The wedding, Part 2 & the trip home

At long last we are back in the United States and have time to post the rest of the story regarding the wedding! Once we arrived at the reception site, the entertainment provided was just unbelievable (literally).

First, there was a band of gypsies to greet us -- while they played Jamie and Victoria had to drink from the same glass of wine and then Jamie had to break the glass. Around this time we met our hosts for the night -- one man speaking Russian and narrating the chain of events, and another man who translated the Russian into English. Neither of us really remember the order in which each show was put on, so we will just describe the ones we remember.

At one point there were two tests of sorts for Victoria. One of them started off with a tribe of people dressed as Native Americans -- with headdresses, feet stomping, howling, feathers, the whole deal. Some of the Russians actually asked the Americans if the Indians were brought straight from America!! They danced around for a bit, and then Jamie's father came out wearing a headdress to present the "babushka" (grandmother) to them to help them with cooking, etc. The woman came in dressed as an Indian and riding on a platform. She hobbled to the stage, and Victoria was called up to prove she didn't need the babushka's help. She had to correctly identify the things needed to make a soup. After the Indian tribe was dismissed, all of the men in the room were welcomed to come to the stage and kiss Victoria on the cheek. Jamie was to be one of them, and Victoria had to correctly identify her husband. She managed to do this (we later learned they had a secret code planned), and then handed candy to each of the guys who came to kiss her.

Throughout the night we also had several dances by different groups -- Russian dancers, clog dancers, unidentifiable (by me) dancers, and two dances by children of some of the Russian guests (about age 12). The kids were phenomenal -- they did ballroom dancing and were just really really good! Also, put up at the beginning, were three HUGE fans (like, the accordion style paper ones that open), about 15 feet tall, that had pictures of Jamie and Victoria on them. These were on the stage outside.

At one point we had grape stomping, to make fresh wine for the couple. There was a big (15ft diameter) vat which large amounts of grapes into and people from the party hopped in barefoot and stomped on the grapes. In the mean time, surrounding the main barrel, there were several smaller barrels with scantily clad women (see through costumes, thongs, etc.) swaying back and forth -- in the barrel.

We also saw a group of people dressed as Eskimos singing and dancing. At the same time a large ice sculpture was brought out, and Jamie had to chisel it open to find food and vodka. He and Victoria then had to pour the Vodka on a fire (the fire was wheeled in with a fake tree) and cook the fish (I think).

There was a probably professional redone debate between Obama and a Russian guy up on the projector -- instead of what they were actually talking about the debate had subtitles discussing the marriage of Victoria and Jamie, and how good it was for the cooperation between the two countries.

There was a cooking competition (David joined in and got stabbed by a knife while cutting cucumbers). Russia vs. US -- they were given a bunch of salad ingredients and had to stand up on stage and make a salad in the allotted time. Victoria and Jamie then tasted each salad and chose which one they liked better. Russia won.

Jamie and Victoria also sawed through a log at some point in the night. There was a large fireworks show (as big as Randolph 4th of July apparently) just for us, set off from across the river. At the same time there was a large group of dancers with drums and two fake pianos dancing by the river.

While all of this was happening, the 100 or so guests were enjoying a multi course meal with various meets, fish, caviar, bread, potatoes, wine, vodka, etc. The main dish was a choice of salmon or beef, we both had the beef. There was a fruity cake for dessert. The entire "reception" went on from about 5:30pm (when we left the hotel) till about 1am. You would think the night was over at this point, but it was most certainly not!

At 1:00am we boarded two coach buses and were driven to ANOTHER boat. This boat was much bigger, and fit all of the guests. There was more food, more wine, champaign and vodka. There was a band. We toured the rivers on this boat waiting for the draw bridges to raise at 1:30am, they are only raised for 2 hours each day. We watched this happened while we continued to celebrate.

At 3:00 am the boat dropped us off and we had a 20 minute walk back to the hotel. Diana and I actually more accurately hobbled back because wearing heels for that many hours made both of our feet quite sore. Once back at the hotel we packed up our stuff, and crawled into bed around 6am. We'd had a fun night, but we were both incredibly disheartened because the Russian maids had thrown out David's special Czech beer bottles. We are going to try to replace them, but its not the same because we can't ever have the bottles we drank from.

