It’s clear why this was (or is) called a Paris of the west, with the beautiful tin (?) cupolas and ornate ironwork on balconies. But it’s also gosh darn grimy and a little… disobedient feeling. There is SO much tagging (I think they could work on locking down spray cans a little more). Even on ornate stone buildings you see if not tagging, then spray painted stencils.
Does this not scream ‘PARIS!’
They seem very patriotic. There are red/yellow/blue tricolour flags everywhere! But there’s also a fair few EU flags too. And one brand of ATM offers both lei and euro withdrawals. Not that I’ve tested this out, as anz hasn’t allowed my card to withdraw cash here. So Rory’s paying if it requires cash!!
If I forgot to mention it’s hot!
Interestingly here, when you ask for the bill, they routinely ask “cash or card”, cutting out a step in the bill paying dance (ask for bill, get bill, insert payment into folder, waiter checks and either takes the cash away or goes away to bring you the hand held device to pay). It’s ok, until Rory starts hearing things like “quiche or tart”. Admittedly we’d had two drinks a pop and Rory had been channeling a mermaid.
A bookstore I read about before leaving, and sought out
The whole hotel seems to have been built by a sparky or a lighting supply store! Our rooms desk is internally lit. The show head rotated through a range of colours. There’s light panel, thin and running verticals, in our room. The breakfast is clearly a strong stride to their high ranking on TripAdvisor (all three hotels so far have been top rated though all uniquely different). There’s countless bowls of nuts, seeds and dried fruits to make your own museli. There’s bowls of fruit, each bowl for a fruit, but I’d say 10 varieties? There’s freshly squeezed oj.
Is it not lovely, for a bookstore?
Wrote this awaiting to meet our Segway guide in a park. Then we went to an awesome bookstore and a super old place for lunch. And it’s now 10:30pm, no dinner and we’ve both napped. Tough life holidays!
Sadly the snap missed the white gloves of Aeroflot’s hostess!
I’m pretty glad to have moved from Russia to Romania. Russians are actually taught not to smile in public and to strangers as it’s seen as insincere. So perverse and made me feel self conscious every time I did in fact smile. And the other thing – they are so absorbed into their own language. I’m not sure if it’s the huge population or huge landmass or a sense of “we’re the best in the world”, but there’s so very little written in English (or even our alphabet) and whilst waiters speak English, it’s often the uncomfortable halting type. Our final night we wet seeking vodka (and found a lovely restaurant on the first floor which was clearly a bit fancier than we were dressed but also empty!) at this place, there was lots of Russian just spoken at us with the hope we’d understand! She had some English, but it wasn’t anywhere near “comfortable speaking”. Actually we went to a Turkish restaurant and relished an English speaking waiter – he’d worked on cruise ships.
Aeroflot – the carrier of Russia (and a branded plane we’ve NEVER seen – no Airbus or Boeing here)
This all leads me to say – Romanians are FAR better and more confident with English. And they smile. So it’s already nicer to be here. We can semi decipher signage. We’ve yet to speak to someone who can’t understand or reply to us.
Ornate Bucharest (a university)
And the foods better here! Funnily, we went local last night for dinner, a Spanish place. We walked up the stairs and noticed it was rather full – seems it was some sort of private event. We went to back down the stairs after talking to a waiter, when another came to suggest we could stay if we weren’t bothersome. We weren’t. Though we’d come from a complimentary wine and cheese at the hotel and the glass of red had gone to Rory’s head so he was online pretending to be a mermaid. It was hilarious. At least we both thought so!
The more run down Bucharest buildings – but capitalism has arrived!
We arrived in Bucharest in the early arvo and wandered another direction to a main square to find lunch at a place that may have been Moldovan. I had this filo pastry dish, they were filled with mince. Rory got a chicken salad that was more salady than he bargained for!
