January 17, 2013 Winston Churchill once remarked, Russia ‘is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’, and I agree. Russia was indeed a difficult place for me to understand. I kept wanting to compare it to America. On … Continue reading
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St. Petersburg, Russia October 21, 2012 Food is basic and much less processed here. Sugar is not sweet. All the things I expect to be sweet are not sweet, at least not according to my taste, including chocolate. A typical … Continue reading
St. Petersburg October 22, 2012 Today I visited a Buddhist temple, which turned out to be Tibetan Buddhist. I was expecting a Chinese temple like we have in the Los Angeles area, but to my shear delight it was Tibetan! … Continue reading
October 21, 2012 It rained all night, so I thought it was going to be a terrible day, yet it turned out to be a wonderful day. I bought an excursion to a town 25 km outside of St. Petersburg … Continue reading
I was recently invited for a private tour of NASA’s JPL site in La Cañada. I had done a family wedding for someone who worked there, so I had been offered a tour, and to my utter delight I was … Continue reading
Yesterday I spent most of my time in the Hermitage, Russian’s primo art museum. This could easily be one of the world’s greatest museums, the collection is spectacular. The stairways, hallways and ceilings remind me of Versailles. The ambience is … Continue reading
St. Petersburg October 16, 2012 Today it rained, so I spent most of my time inside, at the Russia Museum. This where you can find primarily Russian paintings. Unfortunately, it was hard to appreciate much of what I saw of … Continue reading
October 15, 2012 Somehow I could not leave my hotel until noon. There is no light here till after 9am so things move slowly. If there is darkness almost to nine in October what will it be like in December? … Continue reading
October 14, 2012 Today was a walking day. I truly became le flâneur, the city stroller. I walked down Nevsky Prospect, the main street though St Petersburg, where I had been the previous evening. This time I could see clearly … Continue reading
St. Petersburg, Russia October 13, 2012 I regard each country as a unique ‘activity zone’ and what I mean by this is that each country must be experienced and judged on its own terms. It is a grave mistake to … Continue reading