Just another day in St Petes

There is so much to see here in St Petersburg.  My last adventure was a very successful one.  We were able to see quite a few things, which I will share with you, and find something that we really wanted.  That will all come later.

We rode the metro and then got off the metro at Площадь Ленина so of course one of the first things that we saw was a big statue of Lenin.  There were a bunch of fountains around and the “Finlandski вокзал” which is to say the Finland train station.  All of the trains that go to and from Helsinki go to that train station.

We then walked along the river and then all the sudden we didn’t have any more sidewalk.  There was construction and so then the sign that we saw earlier made a whole more sense.  The side said something like the sidewalk up ahead was really tight or something.  But I really didn’t understand the sign.  Upon getting closer we realized why it said what it said.  It actually meant that the sidewalk was closed and that we should go on the other side of the street.  Well, we didn’t want to walk all the way back to where the crosswalk was so we just j-walked across the street.  There a couple people that we saw j-walking at the same time that we were j-walking.  Here is a picture of the street.  The street was more of a highway than a street.  We just had to wait for the cars to stop coming and then crossed halfway.  Then waited again and we were home free.

In the midst of the construction I see a store that says “я heart sale” and I thought, “hmm this should be an interesting store.  I walk in then go to my right to go to the male section of this clothes store.  I was thinking that it was going to be like a t-shirt store maybe.  It ended up being a super expensive store that had huge discounts.  But discounts disregarded the clothes were still super expensive.  The jacket that I tried on was 70% off but it was still like 5,000 rubles.  So the full price of the jacket would be like 30,000 rubles which is a whole lot of money.  The jacket was very styling with its missing button and being too small.  So needless to say all of these things made it so that I didn’t buy this jacket.

We left the clothes store and then stumbled upon this theater that just happened to be playing Swan Lake, the play that the other ILP teachers were talking about going to see in Moscow.  So then I took a picture of that theater and later went to the website listed there.  It turned out that that direction was the wrong direction and we had to backtrack to get on the bridge to cross the water.

Coming back I see this guy with a Justice League America shirt on.  I just happened to have my camera out and on at the time.  So yep I took a picture of him in all its creepiness.

We then finally crossed the river/canal and got close to the Russian Cruiser Aurora.  This cruiser was used during WWI and WWII and now just sits on the Neva River in the middle of St Petes as a naval monument.  Unfortunately we arrive too late and so we could enter the vessel on this day.  But our trip was not in vain.  We visited the mini-рынок that was there.  I bought 2 magnets and Jessica looked at scarves and then joined Katie in looking for postcard.

Right across from Cruiser is the Naval Academy.  While we were by the academy there was a group of naval recruits that came out.  Unlike all the other groups that I have seen there were actually some girls in this group.  In fact there were like 3 girls.

We ran into this ran and Katie loved the stickers on the car.  There was the exclamation point which signifies the new driver.  Then there was also the “ш“ which Олег told me that the card had studs for extra traction.  But I didn’t see the studs on the tires. So I am kind of confused now.  Then there was also another sticker that I haven’t seen before.  It was the “woman driver” sticker.

We ran in to the Mosque.

Then for dinner had subway which was tasty but not as good as I remember it being here in Russian. I love my Italian BMT.

While we were waiting for the other teachers to come we stood on Nevsky Prospekt.  Jessica and Katie were minding their own business off to the side and I was looking for the other teachers.  While I was doing that I noticed this African guy with a bunch of flowers and it looked like he was trying to give the flowers away.  So I told Katie and Jessica and they walked past the guy.  He didn’t give either of them a flower.  But once they walked past they just kind of stopped and he looked at them for a while.  Then Jessica and Katie came back around trying to avoid the African.  It was pretty funny.

Once the other teachers came then we had a boat tour.  It was pretty sweet.  The only thing was that it was cold.  I was fine except for the fact that I didn’t have a hat or hood to cover my ears so I had to use a blanket which Marci made fun of me for how I wore the blanket.

Teaching

It is definitely a skill to find something that the kids will have fun with.  Then to have all the kids to be having fun is even that much harder.  For me this includes the little boy that “doesn’t know how to walk.”  But the last couple days I have seen the kids more happy than they have been in the past.  So what that means is that I need to continue doing these activities but find little ways to change them so that the kids don’t just come and do the same thing every day.

One of the things that I did do was play bowling.  Now this kid didn’t hit all of the pins but that wasn’t important to him.  He just wanted to hit the pins and he was so happy when he did.  You can just see the fun and excitement bursting from him.

