St Petersburg > Re: miss you, where are you?
It's been busy with conference meetings and I finally got a somewhat regular night in last night. Today the meetings ended at 3 and we were treated to a tourist bus tour of town followed by a river boat tour with dinner. The bus thing was pretty cool in that it covered most of the ground that I've walked with Jaakko and Maria, Pat, or on my own. But in those walks, we just cruised around and gawked. The bus had info piped to us so I actually got to learn a bit about the history of the place. Pretty amazing. Lots of rich royalty, obsessiveness, exuberant spending on lavish palaces and art, warfare and betrayal.
The river boat tour and dinner was equally rewarding. The Neva River dominates the city and the cruise took us up, then down the river past the city and out into the Bay of Finland. The shore area looks, unbelievably suprising, like South Beach! Lots of tall, modern apartment buildings on the water. Quite the contrast from the old inner city and not at all what I expected to see in Russia. My expectations of this place have now been totally turned around.
The best part of the boat trip was having the opportunity to talk to lots of the conference attendees as well as one of the local organizers. I spent time eating dinner with 2 German guys, a woman from South Africa, a Brit, and an Aussie. Very cool. But the best insights I got were from a conversation with Irina, one of those very cute young Russian women that you were warning me about :-) She's an admin assistant at the university and helps put conferences and meetings together. She graduated with a degree in public relations 2 years ago and has been working at the school since. Her husband to be is also a recent graduate and an advertising/marketing guy for a real estate company. She was really into talking in order to practice her English. I asked her all sorts of things about life growing up in StP and what the future holds for her and her future family. It was fun to gain some insights even though they are not at all as exotic as you would think. Life here is very much the same as it is in most western countries.
It's 1am and I have to finish preparing a talk for tomorrow. I'll try to call in the morning my time, evening for you.
Love and hugs!
Bruce/Dad
The river boat tour and dinner was equally rewarding. The Neva River dominates the city and the cruise took us up, then down the river past the city and out into the Bay of Finland. The shore area looks, unbelievably suprising, like South Beach! Lots of tall, modern apartment buildings on the water. Quite the contrast from the old inner city and not at all what I expected to see in Russia. My expectations of this place have now been totally turned around.
The best part of the boat trip was having the opportunity to talk to lots of the conference attendees as well as one of the local organizers. I spent time eating dinner with 2 German guys, a woman from South Africa, a Brit, and an Aussie. Very cool. But the best insights I got were from a conversation with Irina, one of those very cute young Russian women that you were warning me about :-) She's an admin assistant at the university and helps put conferences and meetings together. She graduated with a degree in public relations 2 years ago and has been working at the school since. Her husband to be is also a recent graduate and an advertising/marketing guy for a real estate company. She was really into talking in order to practice her English. I asked her all sorts of things about life growing up in StP and what the future holds for her and her future family. It was fun to gain some insights even though they are not at all as exotic as you would think. Life here is very much the same as it is in most western countries.
It's 1am and I have to finish preparing a talk for tomorrow. I'll try to call in the morning my time, evening for you.
Love and hugs!
Bruce/Dad
From: Rachel Muller <rachel@mullerb.com>
To: Bruce Muller <bruce@mullerb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2009 9:49:20 PM
Subject: miss you, where are you?
Hi Honey,
Busy day at work. Kids had a good day, Leah at camp, Kelly with Remy.
What have you been up to?
Lightly
Busy day at work. Kids had a good day, Leah at camp, Kelly with Remy.
What have you been up to?
Lightly
