So, after a long dark November, in which even the Russians began to wonder when the snow would arrive, it's finally here! And, as if to make up for coming late, it's decided to come in abundance. For the first week, it snowed without stopping, not even for an hour, and although it's now slowed off slightly, we're still yet to have a snow-free day. Unfortunately, the Russians are adept at dealing with snow, and so we've had no cancelled lessons, no snow deep enough to wade through, and there are men shovelling the snow off the streets while it's still falling (see http://www.thebubble.org.uk/columns/life-in-the-big-ger-city-snow for more on how the Russians refuse to let snow faze them!). But, with temperatures of -15 C and falling, the river completely frozen over except for a small path carved out of the middle, and reports of the first death by falling icicle, I think I'm still being treated to a true Russian winter.
It's unfortunate that this weather came just as I'd decided to treat myself to a new pair of boots, which are far too lovely to wear in the snow - while it may not be at wading level, a wonderful mound of slush develops at the point where you step off the pavement to cross the road, perfect for ensuring wet tootsies if your footwear is unsuitable and destroying lovely new boots. But anyway, I was very pleased to get these boots, as I've been looking for a while. Russian women are extremely well-shod (well-clothed in general in fact, enough so to make me feel like a slob every time I look at them!) but seem not to cater to any shoe size much above a European 40 - as I'm a 41 going on 42, this has caused a slight problem for me. After scouring the out-of-town (or at least out-of-city-centre) shopping mall 'Mega', which is not quite as huge as the name might suggest (I'm not sure it's even as big as the Oracle in Reading, although it does contain an Ikea and a French supermarket!), and finding nothing, and trying on what felt like every pair of size 41 boots in every shoe shop in St. Petersburg, I finally came up trumps. They are knee-high, fur-lined, and with just a high enough heel to satisfy my feet (seriously, they demand heels, it's a problem!) while still being low enough to make walking possible. And they even got the Vera seal of approval, although she did feel the need to point out the two other pairs of boots in the hallway of my Russian home - if she could see the number of pairs that I left behind in England, she'd probably have fainted.
Well, that would be the snow and the shopping taken care of, which just leaves the sushi! Recently, it's become a Friday tradition for most of our Russian class to go for sushi in the shopping mall in Sennaya Ploschad. I think we've become a bit of a standing joke with the staff there, as the waitress was definitely hiding a smile behind her hand when we turned up today and started messing with the seating plan - if you only provide tables of four and five people come in, what else do you expect? I'm slightly amazed by the Russian love of sushi (in the food court where our favourite haunt is situated there are two sushi restaurants, and several more surrounding Sennaya Ploschad), mostly because it's so different to most Russian food - low on carbs, low on grease, and high on vegetable products. However, it does have the advantage of being mostly raw fish dishes. Russians do love raw (or at the very least cold) fish....
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Friday, 3 December 2010
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Excursions, Excitement and Eccentricity - A Short List of Exciting Things
Another entry following so soon after the last? It must be another catch-up entry! And so it is, as I dedicated so much of my last entry to our viewing of Garry Potter, I feel duty-bound to let you know some of the other (fairly exciting) things which have been happening in St. Petersburg recently.
Exciting Thing No. 1: It has snowed!! Yes, that's right, real snow, snow that actually settled on the ground rather than hanging limply in the air for a few seconds before melting on the pavement. Alright, most of it had melted by the time I went for a walk in it mid-afternoon (although there was enough left in the Yusopov Gardens to admire the pretty bird footprints in the snow, and then destroy them with my huge UGG footprints - gotta make your mark!!) and alright it had melted by the next day, but it's a start. Although I may be speaking too soon, as Natasha reliably informs us that next Thursday it will be -6 to -10 degrees!!
Exciting Thing No. 2: Tom and I have been on a day trip. The destination: Pavlovsk. Vera was very pleased, as she's been nagging me to go there for a while, although her reaction when I told her that I was actually going was "It would have been better to go last week." Well, possibly so, the temperature would certainly have been more pleasant, but the fact is, we didn't! And, despite the lightly falling snow (which sounds poetic, but was actually just cold!), and the bare branches of the trees, we enjoyed a very pleasant walk around the gardens (which featured lots of circular things - circular halls, circular ponds, circles of birches - none of which were properly circular) before heading into the palace to warm up. Here we faced some confusion - the English student price was 300 roubles, the Russian student price was 100 roubles, yet when Tom tried to blag his way in, saying "Two hundred roubles, yes?" (obviously in Russian, it would have been overly convincing in English!) the woman shoved the tickets at us saying "Russian students. Free." I think she may have considered taking back the free tickets on seeing our confused faces, but she obviously decided to pity the stupid foreigners and so we were treated to the whole of Pavlovsk palace for free! The guidebooks tell you that Pavlovsk is less impressive than neighbouring Pushkin - they are wrong. The palace is less impressive from the outside than Tsarskoe Selo's blue and gold facade, but inside there is far more to see. Even better, as it was winter, we only had 2 or 3 tour parties to contend with, rather than the usual hundred! Very, very impressive. We then decided to relive our second-week Oranienbaum visit by eating in the station cafe but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) the food here was of a slightly higher quality and the setting infinitely more impressive. It also had the added comedic value of tables directly below the train information boards, so we had dinner with an audience - luckily no-one decided to ask us a question!
