Filler Blog

Well, this week has so far been about the most eventful of my life, so you can't expect me to describe it in the mere 40 minutes I have remaining at the Whatever this Novosibirsk Internet Cafe is Called. Just briefly noting that I am alive and safe and such. Leaving tonight for the 30 hour ride to Irkutsk. Also I would like all of you, esp. those of you frequently e-mailing me about the balmy climes of my native land, to know that it is 28 below, Celcius, here. At least it was this morning. I think it's climbed to 24 below or something now.

Dragon Evacuation

I'm moving to Earl Grey, Saskatchewan.

http://www.earl-grey.ca/

I don't have anything else to say.

Craziness, yo.

Craziness

I am currently sitting on a sofa outside our room in the Stadion Hostel in Helsinki, looking at a neon green sign with the helpful instruction “ASIAKASKEITTIÖ JA TV-HOUNE ALAKERRASSA.” If you think this is funny looking, wait until you hear someone actually speaking this craziness. This morning I went for a walk/scramble over boulders in some naturey-are by the stadium (our hostel really is an Olympic stadium, not just built in the shape of one as for some reason it seemed to me last night. There are the silly spinning metal gate-things running along the outside, and bleachers beyond the inner walls of the hostel, and everything. Also this place is huge; over a thousand beds I think.) and when I jumped down from some large rock onto the bike path, some elderly Finn in a brightly-colored windbreaker laughed and said “Hi-da-hooh-he-hlip-hip!!” or something to that effect. It was so awesome. I smiled and also laughed. I hope that was the correct response. Then I went looking for signs to read and laugh at. Signs are written first in Finnish and then in Swedish, so there’s double the fun.

Saw the sun rise over Helsinki. I like places much better after seeing the sun rise there. Especially if there’s a spectral sliver moon still high in the sky. My feeling of last night, which can basically be summed up as “I can’t believe we are expected to find our way from the train station to our hostel in this ridiculous country, and what will happen when they review the security film from the tram and find out that Abby and I didn’t pay?” was mostly dissipated.

I almost tried to find a book to trade for one in the hostel book exchange for a crazy Finnish one, but I decided that wouldn’t be all that useful.

today

I had quite the ecclesiastical tour of Nevsky Prospect today. First, not on Nevsky Prospect at all actually but near Peter and Paul Fortress, I saw a very cool blue-tile-decorated mosque.
Then, directly upon emerging from the Nevsky Prospect metro station, I went to Kazan Cathedral. Kazan Cathedral is ugly enough to have avoided being a museum rather than a church, which was a very nice change. It’s sort of gray and neoclassical and strangly shaped, and it was built after the Napoleonic Wars I think. There were actual people praying in it rather than tourists taking pictures, and the icons were uninteresting, and it was generally pleasant. There was a very long line of people waiting to kiss the icon of the Virgin of Kazan; other than that is was fairly quiet. I don’t know how I feel about churches being used to house the keys of defeated French fortresses... well, yes I do. It’s awesome. These were some sweet keys, and there were plenty to be had of them. There were also captured military banners.
Next went into a rather nondescript Catholic Church. I was the only one in it. I forgot what bare church walls looked like. It was nice.
Further along the street I found a very sweet little blue-and-white Armenian Church. Armenian script is apparently very, very cool. Also the Armenians apparently believe in pews, unlike the Russians. It was a very nice place to sit.
Leaving for Helsinki soon.


Um. I am in Helsinki now. This cannot be a real language that they are speaking here.

State Hermitage Museum

I was already in sort of a bad mood when we got to the Hermitage this morning, due to having a stuffy nose and maybe living in hostel too long. I think a visit to the Hermitage requires a head unmuddled by stormy thoughts and enthusiasm for planning; it has over 1000 rooms, and there’s no clear path through them, as it’s a palace, after all, not built as a museum. But I was too impatient (and possessed of a realistic estimation of my ability to follow maps) to do anything but walk off randomly into the museum and pretend that whatever part I found first was what I had been planning to see there all along. Unfortunately what I found first was the Rubens collection, and I couldn’t pretend for very long to like Rubens. But I couldn’t find my way out of the “Netherlandish” section, and I was lost in a maze of fat cupids and infants and group portraits of shooting societies... and my annoyance spread from Rubens to Dutch painting to large oil paintings... this was not a good track to be on, in the world’s largest art museum. You can’t just decide half an hour into it that you are annoyed by paintings, in general. Every once in a while I would find a room of not-Dutch painting, and it was always a very cheerful moment- this room of English watercolors (with a bunch of illustrations by William Blake, which I liked muchly), some welcomely ascetic Spanish art... but mainly I just looked at sculpture and old pottery and wood cuttings and things. It was fairly ridiculous. And then every once in a while I would have to sneeze, which would require rushing to the center of the room, as far as possible from works of art, and burying my head in my elbow. But the guard babushkas glared at me anyway.

