August 6 - St Petersburg

August 6 – St Petersburg
Clear skies in the morning. We just hung around the ship all day. Our tour is tonight to see a performance of Swan Lake at the Alexandrinsky Theater. It's just as well we weren't on one of the day tours – there are three other cruise ships (bigger than ours) docked nearby, so any sights would be extremely crowded. Staying on board had some advantages – no crowds, a chance to talk to some of the few remaining on board, I had the outdoor jacuzzi all to myself (104 F – nice!) as well as sunbathe. We also took the opportunity to eat lunch at one of the buffets on the Lido deck without a crowd.
I've also worked on organizing and backing up all the pictures I've taken. Looks like I took 489 on the last cruise alone. Not so many this time, as I didn't have much time to myself since I was escorting a tour, and haven't gotten of the ship in St Pete's yet. So now, the pictures are on the camera chip, the laptop hard drive, and a pen drive.
I'm still trying to figure out why I am unable to upload pictures to the blog, and really can't spend a lot of time trying to figure it out, since internet time costs me about 43 cents a minute. Maybe I'll just email my daughter-in-law the pictures and have her post them for me.
...I have seen the Nutcracker Suite in Portland. Swan Lake is the second ballet I have seen and seeing it in the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg was extremely special. The dancers glided, floated, spun, and lifted like it was effortless. I can't describe it any other way. A great performance and a memorable night.
The ballet ended about 10:45pm and it was still light until about 11:15pm.