On September 11, 2012, I wrote:
Plans are coming together for Jim and me for our pre-trip in
the fall of 2013. We're going to go to
St. Petersburg Russia for a week. Then
to Berlin, Prague and Budapest before arriving in Paris at least a week ahead
of Mary Bender. The plans for this trip
started during our trip to France in the spring of 2012. My twin sister had friends who were planning
to take a “Tour” of Europe by bus in fourteen days…they wanted me to join them
to celebrate our 75th birthday.
Remember the three month trip in 2009 that celebrated our 70th? I said “no, but I will consider joining you
in Paris at the end of the trip for a couple of weeks”. And so another trip began.
Today we purchased our tickets with United Air Miles; I had
to gift 4,000 miles to Jim's account for $60.00 and then we had the 60,000
miles we needed for our tickets. That
with $91.90 for fees and we're on our way:
FLIGHT: August 5th
from LAX to Frankfurt Germany and finally to St. Petersburg.
Arrived at 6:25 pm
on August 6th.
HOTEL: We also made
a Hotel reservation today with OTEL...
Nevsky Breeze Hotel, St. Petersburg, Russia; check in August 6th and check out on August
13th
GUIDE: We started
researching guides as we've decided to hire a guide for 5 days while we are
there. Since the cost of a Rick Steves'
Tour would be about $6,000. we feel we can spend the money for a guide.
In researching sites on the Internet, Jim has located an
English speaking guide by the name of Tatiana.
We are communicating with her by email.
Her mother taught English in the schools and her English is excellent.
--------------------------
And so the planning began.
We added Dresden and Krakow to our plans. And the plan to meet my sister in Paris
turned into another six weeks of travel for us with two girlfriends after Jim
departs for home. The final plans were
finished in the spring of 2013.
And now
it is 3 am in the morning of departure day.
We went to bed at 9 pm last night to start the process of resetting our
clocks. I woke at 3 am and decided to
write this first of many journals over the next three months. It’s going to be a long day….the flight to
Germany from LA is 11 hours…we lose 9 hours on the clock, arriving in Frankfurt
at 11 am tomorrow morning. A two hour
layover and then a 4 hour flight to St. Petersburg…losing another two hours…arriving
at 6:05 pm. I will be so happy when
Tatiana meets us at the airport and whisks us off to our hotel. It’s so nice to know that we will be safely
in her hands for our week in Russia.
1 comment:
I hope that your flights went smoothly and that you are safely ensconced in your St. Petersburg hotel. I will be particularly interested in your observations from that city as I spent three successive3 winters in Moscow and Leningrad in the early 1970's. It has been almost impossible for me to jibe the impressions of recent (since 1995 or so) visitors to those cities with what I remember of them. Have an awesome (literally) time, Leslie
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