St, Isaac's, Peter and Paul Redux, and Lyuda to the Rescue

My week up until this point has been very quiet. Sunday was spent at the hospital getting my third rabies shot, and wishing my mom a happy birthday. Even though all I did that day was walk the three or four miles to the clinic and back, I was exhausted. Unfortunately the vaccines seem to wipe me out, and afterward I always seem to wind up only having the energy to sog in front of the TV, though sometimes even that is hard. Yesterday was quiet as well, though I was successful in my quest to find an electrical adapter for my computer cable. Yesterday's second highlight was learning more about our final 8 day excursion. We're going to travel up north to the White Sea, later I'll be less lazy and include the names in a post so you guys can find them on a map if you want. Today was a fun day, I spent the afternoon with Lyuda and her college friend Olya. We went to St. Isaac's Cathedral, a really beautiful church whose rotunda you can climb and look out across the whole city. Being the idiot I am however, I forgot to put a memory card in my camera. I was in luck though, Lyuda had a camera and took pictures, hopefully she'll email them to me soon and I'll be able to post them here. Afterward we went on a very long walk (almost 5.5 miles by the end I believe), which took us through the Peter and Paul Fortress again, and to the Mixailsky Palace, or Engineers palace. Mixail was a rather paranoid tsar, and built the vibrantly orange palace with numerous secret passage ways and doors, in an attempt to foil assassination attempts. Ironically enough, after only forty days in the palace Mixail succumbed to the very thing he feared, assassination. He was strangled with a curtain by his military officers. The palace is surrounded by beautiful parks, one of which contains a rather nice (for Soviet architecture) memorial to Leningrad soldiers how died during World War II.
That about does it for me, I'm exhausted, and want to get enough sleep before our tour of the Baltika Beer Brewery tomorrow. I'll leave you with the picture of a shack made out of cardboard that has sprung up on the way I walk to the Metro.