Chapter the Ninth: And Coming Back Again

After 21 hours of being in and out of airplanes and airports, I returned victorious to the United States. I decided this blog wasn't quite finished, and so now I'm lounging on the couch in my father's house, typing up this coda to my international escapades.

My final week in Russia was spent taking care of some last-minute things, like arranging a ride to the airport, getting my transcripts in order, and finishing my term paper. My roommates and I also decided to go out the last Friday night we had together, and I did a little bit of exploring during the day, because the weather was absolutely gorgeous for a change (during the last 72 hours I was there, of course). Then, I just had to endure 21 hours of travel, and I'd be home!!

I got back to my apartment after my Moscow trip at around 9:30 Monday morning. I had some things to take care of at the university, as my phone helpfully reminded me, but I was just exhausted after Moscow, and I could wait until tomorrow and not worry about cutting things too close. So that's what I did. I woke up at about 2 in the afternoon, spending the day in front of my laptop in an effort to make more headway on this term paper. (Spoiler! I didn't.) I did go out and pick up some food for the rest of the week - ultra-healthy options like pasta sauce, ramen noodles, some eggs, milk, and two pounds of gummy candy, which was devoured by myself and my roommates over the span of the next eight days.

Tuesday was the most productive day I'd had in a long while. I went over to the university and arranged a transfer to the airport, then went to another office to request my transcripts. Apparently, on Tuesday, there are two women who work in that office and one of them was not there for her morning shift. I decided to go get some lunch and walk around the island a bit, then come back and see if the afternoon lady was there. I decided to eat at Taverna Grolle, a restaurant I walked past every time I went to class. The menu posted outside looked tasty and reasonable, so I figured why not? I got some Irish coffee (also why not?) and chicken Kiev (fried chicken cutlets) with pureed vegetables on the side. It was all quite tasty, and a most pleasant way to kill an hour or so. I still had some time before the afternoon lady was supposed to be there, so I decided to explore this shopping center and ринок (flea market sort of thing, with people selling produce, dairy, bread, as well as clothing and miscellaneous items) near the restaurant. I found a toy store full of adorable things like a giraffe pool floaty, and a Walgreens-type drug/sundries store where I got a new pair of stripedy yellow socks for the trip home, because the socks I had brought with me were too disgusting to keep at this point. I also walked around the rinok and got a few free samples of stuff like pickles and dried fruit before regretfully explaining that I couldn't buy anything today, perhaps tomorrow. Soon enough, though, it was time to go back to the facultet to try that office again.

When I got back, the lady was there, so I went into the office and got a form I needed to fill out to get my transcripts taken care of. I had to fill it out and get my teacher to record my grades manually; she was already gone by the time the lady in the registrar's office was available to give me that form, so I had to come back Wednesday to get everything together. That part went pretty smoothly, though, at least; I showed up after class on Wednesday, handed my prof the form and she filled it out without so much as a "Где была?" Then I took the completed form down to the office, handed it to the lady, and was on my way.

Wednesday, I decided to get lunch on the island again, and finally bit the bullet and went to this place that seemed like the most questionable sushi restaurant in a city literally full of sketchy-looking sushi restaurants. This place was called O'Sushi!. The exclamation point is part of the name. They do not, as the name seems to indicate, serve corned beef and cabbage alongside their cucumber maki, although they did have some lunch special bento boxes with a more European character available. I settled on the "Euro Mix" bento, which was a nice lunch of solyanka (soup made with a base of seafood broth), beef stroganoff, mashed potatoes, vegetable salad and a dessert roll (like sushi roll but with dessert ingredients instead of rice and fish). The solyanka was awesome, especially with a dollop of sour cream mixed into it. The stroganoff was pretty good, although the mushrooms were kind of overpowering everything. The mashed potatoes were delicious and garnished with dill, which only made them better because I love fresh dill. Dried dill is OK, but fresh is just awesome. The salad was field greens and chopped tomatoes and red peppers, along with marinated black olives and chunks of feta cheese. I didn't immediately realize that some of the red bits were pepper and not tomato, so that was a nice surprise. The dessert roll, though! That was unique enough to have made the visit to the dubious restaurant completely worth it. It was chunks of kiwi and banana, and creme fraiche, wrapped in a blini and drizzled with caramel sauce. Delicious and presented in a really interesting way to boot.

I spent the rest of the week plugging away at my term paper, taking breaks to walk around the city for a bit and enjoy the fabulous weather. I resolved not to sleep until the paper was done on Wednesday, got a goodly amount of work done on it and only intended to take a short nap at around 5:30 AM Thursday. A 20-minute nap turned into 7 hours of sleep, which I guess I needed anyway, but that was still six and a half hours of work time that I lost. I finished the paper Friday morning at 6:30, emailing it to Josh and promptly going to sleep until about 3 in the afternoon. I didn't know what to do with myself the rest of the day - I had no further responsibilities before it was time to leave. Apparently, my roommates felt the same way, because we decided to go over to Dumskaya (a short street with a series of bars and clubs) that night and have some fun. We stopped at a produkty and picked up beer for the walk over, then ended up going to Club Belgrad and spending a couple hours shouting and dancing and drinking there. We left and got shawarma around 3 AM, stopping to take some picturesque photos on the bridge over the Fontanka at about 3:30. Some of these are on Facebook, and the sky behind us looks like the sun is setting. It's actually rising. Staying out until the sun comes up is much easier in May than it is in March, for those who remember my post about St. Patrick's Day.

Over the weekend, suddenly faced with a ton of truly free time, I did a bit of city exploration; once, I just started walking, then about an hour later I realized I had no idea where I was. I had started taking random turns without really noting landmarks and got disoriented; even the shopfronts that I had been using as references were unreliable, because all of the prominent ones had other, basically-identical franchises within a few blocks of each other. I did eventually find my way back to Nevsky, and from there was able to find my way home. Also over the weekend, Corinne and I went over to Sadovaya to this rinok where I was able to get another suitcase; the red one escaped burial, though, because Corinne needed one. I bought a really snazzy brown/purple/yellow camo number, for 1800p (~$50), a far cry from the 4k (~$130) I had seen similar, less-cool-looking bags on sale for in luggage stores. I was all packed and ready to go by Sunday evening, for the most part; Monday was mostly spent cleaning and waiting.

Finally, 3:30 AM rolled around on Tuesday morning, and my phone rang for the last time. The guy the university hired to come take me to the airport had arrived. I put my laptop in my backpack, turned off my phone, and headed downstairs. The guy helped me load my stuff into his car, I verified that he was taking me to the correct airport, and we were on our way. When we got there I thanked him, wished him a good night and entered Pulkovo, the first of five airports I would have to navigate.

I started talking to a nice Canadian man (redundant statement, I know) leaving to renew his visa, which of course has to be done in Canada, because he ended up behind me at the check-in counter. We talked for a while, killing time before the flight; he'd been in Russia for a number of years, and was in the process of gaining residency. He had his four-year-old daughter with him, who was going to visit family. She was adorable and he was interesting to talk to; I actually ended up sitting in the row in front of him on the flight to Frankfurt. That was about three hours, and we got breakfast, which was unexpected but not unwelcome. There was an entree of what I'm told was a quiche, though it tasted more like quiche-flavored jello. There were also a couple of unimpressive rolls, butter and peach jam, and a juice box! I don't care if I am 20 years old, I love juice boxes. We arrived around 8:30 local time, and I was through passport control and customs and at my gate in about fifteen minutes. I bought a croissant, a latte and a cup of pineapple at a little cafe near the gate, because I knew I wouldn't be fed again until I was over the Atlantic. I had some time to get online and check my email while waiting for the plane, but soon enough it was time to go; we were in the air and en route to Belgium by quarter to 10, and on the ground about an hour later. Weather conditions in Brussels were overcast, so the plane had to circle for about 20 minutes before it was able to land. I made my connection, but I didn't have any real downtime, and I had to check in at the United transfer counter to ensure I would be able to pick up my luggage and get proper boarding passes. This flight was operated by United, not Lufthansa; I think I liked the Lufthansa flight better. The attendants on this flight were less attentive and just seemed less enthusiastic about their jobs.

By the time I got on the plane, there were no overhead bins near my seat to put my rolling bag in, but a nice older gentlemen a few rows back helped me put it in a bin back there. I passed this flight watching a couple of movies (Sherlock Holmes and about half of The Dark Knight) and listening to music; because we were going east to west, the trip was a bit faster (going against the rotation of the Earth) - about 7 and a quarter hours, to my first trans-Atlantic trip's 8. We got lunch (chicken and rice with an inedible salad, a roll, and a soggy apricot crumb cake) and a snack (a little ham and cheese sandwich, some chips and a Kit Kat bar--I kept this for later). When we landed, the gentleman from earlier got my suitcase down and brought it up to me. I thanked him and headed for the exit; we were shuttled from the tarmac to Passport Control.

