Day Three- Kremlin and Hanging out with Jane’s friends Natasha and Andre

Hello family and friends!

Today was a busy day and we were all worried it would be long, but it actually went   by very quickly.  We started the day on the metro once again.  We have gotten very good at filing ourselves through, the station in an orderly fashion.  We headed to the Kremlin, seat of Russian government and past home of many Russian Tsars.  First, we toured the Armory, museum of the private collections of the Tsars such as jewelry, clothing, personal possessions and gifts.  We saw beautiful Faberge Easter eggs, tons of gold and jewels, drinking games of the Tsars (J), and beautiful coronation gowns of the Tsarinas.  Many were extremely skinny and we learned that one of the Tsarinas had the smallest waist in Europe—8 inches!!  Also, we learned about one of the past Tsarinas of Russia, Catherine the Great, who spent most of Russia’s money on one of the largest diamonds in the world, and after she died they opened her wardrobes to find 30,000 dresses!!  After this museum, we wondered throughout the Kremlin grounds, going into a couple of the cathedrals, seeing the “largest bell and canon in the world,” and coming feet of the offices of the President of Russia, which was awesome because we never would have been able to do that in the US!

After this we went to a food court and all had pizza because we missed American food J  Then we went outside and took pictures by a fountain.  Wendy took a picture with a snake!  We also had to say goodbye to Sergei today L L L  This moment was very sad, the saddest of our time here.  He was so cute as he walked away because he kept looking back at us.

Then we took another metro to Natasha and Andre’s apartment.  As we walked from the subway to their place, we went to a farmer’s market and bought real fruit- yum!  We sat in their apartment and chatted for a few hours.  It was very nice and we learned a lot from Natasha, who is brilliant!  Their apartment was very nice, but small so everything had to be very compact and efficient, something we are not familiar with at home.  We left their place to go back and get our luggage from the hotel and prepare for our overnight train ride to St. Petersburg.  More from Kelsey later!

P.S. If you are reading this, please please please comment! We want to know if anyone’s out there!

Shaughnessy