by Terri Dixon
I’ve never been so happy that I did anything in my life. One thing that I can say for certain is that there is only one . It’s one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. I saw it under several feet of snow, and it glistened like it was covered with diamonds. The snow and the cold did nothing to diminish the effect. Tania and I were continually amazed.
It didn't look like . I’d expected it too, but it was so different. Everything about it said that it had been designed, instead of evolving like most of the major cities in the world. It’s obvious that there was a plan with the main city. Peter the Great had vision. I knew that if I’d come here to this frozen swamp like he had, I would never have seen all of this.
There’s Paris with its monuments like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, there’s Vienna with its park, there’s London with Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, there’s New York with Times Square and the Empire State Building, there’s San Francisco with its Golden Gate Bridge, and there’s Amsterdam with its canals and red light district; but there’s only one place like St. Petersburg. It has canals, like or . It has ancient buildings like or . It has monuments like or . It has parks like or . It has palaces like no other. Some of the grandest palaces on Earth are there.
I was fascinated with every building and every bridge; every park and every view that I saw of the city. Everything sparkled in the sunlight that was already fading at 2:00 pm. What a strange land where the sun would set soon and it was only mid afternoon.
The Ring of the Queen