Scandinavian Exposure

Dear readers, it looks like I might finally be getting a hang of this blogging thing! Even if I'm about a blog behind in my travels. This post will be about our trip to Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia. It was a wonderful trip and I can't wait to go back in the future =D



Daily Quote(s):
"The world is not ready for cats and worms to be friends."
"That's a big takso!"
"I want to say hi to Jesus!"


Daily Chronicles:

FINLAND & ESTONIA

Nov. 11 – Thursday

So we all arrived at the train station ridiculously early to catch the train to Helsinki, Finland. I’m pretty sure that we got there at 6 or 7 AM though the specifics escape me right now. It was about a 6.5 hour train ride, during which we stopped for like 2-3 hours for border crossings and passport control and the like. There was even a funny little drug dog (I think it was a spaniel of sorts) running up and down the aisle during border control. I spent the majority of the train ride sleeping though as there’s not much to entertain you for that long when you’re tired and grumpy from being up so early. As we got closer and closer to the city, I was falling more in love with the scenery and landscape of Finland. It’s a very beautiful country and fully intend on returning in the future. We had a pretty basic city tour of Helsinki when we arrived and saw a few of the highlights of the city. I mostly remember the scenery more than the landmarks because it was just so enrapturing. The coastlines were rugged and covered with tall grass and trees, etc. It seemed like something mixed between the coastlines of Scotland and Maine (both places that I plan on seeing). I had fallen completely in love with the aesthetics of Finland. After the tour, we checked into our hostel, which was much nicer than I was expecting, even though I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had never stayed in a hostel before. It felt like living in a dormitory more than anything, so I promptly passed out for a nap when Megan and I got to our room. After a well-deserved nap, a large group of us went out in search of traditional Finnish cuisine, which meant everyone wanted to have reindeer for dinner!  We found a fabulous Finnish restaurant called Zator (odd, eh?) and we all ordered different meals and shared. I ended up ordering a chicken dish and sharing with Matthew, who ordered the reindeer. Both were delicious! I can honestly say that I’ve never had chicken cooked that perfectly in a restaurant before. And the reindeer tasted like richer venison. We all also ordered whatever the recommended Finnish beer was from the bar to go with dinner, and it was pretty good though nothing so special as I didn’t even bother to figure out what it was called. Next, we all dove into the dessert menu. Most people ordered familiar things like apple pie or ice cream and the like. I was feeling adventurous and ordered a cheese dessert that was a small wheel of farm cheese baked in cream with a cloudberry jam to go with it. I don’t know what cloudberry jam is, but the entire dessert was amazing. Sometimes things sound funny on a menu, but I highly recommend ordering something a little out of the ordinary when you travel cause you can certainly find some culinary gems! After dinner, we all ventured around town and found a nice Irish pub around the corner and hung around for a few hours just enjoying being in Finland. I enjoyed a nice hard apple cider, definitely one of my favorites! It was a good way to top off our first day in Finland.

Sibelius Monument. I agree, its a very strange looking monument... its dedicated to the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

The Helsinki Cathedral, annoyingly hidden behind some obnoxious set up in the middle of Senate Square during the weekend. Probably some radio station or something.

Our hostel room! Cozy enough.

Nov. 12 – Friday

Friday we were all given free reign of the city to do what we pleased for the day. So after an annoyingly early start for Megan and I due to a mishap with time zones and our alarm clock, a big group of us went down to the sea side to take the ferry to the huge island sea fortress, Suomenlinna. We spent a good 3-4 hours exploring the entire island. It was probably one of the coolest places that I have ever visited. It is literally a massive sea fortress with walls and tunnel systems and huge cannons placed around the island. Aside from all the nifty fortress “ruins” and tunnels to explore, the view was absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous. It may have been one of the prettiest places I have ever been with the coastlines and the Gulf of Finland and the hills and the ruins of walls… Fantastic, it was like something out of a movie or a book. There were a few times where I looked around and all that I could think of was Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings series, haha! Again, I fully intend on returning to Finland and going to Suomenlinna again, hopefully in warmer weather to see everything in different light. When we all returned to the mainland, the rest of the day was spent simply exploring markets and the rest of the city. Dinner was less successful as it was Friday evening and pretty much every single restaurant was up to their gills in customers and couldn’t seat us, though we did eventually find room at a pizza buffet of all places, lol. A smaller group of us broke off after dinner to go wander the city at night in search of a nice place to relax and enjoy a drink with good company. After long explorations, however, we ended up back at the same Irish pub that we had patronized the previous evening, though it was significantly more full this time around. But no worries, good company made the evening fun and a good end to another day of adventures.

They have Viking ships in Finland! Haha! This is just a contemporary model.

Suomenlinna in the distance.

Some of the coastline. In love yet?

The Gulf of Finland. Beautiful.