We woke up at 10:30 in the morning and thankfully had hot water. We had a quick breakfast, hopped in our taxi and headed to the airport. The trip home was mostly uneventful, though by the time we hit Boston David and I were both feeling tired and sick of unhealthy food. On the plane we both watched "The edge of darkness" which was not a very good movie, napped some, and ate two meals. After landing in Boston we took a taxi back to the apartment, unpacked, did some laundry, and went to the store to buy some pita chips and fruit.

And that concludes the awesome trip!

St. Petersburg Day 4 (the wedding) Part 1

To preface this post, we need to put in a disclaimer. Nothing we can write in this blog will accurately describe the extent of this wedding celebration. The wedding ceremony was actually back in May, but this was the "Russian Celebration" hosted by Victoria's parents. We will do our best to accurately depict the night, but we are sure to come up short.

Keep in mind, nobody (other than the parents) knew what was coming at the start. Everything (except that we were getting on a bus) was a suprise, even to the bride and groom.

The night started at 5 PM with a bus ride to a large party boat. The groups were split in to two, so there were actually two boats, but we didn't see where the other boat took off from (we had different busses). We found later that there were technically three boats, as the wedding party (bride, groom, best man, and maid of honor) had their own boat as well (much smaller). The boat was very flat, but seated around 50 people, and was decked out with a disco theme and a guy in the corner playing accordian. Champagne, vodka, crepes, stuffed rolls were served as appetizers as we started to tour through the rivers of St. Petersburg. Our host for the night was a magician who spoke no english so the boat had an interpreter. It was pretty funny seeing the guy crack a joke, break out laughing, and then have to hand the mic to the interpreter who most certainly lost some of the humor in translation. Still funny, but the magician was seriously cracking up at his own jokes. I was part of the grand finale, where I was put in a trick coat and the guy used his hands from behind my back to do tricks. The hightlight and grand finale was him tucking a handkerchief in my pants and then pulling it out with a pair of panties attached. You should check out the video to see it all!

At an interlude, we got satches of food, because "when you start on a journey, you have to have some food!" They contained bread, cheese, some pickles, and an onion. We stuck to the crepes. Girls were given sailor things for their necks, and men were given sailor tee-shirts (sleeveless, white with blue stripes like popeye). We didn't all put them on.

We caught up with the other boat and were greeted by six people on bicycles with whistles and angel wings. Small fireworks set were set off and then we turned away. We heard the angels go past (blowing their whistles), but thought they were going away. It took us a few minutes, but they were followinig us! At every bridge, they would put on some sort of show, including dancing, small fireworks, and other hilarious things. They were basically mimes with whistles, and their show (going from bridge to bridge) lasted about 30 minutes. No pictures of this, but you have to try and imagine 6 people with overcoats and angel wings racing past us on bikes to get to the next bridge and then performing a show while we passed. Total shows were probably around 15-20.

We went out on to the main river (the Neva), and set up with the other boat across from us. We were instructed to retrieve a white pidgeon (a "dove") from a box and hold it (yes, they were alive and pooping). Caroline and I declined the honor. We were also told to step away from the cannon, as it was going to go off soon. Yes. A cannon. The wedding party boat showed up and headed between the two large boats. When they were between us, they were given a 3 shot salute from each boat and all of the "doves" were released from each boat at the same time that Victoria (the bride) and Jamie (the groom) released theirs from the middle boat. It was pretty neat, all of the birds immediately flocked together and circled the boats. We continued our boat ride as a group of three.

We continued on, and then were asked to go out to the top of the boat so we could see the celebration site as we approached. The whistling biker mimes were there and had changed costume. They were waving stick like flags at us and smiling enthusiastically. The welcoming show was insane - there were these women IN tables -- standing in the center like a centerpiece, or like the table was a large skirt. There were also women standing in the top of these super tall domes, we don't even know what they were. We got off the boat, and headed inside.

To see enough for yourself to know we aren't exaggerating, click here.

Part 2 will come later!

St. Petersburg Day 3

Today didn't start so well for me because I was totally tired. I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that we seem to have a bit of a hot water issue in our room. Once again today we didn't have any hot water in the morning, so I only ended up with a partial shower. I did thankfully manage to get clean for the most part. The extra time it took to get any water made me late to breakfast, which made it hard to eat in time to leave. I was pretty exhausted from the day before, so fell asleep for every single bus ride. We drove 15 miles south of the city to another Palace. This place had something to do with Pushkin, which is interesting since in Prague we stayed at Pushkin apartments. Pushkin is a famous Russian poet. The picture above is a room that contains 16 lbs of gold just for that room. It was pretty insane. I actually almost fell asleep in the palace!