Then there is Tyoma.  Every single day he has come to my class he is always crying.  Always.  He is always asking where is mom and dad.  But on this day he started out crying but then we started bowling and he cheered right up.  He really liked knocking down the cups.  He even helped me a couple times pick up the cups. But it was super awesome to not see him upset.

Then for level 2 which is elementary I have a favorite kid I think.  His name is Arseny.  First of all I really like his name.  It’s cool.  Plus he is pretty smart and does pretty well in English.  The other kids are pretty good also.  The other two boys in the picture whose names are both Yegor are both troublemakers.  Yegor on the left is super smart and gets bored with what we are doing and so then he acts out.  Then the other Yegor likes to make sound effects.  If there are fat illustrations then he is the first to point them out and then make a sound effect for them.  Yegor loves to make sound effects for verbs, especially the violent ones.

"Russians are better than English"

It was a nice, rainy Sunday afternoon when I was coming home.  I had already got into the stairway and I see the elevator closer and so I hurry to get in it.  The thing was though that there was an old Russian man there in the way and the elevator doors were closing.  I try to get around the guy without touching him and I do it but he definitely knows that I am there.  Then he looks at me and I wish I remembered the exact words that were said but here is my best attempt.

Russian old guy said, "Englishman can't be Russian."
Then I said, "Unfortunately."
Russian, "Which is better?"
"..."
"Russians because they are more harsh"

Then we arrived at my apartment level and so I stepped out of the elevator and laughed at what the guy had said.  I think he was pretty happy that I laugh also.

The Sights

I love Saint Petersburg!  There is so much to see!  I have already seen quite a few things and there is still more that I have left to see.  This week I started a second memory card.  I finished my first 2 gig memory card.  I already had some pictures on my card from camp and so I wasn’t sure how much memory my pictures have taken up.  But after today I have taken 2.01 gigs of pictures.   I was working it out and I started taking pictures on the 5^th.  So I have taken that many pictures in 2 ½ weeks.  Wow!  I don’t know that I have ever taken so many pictures so quickly.

So you ask, “Well, what have you taken pictures of?”

Of course I had some pictures from the flights that I had and the airports that I was in flying to St Petes.  But that isn’t very many pictures.  Where have all the pictures come from?  We have been doing excursions.  I have been to the Cathedral on Spilled Blood (Спас на Крови) which is the church signifying the place that Tsar Alexander II was assassinated.  It was built by his son Alexander III.

I also found the forever flame.  Every Russian City (I have been in) has a flame that is always burning in memory of the people that died during WWII.

No good visit to St Petersburg would be complete without a visit to the Winter Palace which doubles as the Hermitage, one of the biggest museums in the world.  There a ton to see!  There are the exhibits, the walls, the ceiling, the floors.  Everything is decorated and intricate.

 It's impossible to see the Hermitage without seeing Alexandrian column which is crazy as to how tall it is.  The column is 47.5 m which makes it the tallest in the world.  The column was build when Russia beat Napoleon's forces.

 We have walked by Kazan Cathedral multiple times on Nevsky Prospekt but haven't gone inside yet.

 We always take the metro to get places because you can get to the majority of the city using the metro.  This is because all 5 lines are connected and transfers are free and frequent.

We have also walked through a couple parks like this one above.  Some we purposely find and others we stumble upon them.  Either way its awesome.

Then we also went to this park.  It was called Miracle Island and it was awesome!  It was a normal park but it had all of these amusement rides.  Each time you ride a ride you have to pay and so that could add up pretty fast.

Since the Neva River runs straight through the center of the city and it is like 8 stories deep there are huge ships that just sit on the river.  This boat for example is a night club.  There are others that are restaurants and other things.

There was one day we were looking for the Summer Gardens but didn't really know the way.  So we just started walking and stumbled upon this might cathedral in all its glory.  This cathedral is called Smolny Cathedral and it was so tall!

On Saturdays we go with Sveta on excursions.  For this excursion we went to Peterhof which is a collection of palaces, gardens and fountains.  Peter the Great wanted something similar, but better of course, to the gardens in Versailles.  It was really pretty.  The canal actually goes all the way out to the Gulf of Finland.  So in the distance of the picture you can actually see Finland.

Another Saturday excursion.  This is Saint Isaac's Cathedral.  The cathedral took 40 years (1818-1858) to build and is the biggest cathedral in St Petes.

We passed the statue of Alexander Serveyevich Pushkin.  Russian adore his poetry and author.  There is museum of the last place that his lived.

Here we have Peter I.  He is also called the bronze horseman.  He is pointing the way to Asia.  The statue was constructed by Katherine the Great.