I didn't like the American passport control office. Something about the way it was set up just felt so insincere and forced; the more austere decor of the Russian office was at least genuine. Also, I had forgotten how much American airports coddle travelers in comparison to airports in Europe and Russia. Instead of being treated like, you know, an adult, and left to figure things out on my own (like which line to stand in at passport control), there were omnipresent airport employees whose sole job appeared to be to give unnecessary directions and guidance to guests. There was a lady in the security area whose job could be done by a sign, or maybe a nice little video like in Frankfurt or Brussels, informing passengers of what articles needed to be placed in the bin. Instead, it would appear that the Washington, D.C. airport prefers to take the "unbelievably overbearing" approach to literally every facet of the air travel experience. After I got through passport/customs/security control, I emerged into a room with a Departures board and started looking for my flight, when I was accosted by an old man who was hired as one of the aforementioned overbearing superfluous employees. Not only could his job have been done by a sign, it was, and he was standing right in front of it. He pestered me into telling him what information I was looking for, then told me my gate number and how to find it just as I read it myself on the alphabetized departures board directly behind him. IAD could not possibly make it any easier to find your flight and they still feel they need people there to deliver that information. I didn't even need him to tell me how to find gate D26. There are large, brightly-colored signs leading the way every fifteen feet. At least the man has a job, I suppose, no matter how completely pointless and unnecessary. The announcements about keeping track of your bags and not accepting packages from strangers that played every five minutes are also not common at airports outside the US.

I was happy to leave DC for a multitude of reasons. Not only did it mean getting away from an airport that seemed to think it was everyone's mother, but it also meant that I would finally be going home, and I didn't have to go through all of the security BS at Orlando, because it was a domestic flight. I would be able to step off the plane, get my checked luggage, and go home, with no intermediate steps. Well, I did have to stop and hug my family, and then eat dinner at Sonny's, but those were intermediate steps that I was fine with. :)

I had started craving BBQ pork a few days before leaving, so I did some Googling and discovered there was a Sonny's just two miles from the airport, so it was decided that we would go there for dinner after I arrived. I got one of their combo plates, with ribs, pulled pork, and sliced ham, with corn and a sweet potato, and ate most of it. I hadn't eaten for about six hours at that point, and BBQ is delicious.

When I got home, I decided to weigh myself just for fun. I knew I'd lost some weight in Russia, but I wasn't sure how much, and it turns out I had severely underestimated: I lost about 15 lbs over the past 15 weeks, despite my steady diet of pasta and beer. Needless to say, I was basically thrilled. So, Tuesday was basically the best day. I made it home safe, got a good grade on my final paper for my culture class (97%!), AND lost 15 lbs since the last time I weighed myself! It was probably even more than that, really--I'm sure I gained a couple of pounds in my last few weeks, by virtue of spending basically all of my time in front of my laptop and eating stuff like a ton of gummy candy and ramen noodles at all hours. Whatever, I'm still happy with this, and readier than ever to kick things into high gear this summer.

Thus concludes my journey to the center of the universe opposite side of the world. I'm glad I did it, I had a lot of fun, I met some awesome people--but I'm glad to be home. I realize now that I was not in any way, shape, or form ready to do this when I left back in January, but to be fair, how do you prepare for something like this? Now I've got valuable information for next time, if there is a "next time." I'm not too sure there will be, but then again, I don't know what the future holds.

Thanks for reading my blog, everyone! I hope you liked it; I certainly enjoyed sharing my experiences with you.

Chapter the Eighth: Moscow! Moscow! Moscow!

It's a good thing this is the final part of Chapter the Eighth, because if I kept up with this title convention, things would get awfully silly, awfully quickly.

Anyway, right. Moscow, Day Three. As previously mentioned, all we had formally scheduled for the day was a tour in the afternoon, so Brenda and I took the day to explore solo. She's an early riser, and my knees (both of them now!) were stiff and sore after spending the vast majority of the previous two days on my feet, so I was happy for the extra hour or so of sleep. She left me a note with the name of the metro station we were meeting Josh at and went off to explore, while I napped blissfully.

After I showered and such, I grabbed my purse and decided to make a quick jaunt down to the Citibank at the end of the street where the hostel was, because (1) I was out of cash and (2) I wanted to rent a locker to store my stuff for the day. We needed to be checked out of the hostel by 11, so I needed a safe place to store my backpack full of highly rare and valuable sweat-soaked T-shirts and a 2-liter bottle of flat, discount sparkling water with lemon juice. To rent a locker required a security deposit of 500p, so I ran to the ATM to withdraw money for that as well as breakfast. I hadn't yet decided where I was going to eat that morning, and even in a very modern and metropolitan city center like Moscow, not all establishments accept plastic. When I got back to the hostel, the guy checked but none of the 8 (! seriously, that's it?) lockers were currently available, so I had to put my stuff in the luggage closet and hope for the best. Thankfully there was a space behind some other, more promising-looking luggage, so if someone did happen to steal anything from the closet they wouldn't see my stuff first.

I headed out and decided to try this cafe near the hostel for breakfast, called Coffee Mania. They offered coffee prepared dozens of ways, as well as a variety of food, but it was all really expensive (like everything else in Moscow), so I settled for the cheapest breakfast combo I could find: an apple blini and a cup of milk. It was actually pretty good; I have to say, I like how Russians do apple filling. Instead of big chunks of mushy roast apple coated in cinnamon-sugar syrup, the apple is sliced very thinly and presented on its own, without any additional sauce, inside the pirog or the blini or whatever it's filling. Maybe with a bit of cinnamon or a touch of honey. This breakfast also marks the first time I think I've ever had whole milk--I grew up drinking 2%, then recently switched to skim, and have bought mostly 0-1% milk since I've been in Russia. It was bizarre! I had no idea milk could taste so...oily.

After that, I decided I wanted to check out ГУМ (pronounced GOOM), a giant mall that generally caters to foreign tourists on Red Square that is directly opposite Lenin's mausoleum (oh the ironies). In a rare moment of not giving a [swear word], I just kind of set off from Coffee Mania in the general direction of Red Square; I knew roughly where it was and knew that the direction I was headed made it basically impossible to miss. I ended up in the gardens behind the Kremlin, recognizing where I was when I saw the Sbarro we ate at with Mikhail the previous day. I was actually pretty proud of my orienteering on Sunday; most of the time I can't navigate my way out of a paper bag. The place was crawling with tourists, of course, but it was nice getting to see a bit more of the grounds--there were some really impressive-looking fountains that we hadn't seen (or I had been too tired to notice) the day before.

Once I had determined where I was, the next step was determining how to get to the other side of the Kremlin; that is, how to get to Red Square. The Kremlin is basically a giant museum with a government building inside it, so every entrance is guarded and requires a ticket to get in. So, I basically had no choice but to walk around it. Logically, if I kept the red stone wall to my left and followed the sidewalk, I would eventually come to the square; and, indeed, this is what happened. There was still some scaffolding up around a couple of entrances to ГУМ, as they were still taking down the Victory Day decorations. I slipped in through a cafe, and was suddenly very uncomfortable.

ГУМ was nearly empty. I've played too many zombie games to ever be fully at-ease in even a bustling mall ever again (the use of the zombie as a metaphor for rampant consumerism makes malls a popular choice of setting for this genre). The main building had 3 principal sections, called lines, shaped like long, skinny ovals. Each line had 3 floors, and there were sections of some of the lines that had zero shop fronts, which is sad enough on its own. There was still plenty to see in the parts with active businesses, though, including a sprawling restaurant with four different distinct sections. I never ate there; the food didn't look too great, particularly for the prices they were charging. The decor was very colorful, though, and I think there was a baked potato bar somewhere in the complex? I never found it, anyway. I did buy an ice cream cone and a cherry-flavored Italian soda from a couple of vendors around the fountain in the mall before I left, though, and that was quite nice. I finished my beverage sitting on the curb and observing people in Red Square until it was time to head to the metro.

When I got to Taganskaya, where we were meeting Josh, I grabbed a seat on the first bench I came across with a space big enough for me on it. I wasn't sure how much walking this tour would involve and I wanted to give my feet and knees a chance to heal a little bit. I saw Brenda about 50 feet away, but she never noticed me, somehow; I decided to keep my seat and stay put, and see which one of us Josh noticed first. (Answer: Me, haha.) We were joined shortly by Rich, and Josh led us to the site of our tour: a bunker built by Stalin circa WWII, which has become a legitimate tourist attraction in present-day Moscow. He basically dropped the three of us off there, leaving us in the capable hands of Natasha, our tour guide. The tour was in English, as the tour group was comprised mainly of Brits and Aussies. Some of them were in Moscow working for their respective embassies, as we later found out while chatting after the tour. But I'll get to that.