After the palace tour we went to lunch at a traditional Russian restaurant. Most of the food was great -- the soup above is borsch, a beet soup. Considering I don't particularly like beets the soup was pretty good. David of course loved it, and had two big helpings. Lots of free vodka too, though after a tiny sip from both David and I we stuck to water, it tasted pretty terrible. We then had an hour drive back to the city, during which we both fell promptly asleep. Finally, after this longer nap, I started to feel more alert.

We went to St. Isaac's cathedral next, which was also quite ornate and had lots of granite. We learned it can hold up to 14,000 people, and it contains no musical instruments or seats. After this cathedral we visited the palace of an aristocrat, which was less fancy than the palaces of the Tsars, but was still pretty nice! It was also the place of the attempted assassination of Rasputin (spelling?). He was first poisoned, then shot three times, and finally dumped in the frozen water. One person in the group read he eventually died of hypothermia. We got back to the room with just enough time to change for dinner hosted by Victoria's parents at a German Pub. At the pub we ate lots of meat, fried food, and drank beer brewed by the pub. We then started for a walk outside, guided by Olga, but got stuck in a thunder storm and had to sprint back to the bus. We didn't quite make it, as you can tell from the picture below.

Despite being wet, the Cornell crowd stopped for apple strudel on at the bar across from our hotel -- a good way to end the day! No touring plans for tomorrow, so we are going to sleep in and then go souvenir shopping. Tomorrow night is the big deal -- we don't know much about it (I think its possibly a surprise even to Jamie and Victoria), but we do know that we will be taking two boats to an island for the event.

More photos here!

St. Petersburg Day 2

Yesterday started early with breakfast at the hotel. We had crunchy cucumbers, apples, toast, bland greasy potato pancakes of sorts, and overcooked hardboiled eggs. Yum! We hopped on the tour bus a ways down the street with the rest of the group, our tour guide was named Olga and was Victoria's English teacher. She was a lot of fun! The tour started off just driving around the city and learning about the different buildings and areas. We stopped at a few places to take pictures. The above picture is of St. Issac's cathedral, which we didn't actually go inside to see until today. Our first big stop was the Hermitage, pronounced "taage" rather than "tige". This was apparently because the series of buildings includes more than just the actual hermitage, so to differentiate they decided to adopt the French pronunciation of the word. The buildings were built at the request of "Elizabeth the beauty, Elizabeth the spender". This building was basically a palace for the Russian Tsars (spelled Czar by David) so was quite ornate. It is currently a museum and filled with lots of art.

Next we stopped at the "Resurrection Church" which is more commonly known as the "Church of the Spilled Blood" because someone famous (maybe one of the Peters?) was shot here and then the church was built over the assassination spot. He apparently died at the palace, but the blood was first spilled where they built the church. The inside was filled with tons of mosaics. We moved on to a fancy multi course lunch after that, which was very tasty! According to Victoria it wasn't necessarily a typical Russian meal, but it tasted good.

After lunch the extent of my exhaustion seemed to set in. We all got on the hydrofoil to go to Peterhof, an island with tons of fountains and gold and summer palaces for Peter the Great. I fell asleep for the entire 30 minute hydrofoil ride over there. The park we walked through was really pretty, and so elaborate. Gold statues everywhere, and lots of unique fountains driven by a natural spring. I of course fell asleep again for the hydrofoil ride home. We got back to the hotel from a long day of touring a and walking around 5:30.

At this point in the trip David and I split up. It was time for "girls night out" -- David and Matt went out with some others for dinner, soccer and beer nearby. Diana, Kelsey, Viki, myself and some of Jamie's family headed to Victoria's parent's apartment for dinner. They have a super nice place! Dinner was big, and good, though contained a bit too much seafood for my taste. I did eat shrimp and a clam though, I think. I avoided the caviar and other fish like food. The main course was rabbit, which I had never tried before. It was surprisingly good! We had a lazy evening there eating and chatting, and then went out on her dad's boat to tour the city (it might actually belong to his company). It was literally just the girls on the boat, and of course the boat drivers. We were all pretty boring for the most part though. Just took pictures and enjoyed the view, and then started paying attention to the time because it was one am and we were all falling asleep. Yes, that picture above was taken not long before we got off, to show you how light it stays. I got back to the room and David was sound asleep.