Exciting Thing No. 3: Last Sunday, Tom and I attempted to do some more sightseeing. Heavy emphasis on the word 'attempted'. We had read in the guidebook (yet another reason not to trust the Lonely Planet!) that Kresty Prison, a working prison near Finland Station, gives guided tours every Saturday and Sunday, and so we went to investigate. After jaywalking (which is illegal in Russia) twice, in order to navigate around the roadworks on the main road (there was no pavement, nor was there a replacement walkway), we arrived outside the prison. Unfortunately, here we hit our stumbling block. There was no door. We walked around all four sides of the prison (a grim-looking red brick affair, with cracked glass in the windows - I would not like to be a prisoner there!) and saw absolutely no way of getting in that was not covered with warning signs. Slightly disillusioned, we trudged back to the Coffee House near Finland Station, where Tom attempted to cheer himself up with some nice hot soup. Again, emphasis on the word 'attempted', for it was not hot soup, it was cold soup (it did say this on the menu). It was also fizzy (it did not say this on the menu)! Luckily we were able to cheer ourselves up by seeing how much sugar you can put in fruit tea before it fails to dissolve. This experiment can be summed up in this quote from Tom: "Tea should not be crunchy!"
Exciting Thing No. 4: This is not so much an exciting thing as an insane thing which Vera did - last night I came out of my room in the early hours to find a curtain pulled over the entrance to the kitchen. I was ever so slightly confused by this, as that curtain has never before been there. However, I was enlightened this evening, when Vera decided to play the "Guess where I slept last night?" game. No prizes for guessing, it was the kitchen. Apparently she couldn't sleep because of a party the neighbours were having, although I couldn't hear anything so it can't have been a particularly loud party! She also said it was the best night's sleep she ever had, so I won't be too surprised if that curtain reappears....
Anyway, before this becomes a very long list of not so exciting things (ie. my recurring nightmare of being fed cold fish - no wait, that's actually happening!), I will sign off. Always quit while you're ahead!
Exciting Thing No. 1: It has snowed!! Yes, that's right, real snow, snow that actually settled on the ground rather than hanging limply in the air for a few seconds before melting on the pavement. Alright, most of it had melted by the time I went for a walk in it mid-afternoon (although there was enough left in the Yusopov Gardens to admire the pretty bird footprints in the snow, and then destroy them with my huge UGG footprints - gotta make your mark!!) and alright it had melted by the next day, but it's a start. Although I may be speaking too soon, as Natasha reliably informs us that next Thursday it will be -6 to -10 degrees!!
Exciting Thing No. 2: Tom and I have been on a day trip. The destination: Pavlovsk. Vera was very pleased, as she's been nagging me to go there for a while, although her reaction when I told her that I was actually going was "It would have been better to go last week." Well, possibly so, the temperature would certainly have been more pleasant, but the fact is, we didn't! And, despite the lightly falling snow (which sounds poetic, but was actually just cold!), and the bare branches of the trees, we enjoyed a very pleasant walk around the gardens (which featured lots of circular things - circular halls, circular ponds, circles of birches - none of which were properly circular) before heading into the palace to warm up. Here we faced some confusion - the English student price was 300 roubles, the Russian student price was 100 roubles, yet when Tom tried to blag his way in, saying "Two hundred roubles, yes?" (obviously in Russian, it would have been overly convincing in English!) the woman shoved the tickets at us saying "Russian students. Free." I think she may have considered taking back the free tickets on seeing our confused faces, but she obviously decided to pity the stupid foreigners and so we were treated to the whole of Pavlovsk palace for free! The guidebooks tell you that Pavlovsk is less impressive than neighbouring Pushkin - they are wrong. The palace is less impressive from the outside than Tsarskoe Selo's blue and gold facade, but inside there is far more to see. Even better, as it was winter, we only had 2 or 3 tour parties to contend with, rather than the usual hundred! Very, very impressive. We then decided to relive our second-week Oranienbaum visit by eating in the station cafe but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) the food here was of a slightly higher quality and the setting infinitely more impressive. It also had the added comedic value of tables directly below the train information boards, so we had dinner with an audience - luckily no-one decided to ask us a question!
Exciting Thing No. 3: Last Sunday, Tom and I attempted to do some more sightseeing. Heavy emphasis on the word 'attempted'. We had read in the guidebook (yet another reason not to trust the Lonely Planet!) that Kresty Prison, a working prison near Finland Station, gives guided tours every Saturday and Sunday, and so we went to investigate. After jaywalking (which is illegal in Russia) twice, in order to navigate around the roadworks on the main road (there was no pavement, nor was there a replacement walkway), we arrived outside the prison. Unfortunately, here we hit our stumbling block. There was no door. We walked around all four sides of the prison (a grim-looking red brick affair, with cracked glass in the windows - I would not like to be a prisoner there!) and saw absolutely no way of getting in that was not covered with warning signs. Slightly disillusioned, we trudged back to the Coffee House near Finland Station, where Tom attempted to cheer himself up with some nice hot soup. Again, emphasis on the word 'attempted', for it was not hot soup, it was cold soup (it did say this on the menu). It was also fizzy (it did not say this on the menu)! Luckily we were able to cheer ourselves up by seeing how much sugar you can put in fruit tea before it fails to dissolve. This experiment can be summed up in this quote from Tom: "Tea should not be crunchy!"
Exciting Thing No. 4: This is not so much an exciting thing as an insane thing which Vera did - last night I came out of my room in the early hours to find a curtain pulled over the entrance to the kitchen. I was ever so slightly confused by this, as that curtain has never before been there. However, I was enlightened this evening, when Vera decided to play the "Guess where I slept last night?" game. No prizes for guessing, it was the kitchen. Apparently she couldn't sleep because of a party the neighbours were having, although I couldn't hear anything so it can't have been a particularly loud party! She also said it was the best night's sleep she ever had, so I won't be too surprised if that curtain reappears....
Anyway, before this becomes a very long list of not so exciting things (ie. my recurring nightmare of being fed cold fish - no wait, that's actually happening!), I will sign off. Always quit while you're ahead!
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