Nov. 13 – Saturday

Another early start for our day trip to Estonia! When down to the boat yard so that we could catch the “ferry” to Tallinn. And when I say ferry, I mean a small cruise ship. No joke. They actually construct a significant amount of the cruise ships in the Disney and Royal Caribbean fleets!  So anyway, our ferry was a small cruise ship. Sat in a huge dining hall for the 2 hour ferry ride across the Gulf of Finland. I spent the majority of the trip dozing in the corner on my little bench where I was also surrounding by a knitting circle of little Scandinavian ladies. It was highly amusing to see them carrying on, too bad I couldn’t understand them. The Scandinavian languages are a league all of their own. So when we arrived, we went on a long walking tour of basically the entire city (cause it really is that small of a city, considering it is also the capital of the country). It was a really pretty little medieval city and I would love to go back and explore it all over again, especially in warmer weather. It was also pretty cool while we were there because we got to use the Estonian kroon which is going to become worthless on January 1, 2011 when Estonia officially switches off to the Euro. So I’m one of the last few to use this soon to be worthless currency! After our tour, we were ravenous, so we exploring off the main tourist path and a group of us found a nice little restaurant that seemed to be pretty local/Estonian. I had one of the best lunches ever, I ordered a “meat casserole with vegetables topped with a pancake” (cause they couldn’t be creative in the name in the least) and that is literally what it was. Meat and vegetables, sort of like the filling to a pot pie, topped with a pancake, which I was expecting to be a baked topping like a potpie, but no. And actual pancake. Tastyyy. I also had a glass of hot wine with an orange slice, raisins and almonds in it. One of my best purchases, haha. Our group split into smaller groups after lunch and we just explored the city and souvenir shops for the remainder of the afternoon/evening. I did find and buy myself an awesome hat and scarf with reindeer! Hooray for Estonia! When we ventured out of the old city and to the edge of the modern part of the city, we found (take a guess) a really nice Irish pub, where we noticed on the menu that you could order a half liter of Guinness for less than 3 Euro. So needless to say, we patronized said establishment and I finally had my first Guinness, in Estonia of all places. How many people have that claim to fame? Haha. It was worth my almost 3 Euros! When we were done, we had about 30 minutes to kill before we had to meet up and get back on the ferry back to Helsinki, so we found a small bakery where we just ordered numerous different pastries and sampled them between us. It was a success if I do say so myself. Then we made our way back to the ferry, a different small cruise ship this time, and we got to sit in what looked like a VIP lounge on the ride home. I got to sleep on a couch this time! Estonia was a good time and I can’t wait to make my way back sometime in the future. Hopefully sooner than later.

The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. The grandest Russian Orthodox Church in Tallinn. And probably one of the prettiest ones I have seen in my opinion.

Tallinn. Isn't it pretty?!

The well in the square where legend has it that the Devil had his wedding. Estonia is pretty superstitious about their ghosty stories.

Nov. 14 – Sunday

So this was our last day in Helsinki. I went to Mass in the morning with a couple people from the group, which was an experience because it was all done in Finnish. We weren’t going to be around long enough to make it to the English service in the afternoon. After church, we planned to get our souvenir shopping done… failure to ensue. After wandering the main street well past the opening times for the shops we concluded that none of the stores were going to open and we were unable to read the signs that were posted on the fronts of a lot of the shops because none of us read Finnish or Swedish. All we could determine was that it had something to do with that day judging by the dates on the door. It was an extremely annoying thing to realize when you’ve been banking on going shopping during your last afternoon and you didn’t have any fair warning that every single shop was going to be closed. Our only real consolation was finding a nice coffee shop (something I miss excessively from the States) and getting warm drinks to have outside. I ordered a drink called a Java Chai… I think it was a chai latte/tea with coffee in it. It was fabulous. Something I will have to remember when I get around to opening a coffee shop of my own, haha! (Well, I hope so anyway). Then we met a couple more people and then got lunch together at a small restaurant around the corner from the train station. I had an awesome smoked salmon sandwich, and I tasted banana soda! It tasted like banana Runts, weird. The label also had a goat wearing a night shirt sleeping on a giant banana. Win. So then we went to the station and had another 6.5 hour ride back to Saint Petersburg. Again, spent most of the trip sleeping because you can only do so much when you’re stuck in the same seat for that long. But it was a good trip and I would do it again any day! It was also a good break from the monotony of Russia and our classes even if it wasn’t long enough. 

Helsinki Cathedral without that pesky pavilion, and on a sunny day!

Uspenski Cathedral, the largest Russian Orthodox Church in Western Europe!

Ah, fare thee well Finland!

Interim period plus pictures!

Dear readers, I'm sure much to your surprise it did not take me another 3-4 weeks to post an update of my trip! This post is just going to be about the interim period between my big trips, although nothing world altering happened. And then some pictures from my Moscow/Germany trip. Then hopefully will get a post up for Finland/Estonia and then catch up on life, just in time to be stateside again! This adventure is winding down way too fast. The "travel bug" is real and very hard to rid yourself of! =]

Quote(s) of the Day:
"I've never met a Pollock that wasn't ticklish."
"Frogs don't go in chicken!"
"There's nothing worse than an ex-creampuff."
"That's why there's a difference in the price of eggs, these eggs are dumb. They come from retarded chickens!"
"Pleasure swapping muffins with ya!"
"Joe starts with Jose..."
and my personal favorite of the bunch:
"So one of my favorite quotes... I came up with it myself!" - Matthew C.

So as to my daily life in Russia, I returned back to school just in time to take my midterms which weren't as bad as I was expecting, much to my pleasure. My friends and I made time during this "break from breaks" to have a birthday celebration for our friend Matt, however our bowling adventure was a flop cause we showed up with way too many people. Oops! I also found the time to visit the first aquarium in Russia. It was pretty small as far as aquariums go, but it was still a fun afternoon. I also started watching numerous well-known movies in Russian, such as Toy Story, Madagascar and The Emperor's New Groove. Kid's movies are definitely the way to go when trying to learn a language through watching movies. Plus its just funny to see your favorite characters speaking Russian! I also saw the new movie MegaMind in the theater down the street. That was certainly an adventure since I had a bad head-cold and its hard to translate Russian in your head when it's clogged up with phlegm. Oh well, it was a good time nonetheless. We also had a cultural excursion to the Mariinsky Concert Hall to see a classical music concert with compositions by Glinka, Shchredin and Tchaikovsky. It was fun to dress up nice and go to the concert with friends. My favorite part of the evening was Tchaikovsky's piece. But aside from these adventures, much time was spent just getting excited to go to Finland and Estonia. That and battling a relentless chest cold that cost me a few days of voice privileges. But no worries, it returned promptly before our trip! So this should basically cover everything noteworthy that I did during the end of October/beginning of November.