See the rest!

St. Petersburg Day 1

This morning started early (5:45am!) and unfortunately we woke up to an apartment in Prague with no hot water. The apartment was great the entire stay except for this one small issue. We packed up and left for the airport showerless, but navigated the public transportation system successfully and made it to our flight in plenty of time. The first leg of our flight gave us the muffin pictured above for breakfast -- we took a picture because it was called "fluffy muffin" and tasted more like a piece of cake. Our first flight landed in Vienna a bit late, the customs line was super long, and the security line was no better. We had a 20 min window for when our plain LEFT, so we rudely cut everyone in line. Then in security they searched my overstuffed bag because of my billion chocolate bars, and Davids backpack because of empty beer bottles brought home for souveniers. We luckily didn't miss the flight though because it ended up thankfully being delayed by 20 min. This flight served us lunch, though by the time they got to me they were out of chicken so I had to eat "prawns" -- yuck! David was nice enough to share his so that I didn't go hungry, and between both trays of goodies we got enough to eat. We landed in St. Petersburg to find a taxi driver who spoke essentially zero english. We shared a taxi with another woman on the Victoria-Jamie trip, and made it to the hotel in one piece.

This hotel, costing us a huge sum of $170 dollars a night (ouch!) was not nearly as nice as our apartment in Prague, as you can see from the pictures. The shower doesn't drain, the water smells funny (we are drinking only bottled water) and their is a suspicious dark area in the corner of the shower that we wonder if its mold. The room is none too special, and the internet is only available in the lobby (where I am sitting now, David is reading a book and commenting on how Russian reality TV is just as bad as US reality TV). We are right downtown though, which I guess is good. At first glance St. Petersburg is busier, has more probability of car accidents (nobody seems to obey traffic lights), is dirtier, and the architecture isn't quite as stunning as in Prague (though it is cool in its own way). We met up with Diana right awawy, shwoered, dressed for the ballet and headed out.

The picture of the four girls attending the ballet above took forever to get after playing with lighting, angle, and everyone's camera. Our camera ran out of battery after this shot so we unfortunately don't have many pictures from today. We will need to borrow from the others. In this picture Kelsey is on the far left, I am next (obviously), then Diana, then Viki R. We wandered around the area surrounding the theater a bit, then grabbed a super speedy snack on the walk back to the theater (gelato and a split ham sandwich).

During the show David and I were tired from a short night of sleep last night, and most everyone else didn't sleep at all last night due to their flight. We also didn't pick up a program so couldn't quite remember the Swan Lake plot. Put these two things together and at least Viki, Matt, David and I spent a good part of the first two acts nodding off (or out right sleeping). The theatre was beautiful and the show was in fact good, we were just a little out of it. During the intermission we scarfed down a cup of tea (both now have singed tongues) and a chocolate éclair. We thankfully picked up a program so the second half of the ballet was much more enjoyable -- we actually knew what was going on!

We walked back at 11:00pm in PURE daylight -- this is normal for David but for me its a bit hard to get used to. We are exhausted and I of course and slightly hungry, but sleep is winning out tonight. I have been fighting a cold since I left Illinois -- I keep taking airborne to boost my immune system. I had no idea if it would actually work but I couldn't imagine it would hurt! I think I have warded most of it off thankfully, but after two lazy days of not taking it I did end up with a bit of a stuffy nose, though luckily I feel fine. Tomorrow morning we have breakfast at 7 provided by the hotel, then a day of touring with the group. The girls have a night on some boat, and the guys (maybe just Matt and David) are going to the bar across the street to watch the World Cup (assuming its on?). Another long day ahead!

See the few other pictures we got here!

Day 4 part two: photos!

Day 4 photos!

Day 4: A successful hunt for fried cheese!

From David: After finally successfully finding (a 2 hour search!) and eating some fried cheese, Caroline is now in a state of happiness to allow her to start writing this. Of course, the fried chicken schnitzel, french fries, boiled potato, Budweiser Budvar (NOT US Bud), and an apple strudel also add to her happiness level. Emerging from the hunt victorious, I now hand the keyboard over to her.