The tour began by descending 36 flights of stairs, down a 60-meter vertical shaft. Even in the entrance corridor the air was already damp and musty, and it only became more so the deeper we ventured. A handful of women kept up with the tour guide, who must have, I don't know, teleported down there or something--she was fast. I was a few seconds behind them and a minute or two ahead of everyone else, walking down the endless switchbacking staircase alone. Everyone eventually caught up and Natasha led us into this little movie theater, where we watched a movie about the nuclear arms race which boiled down to "America is a prick, the USSR had a moral obligation to develop nuclear weapons." Then we moved on into a massive cylindrical room. 45 feet from wall to wall, the whole thing made of reinforced steel and concrete, probably 150 feet long. In this room, there was a map of the world and two control panels, as well as a bunch of models of Soviet spy planes, warheads and ICBMs. Natasha called up two volunteers, explained their roles, and then ran a simulation of the USSR blowing up America. (Hopefully that sentence doesn't get me put on any watch-lists.) The little movie that played on a screen above the control panels was set to Lux Aeterna (the Requiem for a Dream theme), which was basically the best use of that piece of music I think I have ever experienced.

The next room was full of communications equipment; the bunker's layout consists of 4 chambers, mostly used for communications with the surface. This room had several typewriters, a working (in that it still made noise if you pressed it) telegraph key, and an old telephone switchboard (which also still works and which Natasha called up another volunteer to demonstrate). There were also officers' coats people could put on to get a photo behind an official-looking desk, as well as hazmat jackets and gas masks, and AK-47s, because if you're going to tour a Soviet bunker, there have to be Kalashnikovs somewhere. This was a very hands-on exhibit - a welcome change from the museums with all the exhibits behind glass. We had about 10-15 minutes to play with stuff before moving on.

The next room we went to had actually been converted into a restaurant, and I wish I could have had the time and/or money to experience it. The group stopped for a bathroom break here; I was fine, but I did want to sit down, and I saw something that appeared to be a couch on the way down to the floor of the chamber. Now, let me preface the following with this. Lots of Russians smoke, and there are no apparent laws about smoking indoors in this country. And remember, we tourists are now 60 meters underground. Whereas a comparable American establishment would basically tell smokers to "deal with it," in Russia, the management of Bunker 42 has set up a smoking lounge in the chamber. 3 couches, made of old rail carts (the kind miners might use to haul coal--the bunker was built at the same depth as the metro and indeed included a couple of quick-escape rail tracks connecting the tunnels with the nearest metro station) with one wall removed, and trash cans for ashtrays. It was nice to sit for a while, at least, but I don't think I'll ever see such a unique smoking lounge again.

After that, we filed up into another tunnel, where Natasha suddenly stopped. After a few minutes, giving the whole group time to negotiate the stairs involved at this point, the lights suddenly shut off and a klaxon started blaring. A cloud of steam formed further down the hall, and a male voice made an announcement in Russian. After some emergency lights turned on, Natasha explained what he had said: there had been a nuclear attack, and everything on the surface was destroyed. Radiation levels were dangerously high, please stay in the bunker. Of course, it was just a drill, but if another tourist hadn't said "Is this the part where the lights go out?" I'm sure I would've jumped three feet in the air. Spoilers aren't fun for anyone, usually, but I guess in this case it worked out for the best.

Finally, we made our way through one final chamber. This one had not been restored and converted to a restaurant or an exhibit, and apparently someone had been playing with airsoft pistols down there. There were little plastic pellets everywhere, as well as a lot of oil barrels and a couple of plywood walls with slits in them to fire through. I don't know if it was a military exercise or just some bored teenagers or what, but I thought it was funny, anyway. We came out of that room and entered the first tunnel again, and started our ascent. There was an elevator, which Brenda and I decided to wait for, rather than walk back up; interestingly, while waiting for the lift, a few of the women around us noted that all of the men on the tour had decided to take the stairs. Guess they felt it would be more macho, or something. Brenda and I went up with the final group, consisting of two Australian ladies working for the embassy in Moscow, us, and Natasha. The ride up (plus the wait) took longer than it would have to simply walk, but neither of us really felt like ascending all those stairs. When we reached the top, we found Rich, chatting with this girl that had been part of the nuclear attack simulation. She was also working for the Australian embassy, and the four of us decided to go get some dinner together.

We went to this French restaurant just down the street, where the menu was available only in French and Russian. Between the four of us we had a reasonable command of both of those languages, so no one accidentally ordered anything horrific, but it was still a bit of an adventure. We got a bit of wine, and I settled on a croque monsieur (because it was the only menu item that I was certain didn't contain spooky organ meats or whole fetal birds) and a side of grilled vegetables with pesto. Among those vegetables was half a tomato, which I didn't eat, and--brace yourselves, family--a couple of mushrooms, which I ate. I decided to try them and if they had the usual effect of being squeaky, I would leave them or offer them to my friends. Somehow, they had been cooked such that they didn't squeak at all! The generous coating of pesto didn't hurt, either. And, as a bonus, the restaurant covered the tables with paper (for easy clean-up) and provided a cup of pencils for diners to doodle. I drew a little dancing person with the caption "I dance, all day, every day!"

It was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours, with good food, good wine, and good conversation. Rich and I had a spirited debate (fueled in part by generous quantities of wine) about the necessity of formal, i.e. classroom, education; he contends that anything you could learn in lecture could be learned on your own time with a book or the Internet or simply by experiencing the world, but I believe that stance discounts the value of classroom discussion. In today's world, you don't find erudite people discussing science, literature, art, and philosophy in bars or similar social settings (usually)--you find them on college campuses, or at the very least, more often in bars in college towns. Is that framework strictly necessary? No, but that's just where that sort of thing happens now.

After our linner, Brenda and I went back to Red Square; she wanted to look around ГУМ, and I wanted to explore a bit more. I tried to visit St. Basil's, but I was too late--it closes at 6 PM and I got there at something like 6:05 or 6:10. Sad. So I explored ГУМ some more, too. I actually ran into Brenda in one of the stores, but apparently I am a ninja and I disappeared before she could ask about getting dinner someplace. I wouldn't have been hungry again at that point yet, anyway, though. I wandered around a bit longer before deciding to go and collect my belongings from the hostel around 9, planning to just go on ahead to the train station and get a bite to eat there. There were cafes and snack bars in the waiting area there, after all. Our train left at 11:43, and I decided I'd much rather be at the station, cooling my heels, than rushing to get there. Turns out that was a good idea; see, the metro stop that is closest to the station dumps you out literally behind the Leningradskaya train depot...which is directly next to two other train stations. One of them goes principally south/east (as opposed to Leningradskaya, which goes principally north/west) and the other is a suburban commuter train. And, of course, as you are behind all of these buildings, there is precious little signage indicating which is which.

I eventually found Leningradskaya and made my way into the waiting area, where I purchased a mediocre sandwich and found a seat in view of the information board. A gentleman sat down next to me, offered me gum, and tried to talk to me; I admit I could probably have used the impromptu Russian practice, but I was really tired and didn't want to think that much. Thankfully, Brenda showed up at the station not too long after that, and it gave me the perfect excuse to stop talking to him. We walked around a bit to kill time; Brenda bought herself some fruity lady-beer to help her sleep on the train, and then we hung around by the door to our car so when they started boarding we'd be near the head of the line. There was a big group of Chinese tourists in our wagon this go-round; last time it had been French and German. We shared our cabin with one other Russian girl. The night passed uneventfully to the best of my knowledge, which I guess means I got a decent amount of sleep on the train; Renee specifically scheduled our train rides such that we wouldn't have to miss more than one class going on this trip, but I had no intention of going to class on Monday from the beginning. Good thing, too, because I had only enough energy left to make it back to the apartment, change into PJs and collapse into bed for another four hours. An alarm went off around 9 AM reminding me to go to the university and order transcripts; I decided I'd do that tomorrow, because it's not like it would be ready before I left, anyway. I spent the rest of Monday resting and recovering and hoping my legs would stop hurting (spoiler: they did, I'm fine now).

Chapter the Eighth: Moscow! Moscow!

Moscow adventures, part two!

The second day, Brenda got me up bright and early, so there would be hot water available for the showers we so desperately needed. It may have been the best shower of my life - I was a hot mess by the time we got back to the hostel the night before (after realizing we had no idea when the curfew was, and practically running across town to get back as quickly as possible in the event that the curfew was something like 11:00 or 11:30 - turns out there isn't one, but we didn't know that). Sweaty and tired, with the beginnings of a sunburn on my face and blisters on my feet.

