"Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?' 'that is the only time that a man can be brave,' his father told him."
- George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
This past week I fulfilled a life-long dream of mine. I went to Russia. Ever since I saw the animated movie, Anastasia, I have wanted to go to Russia. I may have also dreamed that somehow I would end up finding out that I was Anastasia's great-granddaughter but unfortunately that didn't happen. Anyways this trip was also about challenging myself. This was the first trip that I went on alone. Before you all get too impressed I did go with a tour group so I met other people on the tour, but it was still a challenge. Even though I am 21 years old, I am still terrified to talk to strangers and of new things. Add in going to a scary place like Russia, and you have one very terrified Erin. I however succeeded, in an even bigger way than I thought possible. This trip was so much bigger than just seeing the city for me.
On the first day I flew from Copenhagen to Helsinki, Finland where I was to take an overnight ferry to St. Petersburg. However it wouldn't be nearly enough of a "growing experience" (as my mom would call it), it that had worked that smoothly. When I arrived in Helsinki, I went to the baggage claim area and waited for my bag. And waited, and waited some more until the baggage door closed and the track stopped moving. Yup they had lost my bag. This is basically the point where I just wanted my mom and I wanted to cry. However I am very proud to say that I did not cry, I kept it together and very calmly talked to the Finnair staff.
I landed at 11:00, I was supposed to be at the ferry terminal at 5:00, it took an hour to get to the terminal from the airport, and the next flight from Copenhagen got in at 4:00. Needless to say this is about the time that I was trying not to hyperventilate. Have I mentioned how much I love Pia, the customer service agent at Finnair? She gave me a food voucher, arranged for Finnair to pay for a taxi to take me to the ferry, and called the tour manager to inform her I might be late. I made it to the terminal only about 15 minutes late and made it on the boat!
We spent the first night on the ferry and arrived in St. Petersburg at 8:30 AM the next morning. After border formalities, which are really not any different the U.S. border control, we hopped on a bus for a city tour.
There were brides and grooms everywhere in the city! Wherever we went there were at least 5 couples getting their photos taken and this was around 10:00 on a Saturday morning! Also I would not recommend taking photos releasing doves, this photo was taken about 5 seconds before the brides dress was ruined by bird poop.
One of the coolest things we saw was the Peter and Paul Cathedral, which houses the tombs of all of the former Czars.
Including the tombs of Nicholas II and Alexandra, and their five children; Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Alexei, and Anastasia. Have I ever mentioned that as a child/adult, I had a fantasy that I would find out that Anastasia had in fact survived and that I was her great granddaughter? Unfortunately Russian and American scientists confirmed in 2008 that they had found the remains of all 4 Romanov girls and Alexei. However Japanese scientists say that the tests are not really conclusive, so I can still hope.
Going in to university, my dream was to learn Russian and then study abroad in Russia. I took Russian for two semesters and then decided that it was impossible and gave up. Even though I my two semesters of Russian were not helpful in any way for speaking it was helpful to be able to read the Cyrillic alphabet. There are a lot of cognates in Russian and a lot of English words that they just write phonetically in Cyrillic. I like those words the best. For example this sign. It is not translated into Russian at all. It is just written into Cyrillic letters.
This is St. Isaac's Cathedral. During WWII the domes were painted grey in order to avoid attracting attention. Thankfully this protected the cathedral from getting bombed.
That night I went to a Russian Folk Show. These four guys were like a barbershop opera a Capella Russian group.
The guys on the right are doing the awesome Cossack Dance, unfortunately they were moving to fast to take a good picture.
I was not aware how much shrill whistling and yelling was involved in Russian Folk Dance.
And there was this awesome bird dance.
And of course the show was held in a palace, because basically every building in St. Petersburg was a palace. No wonder people rebelled against the monarchy. There were so many members of the royal family I don't think there were any commoners left.
The next day we woke up to sun! Our tour guide told us that St. Petersburg only gets 65 days of sun a year, and we got two of those. We spent the morning visiting the Hermitage Museum. The museum was founded in 1764 and opened to the public in 1852.
The museum now spans across 5 former palaces including the winter palace which was the main home of the royal family. The winter palace is the bright green building.
This is the one Da Vinci painting that the Hermitage has. It is supposed to be Mary and Jesus. I know that Mary was only supposed to be about 14, but in this painting she could easily be 6.
This hallway is an exact replica of a hall in the Vatican.
This was apparently supposed to be a boy and his pet dolphin. Whoever sculpted this had obviously never seen a dolphin. Dolphins definitely do not have scales or beaks.
Eating a hamburger out of a blini (crepe style pancake) is a lot more delicious than eating it out of a bun.
After the Hermitage we got a a bus and drove 20 minutes out of the city to the summer palace, or Catherine's Palace.
Even though I went on this trip alone I did make some good friend's on the tour. From left to right is: Fabienne from Switzerland, Serena from Italy, Carlos from Spain, and Camilla from Italy.
The whole group:
We got to wear these super cool booties in the palace, which also made the floor incredibly slippery.
Gold, gold, and more gold. Before electricity this room was lit by 696 candles in sconces on the walls. Being the slightly OCD person that I am all I could think about was the poor people who had to dust all the gold, light all the candles, and sweep the cobwebs.
Catherine's Palace is also home to the famous Amber Room. The walls are covered in panels made out of amber.
I was a little bit upset thought to find out that these are replicas of the original panels, since the originals were stolen during WWII and no one knows where they have gone.
This is the Kazan Cathedral.
Quite possibly my favorite building in St. Petersburg, because this is the place where beef stroganoff was invented. This is the Stroganovsky Palace. The family chef invented the dish, so it was named after the family.
I couldn't go to Russia without actually eating beef stroganoff. Mom, I can tell you that you are doing beef stroganoff right.
Russia's next big event is only 280 days away! There was this countdown clock to the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics.
Our second night in Russia we went out, because you cannot go to Russia without drinking some vodka. I do not really drink so I wimped out and drank a pina colada, but Serena and Camilla were very brave and drank these awesome looking shots. It was blue curacao, vodka, bailey's, and absinthe. I think I would have died if I tried to drink this, but at least it looked pretty.
On the last day we had a free day, so we decided to revisit some of the churches we had seen and actually go inside them. First we climbed up to the top of the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral. They were nice enough to have a countdown going up the stairs of how many stairs you had left.
You can see all of the cranes in the distance of the picture. They are all at the harbor. St. Petersberg is Russia's only Western port and so is a very important port for the country.
I do not think this follows OSHA regulations.
This is the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It was built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. An interesting fact about Alexander II is that he was a pen pal of Abraham Lincolns. Both leaders were facing issues of the same kind. Alexander II freed the serfs around the same time Lincoln freed the slaves.
Every inch of this building was covered in mosaics.
This was my last meal in Russia; borscht, Mors (a cranberry drink), and a chocolate banana blini.
We apparently took to long to get our bags on the bus, so our driver was ticketed for parking to long. Thankfully the police officer did not feel the need to take him to the station, as we only had 20 minutes to get to the ferry terminal before check-in closed.
Once on the ferry we were able to sit back and enjoy the sunset.
This trip really was a challenge for me and I am so happy that I did it. And while I proved that I can travel alone, I do prefer to do it with friends. I now only have 48 days left here. It's weird because a year seemed like such a long time, but it has gone so fast.
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