Picture(s) of the Day:

Moscow Pictures:

The State Historical Museum on Red Square.

A lovely sunny morning on Red Square (Красная площадь)!

St. Basil's Cathedral on Красная площадь, however it was a really sunny day. Interesting fact, did you know that St. Basil's is in fact 9 different churches inside? Bet you didn't =]

Tired roommates after a long night on the train!

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Did you know that this is actually a completely rebuilt church because it was completely destroyed during the Communist era and (believe it or not) was turned into a swimming pool! They rebuilt the whole thing in a period of about 6 years as an exact copy of the original.

Some of the most adorable balloons I have ever seen, at the Moscow circus. I should have bought one...

The world's largest bell, the Tsar Bell. 

The world's largest cannon, the Tsar Cannon. It has never been fired, unless of course you hold to the legend of the False Dmitri (in previous Moscow post).

The Kremlin!

The Tretyakov Gallery. My favorite art museum to date.

A sunset view of the "Peter Columbus" memorial (as I have lovingly named it).

The world's largest McDonald's! It doesn't look like much til you go inside. Trust me.

Germany Pictures:

My first döner kebab. Thank you Turkey for this culinary delight. These come highly recommended by me!

A good view of the Reichstags.

A Soviet war memorial in Berlin.

Gorgeous Tiergarten that we walked through on our Wednesday adventures.

Seriously, how can you not fall in love with Germany?

Charlottenburg Schloss (Castle).

A Rathaus (city hall) in downtown Berlin.

Me and the Duplo giraffe outside the Sony Center meet again!

Turns out Wednesday was the first night of Festival of Lights. Bonus!

Trip to Trier with my Air Force friends. In front of the Porta Nigra, the best preserved Roman gates north of the Alps.

***So hopefully will get the next post up about Finland and Estonia soon! This concludes my post concerning Moscow, Germany and my not so exciting interim period. Until next time, friends! =]

Germany and a little taste of home

First, I'd like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all :) I'm really thankful for all the experiences that I'm having over here and that I'm able to share them all with you guys. And I'd like to say sorry for being the worst (or least the least timely) blogger ever. I dunno how you manage to follow lol. So the following novel is about the second half of my semester break as I traveled through Germany.

GERMANY

Oct. 11 – Monday

So my last day in Moscow started off with one last breakfast in the hotel dining room and finalizing last minute plans with friends concerning the airport, etc. So a small group of us went out into town and found the headquarters of the KGB/FSB which was a pretty cool thing to see even if the building was nothing breathtaking in and of itself. Not really sure what to do next, someone suggested that we go to Pushkin Square and check out the world’s largest (so I was told) McDonald’s. So we did. It doesn’t look like anything huge from the outside but when you go inside it is massive. There are 24 cash registers and a completely separate counter for the McCafe in a different part of the building! And just to top that off, while you wait in line, someone comes by and takes your order on a handheld device then gives you a ticket that you give to the cashier and then you simply pay. Talk about efficiency. After dining at this monstrosity of an establishment, we ventured down to a particularly large shopping street that reminded me more of wandering down the streets of Germany than Russia. While wandering down the street, we saw the only two Starbucks in Moscow! Speaking of which, I have yet to see a Starbucks in Saint Petersburg…. So Starbucks is, in fact, not everywhere. Go figure, eh?

It was then that two of our company and myself had to book it back to the hotel to pick up our backpacks and head to the airport for our flights. Conveniently the boys were also going to the Domodedovo airport for flights to Berlin an hour earlier than me. So it was a pretty massive airport, but probably one of the most confusing and annoying airports that I’ve been to. When we finally found our gates, we discovered that whoever designed the airport did not deem it necessary to install sufficient seating for passengers waiting for their flights. My gate didn’t even have a seat to speak of! It was just a café counter and a door leading out to the plan. Lame. So I sat at the boys’ gate until their flight left then I chilled for an hour next to my sparsely equipped gate. I had a pretty good flight with Air Berlin to Berlin Tegel, and had an extremely German yet tasty sandwich for lunch on the plane. It was also pretty spiffy that the flight attendants didn’t speak English to me, and I was able to respond well enough to not cause any suspicions, haha! And on a side note, Two and a Half Men is quite amusing when aired in German. I arrived in Berlin with no incident and it was super exciting to get there because I missed Germany so much since my last visit! Plus it was also a welcome break to hear everyone speaking German and all the signs to be in German rather than in Russian. Nothing against Russian… I was just ready for the break. It was also really awesome to see Stephie again! (For those of you who don’t know Stephie, she was an exchange student with my family during high school. She is basically my sister =]) So we made our way back to her apartment to just hang out and catch up after not seeing each other for over a year. Boy I miss that girl!