From Caroline: This morning began at 9:45 -- we have become first rate lazy bums. While trying to plan clothing for the rest of the trip (we packed light to avoid checked bags so planning is actually somewhat important) we discovered that due to incomplete communication, David had with him a blue jacket and black pair of pants to wear to the wedding ceremony in Russia. I insisted David bring the black pants (I thought they'd look nice for the ballet) when David thought his khaki colored pants were more appropriate. It was left undiscussed that the pants of choice needed to match with the blue jacket. Because I insisted David packed the black, and today we decided that black with blue didn't really go, so added shopping for pants to our agenda.

We spent the morning walking around Old Town square, had lunch on the square (more goulash! and some fruit dumpling we hadn't tried yet), and then saw a somewhat dissapointing set of puppets come out of the astronomical clock. After lunch we visited a few churches and went souvenir shopping. Due to no shortage of effort, we did not find EVERYTHING we were looking for, but got a few nice things. We walked up Wenceslas Square again, had some gelato, poked our heads into the National Museum (which had just closed) and then wandered over to Charles Square. On our way back home we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some food for breakfast, and while we were there found a good pair of pants for David for a good price (the grocery is in the basement of a department store).

After a quick break at the apartment, we went in search of dinner. As you can tell from David's comments above, this was no easy process. We had heard that "fried cheese" was something good to try here, and had seen a few restaurants serving it, but of course couldn't find them when we were actually looking. It wasn't an utter failure though because it was great seeing the churches and Charles Bridge lit up at night. We finally did find a place to eat at nearly 11pm, ordered from the "late night menu" a meal that should be renamed "heart attack with a side of stroke", and spent half the meal laughing because even though I was full I just kept eating! The cheese was good, but kind of just looked like a big mozzarella stick pancake.

Today felt less eventful than yesterday because there were fewer buildings to go inside, however both our feet remind us how much walking we did. After a bit of packing, we are now off to a short night of sleep. Our Prague travels are sadly over! It was a lot of fun -- lots of churches, but gorgeous ones! The streets and shops are really cool, there are people from all over, and the general atmosphere has been great. Not to mention its kind of nice to have some leisure time together!

Due to some technical difficulties, this post contains no photos. Photos will be posted as soon as google cooperates.

Day 3: a very eventful day

We planned today much better than yesterday. After being up at around 2:30 in the morning not being able to sleep (which resulted in a midnight snack for Caroline), we rousted ourselves out of bed around 9:00. To my dismay this meant they hit the road at around 10:00 (David forgets the part where he spent 15 extra minutes reading before his shower). Before crossing the Charles bridge (we actually missed it one bridge north on previous days) we stopped at a pastry shop. We had a ham and cheese croissant, a strawberry "dream", and a raspberry vanilla thing-a-mabob. The sweet ones were good, but the ham and cheese croissant was excellent! The combination of buttery and salty made it irresistible.

We bumped into St. Nicholas' church first,

in Little Quarter. It was impressive! The church truly lived up to the gilded reviews. We have tons of pictures from this church (which unfortunately contributed to our dead battery later...). We hiked up the mountain to the Castle area next.

The castle was really big! Apparently the Prague castle is the largest in the world. It isn't as crazy as some of the french chateaus, but it was very impressive. It has a very large complex which is made up of over 20 smaller buildings. The St. Vitus Cathedral was the most impressive, followed by the Basilica of St. George and the Old Royal Palace. We spent most of the day here, even though it was a bit chilly. Our camera battery ran out right at the end of the St. Vitus tour, so we decided that we should take a trip back to get lunch, charge the battery, and get a coat.

We grabbed a panini for lunch, and then decided to stop by the grocery store as well. We bought three types of cheese; Edam, a type of gouda, and a "hunter leisure cheese" which was actually the best of all of them! We also got a kilo of peaches, three liters of water, two chocolate bars, three breads (small baguette styles), and two types of sausage. All of this plus a beer for only 244 crowns (12 dollars)! We went back and even though Caroline wasn't hungry she promptly consumed more food because "her taste buds still wanted food." She especially loved the caramel chocolate.

The second half of the day comprised of actually visiting the Charles Bridge (and Caroline almost losing me), riding the funicular railroad, climbing up the mini eiffel tower, and walking down St. Wenceslaus Square. Apparently this dude is the patron saint of the Czechs, and is the ruler of the Czech republic for all eternity. They must have REALLY loved this guy back in the day!

