Saturday, March 29, 2003
I went to bed early last night -- I was tired, Turgenev was putting me to sleep... Early. Got up early, as a result -- was out of bed by 7:30. My host mother started nagging me to get out of the house and do something real (besides reading further Turgenev) around 11:00, so at 12:00 I deserted the apartment and went for a walk.
It's now 4:30. I just got home. And I walked. The whole way.
First, a trip along the University Embankment back up to the spit. I dropped in at the Museum of Naval History there in the old Stock Exchange building, and spent an hour or so there staring at models of old boats and the building itself, which is beautiful. From there, a trip around (literally around) the Peter and Paul Fortress, where I caught five minutes of a game of volleyball on the sand on the southern side. Old Russian men in speedos... ergh! Yeah. I stepped out onto the Neva there, where it was still frozen, and could feel the water surging beneath the ice... whew!
From there, it was up further along the embankment on the Petrograd side to the oldest building in the city -- Peter the First's "Original Palace", a little log cabin built in 1703. The lady gave me a suspicious look when I told her I wasn't a foreign student (did my Univerity of Alabama t-shirt give it away?), but allowed me to pay the 10 ruble Russian fee instead of the 50 ruble foreigner fee when I broke out my student ID. It's a neat little house -- but a small little house. I'm at least a foot shorter than Peter the Great was, and it seemed really small to me.
From there, across the bridge to the Field of Mars, which is still a swamp, but drying out. My way took me along the Moika embankment, past Pushkin's last apartment, past the Palace Square, and finally onto Nevskii Prospekt. After a stop at the supermarket there to buy kleenex (I wrote once about handkerchiefs vs. tissues; people here are firm believers in the handkerchief route, if they believe in blowing their noses at all; I prefer tissues, but can't find them anywhere but at the Western Supermarket on Nevskii).
I considered walking back from there -- another solid hour, past St. Isaac's Cathedral and Nick the Stick. That's our name for the monument to Nikolai I on St. Isaac's Square. He was a brutal sort of a fellow, and force was his favorite way of keeping order -- hence the nickname. It reminds me of the 'Pozhaluista Sticks', what we call the black-and-white stripped batons carried around by the police who wave them at people, to move them along, and say only 'Pozhaluista', which means, roughly, 'please,' 'you're welcome', and 'here you go'.
However, my legs were rebelling, so I merely hopped on the metro (though as there was no room to sit, I count it as walking, just not as far). Stopped at a cafe for a shashlik (shish-kabob) for lunch along the way there, and also bought a scarf -- a dark blue and dark blue and white Zenit scarf like all the young folk around here wear. It's like wearing a Mariners cap in Seattle, as Zenit is the local soccer time.
The sun came and went all day, though I'm decidedly pinker for my adventure, and definitely well worn out. Time, I think, for a nap.
It's now 4:30. I just got home. And I walked. The whole way.
First, a trip along the University Embankment back up to the spit. I dropped in at the Museum of Naval History there in the old Stock Exchange building, and spent an hour or so there staring at models of old boats and the building itself, which is beautiful. From there, a trip around (literally around) the Peter and Paul Fortress, where I caught five minutes of a game of volleyball on the sand on the southern side. Old Russian men in speedos... ergh! Yeah. I stepped out onto the Neva there, where it was still frozen, and could feel the water surging beneath the ice... whew!
From there, it was up further along the embankment on the Petrograd side to the oldest building in the city -- Peter the First's "Original Palace", a little log cabin built in 1703. The lady gave me a suspicious look when I told her I wasn't a foreign student (did my Univerity of Alabama t-shirt give it away?), but allowed me to pay the 10 ruble Russian fee instead of the 50 ruble foreigner fee when I broke out my student ID. It's a neat little house -- but a small little house. I'm at least a foot shorter than Peter the Great was, and it seemed really small to me.
From there, across the bridge to the Field of Mars, which is still a swamp, but drying out. My way took me along the Moika embankment, past Pushkin's last apartment, past the Palace Square, and finally onto Nevskii Prospekt. After a stop at the supermarket there to buy kleenex (I wrote once about handkerchiefs vs. tissues; people here are firm believers in the handkerchief route, if they believe in blowing their noses at all; I prefer tissues, but can't find them anywhere but at the Western Supermarket on Nevskii).
I considered walking back from there -- another solid hour, past St. Isaac's Cathedral and Nick the Stick. That's our name for the monument to Nikolai I on St. Isaac's Square. He was a brutal sort of a fellow, and force was his favorite way of keeping order -- hence the nickname. It reminds me of the 'Pozhaluista Sticks', what we call the black-and-white stripped batons carried around by the police who wave them at people, to move them along, and say only 'Pozhaluista', which means, roughly, 'please,' 'you're welcome', and 'here you go'.
However, my legs were rebelling, so I merely hopped on the metro (though as there was no room to sit, I count it as walking, just not as far). Stopped at a cafe for a shashlik (shish-kabob) for lunch along the way there, and also bought a scarf -- a dark blue and dark blue and white Zenit scarf like all the young folk around here wear. It's like wearing a Mariners cap in Seattle, as Zenit is the local soccer time.
The sun came and went all day, though I'm decidedly pinker for my adventure, and definitely well worn out. Time, I think, for a nap.