St. Petersburg to Moscow by train

Well, I’m not quite rested completely, but I am by far not as silly as last night, and so I write today to reflect on our last little bit of time in St. Petersburg.

Both Sasha and I knew that the time would come where we would have to leave this wonderful city.  And I must say, we didn’t really want to.  The city is so rich with history and culture that it almost hurts (my brain, in particular…to many things to process, such little time!  And my feet/legs, too…so much walking!) When we woke up this morning, we knew that we had two goals to achieve.  The first being to successfully navigate the train station so as to find the ticket window, the train, and then our spot on the train, and the second being to get a bag of donuts from a little shop that we found while walking around on the first day.  It should also be noted that we had a hard time deciding which was more important.  We succeeded and were able to accomplish both tasks without trouble.  (And we also turned a 15-20 minute walk to the donut shop into a ten minute walk since we were short on time.  Oh yes, we know where our priorities lie!)

Our taxi ride to the train station was filled with conversation.  When the driver found out that we studied Russian, he was quite impressed, and conversation ensued.  We talked about life in America, as well as in Russia, and then about grammar for a little bit, because Sasha said something in the wrong case and the driver graciously corrected her.  It was kind of funny because he was so nice about it, but definitely professor like.  Just a little example of how helpful and patient [almost] everyone we have encountered has been with us as we spoke in Russian.  The patience of people and their willingness to help us learn is one of the things that makes me most happy here.

And as I sit on the train, leaving what possibly may be one of my new favorite cities, I’ve already decided that I will return.

Observations:

1.       We paid for museum tickets maybe twice.  And we went to a lot of museums!  (I think nine or ten different museums.)  Studencheski Bilety (Student IDs) allow you free access to most museums and places of interest in St. Petersburg, which saved us so much money!

2.       They have bliny restaurants in St. Petersburg like fast food restaurants in the United States.  They are fast and cheap and absolutely delicious!  This has not helped my newly found addiction to bliny at all, as Sasha and I ate at these places a lot while we were there.  The only sad thing is that there are none in Yaroslavl.  Of course there are cafés where you can buy bliny in Yaroslavl, but none as fast or as cheap.

3.       We saw and heard a lot of English.  Whether it be the guy in charge of breakfast who always insisted on speaking in English with us even though we spoke to him in Russian (which was very annoying and we weren’t very fond of him), tourists and their guides, signs telling you where to go or menus telling you what you could eat (it was a nice change to know exactly what I was eating haha).  And being able to read about what I was seeing in the museums was definitely a great thing!  Also, every Russian that we spoke with asked where we were from and after responding America, but that we study in Yaroslavl, they were always impressed. 

4.       Having mentioned all of the English language that we heard, I feel that I should mention English speaking tourists.  The first day that we were in Piter, we saw a small group of tourists from the south.  How could I tell, you may ask? (Because I saw them before I heard them.)  One was wearing a Yankees baseball cap (woot!) and the other was wearing a Cardinals baseball cap.  Once I heard the English, though, I felt the strongest urge to talk to them, which I thought strange, because in Yaroslavl, I talk in English with my friends often, so it’s not like I’m English deprived.  I refrained from speaking in English, and instead, Sasha and I talked about them in Russian.  But by the third day, when I heard English speaking tourists, I could have cared less, which I found funny.  By this point, I only wanted to speak in Russian.  English speaking tours were always a wonderful thing to stumble upon, though.  More than once we followed around English excursions and heard what the guides had to say.

5.       The St. Petersburg metro tops any metro system in any city in the United State any day.  Enough said.  (And I’m pretty sure that soon, I will be saying the same thing about the Moscow Metro, as well.)

6.       Fountains without water aren’t really fountains.  They’re kind of sad looking.  Thank you Peterhof.

The sassiest statue I've ever seen...definitely made up
for the lack of water in that fountain!

7.       St. Petersburg must be the place where all of the good looking Russian guys hide (because it certainly isn’t Yaroslavl!)