Oct. 12 – Tuesday

Tuesday was a pretty low key day as far as my travels go. Stephie had to attend classes for a good part of the day, so I spent my time journaling, writing postcards, taking a nap and finally getting around to watching Top Gun. Go figure that I never see that movie till I get to Germany. Then again, last time I was in Germany, I finally saw 10 Things I Hate About You and all the American Pie movies. But that’s just a side note… Stephie and I strolled down to the train station when she got home from class and picked up my train ticket for the second half of my German exploits. On our way home we stopped at a local stand and bought döner kabobs for dinner. This is something my parents have been telling me about my whole life since they lived in Berlin for 4 years and they were right. Definitely one of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten! It’s basically like a pita stuffed with lamb that has been roasting on a spit all day with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and a dill/sour cream sauce. Now that’s a meal that hits the spot! And it could only get better because we topped it off a bit of champagne and more catching up and girl talk :)

Oct. 13 – Wednesday

Stephie ended up having class for the majority of the day, so I managed to make plans to meet up and spend the day with Matthew and Kellan, the boys I went to the airport with and who also ended up in Berlin. I found them with little to no problem at Berlin Hbf (massive train station in the middle of the city) and then commenced exploring. Matthew and Kellan had seen most of the city the day before so they showed a cool Soviet war memorial they found and saw the Reichstag along the way. Lunchtime arrived and we got currywurst from a roadside stand because Berlin is supposed to be THE place to get a good currywurst. It was alright, although it just wasn’t for me. I thoroughly enjoyed a Bionade though, which I missed from last time I was in Germany. Then we wandered down a really long street, whose name I cannot recall, and through a gorgeous park which was called the Tierpark according to the map. We tried to hunt down an extremely elusive flea-market that Kellan had heard about, but we were unsuccessful. So we visited the Charlottenburg Schloss (palace) instead. It was really pretty, but it wasn’t dreadfully different than all the other palaces I had been visiting in Russia. Perhaps I’m just suffering a bit from “palace fatigue”. After exploring the palace grounds, I decided it was time to find chocolate! A necessity while in Germany for sure. I showed the boys the good German chocolates and how to properly break into a Ritter Sport bar (find one, ask me and I’ll show you too). I miss German chocolate already… Ritter Sports, Kinder, Schoko-Bons… Anywho. I figured it would be fun to find the Sony Center and show that to the guys cause I remember thinking it was pretty cool last time I was in Berlin. We did eventually find it after a few wrong turns, and the huge Duplo giraffe was still in front of the center! So I got my picture with it… again. Ha! We wandered around the Sony Center for a while then decided to find a good restaurant to get some pizza for dinner. We settled on a nice little restaurant near the center. The pizzas and bruschetta were amazingly tasty. We also ordered a bottle of red Italian wine to go with our meal… however, we received a bottle of red French wine. Which was definitely a good wine, but significantly more expensive. That bottle of wine cost more than our two pizzas and appetizer combined (22 euros vs. 32 euros, ack!)! Oh well, how often do you get to accidentally enjoy an expensive bottle of wine with friends in Berlin? So after dinner we wandered the streets for a while because we discovered that we happened to be in the middle of town during the first night of the Festival of Lights. Watched a few light shows, then had to make our way back to the Berlin Hbf so I didn’t miss my last train back to Stephie’s! I’m glad I was able to spend a “tourist” day with some friends while in Berlin :)

Oct. 14 – Thursday

Luckily, Stephie had Thursday off from classes, so we got to sleep in during the morning and take our time getting ready for the day. We decided to go out to a big shopping center and just enjoy the day hanging out and shopping. We also made our way into the middle of town and went to KaDeWe, which is THE huge shopping center in Berlin. I believe I mentioned Harrold’s from London and GUM in Moscow. Same thing in principle. All I could afford to buy, though, was a marzipan chocolate bar that came highly recommended by Stephie. It was pretty tasty if I do say so myself. We eventually made our way back home for dinner and champagne and just enjoying the evening and chatting since it was my last evening with Stephie. I really miss that girl!

Oct. 15 – Friday

So I spent a good 5-6 hours on a train today traveling from Berlin to Frankfurt to go visit my friend who is stationed with the Air Force at Spangdahlem. I was apparently too ignorant of the German language and train system to figure out where I was able to sit on the train so I spent the entirety of my trip in the dining car. But it was nice because I got to do some prime people watching and made friends with a German business man who reminded me of a cheerful German grandfather. It is so refreshing how friend Germans are after spending so much time in Russia. During my trip, I got to see a VW plant along the train tracks. I really want a VW Jetta, but that’s another story haha. Made it to Frankfurt Hbf with no troubles and found John, the friend I went to visit. His friend drove us back from Frankfurt to Spangdahlem so that I could get registered on base, then drove over to the Bitburg base to hang out at his friend’s apartment. It was a good evening just hanging out with a group of Americans and watching the boys play video games. I was also the only one of the group who wasn’t/hadn’t served in the military, but they told me I looked like an Air Force girl. Haha go figure. It was a good time and a small taste of home to be on what is technically American soil.

Oct. 16 – Saturday

Got to sleep in and just enjoy a relaxed morning wandering around base. When lunchtime rolled around, John and I went to the BX to grab something for lunch. I felt like a kid with free reign in a candy store because the whole store was filled with American brands and prices. Big jars of peanut butter! Cheez-its! Lay’s salt & vinegar potato chips! Campbell’s soup! I was more than ecstatic to have a can of Campbell’s soup for lunch, especially since canned soup is a thing of the imagination in Russia. I also had a Berliner to go with lunch which only made my Germany experience that much more fun because my favorite historical quote is “Ich bin ein Berliner” by JFK, but yeah. It was basically a jelly-filled doughnut with raspberry and red currant jelly and it tasted excellent. It was also crazy because everything was priced in American dollars, which I haven’t seen since I left the states in August. Talk about culture shock. I was more familiar with rubles and Euros at that point! After lunch, we took a trip with the friends we’d spent the previous evening with to Trier for the afternoon. It was a really pretty place and I’d like to go back and explore again on a day with better weather as it was raining. Who knew you could go to Germany and see an ancient Roman bath? Well you can in Trier. It made me feel like I was back in Italy actually, it was pretty nifty. So after much exploring, we found a nice Italian restaurant for dinner, which believe it or not was out of lasagna! So I had cannelloni instead, which was basically the same thing, but with more stuff in it and just as tasty. When we returned to base at Spangdahlem, we all went bowling for a few hours. We managed to get in about 5 games, and I was totally on my game that night. I don’t think I’ve ever bowled so well! But it was lots of fun in general and just a note to those who care to know, military bases have some of the best bowling alleys I’ve ever been to. Just sayin’.

