Story, part I

Well boys and girls, I'm going to attempt to regale you with stories of the adventures of Sarah in the land of the Bolsheviks. (Anyone who took Schillinger's Soviet film class should catch that reference).

Let me tell you what, hurtling through the air in a big metal tube at 36,000 feet for 12 hours is WAY MUCH MORE FUN when your best friend is there with you too!

*disclaimer* This blog represents my opinions and memories alone. Sarah would probably tell a very different story. :-)

We got into Moscow on May 5 and we made it just in time before the enormous hassle that is 70 international delagations descended on the city. The highway leading into town was lined with cops and Volodya, the guy who ferries me to the airport and back said that the road would be closed on the 6th and that there would have been enormous delays. Of course I forgot the code to my door, but we were able to get up anyway. We spent that afternoon wandering in a bit of a daze. I tried to show Sarah Red Square, but it was closed for rehearsals. We had dinner and collapsed in bed rather early and slept for a long time.

What did we do the next day...oh yeah, that's right. We spent the morning wandering around the suburbs, trying to register Sarah's visa, and then walked over to this place called Sparrow Hills, which has an excellent view of the whole center of the city, and it was just nice enough to sit outside at a cafe and eat lunch. After that we had our appointment in the Kremlin for our personal audience with Putin. Not really, but we did tour the grounds after getting stuck in an Italian tour group and me yelling at a Russian man leading a English language tour group who was very suprised that I was able to yell at him (okay, I didn't yell, but I stuck up for myself in an assertive voice) in Russian. Also, a lovely day, except it was windy as all get out. We spent some time sitting on a bench, because we had spent most of the day walking, and finally got kicked out a closing time. We had dinner with my friend Zhenya and planned our departure for St. Pete's the next day.

That night Sarah and I went to see "Kingdom of Heaven" at the English language theater and to gawk at Orlando Bloom. The next day had the Tret'iakov Museum of Russian art and the Kolomenskoe estate park on our list. Along the way we had a wickedly expensive lunch at a cafe near the museum (but yummy!) and delightfully cheap and tasty pel'meni near Kolomenskoe.

Then we went home and waited for Zhenya to meet us for dinner before catching our train. She was quite late, it seemed and when we got worried and tried to call, I realized my phone wasn't working and that she had been standing outside of the building for more than an hour, hoping someone would look out the window. (I will never, ever live this one down). We had dinner and dallied a bit and then left for the train. We took our time walking to the Metro, which turned out to be a big mistake because once we got on the Metro, Zhenya and I both realized that we were cutting it really really close. We would look at our watches and then look at each other. To make a long story short, we had to run for our train. Really full out run. We only just made it.

Even though we rolled in at some ungodly hour, my soul just sang to be back in St. Petersburg again and at the prospect of getting to see Marina, Alina and Sasha again. Turned out our room at the hostel wasn't open yet, so we were cast out onto the street to have breakfast and wander around until museums and things started to open. Good thing its already light at 4am.

So I gave them a short walking tour of central Piter, showing off some of the highlights, a few churches, well interspersed with stops at cafes and then it was on to the Hermitage, or the "Museum with more art than you can possibly see in your lifetime".

Our story will continue with the Hermitage at a later date, maybe this evening, but I'm hungry and want dinner.