Russia - The Road to St. Pete's

We shared a compartment on the train to St. Pete's with two Russian gentlemen, Andrei and Sergei. They were in Moscow for a business trip and were returning home to St. Petersburg. Andrei spoke reasonably good english and served us our first caviar (and last for me) of the trip. I'm not sure I understand what people see in eating salty, fishy smelling, fish eggs. I took one bite and gave mine to Jenny. Although she ate the bread with butter and caviar on top, even she said she would have preferred to just have the bread and butter. From what Andrei and Sergei told us, the tradition on the train is to drink lots of beer and smoke. We passed on the beer and cigarettes and opted for sleep instead.

We arrived in St. Petersburg unshowered and sticky at about 8:00 in the morning and took a taxi to the hotel in hopes of checking in early, showering and napping before heading into town for sightseeing. Although, our hopes of getting a room so early were dashed, we did get some coffee. After resting in the lobby, sipping coffee for a while, we headed into town to attempt to buy train tickets for the return trip to Moscow at the central train ticket office. We waited in a non-moving line (this seems to be the trend for most ticket lines in Russia) for a while before we realized that we didn't have enough money to purchase a ticket anyway. At least we killed time until the Hermitage opened.

It is hard to describe the Hermitage properly. It is more than a museum really. It would have been worth the price of admission even if there was not a single painting hanging on the wallls.

After wandering the rooms of the Hermitage for hours, even looking at a painting or two, we headed out in search of food. We stopped at the first reasonable looking cafe we found. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to have a waiter for the non-smoking section so after about 30 minutes of being told to wait, we decided not to wait any longer and went in search of a new place. The service at the next cafe was not that much better, but at least we got the attention of a waitress eventually and were able to order some food.

Finally we headed back to the hotel for a shower, but decided to stop and climb to the top of the colonnade at St. Isaac's Cathedral first. We were already sweaty and sticky from our night on the train and day in St. Pete's so it seemed like a perfect time to climb 262 steps. The view from the top was nice, but our desire to shower was greater, so after a few pictures, we headed back down the spiral staircase and headed to the hotel.

Russia - Last Days in Moscow... for now

Sunday was Easter here in Russia. To celebrate we decided to head to the Novodevichy Convent and Cemetary. After spending the morning looking at the graves of unknown, but rich, Russians, we headed back to the main part of town and went on the literary walking tour recommended by the Lonely Planet. If you ever decide to go to Moscow, I don't think I would recommend it. It's not that it was bad, but how many statues and homes of Pushkin do you really need to see?

On Monday, our last day in Moscow before heading to St. Petersburg, we were at a loss of what to do. We started with checking out the Diamond Fund at the Kremlin. It is a very dark room full of angry looking guards, gold, diamonds, and other precious jewels. Apparently, the Russians take their jewelry very seriously because some kid turned to yell at Jenny when she laughed at some joke I made about Catherine the Greats coronation crown.

Next we walked along Arbat Street. This was sort of like 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica. Closed off to cars, it was a mix of souvenier shops, cafes and American fast food joints. It was here that we saw our first Starbucks. I was starting to worry that Starbucks still hadn't made its dent into Russia.

We still had a few hours to kill before our night train to St. Pete's so we went in search of the american movie theater at the Radison hotel. Unfortunately, this closed (no one at the hotel seemed to know it ever existed). So instead we sat in the lobby and rested for about an hour and then took the metro back to the Kremlin to see a perfomance of Swan Lake. We had to take off before the ballet ended, but I'm confident the prince found his swan princess at the end.

Russia - Top Ten Lessons Learned on the Moscow Metro

A la David Letterman I thought I'd share some things that Jenny and I learned by taking the Moscow Metro.

