In mid-May I took a week’s long trip to St. Petersburg with my sister-in-law Mona. Our first day in the city was May 9th, Victory Day, a national holiday that commemorates the Nazi surrender of 1945. We paid a moving visit to Piskarevskoe Cemetery, where veterans were honored by huge crowds. We had a fabulous guide, Helen (pictured in the pink argyle sweater), who showed us sites such as St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Hermitage Museum, Church of the Spilled Blood, Peterhof Palace, and Catherine Palace. We took in Swan Lake at the Mikhaylovsky Theatre and ate plenty of beef stroganoff and chicken kiev. The girls didn’t really miss me, since I sent home photos of their kitty (see red bus photo) and brought them airplane-shaped gummies from the Frankfurt airport.