After grabbing some breakfast at McDonald's, because it was close by and cheap, we hit the metro and decided to explore the circle line. The day previous, Josh had recommended riding that line and getting off to look at the stations - several of them are very pretty, but most of the pretty ones are on that line, and given the limited timeframe we had to explore, that was our best bet to see the good ones. I linked to a couple of my favorites in the previous post. My knee, for some reason, was bothering me for most of the day Saturday, and as I mentioned before I didn't like standing on the metro anyway, so we eventually figured out that the last car or two on most trains usually had a few seats open. If we had had a bit more time and I had been in less pain, we would have also checked out the transfers - all of the stations on the circle line have transfers to other lines, which are I'm sure just as lavishly decorated, making the Moscow metro system considerably more efficient than Petersburg's, particularly if you're coming from the suburbs. But we didn't, and I wasn't, so we couldn't.

We were meeting someone for a tour of the Kremlin, as well as Novodevichy monastery and cemetery, that morning at 11:15; Brenda and I decided, figuring this tour would probably take up most of the day, to find a cafe or something outside the metro station where we would be meeting the guide and grab a coffee and a snack to tide us over until next we would be able to eat. We went to a place called Schokoladnitsa and got cappucinos and fruit cups. Let me tell you, few things feel fancier than eating a fruit salad (with mint garnish!) out of a martini glass with an iced tea spoon. It was a really good fruit salad, too - slices of strawberry, banana, pineapple, orange and grapefruit, which surprised me. I guess I was expecting something like what passes for fruit salad at Stetson, which is basically "cantaloupe and honeydew with the occasional strawberry and couple of grapes, maybe a blueberry or pineapple chunk if we have it, raspberries if we have some left over from a catering event." But, then, that's all I've had in terms of fruit cups for the past three years, so yeah.

We met our tour guide and were joined at the last minute by this guy Rich, who had been at the seminar the previous evening. The tour guide was a nice older gentleman named Mikhail. Rich started learning Russian to do translation work for the Air Force; he also speaks Farsi (Persian, the language they speak in Iran). He's currently aiming for medical school now. It's kind of intimidating, being surrounded by people so much older than me who seem to have a better handle on things than I do. They probably don't, nobody does, but it's still hard not to feel like I'm just spinning my wheels because my goals aren't nearly as clearly-defined as those of the people around me. Being younger than everyone by probably at least five years doesn't help, either; I can't even begin to compete with that. But anyway.

Mikhail took us to the Kremlin and we toured the Armory, which is much more than just arms and armor. There was a room containing spears and swords and firearms as well as the armor worn by Russian soldiers (first chainmail, later plate armor) as well as saddles and other horse accoutrements. There was also an exhibit of clothing, consisting mostly of clergy robes and a few things belonging to old czars and their wives. And a few things of Catherine the Great's. There were also some thrones, and crowns, and a room full of silver and gold dinnerware of various forms and functions, all given as ambassador gifts. And, of course, Faberge eggs. Lots of shinies! :3 The Kremlin was quite busy that day; there were many tourists in town, because summer is approaching and it's basically a holiday weekend, so our little group had to dodge much larger groups of Russian schoolchildren and foreign tourists all day, especially when we moved to Cathedral Square.

This is a place in the Kremlin surrounded on all sides by churches. In the Czarist era, this was where coronations took place; this is also where all of the czars are buried, specifically in the Cathedral of the Archangel. (Russian emperors are buried in St. Petersburg, because there wasn't an empire to be emperor of before Peter the Great.) That cathedral is a single large room, a necropolis full of graves of czars including Ivan the Terrible, who considered himself so important that he is actually buried behind the icon stand, figuring that would put him at the head of the line to get into Paradise. The walls are also covered in icons, paintings of canonized patriarchs and saints, some of whom are buried there. Among those buried in the Cathedral of the Archangel is the Czarevich Dmitry Ivanovich, "illegitimate" son of Ivan the Terrible (Dmitry was a product of Ivan's fifth or seventh marriage--records are fuzzy--and canon law only recognizes the validity of the first three marriages). The czarevich died of a stab wound under mysterious circumstances after Boris Godunov, rightful heir to the Russian throne after the death of Ivan IV, assumed power. The official story is that he was playing with a knife and had an epileptic seizure, managing to stab himself in the neck by accident. Uh-huh, that sounds plausible. But anyway, Dmitry is buried in the Cathedral of the Archangel, and was canonized after several "false Dmitrys" appeared years later to challenge Boris Godunov's claim to the throne.

We left Cathedral Square and saw the Czar Bell and the Czar Cannon, just behind the Kremlin proper. The Czar Bell weighs more than 200 tons, and was never rung. The wooden derrick that was supposed to lift the bell out of the casting pit caught fire when molten metal started leaking, and in the mad dash to put out the fire with cold water, the sudden temperature change shocked the bronze and a chunk weighing 11 tons broke off. The chunk is as tall as I am and just as wide, and the bell is about 16 inches thick. The bell and chunk are on display, as well as the massive clapper, laid under the stone platform that the bell now sits on. There are portraits on the bell that were never finished; you can see faces but the rest of the detail is obscured. The Czar Cannon is an equally impractically-huge work of bronze, a cannon almost 15 feet long and nearly two feet wide. It was never actually used in combat (though there is evidence that it was fired at least once), but it did intimidate the hell out of the Mongols when they saw it.

After that, we decided to break for lunch, to everyone's relief. I was glad I wasn't the only one tired and hungry already; my knee was still bothering me, though, so I would have been happy just to sit down for a while, food or no food. We went to Sbarro, because that was quicker than going to a proper restaurant. I got a tasty stuffed veggie pizza, some kind of salad and some green beans, and it was delicious. Over lunch we somehow started talking about serial killers and psychology. I swear, the most interesting conversations happen when Rich is around.

After that, we headed to the metro and went out to Novodevichy monastery and cemetery. This is the oldest still-functioning convent in the world, and it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. It's got several pretty church buildings and a lovely bell tower, and we happened to be there when they started ringing the bells, which was cool to hear. Several ladies from the Russian royal families who could not or did not bear children were housed at the Novodevichy convent, including Sofia Alekseyevna and Eudoxia Lopukhina, sister and wife (respectively) of Peter the Great, and Irina Godunova, wife of Feodor I and sister of the earlier-mentioned Boris Godunov. During the Soviet era, the convent was turned into a museum and apartments, then became a theological institute, and then it was restored to a working convent in 1994, and it continues to be so.

The monastery also has a cemetery on the grounds, where many important figures of Russian art, politics, literature and theatre are buried, including Yeltsin, Khrushchev, Bulgakov, Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Mayakovsky, and hundreds of others. Apparently Mikhail's father is also buried there, I think, but we didn't see his gravesite and I don't remember exactly why he was buried there. I think he was a political figure of minor importance; I was tired and in pain and not listening much at that point in the tour. It was really cool seeing the Soviet-era graves; obviously they're not marked with crosses, so there was a bit more room for creativity. There are a lot of busts, and some of the graves of more important people--Yeltsin in particular comes to mind--are particularly unorthodox (pun totally intended). Yeltsin's grave is a massive granite sculpture that looks like a Russian flag, all red and blue and white. There was a big group of Chinese tourists checking out Khrushchev's grave the first time we came to it, so we came back later. By that time I just really wanted to go to the hostel and sleep for a while, which is what I did once we got back to the metro.

I took the key from Brenda and headed home by myself, and when I got there I found the door unlocked (!) and a frazzled-looking girl pacing about through the door on her phone. I was...less than courteous to her, because I was also not in the greatest of moods, being sunburnt and blistered and tired with a sore knee for no discernible reason, which had me quite concerned. We reconciled later; she felt better after a shower, and I after a nap, and we got along famously for the day or so we had left to share that space. Her name was Monique. She's from Holland, and has been teaching English in Thailand for five years. She came to Moscow via the Trans-Siberian Railway (and had thus spent 3 days on a train - no decent sleep, no shower), was on her way to Petersburg next (in fact, I believe she's staying in a hostel not too far from me, so maybe I'll run into her this week), and then she's going home for the first time in about three years.

