Foolish Questions

Farewell, Mr. Bear!

The tour that we had contracted with Exeter lasted seven days. But Mary wasn’t sure if she was ever going to get another opportunity to visit to the Hermitage, so she had scheduled a couple of extra days in St. Petersburg after the tour ended, to make sure that she got her chance to drink deeply at the well of art. Or something like that. Poetic metaphor is not exactly my strong suit. I’m better at lists. Unfortunately, people, well most people, don’t seem to be all that interested in reading lists, unless it’s lists of biggest maritime disasters of all time, or worst plastic surgery jobs on Hollywood celebrities.

The first day of the rest of our time in Russia we decided to go with the no-plans plan. That worked remarkably well. There was some sleeping in, a leisurely breakfast, and slow aimless walking about the city. Bliss! We eventually ambled down to Nevsky Prospekt, which is, I believe the main shopping boulevard. In any event there’s lots of shopping. And some interesting architecture, like this Singer Building, which you have to admit is pretty cool.

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Mustaches! For the glory of the Soviet Republic!

Today would be the last day of the organized Exeter tour, as well as my first day as a fifty seven year old, which I am reliably informed is totally old. I am so pleased.

Luda and Vladimir (our driver), picked us up at the hotel for our scheduled jaunt out beyond the city outskirts to the country palace of Catherine the Great, as well as Pavlovsk, the summer palace of Tsar Paul I. These palaces were gutted and destroyed by the Germans during World War II. Both have been completely restored, often with some of the original furniture and accessories (which had been evacuated before the Germans arrived) they contained before the war. There are also extensive gardens and outbuildings.

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I did not have a jpeg of a sick computer so I used this one of the Titanic instead, which is totally sorta the same thing.

My faithful iMac turned recalcitrant and sulky, just like a teenager. Well, it is four years old, which must be seventeen in computer years, so I guess it was to be expected. I took it to the Genius Bar, which I love because I get to say, “Hey honey, I’m going to the Genius Bar!” You just don’t get much of a chance to say something like that in America today. I notice that the Microsoft stores have Answer Desks, staffed by Answer Techs, which is a tiny bit sad. Though, what were their alternatives? The We’re-Just-As-Smart-As-Apple-Genius Bar? The SuperGenius Bar? The Brainiacs or the Whiz Kid Bars? Maybe they should have just paid the creators of Chuck for the rights to the Nerd Herd.

The Genius proclaimed that my iMac, sadly, was going to have to undergo surgery to remove a balky hard drive. And it would take four or five days, so I should go home and try and keep my spirits up, either with heavy drinking, or would a new iPad help? I declined, already having enough iProducts to fill a small cargo container.

So, that’s why there was no post on Friday. Mary says that’s a crappy reason, since I have the iPad, and a MacBook Pro, just for situations like this. But I say, when nature, or fate, presents you with an opportunity to procrastinate, or even avoid doing work altogether, it would be churlish to let such an opening go by.

Would you like some vodka with those piroshkies?

And now we’re in St. Petersburg. I’ve been interested in the history of St Petersburg for quite a while. Here’s the wiki because the alternative is that I will just sit here and write and write and write and bore the crap out of anyone who happens to be reading this, so it’s better that I end it all right here. And continue on with writing instead, about our travels.

So this morning, again bright and early, and not happily bright and early, but more like, oh God, why are you punishing me bright and early, we went downstairs and met our new guide. Ludymila, or Luda for short, our Exeter supplied guide, wasn’t quite as experienced as our Moscow guide, Anna, but she was keen to make sure our time was well spent. Though she did one distracting trait, and that was that every day, when she took her leave of us, she’d warn us, again, to be careful of the pickpockets. It got to the point where we’d go to the front doors of the hotel, and look out expecting to see a gang of pickpockets just outside, jostling for position to see who would be first to slip the $50 watch from my wrist. Well, her warnings must have had some beneficial effect, as we were never pickpocketed once during our entire stay.

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Hearty greetings comrade from Leningrad, I mean St. Petersburg!

Today was to be our last in Moscow. But first, before we departed, there was a group tour of the backstage of the Bolshoi Theatre, which just completed six years of renovations in 2011. We had considered at one point getting a couple of tickets to a performance at the Bolshoi, just to say we did. But this ambition foundered on the shoals of completely unbelievable pricing, as apparently most of the Bolshoi tickets are bought by scalpers and the minimum you’ll pay for Swan Lake is $1200. Now, I’m all for filling my head up with culture-type stuff, but using Mike-Calculus I find that I can go and see World War Z sixty times for the same amount of money and that’s with a small popcorn and soda thrown in for each visit. Plus – zombies! Now a Swan Lake with zombies, that might be something to see. The backstage tour thus became a good way to get a taste of the Bolshoi without having to pay the exorbitant prices, plus for bonus points, I don’t have to worry about staying awake during a ballet performance.