Moldovan pastry filled with lightly spiced mince
The architecture here is very “French” and much more variable between pretty and then utilitarian/communism style. Rory said he thought what he’s seeing here would be more of what he’d see in Russia, but Russia has some very tight Planning guidelines in st P (ie no gaps between buildings in a block) and I think being in the city centre for both, we probably saw less of grotty and derelict buildings. There’s other noticeable differences – we now see clothing boutiques which are very similar to those in Australia, Europe or the Us – right at ground level, walk in (often with the big doors wide open). We just didn’t see this in Russia. In St P a lot was a few steps down into a restaurant or a few steps up. Often walking along a street there were windows at knee level for the basement restaurant or super market. I’m not sure if that’s a function of the canal city or what, but it was difficult to become used to. Instead, all over Russia there are underpasses to cross roads. Some are dark and dingy, others low ceiling and wid we ought that there’s booths with stalls along one wall: stockings, women’s underwear, women’s clothes. It was… Odd. And the a. Few had a bank of vending machines, often mainly filled with Japanese drinks.
Bucharest feeling French
It seems that erotic dance is perfectly acceptable in both countries. But it’s far more in your face here in Romania. Our free map is free due all the adverts. Little brochure displays in our hotel and last nights restaurant have flyers for places and we walked past one. On the other hand, there were multiple “human trafficking” posters in Romanias airport, which is interestingly a theme of my novel set in NY.
Safety is sexy!Our guide, who was incidently a POkemon Go fan!
Today, Sunday, we’re going on a Segway tour/ride which Rory got me for my birthday. Then Monday I’ve booked us a tour of communism. At some stage well go see the old town and the palace and that. We don’t intend to go to Transylvania which may or may not be a misstep.
Over and out – gotta wake the kid as it 9:27 and it’s surely time for breakfast!
Such an expansive breakfast buffet one shot wouldn’t get it all!
Nothing makes me think Russia like a ballerinaThis seemed like a fitting entry to Red square – grand gates and a serious fella on his horse (in statue form)The red behind red square!By seeing Moscow second, well, we’d seen Onion Domes. This just did wow me the way I’d hoped after Saviour of Spilt BloodOrnate shopping centre, and being summer, gardens inside (and out)Less traditional babushkas!We saw this cat/fish style a little – sorta strange to me!And for the childrenI wished I’d know the story of rubbing this guy – he feels like he’s a magicanThe green cabin was a place for blessingsSo what was a snapshot of the development around Red Square, well those buses has Olympic flags in their windows… seems the (dimished) Russian team was bring farewelled in the Kremlin the same day we were thereAnd the press, talking about the Russian Olympic’s team send off
**so this SHOULDA published, but didn’t 🙁 It’s now outta the flow of posts**
St Petersburg train station – after four nights in St Petersburg, we’d planned to head to Moscow by train. Something we thought would be relatively simple and a well worn path.
Stress to another level that til now I’d not come across despite “worrying” about it before departure. There were countless windows and machines. The machines appeared to what a card, so we went for a line. None of the lines seemed to move with any regularity. The only details on windows where listed time ranges – countless time ranges. No destinations were listed at any window.
After Rory stood patiently at one line and I tried a disjointed line. Two ruski grannies ended up getting in front of me after speaking to me in Russian so I abandoned hope in my line. I then lined up at what could be guessed as information. One person out I noticed young staff with red vests as thought my chances with them and the machines were with the young uns. I inserted my credit card, taking a risk about twenty minutes ago seemed perplexing and risky. Then I asked young man with smart phone to help. Despite selecting the English option, the city names reverted to cryllic (autocorrect suggested cryptic and I’d be inclined to agree). Young dude tapped with reckless abandoned what I would have picked as st Petersburg and Moscow between 13-14:00hrs. There were a number of trains listed and we knew This is advance but I couldn’t buy them on the machine. With the help of his google translate app he made me understand that it was too close to the departure time. I could go to a window. Any window. So I returned to Rory who seemed to have not a care in the world, other than the wifi signal diminishing with each millimetre closer to a ticket counter that seemed at least as far away at 14:00 after which I wasn’t sure there’s be trains.
Feeling the angst rising, I sent Rory to a counter that seemed to not issue ticked but progress. He returned with a slip of paper with 29A on it, which was a ticket counter. It was closed. It was in a corner amongst a handful of other windows and one shortish line. Doing my best Russian I butted in line; knowing trains were plentiful soon and sparse then onwards. There was a skinny girl with paperwork and her BF and there was some disdain when I didn’t speak Russian when she spoke to me! Middle aged rainbow pants was also pretty adamant we weren’t getting in front of her but when she got to the window two men just took over and not appearing in her aid. Damn, that sucks.