Eventually I gave up and went downstairs to the “antiquities” section and looked at Roman statuary and cuniform tablets and such. After a long break from painting, I finally got over myself and decided to reenter the fray. I found a map and decided that I would go find the third floor. On my way, I discovered that the second floor was far larger than I had ever imagined, and included a lot more than fat Dutch children. But no number of masterpieces of world art could distract me from my quest for the stairway to the third floor (I did stop for a while to look at the Italian section, as I think you’re required to see to da Vinci paintings). How did the Romanovs ever find anything in that place? I would get lost every day on my way downstairs to dinner.

With the help of directions from a guard babushka, I eventually found the stairs. And the third floor was so cool! I may have thought so even if I hadn’t worked so hard to find it! It was French impressionists, if I am correctly employing that term, and junx. I really like Cezanne, and there was a lot of Cezanne. And Renoir. I should mention that my artistic tastes are almost entirely based on who I read an article about one time. Except for disliking Rubens. And I don’t remember ever having read an article about Matisse but he’s my new favorite.

Very few of the people in the Hermitage were speaking Russian. I really liked it when the language being spoken by the tour groups matched up with the country of origin of the art in the room.

Now I want to watch that movie Russian Ark again. I liked it a lot the first time, but now I know the set firsthand.

New Years Eve in Petersburg

The Crazy Duck Hostel was the place to be New Years eve, let me tell you. You should read Abby’s blog for some idea of the people staying here. But it doesn’t convey the full bizarreness of this apartment full of drunken crazy people who don’t know each other, speaking in a very confusing variety of languages and accents. The Australians were definitely running the show. They are absolutely insane. They are also at least 30 years old, and I can’t really figure out why they’re just roaming about Eurasia getting drunk every night and engaging in unwelcome displays of PDA, but they were good people to have around to create a festive atmosphere I guess. The Ukrainians are much more quiet, and I think they were sort of intimidated by the Austrailians. They really are very exhausting to converse with though. Do you like Whitney Houston? How much does public transportation cost? Did you know that everything is better in Kiev? What about the Simpsons? Oh, how about basketball? I was relieved when they discovered the Brazilians and started plying them with questions instead.

You know in elementary school when you learn about peer pressure? They need to add a unit on Nationalistic Ukrainians Pressure. Because that’s much harder to resist. “But this is special Ukrainian red champagne! It is the best in the world! And this is Ukrainian beer! It is no mere Russian beer!” And they were very sweet and serious.

At 11:30 we all headed out on the street, to Nevsky Prospect. It was the most awesome thing ever, except Chizhik Pizhik. The metro was packed with this united mass of celebrators, and every once in a while everyone would just start yelling and cheering on the escalators, and everyone was so cheerful it was hard to believe they were Russians. And then on Nevsky Prospect there was a big tv screen and Putin gave an address that I didn’t really listen to but it was awesome that we were all listening to an address by Putin. And then the bells rang midnight and everyone drank champagne on the street and yelling Happy New Year to everyone. And then just roamed around yelling happy new year to random people and dancing about. There was a parade of some kind, and the Ukrainians made us all jump on the back of one of the floats. Abby and Natasha and I only did this for a few seconds and then ran away; I don’t know how long the Ukrainians resisted the dancing girls yelling at them to get off. Anyway, I’ve never seen so many people.

Today we went out walking on Nevsky, and I’ve never seen it quiet and peaceful before. The whole time we’ve been here it has been packed with last-minute holiday shoppers and tourists taking pictures and such. Today everything was closed and it was very strange.

чижик пыжик

This news is not going to be chronological. But I have to start with the most important.

ABBY AND NATASHA AND I FOUND THE CHIZHIK PIZHIK STATUE! It’s too difficult to explain the deep significance of this event. I estimate that about 1 person understands how awesome it is. But there’s more. People drop coins on the statue, from the bridge. And if the coin lands on the statue, instead of falling in the river, you have good luck. And who should land a coin on Chizhik, on New Years Day no less? ME. BECAUSE I AM THE САМАЯ КЛАСНАЯ ДЕВЧЕНКА. This is going to be the best year ever.