I survived Russia - Part 3
Ok, sorry for taking my time getting around to this but I've been busy shivering lately.
Day 4 of our road trip started as usual with stale bread and bad coffee, (though I must admit they did have nice green tea...well, nice green tea bags), and then it was back onto the trusty bus to head to Pushkin to visit Catherine's Palace. We had our guide again travelling with us, and she used every last moment driving there to tell us more about the city and its landmarks, getting us to whip our heads back and forth to look at the monuments she was discussing.
Pushkin (a suburb out of the city) was actually behind the enemy line during WW2, and so Catherine's palace was looted and badly destroyed. It has been reconstructed though, and looks quite impressive today.After getting into the palace, we had to put little booties over our shoes, to protect the floors I assume. They did little to protect us however, as it made walking on the polished floors quite hazardous to our collective health. It was very slippery, and one person managed to slip down some stairs. I think that Russia is hardly a place to sue anyone for falling and hurting yourself however, given the state of many of the footpaths of St Petersburg.
We split up into two groups, and as there were so many German speakers in our party, one group had a tour in German while the rest of us had it is English. The palace was full of gilded surfaces, but the most impressive room was the famous Amber Room. This room has an interesting history, as its whereabouts were a mystery following its looting by the Nazis. Exactly where those pesky Nazis hid it is still unknown, though there are many theories flying about. The Amber Room that we saw was a reconstruction, but impressive nonetheless. It was also (of course) the only place within the palace that we were not allowed to take photos. The following is a picture that I found on the net.
One of my favourite things in the palace was a pair of cupid statues, one of which is shown below. The first is placed on the west side of the building (where the sun sets), and shows cupid sleeping, while the cupid on the east is waking up.
After checking out the gift shops inside the palace, we then headed out to the market stalls to try and find some bargains before getting back onto the bus. On the trip back into St Petersburg our guide pointed out a woman whose heel had come off her shoe while crossing the road. I hope that if that ever happens to me there won't be a busload of people watching me.
Back in St Petersburg we were dropped off near St Isaacs Cathedral to head into the centre and do some more shopping. After having some lunch, we checked out a Russian supermarket, and I was amazed at the prices. The range was quite limited, but you could feed a small country for about $5. It was incredibly cheap. You could buy a bottle of vodka for around $3. We then headed off to Nevsky Prospect, the main shopping road in St Petersburg, but as we walked past more supermarkets, and saw no foreigners anywhere, we thought perhaps that we were not walking in the right direction. After a bit of investigation (there was a handy map on the back of our hotel guest card) we got there in the end and spent some more rubles on souvenirs.
Speaking of the hotel guest card, we were expecting to be stopped in the street and asked for our papers by police at every turn, and weren't stopped once. When you get into Russia, you actually hand your passport over to your hotel, and they give you a hotel guest card which you must keep on you at all times to show to police if they ask you. We were given the impression that this would be a common occurence and were quite disappointed to not be stopped by a man in a furry hat.
The evening of day 4 was spent at the Nikolayevski Palace, enjoying Russian folk singing and dancing, which included Cossack dancing.
The final act, shown above was two Russian 'people', who embraced all over the stage, before falling off the stage and writhing all over the people in the front row. It got quite, uh, lewd, and was very funny, particularly as we were nowhere near the front row. This went on for some time, before the man inside the costume stood up to show us that it was only one person inside. He looked very hot and sweaty, so I guess you wouldn't want to share the costume with someone else anyway.
Day 5 was our last day in St Petersburg, and we had to get up early to have our breaky and get on the bus with enough time to get to Turku for our ferry. The trip was fairly uneventful.
We spent the bulk of the night of the ferry trip again in the 'Fun Club', and this time there was some sort of dance contest. We could only watch on in amazement (mixed with horror) at the couples in their 70s who were getting down and dirty on the dancefloor. One woman actually wrapped her legs around her partner and was leaning backwards while he clung to her, looking quite pleased with himself. They really wanted to win, and I think they did. The prize was probably a free shandy. We amused ourselves by playing cards.
I had a much more pleasant journey this time, due primarily to not sharing a cabin with people who came home at 5am, then had showers and washed their hair, all the while talking and laughing (though very considerately saying "shhh" to each other every now and then).
We were all very tired getting off the ferry and I spent much of the bus trip back to Uppsala sleeping. Getting back at Flogsta, I was totally exhausted, and looking forward so much to having a shower in clean water. As I staggered up to my building, I bumped into one of the girls from the trip out going for a run!
Well my trip to Russia was certainly an adventure! I'm so glad that I went, and really enjoyed myself, even with the fart water and urine blankets. I'm also glad that we went when we did, as there are some girls from my corridor in Russia at the moment on a similar trip, and apparently they had a blizzard when they were in St Petersburg. They get back tomorrow so I can get more goss from them then. Well, once they've had showers and naps.
