Day 5 - Wednesday (Roman's Birthday)

- Breakfast with Roman's babushka and mama. Babushka gave a birthday toast, and recited a poem about boys growing up.
- Drove to Peter and Paul fortress, one of the original settlements in St. Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great. Roman and Sam made a side tour through the cathedral; saw the graves of Catherine the Great and most of the Russian emperors since Peter.
- Then we found our first Russian geo-cache, officially making us international treasure hunters. It took us about 10 minutes with the GPS to find the right coordinates and locate the film cannister cache. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out www.geocaching.com)
- Took a walk around a few of the local apartment buildings. Roman wanted to show us old fashions elevators and wells (or courtyards).
- Dinner at fast food crepe restaurant.
- Then "Sleeping Beauty" ballet at Marinsky theater. It lived up to the hype. We sat in a box, stage left, noticeably similar in size and position to the box where Lincoln was assassinated in Washington. The ballet itself is hard to convey in words. Image hundreds of incredibly felxible and beautiful people, jumping, spinning, twirling... all dressed in fine costumes (the bluebird was great).
- Met up with Roman's friends Vicki and Tomas. Dinner at Carl's Jr. We watched the bridges on the Neva raise up to let big tankers go through. No traffic crosses the river from approx 1-4in the morning.