We all kind of did our own thing that night; Brenda wandered around the city and specifically Red Square when it was all lit up for the night. While Monique was taking a shower, after I decided I had napped enough, I picked up Brenda's city guide to see what it recommended for restaurants. One place, called Pancho Villa, caught my eye. I decided to see how Muscovites did Mexican food. (The answer is "with a lot of onions and no discernible spice.") I ended up spending about 800p all told for the experience (150p cover because they had a live band + 650p for my enchiladas and frozen margarita), and it was worth it. I mean, I figured this would probably be the last time I would find myself in Moscow, so why not? A comparable establishment in the US would probably have come out to about the same (~$25). Anyone expecting a high-larious story about Emily and tequila is about to be disappointed; the most exciting thing I did after consuming my adult beverage was to stare down a lady on the metro on the way back, who gave me a look as I step/tripped over her bags to get to a seat. That's still pretty major, though - I don't normally stare at people on the metro, even though that's basically normal here. Staring isn't as rude in Russia as it is in America.

Anyway, I made it back to the hostel safe and sound after my dinnerventure. I drank some water and went to bed; Brenda and I had decided to continue doing our own thing on Sunday. All we had planned that day was a tour of a Cold War bunker, which was actually pretty cool, but I'll write about all of that in my next post.

Chapter the Eighth: Moscow!

About twelve hours ago, I returned to my apartment after a 3-day whirlwind visit in Russia's sprawling metropolis of a capital city. It was 72 hours of walking, walking, eating, more walking, and sleeping, sometimes on a train. And it was great. I'm going to split the chronicle of my Moscow adventure over several posts, because we managed to cram so much into 3 days that otherwise this will reach novel length in record time. Note: All linked photos are just pulled off of Google Images, I didn't take them.

Before I begin relating my adventures, it bears mentioning that I almost didn't go at all; I asked Brenda to print my train tickets a couple weeks ago, and then proceeded to stay home working on this term paper and not go to class at all during that timeframe. It was by sheer luck that she grabbed the tickets she printed for me when she left her homestay; she was already down on the platform when I called her, around 10:30 Thursday night, so she had to run to the entrance while I ran to the station and we met up there. Luckily I didn't need to show my tickets to the security guy at the exit to the platform, but still, better safe than detained and unable to communicate with law enforcement. Presently we boarded the train, which went mercifully smoothly.

I had never been on a train like this before. Sure, we took the commuter train in Riga to the seaside, but that's not really the same thing. We were in a 4-person cabin, and apparently this was the most deluxe train Brenda had ever been on because they provided complimentary water and apples (all of which we took when getting off the next morning in Moscow, because the two gentlemen sharing our compartment didn't seem to want them). Shortly after we left the station, we went to bed, as it was after midnight already; I got the top bunk because I'm just lucky that way I suppose. It was kind of an adventure climbing up the tiny ladder - 3 steps no more than six inches wide, the bottom step is about 14 inches above the floor. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to clamber up there 30 pounds ago, so that was kind of a self-esteem boost, that I was able to get up there at all. The bunk itself was about 18 inches wide - not much room for someone who has a tendency to splay out in her sleep. I managed to get a little sleep, though, and somehow made it through the day.

We arrived at about 8:30, and then I got to play the "figure out where you are by the landmarks around you" game with our SRAS contact, an intern named Eugenia. She's from Singapore but she studies at a US university that I don't recall the name of at this time. She took us to the metro, which was an adventure in itself, and then to our hostel--about 30 minutes all told. After the ordeal of checking in (which I'll get to in a minute), we had to almost literally fly back to the metro and then navigate the complex interchanges to meet with Josh, the SRAS director, by ourselves. We had run into a bit of a delay and Eugenia had an exam she needed to get to, so she just told us which metro station to go to and left us to find it on our own.

The Moscow metropolitan subway system is a sight to behold. Here is a map. It looks like a mutant octopus or some other Lovecraftian horror of one kind or another. Some of the stations are pretty, particularly on the circle line, but looking at the map is kind of overwhelming, because there are something like 300 stations and counting. It's actually easier to navigate than the Petersburg metro, though, to a certain degree. See, in Petersburg, the metro platforms are coded according to the station at the end of the line. For instance, the green line that I usually take has a station at one end called Primorskaya, and the station at the other end is called Rybatskaya, so the train heading in one direction is marked with a sign that says "Primorskaya" and the other train is marked "Rybatskaya," regardless of which station you are actually at. In Moscow, each platform has a sign telling you all of the stations the train is going to from that station and in what order. It makes a lot more sense. There is also a sign on the wall opposite the platform, across the tracks, telling you the direction the train is traveling and listing the names of the stations on the other lines under the names of stations with transfers. Unfortunately, the Moscow subway operators apparently have a damn schedule to keep, because the ride is much bumpier and less forgiving than in Petersburg, so I hated having to stand. I still hate standing on the Petersburg metro, but that's less of an ordeal than the involuntary game of Falling On Strangers that standing on the Moscow metro is for those who aren't used to it.

Now, the hostel! We stayed at the A La Russe hotel and hostel, smack-dab in the middle of Moscow and just a couple blocks from the Kremlin. If this was the best hostel the SRAS has used, I shudder to think what the worse ones are like; however, Moscow also has a severe dearth of accommodation for tourists, so there's no real incentive to provide an excellent customer experience. The place wasn't terribly clean, the computer was older than I am, they only had 8 lockers available to rent near the front door (as opposed to the locking cubbies in the rooms that all of the Baltic hostels we stayed in had), and apparently they only had one key to each room. That said, they still had toilets, hot water, and provided linens, so I can't complain too much. (Who am I kidding? Yes I can.) The guy who checked us in was the surliest man Eugenia had ever seen in Moscow, and he didn't seem to understand that the woman who had made the reservation was not actually present. He did warm up to us later, though. Brenda and I also never thought to inquire about a curfew, and we realized this around 10:30 the first night. Turns out there isn't one, thankfully, but that was one of only a handful of redeeming qualities about the place.

Anyway. Friday morning, Brenda and I met Josh, the SRAS director, for a walking tour of Moscow and an informative lesson about recent Russian history and politics. We met at a McDonald's and Josh allowed us to buy some food before we started walking; I devoured my Макчикен (McChicken) in short order, and Brenda did the same with her Роял Бургер (Quarter-Pounder, apparently known as a Royale everywhere outside of America), and soon enough we were trekking all over the city. We saw the bench of reconciliation, which sits at one end of a bridge with six trees covered in locks on it. Bridges hold a special place in Russian mythology; according to custom, if you lose contact with the earth, then evil spirits can get you. Crossing a bridge, then, is a dangerous undertaking, especially when the practice coincides with the arrival of another "crossing" - crossing into a new day (i.e., at midnight), or into a new stage of life (e.g., on one's wedding day). So, by Russian tradition, among the worst possible circumstances for a young woman to be in is to be a bride, standing on a bridge, at midnight - that was basically certain doom. If the route to the chapel required crossing a bridge, it was customary for the groom to pick up and carry his bride across the bridge as quickly as possible, keeping her close to him so he could protect her from the evil spirits waiting to ravage her. Now that those beliefs have passed into the realm of fairy tales rather than governing principles for everyday life, people actively seek bridges on the path to the chapel on their wedding day, and carrying the bride across a bridge is basically analogous to the Western custom of carrying the bride over the threshold (into the honeymoon suite, into the newlyweds' home, whatever). Most young grooms opt for a short, pedestrian bridge like the one in the photo, but occasionally you'll see a man decide to carry his bride over one of the larger bridges also meant for cars, to prove to everyone how strong and manly he is.

The custom of affixing a lock to a bridge and tossing the key into the water below as an expression of eternal love has existed in one form or another probably since all of those things have existed, but the ritual exploded in popularity following the Russian publication of the novel I Want You by Federico Moccia. Now, so many couples attach a lock to one of those trees each year, that the city has to remove the branches and attach new ones every six months or so. The trees were built in the first place because the weight of the thousands of locks affixed to the bridge's railings was threatening to break the structure. Unfortunately, it seems the photo I linked is too old to show an apparently-recent addition to one of the lock trees; one couple, deciding that a chintzy heart-shaped lock just didn't symbolize the strength and endurance of their commitment to one another, opted instead to attach a massive padlock the size of a small briefcase to one of the trees. When I saw it I pointed it out and said "Tanya and Pavel must be really serious," and many laughs were had.