It's been snowing in Uppsala, finally, but still hasn't gotten bitterly cold. Sure, I've had to start wearing my thermal pants under my jeans, but I haven't been in fear of any body parts (including my hair) snapping off. Such fun is yet to come, as everyone keeps telling me with a gleam in their eye. At least the council has put down small stones on the roads and footpaths now to prevent slipping. I've seen two people come off their bikes already, and hope that I don't do the same. I've been turning corners at rediculously low speeds to try and prevent this from happening. I really must stop listening to the weather on the ABC news as the Perth temperature has been making me sign with longing lately. Oh well, I'll get to ski soon I hope!
We split up into two groups, and as there were so many German speakers in our party, one group had a tour in German while the rest of us had it is English. The palace was full of gilded surfaces, but the most impressive room was the famous Amber Room. This room has an interesting history, as its whereabouts were a mystery following its looting by the Nazis. Exactly where those pesky Nazis hid it is still unknown, though there are many theories flying about. The Amber Room that we saw was a reconstruction, but impressive nonetheless. It was also (of course) the only place within the palace that we were not allowed to take photos. The following is a picture that I found on the net.One of my favourite things in the palace was a pair of cupid statues, one of which is shown below. The first is placed on the west side of the building (where the sun sets), and shows cupid sleeping, while the cupid on the east is waking up.
After checking out the gift shops inside the palace, we then headed out to the market stalls to try and find some bargains before getting back onto the bus. On the trip back into St Petersburg our guide pointed out a woman whose heel had come off her shoe while crossing the road. I hope that if that ever happens to me there won't be a busload of people watching me.Back in St Petersburg we were dropped off near St Isaacs Cathedral to head into the centre and do some more shopping. After having some lunch, we checked out a Russian supermarket, and I was amazed at the prices. The range was quite limited, but you could feed a small country for about $5. It was incredibly cheap. You could buy a bottle of vodka for around $3. We then headed off to Nevsky Prospect, the main shopping road in St Petersburg, but as we walked past more supermarkets, and saw no foreigners anywhere, we thought perhaps that we were not walking in the right direction. After a bit of investigation (there was a handy map on the back of our hotel guest card) we got there in the end and spent some more rubles on souvenirs.
Speaking of the hotel guest card, we were expecting to be stopped in the street and asked for our papers by police at every turn, and weren't stopped once. When you get into Russia, you actually hand your passport over to your hotel, and they give you a hotel guest card which you must keep on you at all times to show to police if they ask you. We were given the impression that this would be a common occurence and were quite disappointed to not be stopped by a man in a furry hat.
The evening of day 4 was spent at the Nikolayevski Palace, enjoying Russian folk singing and dancing, which included Cossack dancing.
The final act, shown above was two Russian 'people', who embraced all over the stage, before falling off the stage and writhing all over the people in the front row. It got quite, uh, lewd, and was very funny, particularly as we were nowhere near the front row. This went on for some time, before the man inside the costume stood up to show us that it was only one person inside. He looked very hot and sweaty, so I guess you wouldn't want to share the costume with someone else anyway.Day 5 was our last day in St Petersburg, and we had to get up early to have our breaky and get on the bus with enough time to get to Turku for our ferry. The trip was fairly uneventful.
We spent the bulk of the night of the ferry trip again in the 'Fun Club', and this time there was some sort of dance contest. We could only watch on in amazement (mixed with horror) at the couples in their 70s who were getting down and dirty on the dancefloor. One woman actually wrapped her legs around her partner and was leaning backwards while he clung to her, looking quite pleased with himself. They really wanted to win, and I think they did. The prize was probably a free shandy. We amused ourselves by playing cards.
I had a much more pleasant journey this time, due primarily to not sharing a cabin with people who came home at 5am, then had showers and washed their hair, all the while talking and laughing (though very considerately saying "shhh" to each other every now and then).We were all very tired getting off the ferry and I spent much of the bus trip back to Uppsala sleeping. Getting back at Flogsta, I was totally exhausted, and looking forward so much to having a shower in clean water. As I staggered up to my building, I bumped into one of the girls from the trip out going for a run!
Well my trip to Russia was certainly an adventure! I'm so glad that I went, and really enjoyed myself, even with the fart water and urine blankets. I'm also glad that we went when we did, as there are some girls from my corridor in Russia at the moment on a similar trip, and apparently they had a blizzard when they were in St Petersburg. They get back tomorrow so I can get more goss from them then. Well, once they've had showers and naps.
It's been snowing in Uppsala, finally, but still hasn't gotten bitterly cold. Sure, I've had to start wearing my thermal pants under my jeans, but I haven't been in fear of any body parts (including my hair) snapping off. Such fun is yet to come, as everyone keeps telling me with a gleam in their eye. At least the council has put down small stones on the roads and footpaths now to prevent slipping. I've seen two people come off their bikes already, and hope that I don't do the same. I've been turning corners at rediculously low speeds to try and prevent this from happening. I really must stop listening to the weather on the ABC news as the Perth temperature has been making me sign with longing lately. Oh well, I'll get to ski soon I hope!
posted by Conor @ HoldtheBeef @ 1:56 pm
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