Oct. 17/18 – Sunday/Monday

I date this day twice because it was one of the longest days of my life! It was the conclusion of my semester break, which was sad in and of itself, but the aggravation which was to ensue was more than I could have imagined. Sometimes you just can’t make up better stories than what really happened. So there’s my disclaimer, let the story begin. So John, Griffin (one of John’s friends and our ride) and I leave for Frankfurt so that I can catch my flight back to Saint Petersburg and be back on campus before class the next morning. Wrong. The autobahn was completely backed up due to construction to the point that even though we left base with the allotted amount of extra airport time, we didn’t get to the airport until 20 minutes before take-off. Needless to say, I didn’t get my flight. I was supposed to be flying with Rossiya Russian Airlines, direct flight from Frankfurt to Saint Petersburg. Well after much arguing with the attendants at the desk, which I was really lucky were even there to begin with, I found out (in a nutshell) that they were not flying back to Saint Petersburg until the Wednesday which was unacceptable. My other options were to fly back with Lufthansa for 1,100 Euros or book a flight with Aeroflot, which was the one Russian airline that I was trying to avoid. I exchanged some curt words with the desk attendant and then found a phone to call my director here on campus to let her know that I was stranded in Frankfurt and was most likely to return to Saint Petersburg the following morning. Then the guys and I had to burn a couple of hours of time because there wasn’t going to be anyone at the Aeroflot desk for the next couple of hours anyway. So we got lunch at the big McDonald’s which was located next to a huge satellite play area ball pit type thing. So lunch and a show watching dozens of children running around. When the time passed, we made our way down to the Aeroflot desk where I ended up having to buy 2 brand new airline tickets in order to get back to Saint Petersburg. One to Moscow, then one back to St. Pete’s. This return trip was way more expensive and annoying than it had to be. But oh, it gets better! After finally getting the tickets put into my hand, I find another payphone to call my director back and let her know my plans. I put my coins in… or not. The phone won’t take my money. So I scuffle with the payphone and exchange some choice vocabulary and out of frustration just hit the coin return button. And the coins don’t come out of coin return, oh no that would be too easy. Instead, they shoot back out of the slot I stuffed them into back AT MY FACE. At this point, my level of frustration was beyond measure and all I could do was laugh hysterically at myself just to keep from crying. I’m pretty sure that I live in a cartoon some days. I gave up on the payphone and figured that my director would get the idea. So I said my farewells and thank yous to the fellas and made my way through security. I was the only one going through security which meant they could pay all sorts of attention to me. As soon as my bags came through, the security lady grabbed by back and removed my precious jar of Jif peanut butter and proceeded to tell me in German that I wasn’t allowed to carry it onto the plane with me. I just stared at her and growled at her in German that I don’t speak German, so she repeated herself in English that I wasn’t allowed to have my peanut butter, but if I wanted to check my backpack that I could take it with me that way. Why would I check my backpack?! That would completely defeat the purpose of carry-on. I just told her to keep the peanut butter and walked away. Oh that was the icing on the top of the worst cake ever. So I wait for a few hours for my flight to Moscow, where I landed around midnight. The only good thing about this day was that landing over Moscow at midnight is probably one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen. Then I proceeded to camp out in front of the check-in desk for 6 hours during the night until I could go through security and get on my flight back to Saint Petersburg. Long story short, I averted all the creepy taxi drivers and got the bus to the metro, which I took back to campus, where I arrived at 9:50AM. Class starts at 10:00AM. I handed in my passport, and passed out in bed. Class was a waste of mine and the teacher’s time at this point. And thus concludes my semester break. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as long as I never have to repeat the return journey O_o

***And since this, I've had my regular classes and then another trip abroad to Finland and Estonia. Hopefully a post of my continuing exploits will be up in the near future. For real. Lots of love friends!

Adventures through Moscow

Hey readers, sorry for the horrendously long delay between posts! I will definitely try not to do that again. Between semester break and just getting back into the swing of things for the last half of the semester, sometimes it is hard to find the time to just sit and write about your experiences more than a quick jot in the notebook. So this post will also be ridiculously long. I wish you the best of luck if you decide to read through all of it :)

MOSCOW TRIP

Moscow quotes:

“Are you a foreigner?” (pertaining to a duck)
“Moscow is too sunny!”
“I’m making a beeline towards the impressionist goats.”

Oct. 9 – Saturday

So we arrived in Moscow, promptly at 8:00AM after an all night train from Saint Petersburg. I will have to say that as far as methods of transportation go, I am definitely a fan of overnight/sleeping car trains. Granted, it was a pretty cozy little cabin for four girls, but we all like each other which made the experience much more enjoyable. The only thing that I have to say I was not impressed with during our trip was the food on the train. Yes, airplane food can be so much worse. It was the blandest excuse for a meal I have ever had the option of eating. So just think next time you think the plane food is lousy… you could be eating train food.

