Grand St. Petersburg

7-30 After I had finished writing in my blog on this day, around midnight and was getting ready for bed, somehow my new Korean friend, Min, convinced me to go watch the draw bridges raise. I wasn't too thrilled about going seeing as they raised at 1:30 am and it was a 3km walk to get there, but he convinced me, so I went. As I had suspected, the raising of the 3 draw bridges was not that spectacular. Draw bridges seem to be common back home and were not a tourist site as opposed to more of an annoyance when you are trying to get to the dock to catch your ferry going for your internship for the summer on island off of maine and you run into 2 draw bridges up in a row. But what was nice was walking down the main blvd at night, seeing all the fancy people out for clubs and then the huge armada of tourist boats full of russian tourists on the river there to watch the bridges rise. The river was chalk full of boats, and they would race from one bridge to the next as they raised. That was pretty entertaining to watch.

7-31. Today was a day of walking and exploring st. petersburg. I woke up early around 7am and walked around until about 9pm with just a quick break to grab a pancake snack and one to try this unusual russian beverage. You could buy it in funky glass containers, or in a plastic cup for 1 dollar that came from a keg. I thought it would be beer, but it most definitely wasn't. Not really sure what it tasted like, nor whether I liked the taste or not. It was strange tasting.

So I walked around st. pete's grand avenues along its canals and through its big parks. The buildings in the main center of st. petersburg are all quite fancy. I visited such sights as the Hermitage, church of the spilled blood (a crazy multi colored domed church), st. Isaac's cathedral, catherine square, aleksandriinsky theatre, mikhaylovskiy palace, holy trinity cathedral, engineer's castle, birzhevaya plaza, peter and paul's fortress, and of course several spots along the Neva river. I visited inside the Hermitage which was a fancy residence of some of the old tsars and now houses some famous art. I don't really like museums, but this one is supposedly quite famous and I guess when you are in Europe you must visit at least one museum. It is free to visit for students, but 16 bucks for adults. I wasn't going to go if I had to pay the full price as I figured there would be cooler things (like rafting in nepal) to spend that money on later, but the old trusty no date albertson college ID got me in for free. The museum was quite nice with how fancy all the russian tsar rooms were decorated. It wasn't quite as nice or comprehensive as the Louvre, but it did have have artwork from the typical suspects: Matice, Monet, Picasso, Pissaro, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Degas, Rousseau, Raael, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, and Renoir. Monet is always my favorite.

An interesting thing is that when I was out in the morning, many russians were out drinking beer. Min told me that maybe russians drink so much beer and at all times of the day is bc it is cheaper than water.

In the evening I went to board my first Russian train. Min went with me bc he knows pretty good russian (he is studying abroad here and is on summer holiday now). I am glad he went bc since it was late, one of the ticket offices was closed, so we had to ask to find another and then exchanging my internet voucher for the ticket was quite complex. Then of course finding the right platform (when everything is in russian) was also difficult. But we managed to do it all and I got on the train. I was booked in 3rd class, the lowest class, but they still have little bunks. They manage to squeeze 6 bunks, 2 small tables, and an aisle in an area that is about 5.5ft by 9 ft. The beds are funny bc they are quite short and narrow. They are about 5.5 ft, so my feet dangle off into the aisle. Since the train only comes equipped with heat and not ac it was quite warm, but I was tired so it was quite easy to fall asleep. The guy on the bunk below me was Russian and actually spoke very good english. When I asked him what he does for a living, he said two things: his job is as a programmer and his hobby is a zoologist. He got a degree in zoology, but he said that in russia there is no funding for the sciences and science is looked down upon (except for perhaps nuclear physics!) Each car also has a spot to get boiling water, which I didn't use, but will take advantage of on my 3 day trips when I will want to make blueberry soup I brought from sweden and instant noodles. They also have little toilets that, after you figure out how to flush them (it took me several minutes as everything was in russian, but eventually found a hidden spot to step on), releases the contents onto the track. Arrived into moscow early this morning with no issues and found my hostel and figured out the metro quite easily thanks to all the help from the mathemtician that was the father of the gal i met on the ship.