Two weekends of fun and walking

I will like to admit right now that I need to learn to write less. So here is a wonderful blog on only highlights. Of course it will still be long, but there will be nothing about school :-D

So last Saturday (November 14th) I decided to just walk around Nevsky. I finally decided to, because I didn't want to bore myself alone, go to the actual Russian Museum. You see there are subsets of the Russian Museum and also the actual RUSSIAN MUSEUM. The cute little subsets, like the Engineer's palace and the marble palace, have most of their building closed off. There are about 4 or 5 exhibitions and that is it. Well in the Russian Museum it is quite different. You can walk through the whole building and the building is like the Hermitage, just like 16 times smaller (trust me that is still quite big for a museum).

Well my problems are started in the cloak room. After I came home from Moscow I decided it would be best to just live in my winter coat. This thing is HUGE. So for the first time, I decided to use a museum cloak room. You would think that they would be easy but no. So I go to the first cloak room that I see, in this museum there is about 5 or 6. So anyways I put my jacket on some random hook but don't get a number. This is usually what happens. You get a number so you know where your jacket is. I then got scared. I planned on being in the museum long enough to forget where my coat was.

So I finally get to the actual museum, it is a freaking maze to get from the cloak room to the exhibitions. Every now and then I stopped staring at painting and started to think about what if I couldn't find my coat. I finally got over it and enjoyed myself quite well. I have a new favorite painting: The Ninth Wave. It is gorgeous.

I think I can finally tell you all my painting style. Well first off I hate staring at icons for too long, religious painting normally bore me. What excites me are landscape picture. But not any landscape picture, but ones with nice fluffy clouds. I like clouds, and rainbows, and sunsets and tree.

I walked through the museum for about 2 hours. I found some of the most famous painting that Russia has to offer which obvious are: The Last Day Pompeii and The Knight at the Crossroad. Very gorgeous to look at in person. Very big too!

I then decide enough is enough and decide to leave the building. So, obviously being a smart person, I follow the exit signs. oops! wrong exit. apparently there are two ways to leave the building. So then i decide the best course of action is to retrace my steps. The thing with museums are that you forget quite fast what you have and haven't seen. So i looked for highlights. I finally found my way to the "right" exit. So then my mind again starts racing. Where is my cloakroom. I don't know. I go to the first cloak room I see and go to where I think it is, and there it is- my coat. I am relieved. Stressed for no reason.

On Sunday, the next day, I had a planned "Cooking in Russia" seminar with Jessica and Sergei. It was quite fun. One of Sergei's friend's daughters came along too. Her name is dzhenya. It translate somehow to Jane in English but if you were to write it out it is actually Jenna. She is younger than Jess and I, but is quite amazing. Get this, she is still in school (high school I am presuming) and is learning her 3rd language. She is fluent in English and Russian and is now learning German. Why couldn't America be that cool. I wish I was fluent in 3 languages by like 16!!!!

So we learned how to make grecha/Kasha/buckwheat and sirniki. The buckwheat came out amazing. Very delicious. The sirniki was a different story. I actually know how to make it now but his style is way different then my host mother's. I am quite biased in my sirniki because her's are THAT amazing. Ironically that morning she made some. Very fun to actually taste the differences. Anywho, We made the sirniki too thick and put to much flour on the outside of them. When you combine this two things, disaster ensues. You see flour, obviously, makes everything burn faster and if you have a thick "pancake" then everything doesn't cook all the way thru. Regardless of this disaster, I still enjoyed the night.

Funny story. So I decided to bring up my fascination with kettles. Of course I didn't know that was what I was talking about when I brought it up. I asked if everyone in Russia uses an electric boiling water thing. They all stared at me. I was like I have never seen something like this before. And they just laughed. I mean the only time I ever see anyone make hot water it is on the stove. Although electric kettles are convenient (because that is what they are), apparently tea tastes better from a pot on the stove.

I also learned about Russian business banquets. Apparently, Russians are very keen into keeping conversations group oriented. In Georgia they actually have a designated person that sits at each table to make sure that there are no personal conversations going on. Very weird. So I have now placed America at the far left, Russia in the middle, and China on the far far right. America is very chilaxed in there banquets, Russia has some order, and China has PROTOCOL. hahaha

The next weekend, was also pretty eventful. On Saturday (my sister's 23rd birthday), I decided to just get off the metro at a random exit. It actually wasn't too random. A couple of days prior my host mother told me of a book store. Apparently this bookstore is the cheapest bookstore in St. Pete and Dom Kinigi is the most expensive store. This is very strange to me because you can get a huge hard covered book for like 4 dollars at Dom Kinigi. So anyways, I didn't remember which stop it was, I was between two, and the stops were very close together so I just decides to get off at one and walk to the other.

So I went off at the farthest stop I looked around a little, found nothing, and then headed to the closer one. Right by the metro there was a carnival. I am thinking about going back to it later on. I didn't go inside the park, it seemed like the rides weren't working. So I then went to the closer stop and I looked around there, also nothing. Then I walked back to the father one, look even more and still found nothing. I didn't even see a book store in all my walking. So I killed my legs for nothing. Very sad.

That night I told the host family where I was, they clarified the stop and the name of the store. I should be OK for my next attempt.

Sunday I went to Pavlovsk. Very gorgeous. Sergei planned the whole thing. We met up with him (and Dzhenya) at the train station. from there we took the train to Pavlovsk. It was kinda a fun trip. There was this group of Russian student,I am presuming, that decided to play guitar and sing "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt. I don't think it could get better than that. The trip lasted a whole 15 minutes and then we arrived at Pavlovsk. Surprisingly, Pushkin is a town next too Pavlovsk. Apparently people go to both places in one day. I would personally die if I did that!

When we got there we walked in the park for a little. It was actually a pretty day out, I SAW THE SUN!!!! We went to the castle and obviously, like all others, it was magnificent. This castle, unlike Peterhof and Pushkin, is actually a livable castle. The rooms weren't gaudy, there wasn't a lot of disgustingly expensive things everywhere. It was just a nice quaint place.

So I saw like a bazillion clocks and it made me think. How do they synchronize clocks in castles. I mean for one there is no satellite to do it for them and there are like what 300 rooms and all of them have a clock. Seems like the worst job ever!

Just a little history: The palace was built for Catherine II's son Paul. So Paul lived, when he was emperor, duke, etc., in the Emperor's palace. He had this false sense of security, and that was what ultimately killed him. There were rebels, we will call them, that decided to take action. He heard them coming and decided to hide in the fireplace cover. The rebels thought that he left the room, hearing of their impending arrival. They then noticed a piece of cloth sticking out of the fireplace cover. They pulled him out and because he made so much noise, they killed him. For some reason, I don't know if it was by his wife or the museum, the fireplace cover is on display in one of the rooms. Kinda creepy if you ask me. After that Maria Feodorovna, his wife, moved to Palvosk and lived there for rest of her life.

She is my new favorite Duchess. She seemed very simple. She painted and stitched a lot and was very talented. Usually you don't think of royalty as being talented in the arts, but she really was! Her painting were all over the palace.

Well that is enough for now. Until next time :-D