So as I mentioned before, we arrived in the morning promptly at 8:00AM sharp. I love the absolute promptness of the Russian train system. We left at exactly 11:59PM as listed on our tickets and arrived at 8:00AM sharp. Impressive if I do say so myself.  It was a pleasantly crisp morning when we went out to the platform and met with our guide, Paul. He was probably the best tour guide that we have had yet on this trip. He spoke English well enough that we didn’t need to strain to hear his every word, and he started off our meeting by showing us his marker. You know how tour guides always have an umbrella or stick of sorts that you’re supposed to follow so that you don’t get lost, right? Well he was carrying what looked to be like a ski pole with a mitten tied to the top, which he told us was the “guiding mitten”. Starting any day being told to follow the guiding mitten is a good start to a day in my book! We were then taken to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant for breakfast. It reminded me a bit of a small diner, but full of Russians. Obviously. The best part was the breakfast which we were served… hot dogs and rotini! The Russians have such oddball breakfasts, but I love it. I don’t think that I could have thought of a more random combination for breakfast of my own accord. Also had a lovely cup of Ceylon tea (my new favorite) to go along with breakfast. (I’m pretty sure that I am slowly becoming a tea junkie during my travels… I’m drinking a cup as I’m typing this for you!)

After our breakfast, we were taken to the center of town for our first look at Red Square. I’m not really sure what I was expecting for Red Square, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. GUM was a monstrous department store on one side of the square, it is basically the equivalent of Harrold’s in London or KaDeWe in Berlin. Opposite that was Lenin’s mausoleum, which was less ostentatious than I was expecting, but that is ok with me. St. Basil’s Cathedral was really pretty, especially because of the position of the sun behind the church during the morning, and I got a few pretty nifty pictures thank to the lighting. It was mildly disappointing because I am used to seeing the Church Built on Spilled Blood in downtown Saint Petersburg, so St. Basil’s was a not quite so overpowering, but it was still really pretty nonetheless because although they have similar architectures, they are colored and built differently. St. Basil’s is actually nine churches within itself, which is impressive considering it’s not exactly a huge building. Maybe I will have to come back sometime and actually go inside.

Then we went to see the Church of Our Savior, which was a pretty huge church with an interesting history. I don’t know all the ins and outs of the thing, but I do know that during its lifetime, it was torn down by the Communists, turned into a swimming pool, and then rebuilt into an exact copy within 6 years (not all of that happened in 6 years, just the rebuilding process). Then from the bridge, Paul pointed out, what I like to call, the Pater Columbus monument. It is a huge (and I mean huge) monument celebrating the creation of the Russian navy with Peter the Great on a huge ship. Then you realize he is dressed in 15^th century (I believe) Spanish sailing garb… Apparently this monument was originally designed and built for the US as a monument for Christopher Columbus. However, after the completion of the monument, the US didn’t want it. So the designer of the monument happened to be close friends with the mayor of Moscow who decided to take the monument. So he just switched out the head of Christopher Columbus with that of Peter the Great, and tada! Russian naval monument. However, the current mayor of Moscow (the previous was sacked a few weeks ago) is not particularly fond of the guy who designed the monument… so I’m pretty sure that they are going to take the monument down in the near future and put it in Saint Petersburg instead. Which makes more sense to me personally, but whatever. So this is probably the only chance I would have ever had to see it in Moscow in the first place. Oh, the Russians are silly sometimes. 

Our next stop was a cemetery on our way to the Sparrow Hills. While we were there, we got to see the resting places of the founder of the Moscow circus, Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, and Nikita Khrushchev. Pretty cool stuff, although that was one crowded cemetery! We eventually made it to the overlook of the city from Sparrow Hills. It was a pretty cool view of the whole city. I was personally impressed that there was an overlook since there are basically no hills in the city. Russia is way too flat for me, it makes me miss all the mountains back home! Then we finally made it to our hotel after a long day of being tourists and not having any opportunity to shower after our train trip. We got to shower and relax before our last outing of the day (yeah, still talking about the first day!). What a wonderful two hours of relaxation.

After our recuperation and naps, we got to go to the circus! I don’t think I have been to a circus since I was like 3, so it was extra exciting to be going to the Moscow circus. Their circus even has a permanent building, no tents. It was definitely a fun evening and highly entertaining. Although I do retain mixed feelings about the animals in the show… Oh, and just to top off the evening, we had what are considered to be the best doughnuts in Russia. And they were definitely tasty! Great way to top off my evening. Thus concludes day one of my Moscow adventures!

Oct. 10 – Sunday

Day two started off with a tasty breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Man, I’m going to miss European breakfast when I come home. I don’t know how people want to eat piles of fried food when they wake up in the morning. I’m so much more partial to bread, cheese, fruit and yogurt in the mornings. But anyway. We then all got our first taste of the Moscow metro… that made me miss Saint Petersburg. Although I’m not particularly partial to the metro in the first place, the Saint Petersburg metro is far more favorable. The Moscow metro is about 18 times more complex and crowded. But we made it to our destination, which was Red Square again so that we could go to Lenin’s tomb. I pretty much expected the line to be something absurd and that we would be spending the better part of the morning just standing there to go inside, but we really only waited maybe 30 minutes because we got into line before the tomb was even opened to the public in the morning. When I finally had all my bags checked and I had been metal detected and patted down, etc. I made my way into, what I think to be a very poor designed entrance to the mausoleum. We come into an entrance way from the bright sun into a hall with stairs made completely of black granite. It’s a little less than easy to see where you are going and you have the constant fear that you will fall down a flight of stairs at any moment. There are also Russian guards posted at every corner that seem to float in and out of the shadows, which is extremely disorienting when you’re watching the floor and trying not to fall down the stairs and you look up to see a guard directly in front of you. What is even more frightening, is turning the corner and having a guard pop out of a shadow and grab your arm! Just a future note for anyone going to see Lenin… don’t have your hands in your pockets. NOT ALLOWED. Finally found Lenin, and it was a creepy experience. Its hard to believe that that was actually Lenin laying there. He looked more like a wax figurine than a real person. Honestly, it was kind of gross. But that’s just me. And that is my Lenin experience, haha.