We also walked through a couple of parks, and one of them contained an interesting art installation by artist Mikhail Chemyakin. It was unveiled in 2001 and is called "Children are the Victims of Adult Vices." That is a link to some pictures. It depicts two children, a girl and a boy, wearing blindfolds, oblivious to the thirteen figures around them. The figures stand for the aforementioned "adult vices," implicitly vices brought on by capitalism, and they stand in a semi-circle. From left to right, the figures depict drug addiction (a man holding a needle and vial, with skulls and crossbones decorating his suit), prostitution (a frog-headed woman with hundreds of baby frogs all over her--historically, toads were a symbol of venereal disease and linked with the sex trade), greed (a man with a pig's head holding a bag of money), alcoholism (a fat bearded man sitting on a barrel and holding a flask and chalice, perhaps an image of the Roman god Bacchus), ignorance (a man with a donkey's head), irresponsible science (a figure in a robe with the hood drawn over their eyes, holding a marionette of a bizarre two-headed weasel thing in one hand and a scroll of alchemical symbols in the other, next to an archaic chemistry setup), indifference (a man standing with his back to the children, with a mask on the back of his head, his fingers in his ears, and a second pair of arms that are crossed), arms dealing (a man with a large nose and an assortment of guns), sadism (a man with a rhinoceros horn, posed to look like he might attack the children), "for those without memory" - i.e., "those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it" (a medieval stockade with snakes crawling up the sides), child labor (a man with a bird's head gesturing for the children to enter his factory, which has child-size handprints on the side that appear to be pressing outward from inside), poverty (an emaciated woman with a hand extended in begging), and war (a mechanico-skeletal figure wearing a gas mask and holding a bomb with Mickey Mouse's head on it). The artist says that the images are meant as a warning and a reminder to protect future generations from these vices.

Later, we stopped in front of the Bolshoi Theater, which was being restored and only reopened this year, I believe. It's a miracle the building didn't crack in half or burn down before the restoration - not only had the foundation basically dissolved (having been constructed of bricks - Moscow is just as swampy as Petersburg in that regard, and the bricks had deteriorated a lot in the wet soil), but all the plumbing and electrical wiring had been retrofitted over the course of the 20th century. They had to gut the inside, redo the whole thing, and then lift the building up, tear out the old foundation, pour a new concrete one and then put the building back down on top of it. It looks really nice now; I wish we could've gone inside to see that, but sadly we did not.

Our tour ended on a small avenue lined with cafes, all of which had their summer patio dining areas set up. Josh bid us adieu and Brenda and I got some lunch at this cafeteria-style stolovaya whose name roughly translated to Trough. I got some tasty vinigret, a sour pickle, and a cup of delicious chicken soup; I couldn't help but think that the same price in Petersburg would have gotten me an entree, side, and possibly a cookie, in addition to the soup and salad I got. Yeah, Moscow was [swear word] expensive. I spent over 1500 rubles on the second day alone. That's about US$50 - objectively not much, but on a student budget, it's pretty significant.

Walking is free, so Brenda and I decided to do just that after lunch. We navigated our way to the old Arbat, which was a long avenue lined with souvenir shops, people selling artwork, and cafes, not unlike the Champs-Elysees in Paris (according to Brenda, as I obviously have never been). After that we decided to go to the nearest metro station and try to find Gorky Park, a recently-refurbished Soviet-era amusement park. We were successful; there were a couple of rides in the part we saw, as well as people riding bicycles and these neat four-wheel pedal devices, including a two-seater model. Apparently they make recumbent tandem bikes. There were also at least 3 different Subway kiosks - Subway is bizarrely popular in Russia for some reason. Brenda and I observed the cyclists cavorting around the fountain over a shared stick of cotton candy, which was more like fiberglass candy. It was much denser than any cotton candy we'd ever had and it got sharper as we got closer to the stick in the center.

Later on, we had a seminar about living and working in Russia at a Georgian restaurant. We met Eugenia and a few other students at a metro station and walked for about half a mile in the wrong direction before realizing our mistake and backtracking. We eventually met up with Josh and found the restaurant; when we got there, Brenda and I felt even more out of place - we were dressed in jeans and T-shirts and in need of showers. But the seminar was good and informative, and I'm glad I went. I don't think I'd ever want to actually live in Russia full-time, but it's good to know what resources exist if I should ever decide otherwise. Plus, hey, free Georgian food. It was really good, because Georgian cuisine is actually pleasantly spicy and flavorful. Russians seem to fear spice and flavor, so it was a welcome change of pace.

Chapter the Seventh: Because Whyyyy?!

-deep breath-

Oh jeez. As I write this, I've been informed by my dearest younger sister that I've only got a mere 15 days remaining in St. Petersburg. Thursday night we leave for a 3-day/4-night excursion to Moscow, giving me (practically speaking) 11 days in which to do the following:

1. Write and turn in a 3000-word term paper on a topic I have now chosen, but which has not been approved (and I've decided to just write it because I don't have any more time to waste waiting on Josh and/or the Stetson email server).
2. Finish acquiring souvenirs for all the people I love so much.
3. Acquire a new suitcase to replace the red one. Drink to forget the deep, heartbroken sadness in the red suitcase's face when I told it it wouldn't be coming home with me.
4. Give red suitcase dignified burial (read: take it out to the dumpsters).
5. Consider washing my clothes, decide against it. They'll get cleaner if I just wait to do it when I get home.
6. Request transcripts and arrange a ride to the airport through the university. (this can wait until the week after next, thankfully.)
7. Pack ALL the things!
8. Return home in one piece with all of my belongings.

 The term paper is going to be the most difficult thing. I just can't seem to get the paper-writing mojo flowing this semester, probably because this has been my least writing-intensive semester of my entire college career. I have about a third of an outline completed at the time of writing this post, though, so there is that at least. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble staying focused long enough to get much significant work done, but I know I just have to grit my teeth and make it happen, like I always do. And I will.

I'm writing a half observational study, half comparative literary analysis on the role of gender in social interaction in Russia vs. America, using my own observations as well as the plays Three Sisters and A Streetcar Named Desire for points of reference. We saw an updated performance of Three Sisters a few months ago, so much of my task is in recalling the salient moments from that play--all of which were, of course, improvised or changed by the troupe, and thus not in the original text. I chose Streetcar because its ideas about men and women and how they interact, particularly along the specific lines I chose to focus, are still relevant in the 21st century. Also, I felt I needed a piece of American drama as a reference to balance the use of Three Sisters. So, we'll see how that goes. This is definitely among the more interesting topics I've written about, I think, so I'm kind of excited to see the paper in its final form. I have this condition where I'm incapable of writing an academic paper with all the thoughts and ideas in the order they ought to be presented in the first go-round, so every paper-writing attempt is an adventure in verbal Tetris, rearranging sentences, words, and paragraphs into the order they ought to be as they exit my brain.

Also at some point before I leave, we're going to an amusement park! Corinne, Liz and I went to this park outside the city center for this bubble flash mob thing that was supposed to be happening today; the crowd was huge, we didn't have bubbles nor did we know where to buy them, and it cost 50p to get into the event as it was, so we changed our minds about it later. However, when we left the metro at our destination, the first thing we saw was a roller coaster. (Link to a Youtube video of some people riding one of the four coasters in the park; you can see a few of the other rides in the background, like another Wild-West-themed coaster, one of those spinning swing rides like the Zephyr at Kings Island, one of those bungee/slingshot rides).

This park where the bubble shenanigans were happening is right across the street from what looks like a Russian Kings Island, called Wonder Island. It's not a big place, but it's got a lot of really cool rides! Admission is free--you buy tickets for specific rides at ticket counters inside the park--so we went in and had a look around, just to see if it would be worth buying the 1500p "universal" wristbands that let you ride ALL the things. We decided it was absolutely worth it, but that we wanted to come back another day, earlier than 4 in the afternoon, and with a fourth person to avoid the awkward "one lone rider" problem that happens with groups of three. We haven't decided on a day, yet, but it will probably be next Thursday. Whenever we go, I will be sure to blog about it.

I'll also be sure to blog about our Moscow trip! We leave Thursday night very late, get into Moscow early Friday morning, have a whirlwind visit so packed with stuff to do that even our free time is scheduled, then leave late Sunday night and get in early Monday morning. Renee (superstar that she is) arranged our trains such that we wouldn't have to miss any class to travel, and she also got us hostel reservations. If the Moscow hostel is half as nice as any of the hostels we stayed in during our spring break trip, it's gonna be fun. I guess Thursday will be spent deciding which clothes are clean enough to bring on a 3-day trip. I should wash some of them, but doing laundry in this apartment is a two-day affair, minimum. Whatever, I have clean underwear and none of my outerwear is stained or anything, so I'm good.

As I'm writing this post, I'm sitting in the kitchen and looking out the window, remembering when the roof of the building behind ours was covered in snow so deep they had to have a guy up there shoveling it off. Earlier today I was walking down Zhukovskogo, crossing the last intersection before getting to my block, and I remembered the three-inch-thick layer of treacherous ice that covered it when I first arrived. I haven't touched my purple down coat in weeks (which is honestly something I'm thankful for). Most days when I wear my jacket it feels more like a formality, because unless it's windy, it's warm enough that I don't need it if I wear one of my sweaters. Still too cold for just a t-shirt, but too warm for a thermal top. I'll soon be back in Florida where every day is warm enough for a T-shirt. I remember the night I arrived; I remember all the fun I've had with my roommates, and although I'm pretty much ready to go home, I find myself sad at the prospect of leaving, because St. Petersburg is fun when it's not punishing humans for continuing to live there with snow and ice and rain and floods.

