| I'm BACK! Here's the recap... Day 13 - St. Petersburg This was the day devoted to Pushkin. We took the bus out to the suburb of Pushkin (aka Tsarskoe Selo, aka Tsar's Villiage, aka Detskii Selo, aka Children's Villiage... they love to change the names of things here) to visit the Catherine Palace and the Imperial Lycee. The sun was actually shining, which was a nice break from a LOT of gray. The Catherine Palace is sort of the Russian version of Versailles, and it lived up to it's billing. I don't think "opulent" even begins to cover the sheer orgy of opulance that this place exuded. Of course it was in pretty rough shape after WWII, and has been undergoing extensive restoration, but the restoration is nearly complete, so we were able to get a very good sense of it's former glory. 
Catherine Palace
Palace Interior
Desk detail
Interior Ceiling
Restoration in Progress
Dining Room
The Imperial Lycee is the school next door, attended by the sons of noblemen, and most notoriously by the Poet Pushkin, whose room has been preserved in it's original state. The school was quite interesting, and actually seemed quite progressive in terms of it's philosopy. We had lunch at a weird little restaurant, and stopped by the adorable Chesme Church (built in 1777-80) on our way back into Petersburg. 
Chesme Church
In the afternoon, we went to the Pushkin aparment museum, which was a bit of a disappointment, really. It was the apartment he lived in when he died in his famous duel, but he hadn't live there very long, and they hadn't preserved all that many of his effects. Most of the museum was focused on the duel, and not much about his life and work. It felt a bit like a bad star tour, or a less interesting version of graceland. Of course, at graceland they don't show you the bathroom where elvis died, while at this museum the couch where Pushkin died was the star attraction, along with his death mask and a lock of his hair. Kinda creepy, really. 
Just happened Across these folks posing for Wedding Photos by the Moika River
The Moika River
Street Scene
Looking back to the half-size entry door from the courtyard at Moika 12
Pushkin in his courtyard
Day 14 - St. Petersburg In the morning we went to the Russian Museum, where they have a nice collection of Russian art, including some very interesting folk art. when we were done, Mom and I struck out on our own and headed down to Nevsky Prospect to bum around for a few hours until dinner. We had lunch at a little restaurant and checked out some stores, and stopped in quickly at the Fountain House to check out the poet Anna Akhmatova's famous apartment. Her apartment-museum was a bit better done than Pushkin's, and actually held a bit more interest for me since her life and work were so thouroughly wrapped up in her sense of place. 
Street Scene
Street Scene
We needed to meet up with our group for our beig farewll dinner at 6:30, so we decided to walk up the Nevsky Porspect and across the Neva to get there. It wasn't too bad for me, but my mom was pretty wiped by the time we got there. We had gotten some other transportation suggestions, of course, but all of them had some serious pitfalls. I would have been fine with the Metro, but unfortunately there wasn't a stop near our destination. The city bus would have been my next choice, but they ran far too infreqently to have any hope of catching one. A Taxi might have worked, but it was suggested to us that the safest way to catch one was in front of one of the fancy hotels, where they would then charge an arm and a leg for the service. This still left the route taxis, which are like small city busses that you flag down and get a ride from. This sounded okay to me, but a wee bit tricky and a tad intimidating because the locals had a nickname for them that was something along the lines of "death taxi" apparently they are really crowded and driven by underpaid guys who drive all day on almost no sleep. The last option was hitchhiking, which is common with the locals, but right out as far as I'm concerned. Basically, you flag down someone going your direction and negotiate a price on the spot. I think this falls in the category of "advanced" travel skills, and a bit out of my league. I figured it was easiest just to walk it. So, when we got to the restaurant, we had a lovely dinner, with all the trimmings... blini, vodka, caviar, etc. We performed a couple of songs that my mom had written for the occasion - mainly Russian folk songs with new english lyrics detailing the high and low points of the trip. We also presented our fearless group leader with a homemade icon of himself, drawn by a group member with some artisitc talent. Anyway, it was a fantastic time, and a lovely restaurant (called Ruskiii Kitsch) and we all went back to the hotel in high spirits. Day 15 - St. Petersburg / London So it was finally time to leave. We had breakfast at the hotel, stopped at the cheesy supermarket across the street for some last minute vodka and souvenirs, packed our bags, and then found our driver to take us to the airport. The driver wasn't a taxi, just some dude with a mazda who drove like a bat out of hell but got us to the airport in one piece. The international airport (they have a seperate one for domestic flights) was really tiny and really weird. The wouldn't let you in the front door of the terminal without running you and your bags through a metal detector, and then once you were in, you pretty much had to go straight through security again. I must look very suspicious, because I was immediately dragged off by a toothless security guy to a metal table where he instructed me to open my bag and asked me a lot of questions about how much I enjoyed my visit and so on. Once he opened my bag, however, and saw how tightly packed it was, he balked, said "Nevermind... I trust you!" and sent me on my way. We checked in, had some lunch in the airport and flew to London without further incident. Once in london, we decided to forgo any special plans and just went to the airport to take it easy. Day 16 - London / Seattle Got up, went back to Heathrow, and continued on our journey. Of course, at heathrow, I was "randomly" searched once again, and had to submit to a full body x-ray and pat down. The flight was fine - we flew over the pole by daylight, so we got to see the giant sheets of ice and other cool stuff like that. We arrived in Seattle in the late afternoon, where I was once again hassled by security and customs several times and had to have my bags exrayed yet again bys customs. They finally let me in though, and my family was waiting for me, and it was lovely. I was SO happy to see my kiddos after so long. So here I am. I have some serous jet lag, and my kids (especially Z) are extremely clingy, but doing okay. Dh did a great job with them, so they fared pretty well. Dh didn't cut Z's hair, but he didn't brush it much either, so one of my first orders of business was to give it a good brushing and get all the knots out of it. Yowza. I'm going to be pretty busy this week - I have piles of mail to sort through and stuff like that. Dh has a buyer lined up for his Mini Cooper, so we're going to be saying goodbye to the cutie-pie car this afternoon, but hello to a big pile of cash, so that should offset some of the costs of my trip and make paying the bills a little more pleasant. Anyway, I'm going to go through my pictures and add them to my previous posts when time allows. |