I found my namesake.  This sign says that in this house lived Nikolai Nikolaiovich Petrov who was a fantastic surgeon and oncology professor.

There are a lot of bridges in St Petes and here is one of them at night.

On a weekday morning we decided that we would go to the Summer Gardens and this time I actually knew the way that I was supposed to take in order to walk there.  We found it and I was very happy and took lots of pictures.

The next place to show is the Finlandsky Voksal, Finland train station.  We didn't go there to go to Finland but just to look around and see what a train station looks like because the people I was with hadn't been in one yet.

Really close to the Finland train station there is this statue of Lenin.  He immortalized himself all over Russia.

We also saw the Cruiser Aurora.  Unfortunately we got there too late to actually get on so that is still on our bucket list to do.  This cruiser is a memorial to the navy and also the October Revolution.

Facing the Cruiser Aurora is a Navy Academy.

We also found the Saint Petersburg Mosque.

Then the last sight for this post is a picture from the boat tour that I went on.

Leaving Courtney on the station

While Courtney and I were on an escalator transferring between 2 metro lines I asked her if she felt comfortable getting around.  That if she needed to get somewhere the she would be able to get there.  She said, "Yes.  I was in London and their metro is similar to this one.  There were more lines but its the same."
By this time we had got off the escalator and onto the platform.  I noticed that our train was already there.  We walked over and on the way over I hear, “Остарожно! Двери закрываются.” That translates to “Careful! The doors are closing.”  Instinctively I hurry onto the train because I think that Courtney is going to be right behind me.
Nope.  I turned around and saw her about to come in but then she pulled back and the doors closed.  I just see her face a little scared and a disbelief expression.
But there really wasn't much I could do.  I was on the train and Courtney was not.  As I was just standing on the train there was a lady that talked to me.  I am not going to lie and say that I know what she said.  But I responded saying, "Things are going to be alright.  She knows the way home.  She can get there."  Which is something that I knew because she had literally just told me that.
I then got off the train at the next stop and just waited for the next train to come.  It was only like 3 minutes or so and then tried to find Courtney.  It wasn't hard.  Luckily, Courtney got on that same car on next train and so I just had to walk onto the same car on the next train.  When I got on I stood in front of Courtney and said, "I promise that I didn't do that on purpose."  She believed me.
Then we laughed at the irony of what just happen.
This story has also been referenced many times.

Too much woman

I am kind of experiencing shock right now.  But it isn't really from the culture or from really being in Russia.  It is because I hang out with and talk with a bunch of girls.  There is me and 6 other female teachers and Marci, the head teacher.  Then both of the coordinators, Alla and Sveta, are Russian woman.  So I am surrounded by woman which is something I am not used to.  I spent my summer working up at a boy scout camp where there were a bunch of boys there and not many girls.  There were about 10 girls that even worked up at camp but a handful of them were younger than 18.  After scout camp ended then I lived at home with my parents, brother and sister and that was still that was pretty normal.  Normal meaning something that I am used to.  Hanging out with 7 girls ALL of the time is not normal.  Its like I don't know what I am supposed to do because guys and girls act different (Profound? I know. I have learned a couple things.).  I will explain using some experiences:

Things start even before we even got to Russia.  I flew with my sister Katie, Megan and Ty to St. Petes.  In the Frankfurt Airport after we had gotten off the plane we had to go up the escalator.  I thought "Oh there are a ton of people so my fellow travelers will just follow the crowd and go up escalator."  Well I went up the escalator and waited.  Then after what seemed like forever though it was probably only a couple minutes I see them coming up the escalator.  Fast forward past security. I see a bathroom and decide that I need to use it.  So I go around the corner to the mens' side and all the girls went to their side.  I get done in the bathroom and then I thought somebody might have stayed outside of the bathroom to look after luggage and I was wrong.  They had all gone into the bathroom and taken their bags with them.  So I waited and waited.  It was about this time that I reminisced about the last time I was in the Frankfurt airport.  I was with Elder Sare and Sister Jensen and Sister Read.  We would wait on the sisters quite a bit then also.  But things were pacified because I had Elder Sare to keep me company.  This time I had no Elder Sare to keep me company and make things less awkward.  So I just stood there, kind of awkwardly because I am not sure if they went on without me or were just taking a long time in the bathroom.  If I would have really thought about it I would have guessed that they were taking a long time in the bathroom because they took a while coming up the escalator.  Then Megan makes the comment that they took a while in the bathroom.  I don't remember if I replied out loud but in my mind I thought, "yep, definitely took long enough."
Another funny little experience was like the first night I came over to the ILP apartment.  Everybody was there and we were just sitting in the big room.  I was just looking around at the apartment and then I realized that I was starting to feel a little nervous.  It was really weird.  Then I recognized why I was feeling that way.  While on the mission you are not supposed to be in an apartment alone with the opposite sex and I was in an apartment with 7 other girls.  I was actually thinking about how much the bookshelf really made the room look Russian and then it was like "BAM!  What are you doing?  You shouldn't be alone with girls in an apartment."  I suppressed the nervousness and continued on with whatever we were doing because it isn't warranted anymore.
That same night I took Katie home and I felt the same feeling.  I didn't have a problem walking with Katie because she is my sister.  But once I dropped her off at her apartment I was walking alone.  Then accented by the fact that it was dark which would totally be нельзя "forbidden" if I was on a mission still.
Moral: I don't have mission rules anymore.  Be patient.

