Day Seven

Well, it is actually day eight here, but since it is still evening at home I guess this counts. I fell asleep early last night and didn't get any blogging done. Yesterday I slept in. I seem to require more sleep. I don't know if it is jet lag still, change in diet, I really don't know what. JJ got up and made us breakfast. It was so good. Then he spent half the morning trying to figure out the dishwasher. All the words are in another language and it is not even Russian. He finally gave up and admitted that we will just have to wash dishes by hand. He got on Google and found the large church next to our apartment building. Then he found the best way to walk to the Church of the Spilled Blood, our tourist attraction to visit for the day. I'm so grateful he can navigate well!! I have an interesting problem. Usually I wear contacts. In fact I rarely wear my glasses at home. I have semi-permeable or "hard" contacts though, which seems to be a rare thing, and anything that gets in my eyes causes some degree of pain. Walking on the streets in St. Petersburg with my contacts in seems to be a very bad idea. I was spending much of the time with painful watery eyes and a runny nose. It was better on the quiet side streets and in the park but still a problem. We have wind in the Texas panhandle and plenty of dust in the air. I'm not sure what irritants are driving me crazy. Cigarette smoke? (it is impossible to avoid) Pollution from cars and industry? New types of trees and plants? I think I will have to wear my glasses most of this stage of our trip. Anyway, we saw the church but decided not to go inside. It was gorgeous from the outside. We walked through a park and to a shop in search of postcards. Then we came back to the apartment and I cooked a late lunch of fried chicken and fried potatoes. Yeah! JJ decided he was done adventuring for the day and I was pretty tired of Sherlock Holmes on DVD or Russian television. In fact I was pretty tired in general so I went to sleep early. Now we start a new day.