Dear America:

I miss your clean drinking water, fresh air, and friendly customer service.
I'll see you in ten days.
love,

Sara

The Captain's Daughter

Today I went to Pushkin, a town about 25km outside of St. Petersburg, where Tsarkoe Selo (Tsar's Village) is - it's another summer palace, favored by Catherine the Great.

I got up at 9 and went down to Gostiny Dvor, a metro station on Nevsky Prospect, hoping to be able to join an excursion for the trip. You have to take the metro, and then two buses to get their on your own and can only enter the palace without a tour group at certain hours, so I decided to fork over the 1800 roubles (60 dollars) to go with an excursion. It was in English! and for sure worth it! It was nice to be around other English speakers and our guide's accent could rival Cassie's Russian accent. Classic.

main gate

We left at 2 and arrived after about an hour drive. The palace is really beautiful and enormous, but only certain rooms are open for tour groups. They are still doing a lot of restoration on the rest of it.

the fancy dining room

I can't remember what this room was for, but my first thought was Mom would've loved it since it was all green and pink!

the main hall

Catherine's study

Mostly what I've decided from traveling to these palaces is that I need a summer palace. With about 100 acre park to wander around in and have parties. So the main reason Tsarkoe Selo is so cool is because of the Amber Room (which, of course, is the one room you can't take pictures in). The Amber Room was given to Peter the Great from Germany, but not installed in the Palace until Empress Elizabeth. Like most of everything cool in Russia, the Nazis stole the Amber Room and re-installed it in a castle in Germany. That castle was bombed though, so apparently someone dismantled the Amber Room and put it somewhere safe. Now it's "lost." Yep. Lost. Anyway, after looking for it for many years, the Soviet government finally gave up and started building a new amber room in the 1970s. Well, they didn't get that many years of work in before the Soviet Union collapsed. Point is, it only reopened 7 years ago. Anyway, the entire walls are made of Amber and it looks really really cool. Here's a picture I found from the internet, I don't know who that person is..

Apparently it's called the 8th Wonder of the World, but I can't really confirm that. I can confirm that it's really pretty, though!

I got back around 7 and now I'm completely exhausted! I have class tomorrow and on Saturday I'm going to another museum and then to see Romeo and Juliet! I think it's a ballet, but I got my tickets only speaking Russian, so I'm not 100%. I'm excited either way!

Russian Randomness #13-17

13. I've seen Hare Krishnas several times since I've been here, which led me to look up Hare Krishnas on wikipedia and it turns out that the movement is pretty big in post-Soviet countries. who knew?

14. Tom and I enjoy a "business lunch" (see #15) at an Indian restaurant every Friday. Now every Friday and Monday because they changed our class schedule. It is unbelievably delicious and I look forward to enjoying my multi-course meal and bollywood videos all week.

15. The Business Lunch. Бусинесс Ланч in Russian. Pronounced "bizniz lanch." This is one thing I find particularly interesting. Most of the world I think uses English words for things dealing with computers or the internet, etc. But Russia uses English words for all things dealing with capitalism.

16. Although a beautiful city, St. Petersburg is not one of beautiful smells. However, there are about a million Lush stores throughout the city that emit probably one of the only smells I recognize. Also, I buy my fruit from these stands set up on the street in the summer and every time I walk buy one I take in a big deep breath of fresh produce. Otherwise, I breathe through my mouth.

17. This is what Tom's lunch looks like every day from the school cafeteria. He never knows what the meat is...

Catching Up

Ok. Catching Up isn't the title of a Russian book, but its what I'm doing, since I haven't written here in a while....

So last Tuesday, Tom and I went to the Mariinsky Theater to see an Opera. How high class of us. We say La Traviata, obviously Italian, and they had subtitles which were obviously in Russian, needless to say, Tom and I had NO idea what was going on at all. I know this much - two lovers cannot be together for some unknown reason, then they are together, then she dies. Nonetheless, it was very pleasant to sit in our little box and listen to the music. Here's a not very good picture:
Obviously, the Mariinsky is known for ballet, but they are closed the last part of July and all of August, so we only made it in time to see an opera. I might try to go to the ballet this weekend if I can find tickets available at another theater.

On Thursday, I intended to go to the Summer Palace, but ironically it's closed this summer. So instead I went to the Marble Palace, which was about a 10 minute walk away. And you can get to like 5 more palaces within 10 more minutes probably. There are a lot of palaces... The Marble Palace now houses some exhibitions for the Russian Museum - mostly contemporary art. And they had a cool section of advertising posters from the 1900-1920s. Out front of the palace is a statue of Alexander III, notable only for how stout the Tsar and the horse look.On Saturday, I didn't do anything particularly interesting. But Sunday, I went to the Museum of Russian Political History. Now, I had marked this off my list of things to do, but boy am I glad I still went. I thought there wouldn't be anything in English, but in each exhibition a museum lady gave me a little booklet that explained everything! The museum was really cool, especially the sections on the revolution and Stalin, obviously. I'm happy to report that the museum was highly critical of Stalin. That may not surprise you, but since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Stalin has again risen in popularity. People seem to think it's permissible to starve the Ukraine to have a powerful Russia... There were lots of cool propaganda posters:

I realize you can't see this that well - but at the top it says "We have..." and the bottom says "They have..." It's comparing Soviet life to life under the Nazis. I just thought it was funny how clean and sparkling the Soviet life looks... It could be 1940s America!