10. Escalator arm rails move at a faster pace than the escalator itself.
9. Riding escalators backwards to talk to your friends or make out with your girlfriend/boyfriend is common and socially acceptable.
8. Operable windows are allowed in underground trains. I've never seen this so I just assumed that this was a bad idea, but apparently they are a good (and perhaps only) source of ventilation on trains.
7. Befriend a Russian before attempting to purchase metro tickets.
6. The center of the earth is much cooler that we were taught in elementary school.
5. It is easy to get lost inside the station so look for the big escalators (works 90% of the time).
4. Metro stations are a good place to pick up essentials, such as swords, keys, and underwear.
3. Signs in the metro stations are color coded to match the maps. This significantly reduces the time needed to find the right train.
2. Just look for the first three characters of the next station on your route to determine the direction you want to head. This is much faster than looking for your destination station.
1. And the most important lesson... Never take the metro during rush hour. I cannot stress this enough. Just don't do it.

Russia - Hot Chocolate... Pudding?

It is our third day in Moscow and we found out where Russians eat (or at least could if they wanted) breakfast. I ordered a cup of tea and a muffin and Jenny got hot chocolate and a croissant. Everything seemed normal enough when they brought the food and drinks to our table, except there was a weird chocolate topping on Jenny's cup of hot chocolate. We figured they topped hot chocolate with chocolate instead of whipped cream in Russia. Except upon further inspection, the chocolate topping went all the way to the bottom of the cup. I guess hot chocolate in Russia is actually warm chocolate pudding. I guess that is why they brought Jenny a glass of water with her breakfast.

After breakfast we returned to the Red Square, this time to take a peak in the Lenin Mausoleum. While in line we were able to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Two guards marched in, in a very CanCan-esque way, faced off with the two on duty and then switched spots. We watched the two departing soldiers dance, I mean march their way back across the park. We finally made it to the front of the line to see Lenin. After waiting in the bright sunlight for about an hour, the mausoleum was very dark. We had to navigate a dark maze with the help of appropriately placed guards before we rounded the last corner and saw Lenin himself. He was very waxy and looked like a display in Madame Tousard's Wax Museum. We stopped to take a better look, but were quickly rushed on by angry looking guards.

After the Mausoleum we headed off to the Tretyakov Gallery (lots of portraits of unknown (to me) Russians), Gorky Park (New York's Central Park meets the Santa Cruz Boardwalk), the Peter the Great Monument (gawky monument of Peter on a pirate ship) and to the Christ the Savior Cathedral (ornate, modern Cathedral) before returning to the hotel for a well deserved sleep.

Russia - Don't Take the Metro at Rush Hour

We woke up this morning bright and early ready to check out Moscow and everything it had to offer. Now that we had our metro tickets and new roughly how to get to the Red Square, we headed off. I remember reading in the Lonely Planet that taking the metro during rush hour was not recommended, however we had no idea how bad an idea this was. We barely made it through the doors but had nothing to hold on to. Turns out, handrails aren't that important at rush hour because we were packed so tight that there was no where to fall. The worst part was the rush of people getting off and on at each station... I was sure that one of us was going to get pushed out and we would be split up.

Fortunately, we made it in one piece to our station. We decided to try a new route to the Red Square today, which was another bad idea. This time, instead of following onion domes to our destination, we followed the people. Too bad they didn't work at the Kremlin because they did not lead us to the Red Square.

Once we did finally make it to the Red Square we went in search of breakfast and more importantly, coffee. Turns out Russians like to eat at home. We finally found a 24 hour cafe. No one there spoke english but we somehow managed to order a cup of coffee. Except it was espresso, but not. Espresso was on the menu so we tried something else that we hoped was just coffee. It was strong and bitter, but at least it was chalk full of caffeine.

We found a bakery nearby for a little sustanance before heading to the Kremlin. We bought our tickets for the Armory and headed right in. The Armory was actually used to build arms and had a large amount of armory and weapons on display. This was not mentioned in either of our tour books, they preferred to describe the jewels and fabrege eggs on display.

Apparently during the time that we were in the Armory, the tour buses must have arrived because it took another hour to buy our tickets and enter the Kremlin. The Kremlin is made up of a number of office buildings surrounding 6 or 7 magnificent onion-domed cathedrals. Are tickets granted us entry into a few of them. The Archangle Cathedral was filled to the brim with coffins. Our tour through it was accompanied by the singing of a small choir. The music made for a perfect soundtrack to our tour, but it was a bit strange to see the women dressed in very propper Orthodox clothing but wearing leopard print scraves on their heads.

