2017 Reading Goals

In 2016 I challenged myself to read 50 books. I was happily able to finish 55 in the course of the year. As I made a list of every book I read I also marked the ones that I would recommend. So here it is, my top books from 2016 in the order in which they were read,

A Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russel
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Modern Romance by Aziz Anzari
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Good Spy by Kai Bird 
Neverwhere by Niel Gaiman
Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar
Desert Flower by Waris Dirie
In the Garden of the Beast by Erik Larson
So You've been Publicly Shammed by  Jon Ronson
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Belgravia by Julian Fellowes
The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret
My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Girl at War by Sara Nović
The Version of Us by Laura Barnett
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Headscarves and Hymens by Mona Eltahawy
Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler

This year I am setting the same goal for myself. 50 books over 12 months. First on my list is Yes Please by Amy Poehler. Other books I am looking forward to reading this year are,
Talking as Fast as I can by Lauren Graham, Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt, The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women by Siri Hustvedt

Moscow

Ben and I really enjoyed Moscow. It is a big city but the majority of the touristy stuff is near Red Square. We stayed in a hotel just across the street from Red Square so it was easy to walk everywhere. We were in Moscow for three days that was plenty of time to see everything on our list. Our first full day we toured the Kremlin. We got tickets to see The Armory as well as all the churches and grounds. The Armory is a must do and was absolutely incredible. You can't take any pictures though, so you will just have to go and see for yourself. The Armory houses armor, but also faberge eggs, carriages, Catherine The Great's Coronation regalia, thrones, porcelain, and much much more. The rest of the Kremlin grounds contain many government buildings (that you can't go in), and five Russian Orthodox churches. The Kremlin was the original head quarter of the Russian Orthodox church and the buildings date back to the 12 century. 

The wall of The Kremlin

This is the Czar Cannon. It is really big. It was made in 1586 as a symbol of power. It has never been used. 

The Czar Bell is the largest bell in the world but it cracked during the casting and has never been hung or rung, so it is also the largest broken bell in the world. 

You can see the tippy tops of all five churches.

St. Basil's Cathedral. An icon of Russia. This church is quite impressive. We walked by it several times every day and it is fun to just look at it. The inside is quite a different story, it is made of a dozen or so small churches with a lot of fresco work. 

GUM is just opposite The Kremlin and is a massive shopping centre. It runs the entire length of Red Square and was initially a communist supply depot. At night it is lit up like Harrods and is quite stunning. 

In middle of Red Square is Lenin's mausoleum. It is only open certain hours so if you want to go check the hours. It is free, and we only waited in line for about 10 minutes. They are guards everywhere, one of them motioned to Ben to take off his hat and another guard snapped his fingers at me to get me to take my hands out of my pockets. They keep you moving but you can get a good look at Lenin. He really looks like a wax figure of himself but it is impressive how decent his remains have held up for almost 90 or so years. 

Opposite St. Basil's Cathedral is this building. It houses a Russian History museum but we didn't go in. It is a really beautiful building though. 

And that was our few days in Moscow! We enjoyed our days there but if we went back to Russia we would go to St. Petersburg. 

St. Petersburg

There is a lot to see and do in St. Petersburg and our five days there just scratched the tip of the iceberg. The things we loved the most were,

1. The Winter Palace/ The Hermitage. Make sure to see the Impressionist collection that is located in the building across the square from the palace, the entrance free covers both. Also we had to miss the Gold Rooms as they are by tour only, and we had not timed our visit appropriately. Check the schedule as they sounded incredible.   

2. Saviour on the Spilled Blood, make sure to go inside as the tile work is amazing. 

3. Peter and Paul Fortress. This fortress dates back to the time of Peter the Great and includes the church where the Romanov's are buried. Sadly all the buildings were closed the day we were there so we could only walk around the fortress, but definitely worth seeing.

  

4. Faberge Museum. This is a small museum that has 9 of the 43 Faberge eggs still around today, including the first Faberge egg created. As well as the eggs it also houses other creations made by Faberge and some impressive art as well. It is a small museum and well worth visiting. 

5. Mariinsky Theatre. I throughly enjoyed seeing the St. Petersburg ballet, Ben had other feelings on the subject. 

6. Peterfhof. Just outside St. Petersburg is Peterhof, an amazing palace that will be covered in its own post. 

7. Catherine's Palace. Also outside of St. Petersburg, also known as the summer palace, this incredibly restored palace is very grand and well worth a visit. 

Our hotel was just across the street from St. Isaac's Cathedral. We loved walking by it every day. 

St. Petersburg is very colorful. 

Church of our Savior on the Spilled Blood, thus named as it was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded in 1881. 

 If you look closely there is a workman up there. 

The entire inside of the church is decorated in tile mosaic from floor to ceiling. It was impressive. 

There was not another doll inside of this doll. 

The Hermitage! This is one of the more impressive museums I have ever been to. We spent an entire day there and only saw 25% of the collection. Thankfully I had done some research before hand on what to see and we skipped over things that were similar to those we had seen in other museums or countries. 

One of the more unique things in the museum was the Peacock clock. We actually stopped by it twice because we were so impressed with it. It was made in the 18th century and still functions today, however they don't wind all the mechanisms as the museum is trying not to over work it. Three were a few small mechanisms working when we were there. There was a dragonfly that turned with every second tick, and a few other small things. When fully wound the peacock opens it feathers, spins around, a rooster crows, an owl ruffles its feathers, and mice and rabbits spin. It is quite the design triumph. 