Chapter the Sixth: Lithuania

WEDNESDAY

When we arrived in Lithuania on Wednesday afternoon, it was snowing. Hard. And it wasn't even the good kind of snow, with fat clumps of soft snowflakes drifting haphazardly from above and landing gently on you. You know, the kind of snow that makes you feel like a kid again, makes you believe in the beauty of existen--yeah, okay, I can't keep that up. It was snowing and windy and awful, is the bottom line.

Corinne, being very smart, had the foresight to copy the directions from the bus station to each hostel, as well as sketch out a rough copy of the map provided by the website. The problem was that she did this with a cheap notebook she had bought for class and ended up not really using. Notebook paper is notoriously weak against water attacks, as is the water-based ink of the fine-tipped marker she'd used to write down the directions, so things got interesting very quickly once we exited the bus.

We ended up walking up and down a 50-meter stretch of sidewalk two or three times while Corinne tried to get her bearings, as her notebook paper grew increasingly soggy and the directions increasingly illegible. We soon figured out where we needed to turn, and would occasionally stop to check the directions again, using alcoves in buildings as well as our own bodies to shield the delicate map from the ravages of wind and weather. We did, gradually, slog through the icy onslaught across the city center, and managed to find the hostel in about half an hour.

This hostel, called Jimmy Jumps House, was pretty much like the others. We booked here specifically because the owner makes and serves free waffles every morning from about 9 to noon. Not only does the whole place smell awesome every morning, but hey, free waffles. The waffle iron made heart-shaped waffles, too. Five hearts stuck together to form a circle. Delicious and adorable! Of all the things we took pictures of, I don't believe anyone took photos of the waffles, though. The only thing I didn't like about the place was that the beds were of significantly lower quality than those of Cinnamon Sally or the Monk's Bunk, but in a few days I would be returning to an even worse bed, so I guess it was better to gradually transition back to a terrible mattress and more terrible pillows.

The owner told us about a bar in town holding a karaoke night on Wednesday, so that's where we decided to go. We got lost the first time we set out to find it, which sucked because the streets were still covered in half-melted snow. All of our feet were soaked by the time we managed to locate this place, called Bix. We got some dinner and drinks, and waited for the karaoke shenanigans to begin.

I got sweet and sour chicken for dinner. I'm not sure what I was expecting; I knew it wouldn't be like whatever my idea of "sweet and sour chicken" is, but it was pretty close...which was even weirder than getting some kind of bizarre eastern European interpretation would have been. It was as if I had plunged right into the uncanny valley of sweet-and-sour chicken: almost "the real thing," but just different enough to be unsettling, without being different enough to qualify as something else altogether. The little bits of meat I was served did look and taste like they had all come from one animal, though, so there was that. The sauce was good, very garlicky and faintly reminiscent of an Asian-inspired barbecue sauce. That's something I really miss over here: Chinese food. There are Chinese restaurants around Petersburg, but they're so formal! They use things like plates and silverware. Chinese food comes in a box, gosh darn it, not attractively arranged on a tiny plate! The food is OK, but just not the same. I'm keeping a list of foods I want when I get home; right now that list consists of "Chinese food" and "bacon," because apparently I'm in some kind of God-forsaken region of the world that doesn't believe in the delicious, artery-clogging almighty Crispy Bacon.

The karaoke shenanigans began around 9 or 10; I don't really remember because I forgot my phone charger, like a chump, so it remained off for much of our Lithuanian adventure to conserve battery life. I went up a few times and didn't do too great, but most of the crowd was drunk enough for it not to be a problem. Corinne went up a few times and rocked it, even winning a free beer for her performance of You Can't Always Get What You Want. She didn't manage to actually cash in on that (I think she was supposed to give the coaster the DJ gave her to the waitress?), but later on some guy who was celebrating his birthday handed her a bottle of some kind of mystery beer, so whatever. It worked out. There were also a couple of Lithuanian girls who were absolutely amazing, and one funny guy who just hammed it up at every opportunity, death-metal growling the stuff on the intro screen and during musical interludes and stuff. He grabbed a friend and rapped in Lithuanian instead of actually singing Because I Got High, then said "I was gonna sing this song, but then I got drunk!" Because he was very clever, you see. We stayed at Bix until closing time, then made our way back to the hostel because it was still cold and slushy outside.

THURSDAY/FRIDAY

 I'm lumping the last two days together because one of them was very uneventful for me.

Thursday, we did some city exploring, because the weather was amazing. It was approaching 50 degrees outside, and sunny! After a delicious lunch at an Indian restaurant, we went into town and visited this old tower on a hill. The ascent was pretty easy; walking on the old cobblestone was like a free foot massage with every step, and hey, cardio. At one point I saw a little winding path up the side of the hill next to the main path; I popped up there to see where it led, and found an awesome little semi-secluded mountain spring dribbling into a well. There was graffiti all over the rocks--mostly couple names and dates. So, yeah, I found Vilnius' Makeout Point, NBD. I'll remember it if I ever find myself back in Lithuania, which is unlikely, but who knows?

We even took off our coats because the weather was so nice, and the energy we needed to climb was enough to keep us comfortable. Inside the tower was a small museum; one floor had a model of the city in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the next had displays of arms and armor. There was one more (very steep) winding staircase that goes up to the top; we thought the door at the top of the staircase was locked at first, but then realized we just weren't trying hard enough to open the door, and felt pretty silly.

The view from the top of the tower was incredible. Practically the entire city of Vilnius was visible, in all its red-and-white glory. It was sunny, just a bit windy, and warmer than it had been in a long time for us. We hung out, took silly photos, sat and talked and generally just passed the time up there for about three or four hours before deciding to head back down. There was a mechanized lift set up to make the descent easier, but we decided we didn't want to pay for that and walked back down. The trail is very steep in some places, the cobblestones have been worn smooth over the years, and the soles of my boots have absolutely no traction whatsoever (I slip and slide on tile floors in these things), so it was kind of an adventure on the way down.

When we checked into the hostel on Wednesday, the owner guy took out a map of Vilnius and marked the location of some interesting things we might want to check out. Among those things was a bust of Frank Zappa, located across town from the hostel. The statue is there for basically no reason other than "well, why not?", and here is a page explaining it in more detail. The art on the walls in the surrounding area is pretty amazing--too amazing to call it "graffiti." It is definitely street art. But then, that's to be expected, as the bust was erected near the art academy. We went to find the statue, and were successful; many photos were taken:

And I made a snowfriend! There were just these three perfectly-sized chunks of snow lying around. I couldn't help myself. (We neglected to take pictures of the snowfriend.)

Liz had managed to leave her toiletry bag on the Riga-Vilnius bus, and got an email telling her that it had been found, but she had to go to another city, Kaunas, to pick it up. I opted not to go, figuring it would be a quick jaunt out there Friday morning and then they'd be back to explore more Vilnius by lunchtime. Everyone was operating on that assumption. Not only did Liz fail to rendezvous with Ecolines in Kaunas, but the Kaunas-Vilnius train does not run nearly as often as they were counting on, so they ended up being stuck there all day while I was left to my own devices at the hostel. I didn't get the memo until about an hour before they were due back, though, so I wasted the day on the Internet, instead of exploring a strange city in a foreign country alone, like a sensible person.

That night, two girls who worked for the hostel kept trying to get us to go with them on a pub crawl (which was a regular hostel-organized event and apparently there was a minimum number of guests required for it to actually happen; if less than 5 guests want to go, it is cancelled). We declined, on the grounds that our bus was going to leave early the next morning, and we were rapidly running out of money. So we stayed in and played drinking games with the other Americans in the hostel instead.

The other Americans were actually pretty cool. There was one guy who turned out to be a Redditor, a 22-year-old PhD student (he skipped first and second grade) who spoke Finnish. The other guy was a middle-school geography teacher; I don't remember his name, but he was more involved in talking to/hitting on the Australian and Spanish girls who were also staying at the hostel than he was in our conversation. AJ (Dr. Redditor) was kinda hitting on the three of us, but it was all pretty lighthearted and he didn't actually try to pursue any of us seriously. Liz and Corinne had a lot more to drink than I did, but we all hit the hay around 1:30-2 AM anyway, because we still remembered that we had an early bus to catch.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY

And then we proceeded to miss the bus.

