"Anything You Can Do, Tiffany Could Die Better" - Scandinavian Adventures (11/3-11/7)

Wednesday, 11/3, midnight - bus from Kazan Cathedral to Helsinki Airport. Brought snacks (sausage, cheese, cirok, awful grapefruit gin and tonic in a can, and chips). Liza brought a nice bottle of "water," which was gone by the time we just left Petersburg... Dmitri, the driver, was nice enough to play some interesting Russian pop, and then turn his music off when Liza started playing her iTunes library, which included My Humps, etc. Yay for party bus haha

Wednesday, 11/3, 5:30 a.m. (Russian time) - bus pulls into Helsinki Airport, and we pay the good man for driving us and getting us through all 6 checkpoints between Finland and Russia (which included many ushanka-wearing unamused men checking the van, making us stand outside, making us walk up to the Passport Control toll booth in the cold, and going through a nice little center on the Finnish side of the border). We check in and make home on the benches outside of our gate

Wednesday, 11/3, 9:45 a.m. (Finnish time) - finally we're on a flight to Oslo, after time confusion, a few rounds of poker using roubles, rem cycles on the benches, and a few other card games.

Wednesday, 11/3, ?? (Norwegian time) - flight was only about an hour and a half, but im too tired to remember/calculate what time we got in. we also got our kroners, and pretty much spent half of them on the train ride to actual Oslo since the airport is technically not in Oslo at all. First taste of how freaking expensive Oslo is (which is very much expensive lol). We had to check into our hostel late in the afternoon, but we were able to leave our luggage there and then get some lunch at around 11am at a small fast food falafel shop. Soda + Kebab in pita with huge salad = $10 (60 kroners) Ridiculous right? But SO DELICIOUS NOM. and huuge soda and portions i gotta admit. We then walked around and went to so many places I can't even remember them right now since it's late and my brain is essentially fried. But what I loved most about Oslo was just the fact that it was beautiful blue skies, bright sunlight, and it's still fall, so the leaves are changing and were absolutely gorgeous. One of the places we went to was the fortress, which had stunning views that just took my breath away. Then we went to the Town Hall which is where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, so the knowledge that the most important people of all time have been in that amazing gorgeous building was also very overwhelming in a good way. The city is manageable, and the people were so friendly and all spoke fluent English which was soooo nice. It's such a calm, not crowded but not empty, clean beautiful city :)

DEAR GOD. THE TAP WATER. DELICIOUS. I MISS TAP WATER SO MUCH.

Wednesday, 11/3, night at the Anker Hostel - our hostel was pretty nice, had a good common area with foosball, a little bar, some couches, and wifi. after a much needed nap, we went to McDonalds for dinner (snackwrap + water + small coke = $10). At the hostel, we rented out a room and drank a tiny bit since apparently after 8:30, you can't buy any alcohol that is more than 2.8% What a weird encounter after being in Russia where there are no such limitations...and no such high prices for such mediocre alcohol haha. The night was fine, we just chilled in our room, and the most memorable thing was Vika literally snapping the neck off of a glass bottle of beer, and then it crashing to the ground. Oh boy. We used the stupid linens they made us buy to clean that up -_- We listened to a lot of bad pop and just kept it easy since we knew we would have a long day ahead..

Thursday, 11/4, 10:00 am - wake up time! lots of stuff to do! the first day in Oslo was walking around outside and not so much going inside, but this day was dedicated to visiting all the centers and museums.

We started with the Munch Museum, which was heavily guarded (understandably), and absolutely amazing. Beautiful works of art, expensive but nice cafe ($10 for a half sandwich that had one piece of salami on it), and yay for cheap posters :)

We then bought TOTALLY USELESS day passes for the metro and commuted by train and bus to the Norwegian Folk Museum on another island across the fjord, which was a huge space with exhibition halls and wooden structures you could go inside. The exhibitions were okay, but the best part was the beautiful wooden staple church, and this apartment building that hat 8 apartments from different time periods. Tsar Joseph the Sassy and I were able to take a lot of excellent photos :)

After the folk museum, we commuted back to city center for the National Gallery, and we stopped by a Salvation Army where Vika got a great norwegian sweater for about $33 (seriously. Oslo is expensive.) The National Gallery was cool, and the most famous Munch paintings were exquisite. The rest of the collection was great too, and it had a nice room of 17th century Dutch and 14th century Italian Renaissance works all mixed, which was weird but interesting haha. We had dinner closer to our hostel at another middle eastern place, and it was fantastic as well. Yummmm falafel :) Not terrible prices, at least, it was about $8 haha