And then, on gods will, 29A opened, served severe skinny gal and then we were on! There appeared to be no english but she wrote on paper OAY, though the o looked more like an o with a line through it. After some confusion I established she’d written a D! Day! Today! Much pointing on the spot.
Passports were proffered and keyed into the system. At some stage she keyed a price Into the calculator. I joked to Rory she could put $150 per person and I’d likely have just rolled with it (I think it was that in total). The ticket outlined the train number, which matched some of my pre mission notes (for the safety of hotel wifi), so I was pretty sure it was a four hour train as hoped. At 13:20. It was 13:10. Much hurried walking to what Rory thought was the platform which appeared not to be listed on our ticket. Rory run to the display boards whilst I waited alongside a train on what could have been 6 (6 featured somewhere on our tickets so…) Rory ran back saying it was platform four. We passed through some rather lacklustre security (ie my phone in my pocket was never removed), so a train that looked… Old. Behind it we could see a far swankier train and started to wonder if that was it?! So we wen to exit the secure platform before realising, we coul work out how one got to swanky train – there were ticket gates but not for us to pass through. We returned to the guards at the exit of the platform we’d just been and they said, no, that povo looking train is in fact the one you want. And no, of course we couldn’t pass back through, back to the security cabin, which thankfully have more X-ray machines than passengers. A quick sprint to the first conductor and proffering of our passports and we entered. Then, which carriage. Again, convinced of all things “6” we thought we had a few to pass through but after bustling through two carriages I got Rory to ask the conducteess, who directed us back just a few cabins. Sometimes asking is worth the effort! We made it, there were mere minutes and the train pushed off.
Ornate tea glass for the train – seems there were common in Moscow
But then came the comedy of food delivery. A lady with a box unloaded six sandwiches into the shelves above our heads. The dapper older fellow then started talking to her. Whilst he was somewhat attractive, she was none too impressed with his sentiments. Later, a shorter, better dressed blonde lady (possibly conductress from act 1), returned with the complete “in flight” announcement. By this stage our six berth cabin had reached occupancy with a more than average sized 30yo woman who appeared to speak English! Winning! Seems dapper old fella does too. He continued a detailed Q&A of the food situation. Blondey seemed a little more warm to his plight. Curvy gal then explained that for the four hour journey we have a sandwich and a snack pack. With great enthusiasm she unpacked her snack pack, item by item: yoghurt, juice box, cake, mini water and chocolate. Yes, I exclaimed out loud celebration for chocolate. So much so when dapper fellow got his two snickers bars (paid for, I assume but yet to see the money change hands), he offered me one. I think my mimed interest in his chatter being about sandwich swapping (he doesn’t like chicken or wheat) for chocolate. Ha! He thought I wanted to steal his chocolate. I mean, I’m on hell’s express entry list due to my pushing in antics, no need to further add to my ticket of sins.
Curvy gal entertained Rory with photos of her two weeks in St Petersburg as she’s from Moscow. She had Korean food. Pft. Not to discount her otherwise friendly and generous neighbour, but us semi Strathfield reared kids aren’t wowed by Korean. Quite the opposite.
Arrived in Moscow
I’m now not entirely sure it’s a four hour train with the elaborate feed laid out – this could be the long train to Vladivostok for all I know. Thankfully, the train has phone chargers to this record shall remain… If not on the web at least locked away in an iPhone4 for future prosperity of crazy stuff Aussie kids do in st Petersburg – the only foreigners in a train station, without a clue!
One day in St Petersburg, we decided to go to Peterhof, a palace built by Peter the Great. I could try and recall the details, or you could Wikipedia that! It’s often called the Versaille of Russia, and you can see why.
Similarities to VersaillesSupposedly the founatins are all gravity fed, no pumps?Fig leaf modesty hereNothing nicer than white and yellow with goldMore founatinsOrante gardensHyrofoil – the ONLY way you can get to Petrhof. Seems the novelty really took off here
Back in St Petersburg city, and on another day, we decided to find these pretty gargoyles at a canal pedestrian bridge:
Ornate bridgeThere’s nothing not to like about giltThe little brother babushka
Actually Babushka’s were amazing – and usually call Matrushka’s in Russia. They’re often created by three seperate artists – one for the face, one for the shawl/back, and one for the belly, wich can be scenes from fairy tales.