Then today I felt very much like a 3rd wheel.  This isn't the first time I have felt like this here in St Petes because the girls that I am walking with just talk to each other and I walk alongside, quietly.  ON this occasion Marci and Courtney were talking and I wasn't involved.  There were a couple times that I said something but not very much.  I wasn't included in the conversation.  They were talking and I just kind of walked along side them not saying anything.  I pointed this out to Marci when we were on the metro because Courtney and Marci were sitting on one side of the metro car having a good time talking and I was on the other side of the car  writing in my book.  I joked "oh, don't mind me.  I will just mind my own business over here on my side of the train.  I will just write my own little secrets in my book while you two gossip away."  It was pretty funny.
Later that night we went to get blini (surprise surprise) and on the way back Marci was talking with Sydney and I was walking along side.  Then Marci told me that if I have something to say then I should just say it and be assertive and forceful about what I have to say.  She is one of those types of people that has a hard time with silences.  If nobody else has anything to say then she has something to say.  If she doesn't have anything to say then she always has something to say about herself and so never runs out of things to say.  She is the queen of associations.  With this noted I made sure that my presence was known the rest of the way home.  I contributed to Marci and Sydney's conversation and, even though I interrupted Marci like 5 times, they were happy that I added to their conversation.  Sydney even said that I had grown a backbone.
We were getting close to the apartment and I hadn't interrupted them for a while and so I wanted to interrupt her but I really didn't have anything to say.  But actually I did have one thing to say.  That was, "Marci.  I don't really have anything to say but it has been a while since I interrupted you last and I think it is about time that I interrupt you again.  So that was my interruption."  Marci was like, "oh okay."  "You can continue with your conversation again."  "Where was I?"  The funny thing was that I was the one that prompted her what story she was telling and even where she was in the story.  Courteous or something.
Moral: Grow a backbone and be assertive when talking to others, especially Marci.

Peterhof

For our second excursion we went out to Peterhof.  Now I really didn't know what that was until Jessica said that she really wanted to go to it like the first day that we got here.  Then I heard that there were bunch of fountains and gardens.
To get there we got on the orange line of the metro and then transferred to the red line.  Between our adventure yesterday and our adventure today I think I like the red line metro stations the best.  I like the way that they look. The thing is though that the trains are smaller and so they are more crowded. After the metro the we went to get on a bus to go the 40-something kilometers to Peterof. The first van driver we saw really wanted us to get in his bus. He was very insistent.  We got in, paid our 70 rubles and then were on our way.
We ran into some traffic and so the driver decided to take a side road, which I really didn't know that they had those here in Russia.  I haven't been missing out though.  The road that we went on was really bumpy. I caught air a couple times because of the bumps. That was pretty fun.
Once we got there Peterhof was absolutely stunning.  There were so many fountains and gardens and trees and so much water. I really can't give words to describe Peterhof. Pictures are worth a thousand and will do better justice than words.  The really cool thing about Peterhof is that all of the fountains are nature-powered.  There are no pumps.  It was incredible.
Another incredible thing was that the only reason Peterhof looks like it does is because there has been restoration that has been done.  Back in WWII the German Nazis occupied Peteroff for 28 months and destroyed a lot of it before relinquishing power.

Of course there is a cathedral.  Though I believe it is used as a museum now.

Looking out to the Gulf of Finland

Looking back at Peterhof

"Warning: look after your belongings."

After we enjoyed our time there we got on a different bus and went back to St. Pete's.  We stopped by a mall and got some food.  I, for the first time since coming back to Russia, went to Macdonalds.  While I was doing that everybody else went to Teremok and got some blini. The we came back to the apartment and watched Arrested Developement and eat cake for Ty's birthday.