We finished up at a beer hall style Czech pub where they kept serving beer unless you emphatically said no. Caroline had 1.5 beers and a shot of something that tasted kinda weird. It was dark beer (brewed by the pub), but Caroline loved it! I had a drink more than she did. We got sausages (which Caroline said sorta tasted like hot dogs), and "U Fleku Goulash". The goulash was basically a delicious pot roast! After looking at the sausages, saurkraut, and potatoes Caroline exclaimed "how do these people not get scurvy?" Scurvy aside, the meal was super tasty and cost way less than last night (even with the six drinks), making it a good place in our book. On our way back home we stopped for gelato :)

See the rest of the pictures here!

Prague Day 2

Day 2 in Prague started on the late side... a lack of clock in the apartment and quiet streets all morning took away all sense of time. We finally woke up around noon and left in search of breakfast. David wanted to see the canoe slalom competition that was going on, so we picked some cylindrical spiral pastry we'd seen at multiple shops and hopped on a tram that took us to the outskirts of the city. We got close enough to the competition to hear the announcer and see some competitors practicing further down the river, but due to a large construction and a lack of language skills we never figured out how to get to the actual competition site. An hour of searching and a slightly annoyed Caroline later we headed back into town to see some of the recommendations from the guide book.

We spent the afternoon site seeing in Jewish Quarter, which included seeing several synagogues and reading a lot about Jewish history in Prague and Jewish culture. Some of the buildings were really kind of cool. The "Old-New Synagogue was my personal favorite, with seats and desks around the perimeter of the room. The "women's quarters" was located on the outside, with only small slits in the wall for them to hear with. The Spanish Synagogue was the most beautiful we saw. Our guide book recommended a cafe called "Franz Kafka" so we stopped there for a very late lunch of beer, apple strudel and a ham and cheese sandwich. Supposedly Kafka lived above the cafe.

Not too long after we went searching for "King Solomon", a dinner place recommended by the book and apparently the oldest kosher dining place in Prague. We had a coupon for this restaurant which boasted a three course meal and a free dessert. We had bread, soup, salad, and some turkey thing, with mango gelato for dessert. It was good, but far too much food (I can barely move right now and I don't think David is in much better shape). We decided that for the price (twice that of last night's dinner -- $55!) it was not that great a place; we enjoyed the $25 much more. Also the restaurant was eerily empty... only a couple tables had people at them. The coupon did make the gelato free though! As the waiter said "I give you a small dessert, like a present". Haha!

We are now back in the apartment to plan tomorrow's day and digest. Kind of on the early side, but even after 10.5 hours of sleep I think I am already tired!!!

See all the pictures here :)

Prague Day 1

Day one of our first transatlantic flight together began after Grandpa John dropped us at the airport. We had some snacks in the lounge, got on the plane and discovered that Caroline's feet didn't touch the floor! Business class was pretty sweet though, huge seats, nice TVs, and a massage button! As Jamie(Dad) says, "it's a step up from Southwest!". Food was brought out before too long, enough to make even Caroline full -- though David surprisingly kept up the pace. We watched "It's complicated" but David missed the end. According to him he paused the video to take a nap, but in reality Caroline took off his headphones when the video went on to credits.

A short turboprop plane ride after Munich we were in Prague; finding cash, transit maps, and seemingly pointless bus tickets. We attempted to determine who to give them to, but everyone just walked on the bus without showing them. Transferring to the subway was seamless, except for a similar lack of ticket usage (we didn't buy new ones this time, the ticket machines looked the same and tickets were the same price).

David almost got us to the Apartments based on landmarks, but had to consult the map once "just to be sure". One good thing about cobblestone streets: they mask the thunk-thunk-think of Caroline's bum suitcase wheel. We checked in, got a long speech about key usage, and found our apartment to be exactly as described on the web! Quaint, small, and perfect for what we want. The dollar getting stronger even made it cheaper to stay in!

Caroline lost steam quickly and had to take a nap (read: completely passed out). David lasted through one chapter of his book and then also joined her sleeping. The problem with being constantly fed in Business class is that there isn't much time to sleep!

We took the "scenic route" to dinner (to see the river says David, though Caroline says we just walked in circles). Dinner was chosen based on a green circle around one of the "Old Town" restaurants in a borrowed guide book from Caroline's friends. The food was good! Beer, sausages and beef with cream. So much for healthy eating... Gelato for dessert, a couple of bottles of water from a nearby store, and back to the apartment.

See the rest of Day 1 pictures here.