The choice was extensiveDefinitely the more ornate, the higher the priceThe other colour I was swoonign for, but couldn’t justify buying myself what would ultimately become a dust collector.
We had a 9am ish breakfast buffet in the hotel – awesome little cheesecakes! Tomorrow Rory plans to try herring. The coffee is tasty too – and we see Cafes every where and vans with coffee machines in the back. So far only seen one Starbucks.
Hermitage, and the lines!
We started the day with a long walk – past the Hermitage with huge lines of tourists, the walked along the Neva to a bridge with very ornate lamp posts, which was a contrast to another more post revolution bridge with sheafs of wheat and stars. The first bridge led us to see an ornate mosque and then a little island which was a tomb for royalty.
It’s hard to feel aware as it seems Russia has had a long history and a lot of stuff in the 1700-1800s which is almost an unfathomable time! We ended up near the admiralty and the bronze horseman statue and took a low boat tour along the NEva and canals. The boat turned just before our hotel so it really feels like we’re quite centrally located. Thankfully our boat didn’t have the continuous Russian we often hear in boats that pass our hotel!
The bronze horseman
We had another microwave meal for lunch – a comedic point and pick situation! So for dinner I found us an Italian restaurant which seemed rather upmarket for the guy in his colour run t shirt and shorts! Overall Te Russians seems a bit more dressed up than your average American. You see people out walking in high heels and skirts that’d be ok in the office. Actually we saw a ton of weddings and in some cases it seems like all the guests traipse with the bride and groom past monuments for photos. Bridesmaids are less common but large paper medallions were badges on some guests and sashes also seem popular for parents of the couple.
A private moment whilst the photographer gets the best man and womanAnd the ornate chariots
Lovely italian resturant
I had an epic nap between about 4-9pm, rest assured Rory didn’t starve (see the photo). I had one! Dad would have called dinner fancy but it was comparable prices to Sydney – I had a octopus dish which was pretty tasty with chickpea purée. Overall restaurants are pretty hard to find – bars seem far more common.
almost seeing insideSuch beauty
After dinner I took Rory to the spilled blood church which awed me yesterday evening and took another bazillion photos. The dark meant we could see inside the church and it was just as ornate inside.
I had a fascination with ‘Atlases’ which are the masculine figures shown to hold up buildings.Ornate bridge’s street light columns, which contrast othersDecorative features of a bridge built in another eraThe actual barricades seemed sorta flimsy for the heavy duty chains?Kayakers in the Neva. I love to kayak, but the Neva looked very brown and dirty.A blue mosque we saw in the distance and walked towardsRabbit island, where many royals were buried in St Petersburg.“Now, I’ll be standing for a few hundred years; definitely need my mirror and my snake”Two headed eagle, a sign of RussiaThe older style double grazing. Overall, doubel glazing is uncommon in Sydney.
There were two of these on a landmass ‘peak’ in the Neva River
My holiday started with flying into St Petersburg, spending four nights there with my brother, followed by four nights in Moscow.
The hotel we selected in St Petersburg couldn’t have been better located – it was on one of the many man made canals, within a short walk of the Hermitage/Winter Palace and the Church of the Saviour of Spilled Blood. I’m not sure I was aware of this, but after checking in, I decided to go for a walk around the nearby streets and discovered these wonderful facts! My brother’s flights weren’t due til around 10pm, so I had some hours to kill.
The engineer in me can’t avoid photos of lighting like this, on my drive into St Petersburg
The hotel was also generally lovely – they realised they’d put the two beds together and called to say ‘when you go out, let us know and we’ll change it’ and then when I went to reception to let them know, they knew which room I was in (from sight, and this hadn’t been the lady I’d checked in with!). Their service, the little we used it, was exemplary. We noticed that others asked a whole lot more of them, and I can see why – they would not be disappointed!
