street is the HUGE Winter Palace (or as some call it, Anastasia's palace) 

We even saved a few bucks by showing our student visa's and got it for free! 

 This Palace was absolutely incredible. The architecture and detailed decorations were more than I could have imagined. I could just see royalty walking through it's halls in there massive gowns and jewels.

We found this massive chocolate Santa statue outside a "chocolate museum". We were so excited to see other chocolate sculptors that we came back three hours later when it opened to see. Little did we know, Russians use the word "museum" broadly.....this museum was just an expensive chocolate store haha. 

 This was my first morning in Moscow. The architecture was much more obvious of the communist period in Russia, but it has it's own sort of beauty. We were so busy training and preparing for lessons that we weren't able to explore much the first week in Moscow. But Gulya, our awesome native coordinator, took us on a boat cruise through the city to see all the major sites!

This is one of our students who came with us. Her English is so good! she'll chat your ear off :)

 We spend A LOT of time on the metro. Pretty much anywhere you want to go, the metro is the way. I actually really like it. No traffic Jams, just standing really close to a lot of strangers. I love just watching all the people in the city rushing around, on with there busy city lives, wearing there fabulous clothes. I just wonder all there stories.

Our first weekend in Moscow, our new friends, Dina and Murad took us to the "New Moscow". They are building tons of really cool. skyscrapers and malls all at the same time...so technically, the city isn't open yet. I didn't know people did that. 

In one of the malls are these HUGE Dolls that were created in Russia... You know, the kind that you take apart and there are a bunch more inside.

 This is the "new city of Moscow" Beatuful huh? It's weird because since it's not complete, there aren't that many people here. so This huge place, is probably the least crowded place I've seen in Moscow.

This is my walk to the metro from the Pent house my host family lives in. I would never call myself a city girl, but it will be fun to play the part for four months and when I miss the mountains, at least this city preserves some trees for me to enjoy along with the hustle and bustle of the people. 

With Love,
Nesha <3