The next segment of our day was spent on a tour of the Kremlin complex. Again, I wasn’t really sure what to be expecting, but it was pretty cool. Most people think of the Kremlin and imagine one building, but it is really a huge complex of lots of buildings, churches, walls etc. But I think my favorite part of that tour was getting to see the Tsar Bell and the Tsar Cannon. The largest bell and cannon in the world. And I’m pretty sure that neither of them have been used. A huge chunk of the Tsar Bell fell off of it, and just the chunk that fell off, is taller than I am. Then again, being taller than me isn’t a difficult task, but that’s another story. I also think that I heard somewhere that the Bell is so big that they have held Mass inside of it before. The Tsar Cannon has also never been fired, at least I think so. There is a legend pertaining to the Time of Troubles in Russian history that deals with the time of the False Dmitri’s (kind of along the lines of all the people claiming to be Anastasia). According to the legend, there was a guy from Poland who came to Russian claiming to be the lost Dmitri (known as False Dmitri II) and took power. However the Russian’s didn’t like his extremely un-Russian behavior and sentiments… so he was killed, displayed on Red Square for a while, then his body was burned, and then they stuffed his ashes into the Cannon and shot them back at Poland. This is probably one of my favorite stories from Russian history, whether it is completely true or not, haha!

After the completion of our Kremlin tour, we were given the rest of the day for our own explorations. Myself and a few friends decided to seek out the Tretyakov Gallery which was very strongly recommended to me by my Russian professor. We eventually found it and spent a few hours wandering its halls. I would say it compares to the Hermitage in that it is the equivalent in Russian art as the Hermitage is in Western art. I really enjoyed it, I think possibly more than the Hermitage or the State Russian Museum in terms of the art exhibitions. After that, we decided to just wander the city with the intention of finding a park full of old communist monuments that had been taken down and placed in this park for display and Gorky Park. It took a good chunk of the rest of the day, but we eventually found them, but we were so exhausted that we just took a quick look then tried to find a metro station to get back to the hotel. We returned to the hotel and took a good 30 min to an hour recovery then decided to go out and celebrate our last evening in Moscow. We bumped into more people from our group outside the hotel and we all made our way to the café across the street from the hotel, where we all just chatted, had some soup, a beer and good conversation. It was a good way to send off from our adventures in Moscow as most of us were leaving the next day for countries all over Europe for our semester breaks. I, myself, was bound for Germany!

And I think this should about cover it for my time in Moscow. The next installment of my adventures abroad will continue in my next post. Thanks for reading and I hope to get my next post up about Germany up very shortly as well as pictures which will probably be its own post :)

Comedy and Tragedy in Russia

Quotes of the Week:
Who flies yachts?!
Have you heard about the cats of the Hermitage?*
Emergency rave!
Oh, I thought you said you wanted a cup full of ducklings.
Thats why all the squirrels are here. Free nutlets!

*If you have, in fact, not heard about the cats of the Hermitage, I suggest you read this article.
Cats of the Hermitage




Lessons of the Week:
I'm lucky to be surrounded by history and political science majors, or my political science class would be far more difficult than it should be.
It is possible to blow one's nose in a leaf, although I don't recommend it.
Tape and post it notes can save your life (in a manner of speaking).
I am becoming a tea junkie.


Picture Chronicles:
So after when my adventures left off last post, I decided to explore the academic wing of IMOP. I was happy to discover the elusive location of the 5th floor library. However, my friend and I stood dumbly in front of the door for a solid 5 minutes trying to read the signs to make sure we were at the right place, and partially out of fear of the Russian librarian behind the door. We eventually worked up the nerve to go in and find a pleasantly small, but very quiet room full of books and study tables. To celebrate our success, a group of us banded together for a lovely dinner of BLT's. A small taste of home!

So begins the the pictoral account of this week's cultural excursion...

The above photo is the palace at Pavlovsk, which is located just outside of the St. Petersburg city limits. Catherine the Great had this palace built for her son, Paul, because she didn't like him very much and didn't really want to live with him. Or as our guide put it, "nobody loved him." The truth is rather unfortunate sometimes. It was a pretty palace however. I was not a huge fan of the gaudy and excessive amount of decor and attempts to impress on the main floor, but when we visited the residential floor of the palace, it was gorgeous. Sometimes its just better to not try and be impressive... 

As I was saying about not trying to be impressive, I didn't think there was going to be anywhere that would impress me more than the grounds of Peterhof, but Pavlovsk did because their grounds were designed in a way to look completely natural. But you would never know because it looks about as natural as could be. Plus, to top everything off, fall has officially arrived and the trees are turning. There are few things that make me happier than the trees in fall! 

The park is also known for its squirrel population, so there were squirrels bouncing out at random times during our trip. I did definitely get a kick out of the fact that at the same places where you could buy food, you could buy the above noted "nutlets" for the squirrel folk.

California is pondering fall. Silly southerners!

A pretty view of the river, trees and small stone bridge. And do you see all the pretty leaves? One of my company discovered that it is, in fact, possible to blow one's nose in a leaf... although it is not the most effective method. But it does create a very humorous situation for the rest of us!

How much more Russian can you get than a row of birch trees? Not much.

