Finally, an early start! Although today was a “freestyle” day (no plans) so I wasn’t too impressed. The cousins laid out tea and cookies for us, which was very nice. Russians and general seem to brew a strong pot of tea (using an electric samovar) and (separately) heat water to go with it. I got my laundry going on (finally won’t be stinky anymore!) and we headed out to the Google office via the metro.
The Google office is located on an island within viewing distance of the Kremlin. The office itself seems slightly above nice, but not as nice as the pictures made it out to look. Lunch wasn’t until 1:30 so we went to go hang out at a bar in the mean time (see a theme? oh Max and his beer). We finally ate lunch, which was pretty awesome and contained some vegetables other than potato for once. And raspberry compote to drink! Max hates this stuff since he apparently had to drink compote a lot as a kid. The office has a pretty bad foosball table, which even made it difficult for Max to beat me. Or maybe that means it’s actually a good foosball table!
From the office, we walked around until we saw a very large statue of Peter the Great (ironically, he loved St. Petersburg far more). We wandered past some more art, hit a bar (leaving a time capsule!), hit a supermarket (thanks for messy chocolate on my pants, Max!), and finally (3+ km later) made it to a dirty pond that apparently features in Master and Margarita. Why everything is so expensive here, I will never understand - it’s not as nice as other cities I’ve seen.
Finally on our way to St. Petersburg, we headed to the apartment during rush hour and people were pushing and shoving onto the trams. Not as bad as Shibuya though, by far. I gave the cousins some Mounds candy along with my business card. I think Alexei felt obligated to give me something so I ended up with a bottle of vodka - not a bad souvenir from Russia! We headed to the train station. We did have a train companion this time, but luckily he mostly kept to himself, unlike our grousing old Polish friend.