{"id":1630,"date":"2010-08-16T05:29:14","date_gmt":"2010-08-16T09:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/?p=1630"},"modified":"2010-08-14T09:09:50","modified_gmt":"2010-08-14T13:09:50","slug":"im-back-from-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/2010\/08\/16\/im-back-from-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m Back From Russia!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/009-sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1636\" title=\"009-sm\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/009-sm-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/009-sm-300x204.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/009-sm-1023x698.jpg 1023w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Well I am finally back, cured of jet lag, and ready to go. I loved Russia and the river cruise. The people are very open and friendly and the countryside is beautiful. Fortunately I did not have much trouble with the smoke issue as I left Moscow and headed to St. Petersburg before the smoke was really a problem. However the heat is a totally different story!<\/p>\n<p>I particularly loved St. Petersburg and would definitely go back there to visit. I have to say after having toured a bunch of palaces that I can see why the general population rebelled. The opulent lifestyle of the royal and extended court were unbelievable at the expense of the peasants. I think I might have been on the side of the rebellion as well.<\/p>\n<p>I have inserted one of my photos from the beautiful Katherine&#8217;s Palace so you can see one of my most favorite places outside of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p>For an easier way to tour Russia than by bus and a new hotel every night, I would recommend a river cruise. My stateroom was like a nice room at the Sheraton. But best of all was the interesting and diverse global company of travelers that made cruising and touring a real delight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well I am finally back, cured of jet lag, and ready to go. I loved Russia and the river cruise. The people are very open and friendly and the countryside is beautiful. Fortunately I did not have much trouble with the smoke issue as I left Moscow and headed to St. Petersburg before the smoke was really a problem. However the heat is a totally different story! I particularly loved St. Petersburg and would definitely go back there to visit. I have to say after having toured a bunch of palaces that I can see why the general population rebelled. The opulent lifestyle of the royal and extended court were unbelievable at the expense of the peasants. I think I might have been on the side of the rebellion as well. I have inserted one of my photos from the beautiful Katherine&#8217;s Palace so you can see one of my most favorite places outside of St. Petersburg. For an easier way to tour Russia than by bus and a new hotel every night, I would recommend a river cruise. My stateroom was like a nice room at the Sheraton. But best of all was the interesting and diverse global company of travelers that made cruising and touring a real delight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[357],"tags":[162],"class_list":["post-1630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-trends","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1630"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1638,"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions\/1638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mccordweb.com\/weblogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}