I don't think we're in Switzerland anymore Toto

We rode into St. Petersburg in some guy's station wagon. But, he was
holding a sheet of paper with my name on it at the airport, so we
figured the guy was legit. And he was. So legit that he spoke
literally no English, other than 'comfort' which was the name of our
hotel. Little did we know that damn near everyone else in Russia,
expect those individuals working at our hotels, would be exactly the
same as this taxi driver. Thus, no need to create signage in anything
else other than the Cryllic alphabet, which we did not exactly bother
to learn before our arrival. It's rather shocking after being so
immersed in Switzerland & the rest of the western European world to
find out that people on this continent, do not, in fact, all speak
passable English. Our index fingers got some exercise out of the
experience though, I suppose.

St. Petersburg was fabulous. We caught the tail end of the "White
Nights," although according to the hotel staff they were over, but the
sun never went down before 12.30, so I am still considering it pretty
white alright. The sunsets were fantastic over the river & we spent
everynight walking along, taking in the sights (which were much more
extensive than just a sunset;). People in Russia "wear some bullshit."
As you will most likely notice from the heels, heels, more heels.
10am, 2pm, 9pm, all freaking day long Russian women are trapsing
around in the bare minimum of clothing, exposing either their entire
torso with their favorite see-through shirt, or a buttcheck with a
seriously too short skirt and generally leaving nothing to the
imagination with the spandex and prom style dresses that everyone
seemed to love. Now I get that if in summer the sun is always up, then
in the winter it's up most likely for 1.3 hours per day. I get that. I
mean, I don't actually get it. But, I am trying to comprehend
nonetheless these people's desire to feel the sun on every last bit of
skin, but seriously, no need to take it to the streets. Sidenote: can
you imagine the SAD (what a great acronym, huh?!) plaguing these
people in winter? I guess it's no wonder they go ALL out in the
summer.

In addition to their complete lack of modesty, the Russians (and now I
will speak in generalizations, as we have a lovely Russian friend who
inspired this trip & actually embraces none of these tendencies, nor
any of their fashion sense) are pretty pretentious. They are also
cutters. There is nothing I/we dislike more than a cutter. I will give
two examples which are even now making my blood literally boil with
their blatant disregard for protocol, decency, respect. Oh that's
right, I went there. So, we waited to get into the Hermitage (a huge 5
building museum that houses over 3 million, yes, 3 million works). The
line was already extensive 30 minutes before the doors were to open.
You would have honestly thought they were giving away cars (not the
crappy Russian diesel kind either) in there for how many people were
gathered. So, the way this inane 'line' worked was about every 10-15
minutes a guy wearing a suit & an ear bud would open the gate & people
would push through it like wild animals. However, as the gate opened,
people would also run up along the side (people who were not even
attempting to hide the fact that they were not standing in line, mind
you) and do their best to smash in. To add insult to injury, a pack of
hunchbacked zitty Russian girls (at least 13 of them) somehow
sweet-talked the lone guy in line of front of us to let them stand
with him. It's not pretty when both Joe & I are irate. NO sir, not at
all. Finally, almost 2 hours later we approached the infamous gate. A
large Russian woman with some of the worst hair I have ever seen was
attempting to work her way into the pack (from the side where everyone
bum rushes the gate) Now, I knew the face of everyone who I had stood
next to for the past 2 hours, and she was not one of them. When the
gates finally opened, Joe held on to my hand & pulled me through. The
lady basically got smashed against the side of the gate & took a hard
shot in the kidneys by the side of the rail. I can't say it made me sad.

Our other example of blatant disregard came to us live from the Moscow airport when we were waiting to go through passport control. Now we decided for the first time to take public transport to the airport (we had taken 3 taxi rides from the airports and we're tired of the ridiculous cost of it). So, we took the "fast train," which should seriously be renamed "nonstop" as there was absolutely nothing fast about the experience. I could run faster with my hands tied behind my back than this thing moved. Right, so by the time we got to the airport we were so late that the computer would not even issue Joe a boarding pass, just a standby form. Then the lady who issued us a real boarding pass for Joe about had an aneuyrsm when she realized what flight we were checking in for and told us to hurry, hurry, it's very busy up there. I get very uncomfortable when I know I am late for something, Joe, on the other hand, likes to see how close he can cut it. So, we get up to passport control, which happens to be cluster f*** central. Finally, after about 20-30 minutes of shooting Joe terrible looks, we finally got within 4 people of the passport control. All of a sudden, a wife & husband, with a child & grandma walk up the side & literally just cut right into our line. And, the people at the front of the line just let them do. Let 4 people just go right in front of them. No words were exchanged, just when the lil booth cleared, they walked up. Of course, we had words to say, but they were all in English & no one was going to stop them. The passport control lady could clearly see their blatant disregard for the line, but was not phazed in the least. We finally made it to the gate as boarding was finishing. I was seated backrow middle, while Joe got a seat in the 4th row on the aisle in some extra legroom seat, a technical "upgrade".

Enough of the negatives, although those do tend to be a bit more amusing than the good things. Our hotel room at the Marriot Aurora in Moscow was literally just shy of outsizing our apartment. I immediately took out my camera to snap photos of it before our bag exploded all over the room. Joe insisted this was the most hillbilly thing he had ever witnessed, stating "Hey MA, com'n look here at this, they gots 2 showers in here." And, there were, a shower & another shower & tub. Plus, they gave us access to the Executive Lounge, so we had huge, free breakfast every morning & free appetizers & drinks in the evenings. Free. Free. Free. Love it! Moscow is expensivo, so we were taking everything we could get.

Both cities were massive, urban sprawls that we wisely decided to tackle mostly on foot. Plus, the maps were deceptively drawn to make one feel like the destination would be just around the corner, oh, maybe just the next street, or the next. Morale of the story is; we ended up walking many times for close to an hour to find a restaurant or store. Some of which had been turned into impromptu MJ memorials, or had clearly gone out of business, or maybe, never existed in the first place (Fodor's will be getting an extensive commentary from us on their Moscow & St. Petersburg publication). Despite some snafus, we ate a few amazing meals, namely Georgian & Armenian cuisine. No other meals were particularily memorable, although I think the trips to TGIFridays in Moscow may be on Joe's list. We have absolutely no American chains in Zurich (except McDs, BK & Starbucks), so it honestly was a treat to eat at Fridays. Sad, I know.

However, in St. Petersburg we were close to the Hermitage & in Moscow just a few blocks from Red Square & the Kremlin. So, it wasn't too hard to hit the hightlights & then to return to see them again at night. I would say Joe enjoyed the white nights the most (he's a complete & utter sucker for sunsets), but for me, seeing St. Basil's at night was amazing. Just as you enter the Red Square, you see it on the far side & it's just exactly what I thought of when I pictured our trip to Russia, the colorful onion domes, illuminated against a dark sky. Granted, the inside of every single church we went into was a disiappointment. Each onion dome has it's own tiny nave area, which is considered it's own lil church inside a church. Basically, the style consisted of huge floor to ceiling wood panels with different paintings extending almost all the way up. No stained glass, nothing at all like a Western European or typical American style church. It almost felt dark and mysterious to just happen across another lil chapel, rather than feeling lost in a huge expanse of people & glass, like in most Western churches.

Overall, it was a fabulous experience. We felt much safer & at ease than we originally anticipated. We're already looking forward to next year's white nights, hopefully in Scandinavia, I think we have a taker on that (K?!), but if anyone else is interested, Joe's ready to start planning to be somewhere for the 'real' white nights next year.