St. Petersburg
May 29, 2011 

Happily, my train ticket was valid and I was able to find my train, my carriage, and my seat, and I had a pleasant ride.  However, all that worrying had taken its toll on my general outlook.  That and I think that being away from home for so long, and being a linguistic alien for so many weeks, has really started to fray my nerves.  Homesickness, anxiousness about where the next work is going to come from, not being able to eat properly . . . let’s face it, I’m tired and I want to go home.

However.  My grumpiest mood could not stand a chance in the face of this staggeringly, ravishingly beautiful city.  If St. Petersburg isn’t the most beautiful city in the world, it is certainly in the running.

Gracefully hugging the banks of the River Neva and the Gulf of Finland, the city is a northern Venice, but with even more bridges and a lot less dirt.  It’s the most northern city in the world that has over a million people.

Speaking of north, I find it interesting that on yesterday’s train ride I transitioned from the farthest east I’ve ever traveled (Moscow) to the farthest north I’ve ever traveled (here in St. Petersburg). [1]   Before this weekend the two winners of those distinctions were Budapest, Hungary and Inverness, Scotland, respectively.

After a nice dinner at my favorite Russian chain restaurant (Carl’s Jr.), I took a three hour walk around the city, crossing lots of bridges and seeing breathtaking vista after breathtaking vista.  I finally gave up, exhausted, at 11:00 p.m. . . .  while it was still light outside. 

The hotel was fantastic.  Thank goodness for Marriott points, which are paying for it.  I have a beautiful suite on the top floor with a gigantic bathroom and the nicest sheets I’ve ever had on a hotel bed.  Or, I think, any bed.  I STUPIDLY forgot to inquire about what exactly they were so I could see if I could afford the same for my bed at home.

Sunday I had a lovely private tour of St. Petersburg with the lovely Oxana.  The highlight was the cathedral in the Peter and Paul fortress, where I saw the tombs of Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Nicholas, Alexandra and their children (and servants, actually). 

The city is peppered with dozens of beautiful domed churches painted an amazing array of colors.

After I was dropped off by Oxana, I high-tailed it to the Big Fat St. Petersburg Cemetery Where All The Famous People From the Arts Are Buried.   Okay, it’s really called the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.  Naturally it became my favorite place in the city as I quickly found the graves of Doestoevsky, Borodin, Moussorgksy, Rimsky-Korsakov, and of course, that sad closeted genius Tchaikovsky.

A nice long walk back to the hotel followed, with a break about halfway for dinner at Tres Amigos.

Things I’m Really Starting to Miss About Home

• My friends, obviously
• Board gaming
• My bed
• My apartment
• My neighborhood
• The stupidly gorgeous people of LA
• Not living out of a suitcase
• The Arclight
• Fountain Diet Cokes the size of trash cans
• Being on my proper low carb diet
• Instead of being surrounded by conversations in languages I don’t understand, to once again being surrounded by conversations that I don’t understand because they’re in Spanish LIKE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE.

  

 

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[1] No, Beijing isn’t the farthest east I’ve ever traveled.  It’s the farthest west I’ve ever traveled.