We spend the rest of the day meandering through the Kremlin, Red Square and adjacent area.

Russia - 1st Day in Moscow

Well, we arrived in Moscow at 10:00 AM with big plans to make use of the day. However, the kids sitting in the rows around us had other plans. They proceeded to spend the entire time on the airplane kicking and grabbing our seats, yelling, laughing and screaming. It did not make for good sleeping. As a result, by the time we checked in to our hotel room, neither Jenny nor I had the energy to do anything but sleep.

Around 6:00 PM we roused from our naps and decided to find our way to the Red Square. Turns out, not a whole lot of people know how to speak english here in Russia... After attempting on our own to purchase Metro tickets and failing big time, we sought the help of a friendly english-speaking Russian. It took a few tries before a woman took pity on us and helped us, but not without laughing at us for trying to get by without knowing any Russian.

Once we bought our tickets and figured out how to use them, we descended the longest, steepest escalator into the center of the earth where the trains are located. Apparently the metro was designed to double as a bomb shelter which is supposed to explain the depth. It took us a few minutes to match the Cyrillic characters on the signs to those on the map to determine which train and direction we were looking for. Once on the train, we needed to pay special attention to how many stops we made to figure out when to get off because there was know way we were going to be able to match the announcement to the names of the stops since we did not know what they sounded like.

Once we got off the metro, finding the Red Square was another adventure. Everytime we saw a building with an onion dome, we headed toward it. Unfortunately every other building seemed to have one. But finally we saw a multi-colored, Disneyland-esque dome and knew we were finally heading the right direction. We finally made it! After taking a significant number of pictures (I hope to post some soon) we went in search of food. The first few places we saw, TGI Fridays, McDonnalds, and Sbarro's were out of the question, but we eventually found a food court where we managed to point and smile our way to an interesting dinner of oily potato with stroganov (me) or stew (jenny) on top. Then it was back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

Russia - Why Russia?

It is just under 12 hours before I board the plane for my Russian Adventure and I thought it was time to introduce you all to my blog. On past trips I sent out email updates describing a little of my experiences so that you could get a sense of what the country is like and, more importantly, so I could rub in the fact that I'm on vacation and you're not.

So now as I get ready to head off I thought I'd answer a few questions that I've been hearing a lot lately.

Q1. Are you excited?

A. Yes, excited and nervous. I booked the trip so long ago that I thought I'd have plenty of time to plan out what I wanted to do. Now that the day has arrived, I better hurry up with the planning.

Q2. Are you packed?

A. Not yet. I am definitely my parent's child when it comes to this. When I was growing up my mom decided to read a self-help book on procrastination and I'm fairly certain that the book mark is somewhere in chapter 4. What she did learn in those first 3 1/2 chapters is that the people that are most likely to procrastinate are perfectionists. So I like to think that I'm not procrastinating by sitting at my desk setting up and writing this blog instead of packing, I'm just waiting until I can be sure I pack perfectly.

Q3. Of all the places to go, why Russia?

A. Well... why not? Here are a few more reasons.

1. My cousin Jason lived in St. Petersburg for a while and since he is my only older cousin, and therefore my wisest cousin, I should go see what the fuss is about.
2. My brother Patrick forced me to listen to the Beatles non-stop from 1987 to 1990 and the song "Back in the U.S.S.R" was a regular on the playlist.
3. I really liked the animated movie Anastasia about Anastasia Romanov as the lone survivor of the assasinated Romanov family as told in the musical Disney format and wanted to see if any modern day Russians look anything like the drawing of Rasputin.
4. I was able to get a free flight using my Delta frequent flyer miles.
5. According to facebook I've traveled to about 10% of the world and I wanted to see if I could double it with just one trip.

I will attempt to update this blog every couple of days and hope you will take a look and send me your comments. Now, I better go pack.