I was prepared for this to be beautiful, and to be full of tourists, since today is Saturday. However, both were more overwhelming than I realized. I spent all day inside the five buildings connected to the Winter Palace and saw most everything I wanted to see, though I was constantly dodging tour groups. So many, many people! And such amazing art collections...and interiors! It was easy to get lost in it all.

However, I focused on what I've been doing in all my travels...following my instinct. There were a lot of famous paintings...some that I used to have prints off (Monet's poppy fields that I used to have in my living room at the synagogue - remember girls?). Beautiful Renoirs in the collection 'Hidden Treasures Revealed' (the paintings that were stolen and only recently displayed). And on and on...da Vinci, Botocelli, Cezanne, Degas, Gaugauin, Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, van Gogh. Too many to remember.

So I just followed my instinct for the ones that could be memorable to me for personal reasons. They had a special display with some new Rubens (in addition to the dozens that already filled the walls!) and among those, there was a moving, very large one of the woman at Simon the Pharisee's house. Mostly, I confess, I think I like Rubens best because his women have my body type (plump!).

There was another one (I forget the artist's name now) with a boy holding a candle out for his father, who was working. The artist had captured the look in the father's eye as he looked not at his work, but at his son, who was so eagerly trying to be helpful. It was very moving, this painting. Later in my day, I spent some time in the park in front of the Alexandariisky (Pushkin) Theatre, eating a bit of lunch and resting, and there was a little boy there playing with a ball. The woman watching him (not his mother - not sure why I know this) was reading, so I watched over him and he enjoyed having my attention and applause. I felt shy because I don't know the language, but I tried to just encourage him with smiles (didn't want to scare him with English - children get nervous around foreign languages, I've noticed). We had a lot of fun, communicating together this way.

So, back to the Hermitage...the other, unavoidable and breathtaking part, was, of course, the interiors. Some of the rooms (Raphael's loggia is the name of one, a hallway that Catherine the Great had built) were just so beautiful, adorned with art and designs that were both pretty to look at and unifying in a way that made the whole room a pleasure to be walking in. Of course there were the usual gold and malachite urns and desks and tables and every other kind of magnificent furniture you can imagine. It was definitely the most beautiful palace I have visited on my travels, and I'm sure will be unsurpassed in my memories.

Gina, I thought of you a lot as I was walking through there...and all your plans for your house! I am sure you would get a lot of ideas, being in there...not that you'd want to mimic it, of course, but just because of the combinations of colors, windows, placement of things, etc. I have being paying attention, too, as I have been traveling, and making note of the things that call out to me for when I have a house of my own.

After all day in the Hermitage, I spent some time in Dom Knigi (bookstore), bought a great book on St Petes (which the woman made sure I wanted because it was in English...what, do I seem like a Russian? ha!) and then I wrote you all postcards. So I am going on record...I will mail these postcards on Monday and hopefully you will get them! We'll just hope and see! Actually, I hear that the Russian postal service OUTBOUND is okay, it's just the INBOUND and express mail parts that are notoriously unreliable.

So...more later. Love to everyone from Russia!