Another memorable day on Friday, as I spent it with Thelma, an older lady from LA who was in town for a few days (staying in the hostel) and feeling nervous about sightseeing on her own. We went on a whirlwind tour of Kazan Cathedral, St. Isaac's, the Hermitage, and Church of the Spilled Blood, all in one day! We even had time for a nice lunch at the Angelterre Hotel.

I really enjoyed spending time with Thelma, even though it wasn't what I had originally planned for my day. I guess in her younger days she traveled all around Western Europe, but this is her first trip to Russia. We had some great conversations about art, politics and religion (she is Catholic and Hispanic). She is very lively, enthusiastic, and we had a lot of fun laughing together. For example, during our whirlwind tour of the Hermitage she commented on the paintings - how all the women have such perfect, pert breasts. I told her I thought it was all fantasy. Surely we haven't de-volved over time into saggy-ness....it's just that primarily men bought paintings back then! Then as we were blazing through the beautiful interiors, and I was pointing out the things I remembered as being particularly interesting from my tour on my own, we crossed a room with nasty brown carpet (who knows?). So I made a little comment about "and here we have nasty 70s shag" and sent her into gales of laughter. So we had a lot of fun!

We rode the metro too, and I walked her to the station last night. She is taking a train to Estonia (Tallin) to meet back up with her daughter who lives in Germany, of all places, before heading back to LA.

Then, last night I had a really interesting conversation with Elise, a woman from France, who was sharing my room. She is headed to Moscow and then the Trans-Siberian Railroad (aka Orient Express), but the most fascinating part is that she is spending a week in Mongolia....in yurts...on the steppe. Unbelievable! She has a whole book about it in French that she showed me. She is married, teaches history at the high-school level, and is doing this trip on her own for 3 months. Can you imagine...the steppe? Mongolians? Yurts? How cool! After that she is on to China and Hong Kong.

Amy, you probably remember the name of the woman explorer who did this back in the late 19th/early 20th century....not Isabella Byrd...but the other lady. She was in the book of women explorers that I was reading about. Back then, though, she had to disguise herself as a man in order to get access to certain parts of China. These women (both the explorer and Elise, today) are so inspirational to me.

Well, I am out of internet time again...it just flies... Hope that you are all doing well. All my love from Russia...and everyone be thinking of Patti, my little sister, as she leaves for Latvia on Sunday!