Thursday, 11/4, 8:00 After being done for the day, we didnt want to go anywhere since we knew we would have to sleep in the airport for our 6:40am flight back to Helsinki. The train from Oslo to the airport stops running at 1am, so yeah. So we spent a few hours just chilling in our hostel with all of our shit in the common area. I had one beer, which wasnt too bad, and our group met a nice dude named Alex from University of Minnesota who is studying in Berlin and decided to take a few days of vacation to go to Oslo. At one point though, an alarm went off and the entire building had to evacuate. Within a few minutes though the fire department came and let us back in, which was nice since it was freezing cold haha.

Thursday, 11/4, 11:21 Train from Oslo to Gardermoen departs.

Friday, 11/5, midnight We make two benches our home for the next 6 hours. Very uncomfortable sleep, spent the last of my kroners on a cinnamon bun, and Liza got CANDY CORN WHAAAT lol

Friday, 11/5, 6:40am Our flight to Helsinki departs. Annoying stewardess wakes me up near the end of the flight to ask me in Finnish if my seat was up (which it wasnt) and I stared her down until she left me alone. I am deliriously sleep deprived at this point

Friday, 11/5, 8am we take our bus to Stadion Hostel (part of the Olympic Stadium complex), and we get a bit lost until a nice Finnish guy in the McDonalds we went into to ask for help gives us perfect directions. We check into our hostel and they tell us that the room won't be ready until 4pm.. So once again we left our luggage and went on the town. We didnt have as many things to see on the agenda so we took our sweet time walking around the bay that was close to our hostel.

I nearly died twice, once by running across the street and a bus was barreling down the road, and then by walking in the bike lane without realizing it and almost getting hit....yeah (hence the title of the blog post)

Friday, 11/5, 11am - lunch at "Gandi's Restaurant" which was a pretty legit Indian restaurant that had tap water (delicious tap water), fresh naan, delicious sauces, basmati rice, and veggies and lamb aaaah soo good and totally worth the 7 euros.

Then we walked into the city center where we went into the beautiful museum of contemporary art (Kiasma) which was breathtaking. Building, the art, amazing! We were lucky to catch the last day of the Damien Hirst and contemporaries exhibit and there was a particular installation called "Story Cafe" that I really loved because it was a bunch of televisions playing clips of people explaining interesting life stories and the chairs were really comfortable. It was the first time being in a contemporary art museum that didn't feel utterly ridiculous and pretentious, and where I actually felt like I understood the pieces :) Then we went to the amazing Stone Temple, and we had the fortune of coming in just before a classical concert and hearing the amazing acoustics and beautiful classical music being played. The women at the temple were so nice and let us go upstairs to look at the roof from a better angle and to watch the rehearsal for free :) It was just an amazing night in general

Friday, 11/5, 6:30pm Dinner time. When we got back to the hostel to finally check into our rooms, we met a nice girl named Jess in the Chicas room. Jess is a future graduate student who graduated from Wesleyan and is taking her two months of freedom to travel all over Scandinavia, then end up in Bavaria and in her beautiful second home of Berlin (she knows German and Russian :D) She was really nice and we invited her out to dinner with us as we went to "Los Gringos Locos." My food was fine, but Erichick's shrimp burrito was apparently awful. Pretty pricey once again, but TAP WATER YUM YUM YUM. We bought an 18 case of beer for 20 euros (no buying alcohol after 9, so we lucked out by getting to the store by 8:30) and set up shop in the mpr of the hostel, where Cloverfield was playing with Finnish subtitles. There was a crazy old German koot who kept trying to show us articles on the White House, and who gave me a postcard of Hong Kong, and said (in German) "Of course you recognize this!" We met Reiner and Fabian, two Germans studying in Riga (i think) and who were on holiday. Jess talked to them a bit in German, but their English was great so we had a friendly light conversation. They went off to the bars and we ended up finishing almost all of the beers and engaging in a conversation about social networking and how it's affecting the next generation to become passive socially pathetic creatures...lol

Saturday, 11/6, 10:45am wake uppp and shower :DD yess showering. kind of sucked that i woke up to the sound of the obnoxious russian girls talking and shuffling around, but whatever. we had brunch at Finnish McDonalds in the center of the city (after buying a day pass in a kiosk and meeting a very drunk Finnish man at noon who complimented Liza and Vika and thought it was night and taking a tram which was nice). Definitely not as pricey as Oslo, but still pretty bad. I had chicken nuggets with mango salsa, which was interesting haha. After our brunch we walked around the Supensky Cathedral, and then took the ferry to the fortress. It was fine, too cold for my taste but still nice...we walked around aimlessly and didnt really feel like going into the museum for a guided tour. And then we found some secret tunnels.

