Floating down the Neva

(NB: Once again, there’s a week’s worth of entries here, so go back to the post about the wine bar and with the post following that day!)

The plan for Saturday was to go to the Hermitage again at noon, but that turned out to be a fatalistic idea. The line was long to get in, but we decided to stick it out and got our free student tickets after about 20 minutes. We spend this trip on the second floor looking at French, British, and German art from the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The art was beautiful, but I’m not really much of an art museum person. The real reason to go to the Hermitage, and what works well for us with our free tickets, is to look at the rooms of the building themselves. The Hermitage is housed in part of the Winter Palace, ergo the rooms were designed for royalty. The wing that houses Flemish art has the most beautiful painted ceilings, and it was our mission yesterday to find those in particular. After we found those rooms, we stumbled upon a sign directing us to a room with a display on knights. In that room where several full suits of armor, weapons from all different countries, and four suits of armors set up on fake horses to full scale, which was really cool. On our way out of the Hermitage we found ourselves in one of the old libraries of the winter palace. It was beautiful and everything I’ve dreamed of having one day! It was a two story library with a staircase and more bookcases on the balcony. Hannah took some illegal pictures and I was about to, but then the room attendant turned her evil eyes on us and we scurried away.

After the Hermitage, we met up with Corbin and Joe in the park outside Kazan Cathedral while we waited for the rest of the UA group to arrive. The excursion planned for that evening was a boat tour of St. Petersburg on the Neva.  The tour was 99% of things we have already seen, so everyone spent most of the time talking and relishing the chance to sail down the Neva on a boat. Unfortunately it was raining, so our time was spent below deck looking out the windows. We were all jittery because we planned a beach party following the boat tour and it started raining (following a completely sunny day) right when the tour started. But we got lucky! When the tour ended, we could see it clearing in the distance over the beach at Primorskaya!

me chilling in the park in front of Dom Knigi (on right)

Hannah and Joe hamming it up for the camera

arch we saw on the boat tour

Ergo, we staged our second party on the beach in Russia. We once again had delicious sashlyk and the boys got happy with the lighter fluid as usual. It was colder this time around, but it didn’t matter since we all had sweaters and a roaring fire to keep us warm. We used a door (yes, a door) that we found washed up on the beach to protect the fire from the wind coming in off the Gulf of Finland and all was well! The original plan for everyone else (I live a block from the beach) was to head out in time to catch the metro, but when the time rolled around, the majority of us decided to stay out on the beach. The boys found a stash of good wood, so we had a good fire going from 8pm to 5am. It was a lot of fun to just hang out with people, and since we’re 4 of 5 weeks through our time here in St. Pete’s, everyone is getting tired and just wants to chill. And I’m down with that. 

After getting home at 6am, after seeing everyone off, I passed out for about nine hours. And just before I typed this up I had the glorious experience of washing smaller pieces of clothing in the bathtub. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but definitely not an experience I care to repeat. I miss my washing machine! (Oh, first world problems!) But now I have internet for the next few hours since I’m at a café in Petrogradskaya with Kara, so all is right with the world!

Love and hugs to all! (Postcards going out sometime this week before I leave St. Petersburg!)

xoxo