As for the tragedy mentioned in the title of this post, during our adventures through the park I managed to bust my glasses into disrepair. So it pays to not get run into by friends who equate to brick walls... but after a full afternoon and evening of fretting and sulking, I managed to MacGyver my glasses with tape and post it notes. I will now be able to see during my semester break!

Thus concludes this installment of my adventures. I shall be spending the rest of my afternoon grocery shopping, doing homework and probably laundry. Until next time dear readers... Всего хорошего!

Tomorrow it rained.

**I would like to first make a disclaimer saying that in my previous picture post with the “Aurora”… that is definitely NOT the Aurora. It’s just a pretty ship, while the Aurora is a big steel ship from the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. Silly me, good thing I have friends who know better than myself.

Quote of the day:

Мне нужно cookie! - Matt

Lesson of the day:

Russian cheesecake earns a C- 

‘Nuff said.

Picture(s) of the day:

On Saturday I decided that it was definitely time that I let my friends and readers see my new abode, so the following pictures are of my dorm/university building and my room.

The lighting sucks, but this is my room. 

It was too sunny for a picture, though sun seems like a silly thing to complain about.

This is from the common room of the suite. 

My room is on the right.

This is our lovely IMOP building.

Left wing dorms, right wing classrooms.

I also went on an adventure to the Russian IKEA on Saturday with a friend. Our mission was to purchase tea kettles as we have all picked up a tea habit! It was a long metro + shuttle ride to the MegaMall, but it was definitely worth the trip. The MegaMall is Saint Petersburg’s answer to the American mall, although the big department stores are not “department stores”, they are more akin to Wal*mart and home stores. IKEA is actually one these said dept stores! But that was fine because we achieved our goal and obtained our tea kettles.  And to top off a trip to the MegaMall, we enjoyed a tasty IKEA dinner of Swedish meatballs and a ridiculously tasty, creamy mushroom soup.

Sign for the Russian IKEA.

And if you were wondering, it is exactly the same. 

Just in Russian and Swedish.

A group of friends and I adventured down to Nevsky Prospect to visit the Kunstkamera (also known as the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography). It was the first museum in Russia! Peter the Great personally started this collection with an exhibit of “accidents of nature” in order to show the common people that birth defects are not the work of magic or superstitions. So needless to say, the original collection of the museum was very… interesting and not for the light-hearted. The rest of the museum, however, was cool for those who enjoy looking at the development of different civilizations.

Kunstkamera from the bridge.

After our museum excursion, we were feeling adventurous and decided to brave a Russian Chinese restaurant. That was an adventure and a half if I do say so myself. First off, it was a Chinese restaurant in downtown Saint Petersburg, Russia. And much to our delight we found that the waitress spoke not only Chinese and Russian, but also English! However, to our slight dismay, the menu was completely different. Not a single fried rice dish to be found :( Although reading the menu translated into Russian and English was like reading Engrish.com and highly amusing. I ended up ordering a dish called pork and fungus, assuming mushrooms… Oh there were mushrooms AND fungus, which I guess is technically also mushrooms, but definitely looked like funny tree fungus. Tasty enough, but I think I’ll wait til I get back to the States to satiate my Chinese food cravings.

This is just a picture I really liked of the Kazan Cathedral from Decembrist's Square.

This is the huge bronze monument to Peter I (the Great) in Decemberist's Square.

And yesterday and today have been spent enjoying milk and cookies with friends, doing homework and exchanging train tickets for rubles. I also acquired new suitemates from Finland :) Until next post…  Всего хорошего.

Picture(s) of the Day

Quote of the Day:
There is nothing going on but Eskimos up in Greenland. - Corey


Daily Chronicle:

Today was not an exceptional day. After class I had a tasty lunch of bread, cheese and a pleasantly tart apple, followed by a well deserved nap. Unfortunately, my alarm clock had to remind me that I had political science at 2:15 in the afternoon. During our discussion of the political transition periods of Russia and the Soviet Union, my professor told us to “trust Afghan heroin quality” because the stuff in Russia has more than likely been tampered with. I love random comments from professors because they can easily come out of left field. The rest of my afternoon was spent mozying around my room listening to new music, knitting, reading and cleaning off my camera card, which inspired the true reason for today’s post. I decided that I should put up some of the pictures that I have taken during my trip, even though I haven’t taken a whole bunch so far. Thus begins the “picture(s) of the day”…(please keep in mind that this is only SOME of my pictures)

CKA Saint Petersburg vs Dinamo Riga (Latvia)

We lost 4-5 =( 

But definitely a good game!

I believe this is the Aurora... and if I am correct, 

it is a fancy restaurant that I plan on going to at least once on this trip!

Peter and Paul Fortress

Smolney Cathedral

An almost perfect picture if it weren't for the tour bus. Aghh

The Winter Palace

Also home of the Hermitage Museum. 

This place is HUGE.

Peterhof (Russia's Versailles)

Peterhof in all its glory with the fountains going.

Absolutely in love with this place.

This is one of Peterhof's many ducks, which I quite enjoyed.

I particularly enjoy this picture because the ducks liked posing for me =D

Siege of Leningrad Tour

Huge memorial in the middle of the city. 

This is only part of it, and excluding the museum underground.

Millennium of Russia

Huge bronze monument in the Novgorod Kremlin. 

It shows all 4 parts of Russia's history. 

St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

One of Russia's most ancient Orthodox churches.

Russian orthodox churches are absolutely gorgeous inside.

Simply a very small and quaint little church down the street from the Novgorod Kremlin.

Wooden Churches

Actual wooden churches from peasant villages. 

The Russians were very crafty with wooden architecture!