St. Petersburg is a wonderful cultural city. It not only has many museums, parks, palaces and other wonderful sites to see, but it also attracts many road shows, concerts, and special events. A friend of mine told me about the show Peter Pan on ice which was in town over the weekend, but said that it was selling out quick. I went down to the local ticket office to inquire about the day we had hoped to go, but it was sold-out. Then the lady chimed up and said that there were two additional shows. The troop had decided to extend their show another two days. Timothy had a wonderful time. The music and choreography were excellent. I especially liked the flying fight scenes. Ah…to be a kid again.

It’s the last hooray before I head back to work. The official winter holidays lasted from December 31 – January 9 this year. Ramona and I have decided to take this final day and visit a museum we haven’t seen before. We are going to visit the Kunstkamera (House of Wonders as it is in German) which is the anthropological museum of the city. This is a hardcore place and it not for quezzy in stomach.

Most of the exhibits show native peoples of the world in their native clothes and with native jewelry and artwork. This is the enjoyable part of the museum, then comes the second half of the second floor.

This is where Peter the Great’s collections of oddities and unusual creatures are kept. Mostly displayed are Siamese twins, babies with deformities and other creatures in jars of formaldehyde. Even I, who have a strong stomach, came out of the room glad I hadn’t eaten anything shortly before. While Peter the Great had pursued learning as a life passion he also had collected some odd specimens.

http://www.kunstkamera.ru/english/

This is the old Singer sewing machine building which during the Soviet times was turned into their famous bookstore “The House of Books”. Now it is being remodeled as a retail/business center.

This is a look down Nevsky Prospect St. Petersburg’s main street and its Christmas decorations. All the buildings along the street were given external lighting to illuminate them at night. It’s quite an impressive scene. It’s nice since you can’t see the dirty exteriors which are visible in the daylight.

Every kid’s dream is to join the circus.

Timothy was satisfied to sit watching his light-stick whose lights blinked on and off in the most obnoxious manner watching as clowns, animals and circus artisans performed sixteen rows below us. Actually it was not quite that bad, but he certainly had a lot of fun turning his new toy on and off. It was definitely the hit of the day.

The circus building we attended held its first performance on December 26, 1877. It is one of the oldest circus’ in Russia. The circus theme for the day was New Year’s. Grandfather Frost (Russian Santa) and his lovely Snow maiden (no elves here) took the audience on a magical adventure. Merry Christmas to all for today is Orthodox Christmas.

Highlights were the snake/alligator guy with his reptiles and alligators and the lion tamer. Timothy was really impressed with the enormous beasts. Now he understands why Daddy growls each time he mentions a lion. Needless to say it was fun kids of all ages.

Sledding day in Belie Ostrov
Good friends of ours invited us out to their home outside the city for a barbecue and some sledding. This was Timothy’s first experience and boy did he take to it like a fish to water. He was absolutely fearless. Pictured above is Timothy on he first solo tube ride. Amazingly enough he made it without crashing. Later on some Russians arrived with a small round plastic saucer that Timothy took down this large hill as well.
Here is a picture of Timothy and Ramona flying down the hill. They picked up some much speed Ramona’s hair is flapping in the wind.
The final picture is of our friend’s boy who did a face-plant after hitting a jump on one of his first runs. Some how his eye got it pretty good. The picture does not do his crash justice. The judges onsite all gave him tens.

Yesterday our family made its yearly IKEA run. We always try and do it around the New Year to avoid the crowd. It worked once again. One of the reasons to go was to get some expansion track for Timothy’s train set. He literally plays with it for hours and now we can make even more combinations of tracks. He is in seventh heaven. Besides the gray commuter train is also new.
The new set up.
A backup on line #1.
Is line #2 clear?
Passing under the water tower.