I've traveled a lot in my life, both as a child and as an adult. But, until this Spring, I'd never been to Russia. I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Sun Tech Days conference in St. Petersburg, Russia. As part of the team giving presentations on OpenSolaris Day, I spent the first couple of days staffing the booth. The engineers from the St. Petersburg office were doing an install fest all day, both days, and there were literally hundreds of people coming by picking up disks of the OpenSolaris Starter Kit, and the Solaris Express Developer Edition. We even had to go back and get 400 more kits made up (quickly!!) for OpenSolaris day.
After the conference was over, though, my daughter and I were on vacation. We took 9 days, and split it between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The cities are very different. Moscow is a blend of Soviet-era architecture, and lovingly restored churches. We had the good fortune to stay just across the river from the Kremlin, and the view from our room was unforgettable. 
The picture's a little fuzzy, but it was a new camera, and we're still working out the details.
We did a lot of the tourist things, including a visit to Novodevichy Cemetery, where we saw this gravesite. 
Because it was just after Easter, and Passover, most of the sites had flowers, and eggs and candy lovingly placed. But this one caught my daughter's eye. It's matzah! Sure enough, our guide noted that the person buried here in this site is Jewish. And, he pointed out a number of other Jews buried here in the cemetery. I couldn't help but notice that the markers were a fascinating blend of religious and Soviet icons.
Later in the week, back in the elegant city of St. Petersburg, we visited a number of the city's great sites. In particular, we had the chance to visit the workshop where artisans recreated the Amber panels for Catherine's Palace. We couldn't take pictures in the Amber Room itself, but because of our visit to the workshop, Lorin was able to get a couple of close up pictures of one of the panels that has just been finished. The panels in the palace are placed high on the walls, and it's hard to see the incredible detail and workmanship in the panels. These panels each take about 2 years to create. They're incredible mosaics. Some of the amber is even incised with intaglio pictures; just incredible. The pictures below are actual size of part of one of the 3 feet by 4-5 feet panels. Take a look at the wikipedia page for a view of the scale of the room.
I have to say that this trip was one of my most memorable. I'm grateful I got the chance to go.