No one thought to set a second alarm and Liz's alarm was inaudible, so we all overslept. In a panic, Liz scoured the internet for buses to Riga that would arrive before 10 PM, and successfully bought us bus tickets for a ride that left at 4 PM. Then we all went back to sleep and spent the day leisurely packing and saying our final goodbyes to what turned out to be our favorite country. We managed to catch the 4:00 bus (after Liz had to practically sprint to the ticket office to print our things, even though the email said all we would need was ID, but okay), and then had only about an hour and a half to kill in Riga, instead of the 10-hour layover we would have had if we had made our morning bus. Really, it worked out for the best; Latvia was expensive, after all, so we wouldn't have gotten to do much in Riga besides buy some food and walk around all day.

The final leg of our journey--the eleven-hour, three-country-spanning bus ride from Riga to Petersburg--was the most trying. It was an overnight bus ride in a vehicle badly in need of new shocks; we shook, rattled and rolled our way across Estonia, stopping around 4 AM to go through customs at the Russian border. The bus felt and sounded like it was minutes away from just falling apart, and while we did manage to get some sleep, it came in snatches and was rudely interrupted by the bus attempting to fly (at least, that's what I choose to believe was happening when the bus lurched and bounced like that).

We got back to Petersburg (where it was snowing, on Easter) around 9 AM on Sunday, setting foot back in the apartment by 9:30. I started a load of laundry, set an alarm on my phone, and took a well-deserved nap in my squeaky, pokey, generally terrible, but at least stationary, bed.

The spring break vacation was great, and I had a lot of fun with my roommates, but I'm almost glad to be back in Petersburg. The semester is more than halfway over, now, and I'm both sad and relieved. I've made some good friends here, and there are still some interesting culture-class-related things on the schedule, and I have to leave just as the weather starts to get really nice...but, at the same time, I've kind of been looking forward to coming back home since the day I left. I'm more of a homebody than I ever suspected myself to be, I suppose.

Chapter the Sixth: Latvia

SUNDAY

We arrived in Riga, Latvia around five-ish on Sunday evening, after leaving the Monk's Bunk early enough to make it to the bus station on time. We rode a double-decker bus, which was exciting, and all three of us had seats on the top floor! Ecolines reserves the right to randomly change your seat assignment without warning and for no discernible reason, so we were glad that the seats we bought were the seats we got, as it were.

We stayed at a hostel called Cinnamon Sally (other options in the area included the Naughty Squirrel and the Tiger Hostels). Cinnamon Sally is part of a network of backpackers' hostels in this part of the world, so they were affiliated with the Monk's Bunk. They were about the same quality, in any case; Sally was less brand-spankin'-new, but the facilities were nice and they even had a washer and a dryer available for guest use. Of course, none of us actually got around to doing laundry while we were there. But we could have, and that's the important thing.

The thing about Riga, we would soon discover, is that despite having a very active nightlife scene, not a lot of things are open on Sunday, especially in the evenings. We initially wanted to get dinner at this place called the "Folk Club Cave," which appeared to be closed, so we ended up at this UK-themed pub. Mostly because it was the first open place that wasn't deserted that we encountered, and there was a large group of loud young men wandering the streets about a block away that made us kind of nervous. Obviously none of us speak Latvian, but some of the guys were speaking in what sounded like Russian and Liz caught what she thought was something about "stupid tourists."

So, yes, we ducked into the first restaurant we came across that wasn't completely empty, called the Queens Public House and Restaurant. It was here that we discovered something else about Latvia: the beer sucks. Nearly every beer that any of us tried had an awful metallic aftertaste; one notable exception is a stout that Liz got at the Folk Club Cave, which we ended up going to twice. Riga is clearly a cocktails-and-shots kind of town. All the food was delicious, though. I got a tasty burger from the Queens place, and when we went back to Folk Club, I got this awesome bacon-wrapped stuffed chicken monstrosity of tastiness. I think it was a chicken fillet wrapped in bacon and stuffed with caramelized onions, cheese, dried plums and something else, topped with vegetable caviar, on a bed of a "potato and carrot mash." Trés gourmet!

Latvia is expensive relative to the US; they aren't on the Euro, instead still using their own currency of lati and sentami. The lat is among the strongest currencies in Europe, with one lat being approximately equal to about US$1.90. So, you know, at first you look at your check and think "OK, 14-something isn't bad for all we got," and then you remember that that's approaching US$30. At the same time, though, for the quantity and quality of food and drink that we got, at a similar place in the US, the bill would probably come out to be about the same. So, it's expensive relative to the US when you're on a student budget. I didn't buy any souvenirs in Latvia for this reason, although we're going to have ten hours to kill in Riga on the way home on Saturday, so I suppose there's still time.

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MONDAY

A funny thing happened while we were in Latvia. As you know, if you were smart and started reading the glut of posts about my Baltic adventures with Estonia, we went to Tallinn for a music festival. Among the acts we watched there was this Austrian band called Diver. I talked about them in the last Estonia post. Anyway, it turns out that Diver inadvertently followed us to Riga, and Monday night they were playing at this little hole-in-the-wall bar in the old part of the city called I Love You. So, we decided to check it out.

First, we thought the show was at 8 PM. I don't know who misread the 24-hour time, Liz or whoever maintains the Diver Facebook page. So we all took a nap and then hauled bones to make it to the bar by 8. Upon arrival, we inspected the poster advertising that evening's entertainment, where the start time was listed as 10 PM (22:00). We were in the middle of freaking out about being 2 hours early when the band showed up. Awkward!

We went inside and decided to get some food, anyway, as long as we were here and had some time to kill. Each of us ordered a 20cm pizza and gave a slice to each other when they arrived. The bolognese I got was amazing; there was some hot sauce on it, as well as jalapeños and pickle slices. It was wonderful--see, I like spicy food, but the Russians don't, so truly flavorful spicy deliciousness is hard to come by in Petersburg. Liz's margherita pizza was good too, as was the veggie pizza Corinne opted for, but oh god the spiciness. I miss it already. Luckily, I think I can recreate it, and I'm gonna try to do so this summer.

We finished our pizzas and still had about 45 minutes to kill before the show was to begin...so we just kind of sat there and talked for a while. Eventually 10 o'clock rolled around and we went downstairs to the basement. The show was a really intimate affair--about a dozen chairs and two dozen people packed into a tiny room while three Austrian guys with guitars (plus a keyboard, accordion, and melodica) sang songs about awkward romance and drinking. Their set was longer than it was in Tallinn, and we got to hear a couple more songs from them, which was cool.

Afterward we went back to the hostel and got to bed relatively early, because the next day was Liz's birthday and we had plans to go to the seaside. But you know what they say about plans, right?

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TUESDAY

The best-laid plans of mice and men and all that. We did manage to get up early as well as navigate the complex interaction that is "buying train tickets" without much incident.

And then we missed the train.

Twice.


Luckily, the ticket didn't specify a time; the train out to Majori (coastal town) leaves roughly every 40 minutes and you can basically hop on whenever, as long as you're at the right station, so we just waited around and got some lunch. Our original plan was to go out to the seaside in the morning, leaving time that afternoon to check out some museums; we didn't actually manage to board a train until 1 pm. But we did manage it, and we saw the Baltic sea! I've got a picture here that will look very silly to friends and family in Florida, both because I am a silly girl and because it shows me on a beach, in a long winter coat. Here:

 Here's me and Corinne being silly. I think there were two other people on the beach that day, thankfully they ignored us as we ran around laughing like crazy people.

And here's Liz, being silly on a swing. It's hard to see but these swings are about 10 inches off the ground. Clearly not for young ladies such as ourselves. Did that stop us? No.

We walked around for a while after that, poking into souvenir shops and the like, before deciding to head back to the train station and return to the city center. For the return trip, the lady at the ticket counter sold us one actual ticket for three people; the lady at the Riga station gave the three of us separate tickets. They just look like receipts, and the attendants on the train just stamp the backs of them, they don't tear them or punch them or anything. So, of course Corinne pulled out her Riga-to-Majori ticket by mistake when the attendant came by on the return trip. Cue panic! I mean, why would she have sold us a ticket to Majori in Majori?! But the proper ticket was then found and all was well.

Tuesday just turned out to be a comedy of errors for everyone, really. After taking a two-hour nap in the luxuriously comfortable hostel beds (because somehow missing two trains is exhausting), Liz checked her email and saw that she had a response from one of the universities she'd applied to for grad school, a university she was really excited about. They turned her down. :( The obvious course of action was to locate the nearest pub and stay there until it closed, so that is essentially what we did, going back to the Folk Club Cave because they had beer that didn't taste like metal.

We would have stayed out later, and Liz would have ordered some whiskey and "descended into Liquor Land," as she put it, if we didn't have to get up early to catch a bus on Wednesday. But we did, so she didn't, and we called it a night around one in the morning.