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In Russia it’s always vodka time!

Again, an early morning, too early, which possibly might have been due to a few Russian Standard Imperial vodkas the night before, but the data on that is indeterminate. Again the morning’s portion of the day’s activities would be based around another group tour, again in the Kremlin. But this time we were going into the Grand Kremlin Palace.

The Grand Kremlin Palace was the traditional abode of the tsars, and built around the earliest palace constructed in the fifteenth century by Ivan the Terrible. You have to admit, European rulers have much cooler monikers than say, American presidents. We have Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. Russians have the aforementioned Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Alexander II the Liberator, and many more.

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Can we suggest Russian Standard Imperial vodka for breakfast?

This morning we had to get up bright and early, because a group tour was scheduled. Today, the big event was a tour of the Kremlin. One advantage of using the Exeter tour guides, is that they arranged to enter the Kremlin early, which was especially important since this was a Saturday. The crowds later would be sizeable. Fortunately, the hotel was within easy walking distance of the Kremlin so we didn’t have to mess with cars or the Metro.

The Kremlin was originally built as a citadel (kremlin is Russian for fortress). It contains five palaces and lots of churches, cause when you’re oppressing and ruling (not necessarily in that order) the masses, you probably need to pray to God a lot. I’d like to think that the praying was mostly a lot of, “Oh, God, the Great and Merciful, please keep the serfs from revolting”. So, we saw a bunch of churches. The Orthodox churches are considerably different in their decorative concepts from the Western Catholic houses of worship. Lots less stained glass and marble, lots more plastered and painted surfaces. Also, on a one to one basis, the Orthodox cathedrals are significantly smaller than their Western counterparts. Continue reading →

I think I should make a note here. The actual tour was scheduled to start today, in the afternoon, when most of the other people on this trip were scheduled to arrive. We came a day early to acclimate (Moscow is three hours ahead of London and eight hours ahead of New York). Behavior like this is usually totally unlike me, as I am a rock solid procrastinator of the first water. I blame the influence of my wife. For the record, she is one of those people who would get her school assignments done the day they were issued instead of waiting till the night before they were due. Yes, she’s one of those people.

Since we had an entire morning free, we decided before we arrived to add on something that wasn’t in the tour itinerary. We paid a little extra for it, but we thought it was well worth it. After a lot of research, we settled on the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. Essentially a museum devoted to the then Soviet and now Russian Federation space program. Unusual, and the museum is located in a non-central location so there isn’t that much tourist traffic. Great for us.

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Welcome to Russia! We suggest you drink vodka! Useful as bear repellent!

Mary, one fine day last year, was surfing travel sites and looking for bargains. Lo and behold, she discovered that Conde Nast Traveler magazine was sponsoring a special Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Event. And the people (well, Mary anyway) saw it was good, and rejoiced! Money and time dictated that we could only reserve one Trip of a Lifetime, so now that we’ve completed it, we’ll just have to retire, maybe to someplace nice, like Tampa. Maybe have the kids down for a barbeque on the weekend. If we had any kids.

The particular Trip of a Lifetime that piqued Mary’s interest was a semi-private tour to Russia, which was offered through the World on Sale at a very substantial savings, over normal rates. The combination of a trip to a location that Mary has wanted to visit for a very long time, and heavily reduced rates, meant that I would soon be packing my bags, yet again.

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May I tempt you with a nice bottle of vodka with your pancakes?

So to cap off this year’s travel season, the pièce de résistance (you have to say that with a bad French accent, and remember, roll your R’s!), was a ten-day trip to Russia. For the uninitiated, and anyone that didn’t read the FAQ*, travel season is that part of the year where the temperature here at home is below freezing and there’s a minimum of a half foot of snow on the ground. So, pretty much September through May.

Since we were going to be in the neighborhood anyhow, if one thinks of Russia and England as ‘in the neighborhood’, we decided to spend a quartet of days in jolly old London. Mary is a firm believer of getting in tune with the local time zone gradually. For instance, she feels it’s necessary to rest for a couple of days after arriving in LA before scheduling anything arduous, like walking, because it is after all a whole hour behind us. So four days in London would be great for acclimatization before moving on to Moscow. Plus there’s crumpets and scones. Why this is important escapes me, but it makes the wife happy and that’s what’s truly important.

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