Beautiful furniture of our room
The room was rather ornate, and the exterior was of the similar style to most surrounding buildings, ornate. Peter the Great’s city was built to strict guidelines, including no gaps between buildings. That meant our building, and others, had driveways into the heart of them, and interior courtyards. Inside the room, I was impressed by the level of style and detail. Curtains with two fabrics and a decorative trim between them. Mirrored wardrobe, and the mirrors were bevelled and in a criss cross pattern. Lovely wooden floors.
The beds on arrival .
Below is my thoughts at the time:
So both emirates flights have come with moisturiser and the like in the bathroom, but on the Russian flight they are secured down so they don’t disappear. The plane to Russia is 3-4-3 configured but pretty empty behind the segment I’m in. And business class is empty by and large for a day time five hour flight.
Emirates offers a meal voucher for the five hours or so I was in transit – circus given that everyone has them and for limited venues but a nice touch nonetheless.
Whilst lounging I played the “could that person be a passenger on my flight?” Game. Russia is a large country but I did well in my guesses. There’s lumpy scowling old ladies, with often loose scarves over their heads. There’s a certain group of women who need to wear every pieces of jewellery they own. There’s very aryan looking younger people and then there’s the Asian/middle eastern tinge. I say in the lounge beside an Iranian guy who was planning to travel to somewhere else but his age and country of origin meant it was too hard and Russia it was. He offered me smarties. I’m not yet dead. I did see him open the package. Living life on the edge. We agreed smarties are better than MnMs. Not clear if I should feel complimented that he thought I may be Russian.
My first leg was about 14 hours. There was an older parent couple with a nineteen month old blond girl. Adorable (yes even after an hour or two of listen to her grizzle about bedtime). Lucky the kid was small for her size she was as long as the bassinet! The parents ended up tying two blankets together to cover the bassinet and the blankets looped around the common screen. Suspecting one parent maybe a closet engineer! They were headed for Dublin. The (African black) girl to my right was off to Zambia next I think? Certainly isn’t anywhere Emirate doesn’t fly to (Edit: except Sarajevo/the Balkan cities I might have wanted to fly from)! A kid in the airport had Iraq branded sports gear. Heard flights called for Rio followed by Oslo. First flight crew was 21 nationalities and 27 languages, the latter was 11 and a paltry 15 I think. First crew had an Irish woman – wonder if her language is “English too accented to still call English?”
Disappointed not to enjoy the luxury and civility of the business class lounge in Dubai. Having got about nine hours sleep though, I’m doing relatively fine compared to possible other alternatives.
Interestingly for the tech nerds, Emirates now had wifi and phone roaming connections on all a380s and most 777s, ie the planes I’m on. Talk about adapting to trends. I doubt either is cheap, but part of why I go away is to be a little less connected to devices. That being said, leaving on a Thursday meant I did have work emails. Filed most of them, to keep the inbox tidy.
The alcohol mini bottles are out in force on the Russia flight!! Value for money evidently bring sought. And nerdy me just liked that mango juice was an option with lunch!
Now that’s a smile!
Smiling seems no longer fashionable – shame cause it’s usually a great way to non verbally communicate in strange countries. One old dude has spoken to me in Russian so I don’t look too foreign?!?
Seems it’s customary to greet arrivals with flowers – often unwrapped. Taxi driver seat belt – optional. Like Sydney taxi drivers tho, the mobile phone calls are obligatory.
Checked into my hotel, and it’s to my standards and a few hours and Rory will join me
Horribly, my parents home was robbed, and Mum lost most of her jewellery. With every thunder cloud, there’s silver linings, and one of them was that I booked us both into a class to make resin jewellery, one rainy day.
Work in progress
Yes, I’m sad about plastic cups. You use those to divide up Part A and Part B, then you add colour to one part, then mix them together, mix til they heat up, and then pour in the moulds.
All in the moulds, settingMum’s mould’s – she shocked me with lime green!These were someone else’sExhibit A: Some people mixed four different colours. Me, I used bangle overflow and made rings… matchy!Had hoped for a deeper colourThe class pileMore of the class pile bottom centre is mum’s!)
Sadly, the moulds by the time Mum and I got there were a bit big for my fingers. The bangles obstruct typing (ah, Mum’s a teacher, so she wears them more). So I took all my newly made stuff to a water polo team dinner and left three behind (had to leave early), so I hope others have rehomed them.