This one says "Lenin - Sunshine of the Future"

So far this week I've just been to classes, mostly. There are some French people now staying at my apartment. Which means they are in my room, I'm in Magdalena's room, and Magdalena is sleeping on the tiny sofa thing in the kitchen... I'm trying to stay out of the apartment as much as possible. Less than two weeks!

One Day in the Life of Sara Ashley Nichols

You guys. I was so proud of the title for this post. I've been planning it for a while and all the time I've been very pleased with my own cleverness. Well, Brian assured me that no one else would appreciate it because no one else has ever read the book I'm copying - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I guess that's what I deserve.

Anyway, here follows a tale of one day of my life. There isn't as much hard labor as ol' Ivan had to deal with. Also, I'm not in Siberia in the middle of winter, but you know... I am in Russia.

So I go to class at St. Petersburg State University, the "faculty" I'm in is located in the Smolniy Institute. I go to school here:


OK, so I don't really go to class inside the Cathedral, but I do go to class in the same complex, in a building about 50 meters from the Cathedral. Every day when I walk to class there bus loads of tourists taking photos, so I'm all like - excuse me, I'm so important, I need to get through to my classes in this historical landmark.

The Smolniy was built as a convent under Empress Elizabeth, but Catherine the Great converted it to the "Smolniy Institute for Young Noblewomen." (like me). So I go to class right by the convent, but a hop away is the Smolniy Institute, which was built in the early 1800s. A school for noblewomen is kind of boring, but don't you worry, Russian history is never boring! (sometimes it is). In the fall of 1917, the Petrograd Soviet moved to the Smolniy from the Tauride Palace. The Petrograd Soviet was an important supporter of the Bolshevik party, and so on October 25, 1917, as the revolution began, the second All-Russian Congress of the Soviets met at the Smolniy to get their revolution on!

The Convent is pretty cool, it's an icy blue color if you can't tell from the pictures. It looks cooler in pictures though, cause its kind of tacky up close... Anyway, I live about a 35 minute walk from school and spend some quality time there.

After school I usually go for a run in the Tauride gardens, which aren't too far from my apartment. There are a surprising number of gardens and parks in this city, and St. Petersburgers are always sunbathing on the warm days. Lots of times in just their underwear. I guess they have to get their years worth of Vitamin D in about 2 months, so they really go for it.

So then I either study some or go to a museum if I have time. I also eat out most of the time for dinner cause its just awkward to cook at Magdelena's. On Wednesdays Tom and I have been going out with some other people we met at school - an Australian, a New Zealander, an Italian, some Frenchies, and a Spaniard. Quite a diverse group - we speak in English. Ok, so my days aren't that fascinating. I really just wanted to talk about Smolniy. Here are some other pictures:

Neva River. St. Isaac's is on the right

Nevsky Prospect at night.

N

Here are a few interesting articles about Russia:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/weekinreview/11levy.html?pagewanted=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/world/europe/17rocker.html

War and Peace

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it had to happen again. I thought Magdelena and I had reached a peaceful coexistence. Boy was I wrong. This morning as I'm getting ready to head out to a museum, Magdelena comes in and immediately starts in on one of her rants. This time it's that I have too much stuff. Some of you may recall my sheer pride and joy at only bringing one bag?? So I ignore her and continue to get ready as she says over and over "you have too much!" She pulls open the closet and says "there's too much!" (I have four hangers). She pulls open my three tiny drawers and says "there's too much" and slams them shut.

She's out of her mind. And then she started going through my bag of running clothes (four t-shirts, two pairs of shorts) and that's when I lost it. For some reason, I can understand her Russian when she goes on like this, but I can never form responses in Russian. So I just say in english "So? what do you want me to do about it?" and then when I got really mad I said "Do you want to talk about how dirty this apartment is?" Maybe not the most mature response, but I like speaking in English because I feel like it gives me the upper hand - she has no idea what I'm saying! Ha! Take that! Also I just think its funnier....

Anyway, I left in a huff and she left this afternoon to go to her Dacha, so at least she's gone. She should be back on Tuesday, ugh. By then I'll only have 2.5 more weeks of her and at this rate, there's a major blowout every two weeks, so hopefully I'll only have one left. She sucks.

Then in my bad mood I went to eat a way overpriced lunch, that was delicious, and tried to go to the Russian Museum. However, the 20th Century section is closed until August 5th and I don't really care to see a bunch of Russian icons, so I'll just wait until my last day to go.

But I did go to the Engineer's Castle today. It was a palace built by Tsar Paul I, son of Catherine the Great. Tsar Paul I was kind of a little punk. Pretty much everyone hated him for not being as cool as Catherine, so he had a rough start. He was super paranoid about getting off-ed like his father did, so he built this palace and put a moat around it to keep him safe. Ironically, he was only in the palace for a few months before some conspirators came to assassinate him. And so Alexander I, his oldest son, became Tsar.

So after Paul was murdered, they used the palace for the Engineer's school, hence the new name.

Tsar Paul I. This is a pretty new addition

The Engineer's Castle is technically part of the Russian Museum. There was some art and such inside, but I wasn't really impressed. I was more interested in just seeing the palace. They've only recently restored it to a palace, though, so I think they're working on a lot still.

I wasn't really inspired to do much more the rest of the day. Oh Mother Russia, you're so up and down. Just yesterday I was telling Tom how much happier I've been here and how I've started to like the city more...... maybe I'll be back there tomorrow?? Wish me luck!