So in all my excitement about posting photos from Edinburgh I completely forgot about the ones from London and Cambridge. I didn't take as many photos there in general though because, after Petersburg, they didn't appeal to my dilapidation-loving photographic sensibilities. Or maybe I was just otherwise unmotivated.




I was in London all of about 5 or 6 hours, and I spent most of it being absolutely appalled at the prices of everything. Sure, St. Petersburg is an expensive city for things like buying apartments, eating out, and buying clothes (especially considering average wages), but a ride on the Metro costs like a dollar, and a round-trip bus ride to a nearby country's capital will probably set you back only like $60 or $70, whereas a train to Moscow is probably around $30. I'm not raggin' too hard on London though. I'm sure I'd appreciate being able to get sick and not bankrupt myself dealing with it, not to mention those weeks and weeks of sweet, sweet vacation time. You win some; you lose some.




Unlike St. Pete, where everything is interesting in its ridiculousness and ripe for photographing on account of it being either completely out-of-place in a developed(ish) country, or on account of it being this once-beautiful old shit that is now falling apart, Cambridge was just... nice. All pretty and put-together and clean. Meh? Oh man, those thrift shops though! I'm quite glad that I made it a priority to look through those. For very reasonable prices I was able to make my disintegrating Russian wardrobe last through summer and into fall.






Also, politeness. I noticed that shit from the second the border/customs lady opened her mouth to talk to me. Want to know why big-city Russians are so tough? It's because everyone is an asshole to everyone else all the time, so you have to grow your skin thick. Anyway, those British manners rocked my socks off. Damn.

Holy crap, you guys. Enough of this winter stuff, right? There'll be enough time for that during, you know, actual winter. Let's take a break and re-live my summer.

Here are some more Edinburgh photos I found. Part 1 is here.









And some photos from my iPod Touch:



I don't remember the exact deal with this, but apparently at some point they wanted to re-create some Greek thing, ran out of money halfway through, and then just left the thing half-built. Nice.








I also don't remember what these catacomb things under Edinburgh were about, but now this particular one is a number of tiny bars and music venues connected by dark stone passages.










Thanks to Lolo for those photos that she took!

Aaaand I have for you part of an epic tourguide's tale of the Scottish Stone of Destiny:


(also here: https://sites.google.com/site/salsafishmedia/mp3/The Stone of Destiny.mp3)

And a video of Lolo feeling awkward drinking amazingly radioactive-looking, bubblegum-tasting Scottish soda:

Wowzas, so many treats all in one place!

I finally hung out with the crazy Russian photographers I mentioned earlier.



The conversation went thusly:

"Hey so are you coming tomorrow?"

"Yeah maybe. When do we need to meet?"

"I can meet you at your Metro stop at 6:30."

"...That is really early."

"Yeah! We don't want to miss the sunrise!"

I am thinking over my sleep deprivation in my head and sighing. "...Spoken like a true photographer."




Russia seems to just have an excess of former residences of former royalty, in various states of decay. Also, note the snowman on the wall.






"Anton, can I take your picture?"

"Of course. Why even ask? It's your right, as a photographer. You shouldn't ask."

...Well, shit. Glad we're on the same page then.












If I'm remembering properly, when we first got to this place there was a father with a little daughter, who was sledding down this hill.




This was another constantly-cold situation, despite the layers and layers of wool I had on. We ended up making a fire that was grumpy and smokey but left my clothes smelling good and firey.










The palace we went and crawled around was outside of the city. In the mini-bus on the way back we had ourselves a tea party. It was alright though; the (loud) group of girls in the seats in front of us were drinking champagne to celebrate their graduations.

So sometimes being fantastically nearsighted has its perks. Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year because I pop off my glasses and all the strings of lights everywhere turn into these beautiful shining bokah balls. No camera needed.




This one's fun. One day I was showering and looked up to see the shadow of bigfoot walking along the powerlines, projected on to the shower wall.

Winter's just around the corner...







When I shot this photo I was listening to This American Life episode 489.

Russian parks are huge and wonderful, even in wintertime, but preparing for that kind of long-term playing in the snow was something that us foreigners all kind of sucked at.




Thinking faces.




Not-thinking faces.






This is a thing, this snow-bunny-on-tree (or snowman-on-wall, as I saw elsewhere) thing.




Right before a snowball duel. Check out that mischievous grin. She won, by the way.