So I’m going to go back and try to fill in the blanks/holes/novels worth of stuff that happened that I didn’t have time to write about in amazing Novosibirsk basement internet cafe.
Right now I am sitting in Sonya’s cozy little room on the 7th floor of a stately and majestic apartment building in Irkutsk. Yes. We made it.
So we were in Helsinki with Laurel from January 3-7. Finland is a very orderly place. There is not garbage on the streets. All of the people walk around saying “Hey” to each other because “Hey” means “Hello.” But it is a very short and abrupt “Hey” and it is very strange when there are grandmothers in the grocery store saying “Hey” to each other. Also we got really good at saying “Hey” and so the people at the grocery store would speak to us in Finnish and not English.
Speaking of English, everyone in Finland seems to speak English. I guess if your language only allowed you to communicate with 6 million people, it might be useful to know a second language.
Enough about orderly, stately, and majestic Finland. Back to Russia.
We took an 8 hr. train from Helsinki to Piter. The train was full of Russians rejoicing about the beauty of the motherland once we crossed the border. Then there was a small russian boy who refused to praise the motherland because he was too busy shooting people with the toy pistol and telling everyone that he wanted to eat a sandwich. He was pretty awesome.
Arrival in Saint Petersburg at approximately 2 p.m. Only 23 hours until our train leaves for Moscow! So we walked around for a long time and, actually I don’t really remember what we did. We went to McDonalds and I ate a BigMac. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Later when I was dying of meat poisoning or something, it didn’t seem like such a great idea. So then we bought tickets for the night tour which began at 11:15 and ended at 5:30 a.m. So it’s sort of like a hotel except somehow a narration of St. Petersburg will occur for five hours. Oh man. This was complete misery. Maybe if I hadn’t been completely exhausted and freezing cold the whole time, it would have been enjoyable. But I was cold and sort of drifted in and out of crappy sleep for five hours. The first hour was good. Susanna and I had just eaten blini and drank tea and I had bought chocolate and ice cream. So we were pretty awake. Oh yes. That building IS quite interesting. The tour guide was a little too over the top. Sort of like an auctioneer person who just talks way way way too fast. And on the left...and on the right...and on the left...Pushkin...Pushkin....on the left....Leningrad Blockade...on the right....on the left...Pushkin...etc. Exhausting. Every once in a while she would begin reciting poetry. In a very strange, deep, eerie voice. It was so out of control.
At some point, Susanna and I stopped exiting the bus when it would stop for picture taking opportunities and just slept. Except I would still wake up every once in a while, completely shivering (half of this was due to actual cold, half due to BigMac meat poisoning). Whenever I woke up, we were in the same exact stop we had been in last time. At least that’s what it seemed like. Or else maybe all of the damn buildings and canals look the same at 4 a.m. Also there was a cafe stop at 2 a.m. Susanna took a picture of me drinking my chai. I look like I am about to die. Very flattering. Some of the other tour bus rider people went not for chai, but shots of vodka. We were on the bus for a really long time. The tour guide was CRAZY. Then the tour ended at 5:30 in the morning.
Metro opens at 6. Train leaves at 13:00. Only like 7 hours left. We decided our bar/cafe hopping which we had done the night before before the tour began could not continue. First of all, it’s expensive. Second of all, eating all the time is enjoyable up to a certain point, but after that point just becomes miserable. Especially when you’re eating BigMac’s or cake or other useless food. But we did go to one cafe. And I ate cake. It was good. There were bums hassling the manager because he wouldn’t let them hang out in the cafe or something. This was only the beginning of our growing relationship with the quality Russian bum population. Then we rode the St. Petersburg green line metro from one end to the other. Cold and tiredness to an extreme level. I always thought it was cool when everyone sits there on the metro with their eyes closed until their stop is announced and they open their eyes and gather themselves to carry on with their lives. Oh man. I sat there with my eyes closed because it was essentially physically impossible to open them due to above stated cold and tiredness. It was so miserable. But the whole time it was actually just really funny. In a way that soon, (like now) we will look back and lack at how ridiculous and miserable and funny the whole experience was.
No one really wants to read about Susanna and I being homeless in Piter. Just wait ‘til we’re homeless in Kazan. So quickly, I shall finish up Piter. Then we got off the metro and walked to a grocery store to buy groceries for the trains Piter to Moscow and Moscow to Kazan. While we were walking to the grocery store, there was a huge patch of ice. We both slipped and like hugely fell and landed on the ground on top of each other. Misery. Bought groceries. Went back to train station. Only 3.5 hours before train leaves. Sat in the blini restaurant called “Teaspoon” for a really long time. Drank tea. Peaked in my ailments as a result of BigMac consumption. Extreme shivering and just like coldness to the core. Me being eternally cold might not be related to me eating the BigMac. It could be related to the fact that it is winter in Russia. And thus, cold. Oh well. Not important.
Got on the train to Moscow.
No comments:
Post a Comment