 The Hermitage museum is housed in The Winter Palace, which in and of itself is impressive. Pretty much every room has a pained ceiling, gilding, and is a masterpiece in and of itself. 

The Hermitage was incredible. You could spend days exploring it and still not see all it has to offer. 

Russia: The Lead Up

This year for my birthday Ben and I decided to head to Russia for a week. We initially thought we would go to St. Petersburg for a long weekend, but when we started planning we realized it is a lot of work to get into Russia so we decided to then extend the trip to 8 day and add a few days in Moscow.

Usually when we plan a trip I ask my friends for suggestions of what to do, where to eat, things to avoid, etc. When I started to ask about Russia, I found that only one of my friends had been recently and she only went to St. Petersburg. Due to this I decided to check out a St. Petersburg and a Moscow travel guide from the library. I read both of them cover to cover and made extensive lists of where to eat, what to see, and what to do while we are there.  In both St. Petersburg and Moscow we stayed at centrally located hotels which I would highly recommend. Although there is a good metro system set up in both cities, the stations are not always close to the sites, and as a foreigner you will ALWAYS get ripped off on the taxi fare, so walking around is a great way to see things.

We started by booking our hotels. This is important as you will need a certificate from your hotel in order to obtain your visa. The visa application is quite straightforward but there is a lot of documentation needed.  Once our hotels were booked we called each hotel (for our stay in both St. Petersburg and Moscow), and asked them to provide the certificate of our stay. They emailed us a form to fill out, and once we returned it they emailed each of us a certificate confirming our hotel stay. The visa application depends on the country you are applying from. My application was 5 pages long and I had to provide a list of every country I have been to in the last 10 years! Ben's application was only 2 pages, but he had to prove proof of residence in the UK, as well as proof of travel insurance, and 3 months worth of bank statements. We also had to get photos to submit with the visa application as every country has different standards for background color and photo size.

The visa application is then submitted through an agency. The total for my visa was £120 and Ben's visa only cost £60 as he applied using his German passport. The turn around time is quick and we had our visa's back in 5 working days. They have an expedited service if you want to pay more and you can have your visa the next day.

Next we booked the flights. We booked our flights in and out of St. Petersburg on British Airway and decided to take the Sapsan train from St. Petersburg to Moscow which takes about 4 hours. The flights to Moscow are shorter but when you include getting to the airport early and travel times it is quicker to just take the train.

We also booked tickets to see a ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. I am glad that we looked before hand as several performances were already sold out. I booked my tickets directly through the Mariinsky site and it was a much better deal than I seen on other ticket sites. We had also looked into going to the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, but there were no tickets available for the ballet the nights that we were there.

When you arrive in St. Petersburg there is a taxi desk after you pick up your luggage at the airport. They will request a taxi for you and you pay them, not the taxi driver. We paid 1000rub to get from the airport to the hotel.

Once you arrive at the hotel, the hotel will register you with the police. This is something that has to be done for all tourists visiting Russia. You don't have to do anything, but they do charge 200rub per person to do this, and if you are staying at multiple hotels, like we were, you have to pay this fee at every hotel.

Monte San Savino + Pisa

While my brother and I were in Italy we stayed with his long time friend and current roomie Enrico. Enrico's family has a home in the town of Monte San Savino. A small idyllic town that is nestled amongst the tuscan hills. Stone walls, cobbled street, and a weekly market make it seem like you are stepping back in time. There are several amazing restaurants in this town, including one owned by Enrico's family. In short is was simply perfect in every way. 

Florence: Part Two

We spent our second day in Florence visiting the museums and churches. We climbed the stairs to the top of the dome in the Florence cathedral. The view was absolutely incredible. 

Siena

Our second day in Italy took us to Siena. On our drive there we stopped at a castle that was used by the Germans as a base in WWII due to its strategically location on top of a hill. Walking around the castle gave us sweeping views of the tuscan countryside. 

Florence: Part One

Last month my brother Adam came to visit for 10 days, and we decided to go off on a mini adventure while he was in Europe. It so happened that his roommate was going to be in Italy so we decided to head over and meet up with him in Tuscany. Our first stop was Florence. The history of this city is impressive, the art work is stunning, and the food is delicious. 

The Arno.

New York

This year we decided for our wedding anniversary we wanted to see Hamilton. It was definitely our best anniversary yet and it is going to be very difficult to top seeing the original cast in Hamilton. We were able to get some decently priced tickets to the show on the second hand market, and because Ben has a ton of hotel nights we didn't have to pay for our hotel. Another great thing about visiting NYC is that some of our favorite people live in, or nearby, meaning that we got to see some of our absolute favorite people as well as see Hamilton. Double win! Our first few days there we hung out with Lydia and Hank. We did very touristy things, and they were all really fun. Our first stop was Liberty Island. 

Cairo: Day Three

On our last full day in Cairo we headed to the Kahn el-Khalili bazar. The bazar is massive and has different sections for food, fabric, perfume, clothing, and tourist kitsch. We were meeting two of Ben Egyptian colleagues for lunch at a restaurant called Nagib Mahfouz, which was delicious. We got there a bit early to have a wonder around before lunch.