Perhaps, I shall content myself with the knowledge that you are but a 5.5 hour train ride away. And try to remember that in the winter you are dark, grey, cold and rainy (much like Moscow) but also with a frigid wind off the shores!
We arrived on the evening of St. Petersburg's biggest party, Red Sails. It was like Mardi Gras without the great costumes, parades, floats or beads (so basically, really drunk people urinating everywhere and throwing beer bottles down, but in New Orleans they no longer allow glass on the streets). It was a zoo trying to get to where we were staying, but eventually we arrived unscathed. We set out to grab some food around 11 and enjoyed the day light.
The next day we headed off to Peterhof (also spelled Petergof). This is a 30 minute hydrofoil ride from St. Petersburg, a palace and series of gardens designed by Peter the Great. It was beautiful! So nice to be out in the country, surrounded by great fountains, all gravity fed! It was crowded, but the park is so big, it was easy to feel as though you were on your own. It was full of statues and fountains, two of my favorite things, especially as all the fountains are gravity fed!!
That evening we walked around endlessly trying to find a Korean restaurant that no longer exists (fuck you LP and Rick Steves) but ended up at another one right near where we were staying. No granted, at this point we'd been walking for 2 hours longer than anticipated and it's been almost 6 months since I last had Korean, but it was still really good.
One of the things to do in St.P is to go out and see the bridges raise so that the ships can pass under them in the twilight of white nights. However, the first bridge doesn't go up until 1:35, so you can guess who slept through that while EE went out. As such, the next day we had a leisurely morning (read, I worked on my summer course work and EE slept in), then we had a Greek lunch. We spent the afternoon strolling about. I met up with the drama teacher who also is head of Student Council with me and we did a little jig in front of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, also known as Spilt Blood as Alexander the II was assassinated there. The best thing about this church are the mosaics inside.
We also went to the Mariinsky Theater to see ballet. It was incredible. Very minimal backgrounds and a focus on the dancers. At most 6 on stage. Such good ballet, such a nice theater. Though, should you ever go, don't get seats on the 3rd level. We had a great view, but we were on a narrow, painfully hard bench and it was difficult to enjoy sitting there as good as the show was.
1 comment:
Did you get stuck in YOUR train compartment in the middle of the night TOO?!
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