So I finally got a little lost in St. Petersburg...
I took the metro and switched to the other line. The ride to switch was interesting, it was like a scary movie. Everything was deathly silent and no one was talking, not even the baby. The stations were empty as well. After I switched stations, and got off the metro and figured my way out. Then I got lost for the first time today. (yes, notice I said first). The stupid Plosnad (or what ever the English spelling of Square is) Svadanya (?) has absoultly NO STEET SIGNS! I figured out what one of the main streets was but not the cross sections. I had to guess on which way to go (this was after I circled the square once).
well, I guessed wrong. I figured this out when I came to a river that was the wrong direction from where I needed to go. So I followed the river to a street that would take me to the Museum that I was trying to get to. Then I was walking along residential streets, or what I would consider residential streets, I got to a cross walk where this lady handed me a wrapped up carrot.
Yes I said carrot, she was running advertisment for a new grocery store, and I didn't realize what she was thrusting into my hand.
I finally got to where I thought I was going and started looking for the museum. Well, Lonely Planet St. Petersburg map, you were wrong. Dreadfully wrong. So I got lost for the second time today. I circled a bloack and realized that I was on the wrong street, so I went back and looked at the map and was standing in front of where it said it would be and was lookingat nothing, so I went around the corner and found the Central Post Office, which I needed to mail a postcard to Mama.
Side note, the post office is amazing! It is totally done up in what would be considered :Soviet Style" or make everything look pretty on the inside and like nothing on the outside. It would totally be worth pictures, if you weren;t banned from taking them, that is. Anyway I wasn't sure if since I was mailing it to the US, if I needed to put it somewhere special. So I went up to a lady and said in Russian: "Excuse me, I don'tunderstand a lot of Russian" and pointed to the card where it said "USA" in Cyrillic, she spoke for a few seconds and gestered back the way I came so I went that way and couldn't figure anything out, so I went in to the litter area where they sell letter type things and said the same thing to the lady, and she asked if I spoke English, when I said yes she said :Go outside and to your right, there are two blue boxes {which I had noticed on my way in} and put it in there"
I felt a litlle stupid, but hey, oh well.
By this time I had almost given up finding the museum, when I looked across the street and saw it (which is where the guide book map said it would be but not the map I pulled out of the guide book. Confusing.
it cost 50 Roubles to get in and it was worth it. The place had some AWESOME stuff, from way back when. Think nomadic tribes and stuff. As well as Egypt and Rome. Most of the museum was devoted to the Christian/Orthodox religion. They had old headdress, clothing, the little things they sway with incense and rosarys. As well as really Renassiance-y bibles with pretty covers. Some of the artwork was easy enough to understand even without being able to read the descriptions. Like the painting with Jesus assending to heaven and a serpant trying to eat him as bodies were being roasted over pits of fire in varying positions beneath a brown line.
They had some pretty graphic stuff, that painting was mild compared to some of the "hell" paintings. They made you go "Do WHAT?" when you saw them.
Off in one room they had a origional model of the Buddhist (sp?) place where you go as a high level Bodhavista before going to nivrana. It was amazing. So pretty, and intricate. The Babushka had to lead me to it, and that was accompined by me following her down a hall and her pointing for me to walk up to it. So worth it.
They also had a Muslim exhbit. Did you know that some branches of Muslim believe in self mutilation? I did not, but was educated by the English language sheet that went with the exhibition. They had the first edition of a rare copy of the Quran (sp?) Holy Book, it was from 1905.
Then near the exit they had a little exhibit about the Masonic Architechs (thank you Google, when I got back to look up the symbols.)
I then wandered around outside to go get pictures of some cool locations and walked down Nesky Prospect (by the way are you supposed to be able to feel your twos and fingers? Because I sure couldn't) I was looking for Dom Kingi and english language bookstore that would sell Russian textbooks, that would be helpful in class. I couldn't find it. I was also looking for WestPost to send some letters home.
Welll, didn't find Dom Kingi (apparently they don't believe in signs. I finally found WestPost after a detour into a cafe for a yummy cinnabon-raison roll to sit in the heat and regain feeling in fingers and toes.
(oh did i mention that I got lost for the third and final time looking for WestPost which is at 86 nesky Prospect, but has no sign until you come upon it, and the sign is at foot level?)
It cost 220 roubles to send two cards home from Finland (complicated mail system, lets just say that I wanted stuff to actually arrive there).
I then caught the metro home and have stayed inside the dorm since inorder to regain feeling in my extremitiys.
By the way on Thursday Night at 11:07 pm on 11 Sept it is 46 F outside.
See ya around the globe!
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