DAY OF PLAY BEGAN! It was ultimate fail going into the secret pitch black long tunnel without a steady light source , which was why we started laughing hysterically the entire time. Our light source was my very sporadic and strobe light like camera flash, which added a very "Blair Witch Project"esque feel to the already terrible scary movie cliche of 4 stupid college students deciding to go into a dark catacomb for funsies. When we emerged, we realized that only 4 of us went in and Jennifer/Jonathan and Liza were nowhere to be found. And so we decided to climb the roof of the fortress haha. And more play time as we jumped across gaps, jumped down and climbed up the turrets (sp?) We eventually found Jen/Jon and Liza, and then we spent the rest of the day literally playing on the fortress, climbing up onto cannons, going down to the shore and nearly falling into the water, it was soo much fun.

We detoxed in a nice cafe for some coffee and warmth since it was really cold, and then made our way to the Lutheran cathedral, and then to dinner at a bar called Sir Eino. I had a meatloaf burger which was delicious and humongous, but not as huge as Vika's half chicken :O

Then we got another 18 pack of beer, 4 apple ciders, and made our way back to the hostel's dining room where we played Tourettes, then a super fun game of Kings. Reiner came and joined us and brought with him a nice bottle of vodka he had bought in Russia, which was great. So we played and ended up having intellectual conversations. I made friends with a Japanese guy at the next table named Takashi and we ended up talking until 3am. His english was limited but he was nice enough and funny, really interesting character. That is, if I understood him correctly at all...

Sunday, 11/7, 10:45 am

Woke up, had some breakfast, checked out, went to a souvenir shop, and then got on the bus at 2pm. The trip back was fine until we hit the border and we literally were stuck for two hours. I got some random Finnish candy which wasnt so great unfortunately, but the chocolate was good. There was a pretty scary time when our driver went into the suburbs to drop something off, but we just had no clue what the hell he was doing. I got back home at about 10pm and it was snowing as hell, but none of it was sticking. Oh Petersburg with your grey skies, temperamental weather, and piles of beer bottles on the ground..

Oh Right I Still Have A Blog...

Novgorod was okay, and cold. The countryside was beautiful, and we went to a wooden construction museum which was created as a parallel to colonial Williamsburg, so there were people walking around in costume haha. Shot of vodka in the middle of the day made the cold bearable, which was good. It started to snow, but it snowed for the first time the night before so it was kind of old news. Our tour guide was amazing and so eccentric. Her name was Natalya and she had a British elitist accent, but she wasn't trying to be elitist which is why it was amazing haha. She was a bitch to the driver, but to us she was nice and kept calling us American popsicles since we were all so damn cold haha. Best quote: "The population of Novgorod the Great is 215,000, but this is not correct."

Uh what else...Sunday's plan to go to the flea market was a bust since my group had to meet with some Vassar alumni who are on vacation in Europe at the Peter and Paul Fortress. They were nice, and I met a woman named Becky who graduated in '45 and was an architectural history major at Vassar. We actually had an interesting conversation about renovation and restoration of historic sites, and how while some places like the Ise Temple in Japan will recreate the temple using the same materials and techniques every 15? or so years, Americans would rather keep the facade, but then change the interior to last longer with new materials and style. But yeah, free dinners both days were very welcome.

Monday was meh. Tuesday was eh. Wednesday was :D and -_- at moments. The -_-: paying 4 dollars for a coke at lunch (never again.), the rain, the line at the Hermitage, getting lost at the Hermitage, STILL not deciding what to write about for my paper, and realizing "ladies' dance" was in fact not ballroom. But the :D overpowered all the -_-s like

- having my Russian professor be her wonderful self and suggest going to the ballet, and bringing me to her datcha one weekend in November.

- seeing the Rubens and the amazing second floor of the Hermitage

- running into Natalya, our tour guide from Novgorod, at the museum and having her ask me how "the talkative boy" is doing haha.

- bento box :O (though really the $4 coke ruined it for me)

- ladies' dance turned out to be good exercise and a nice time to just dance like a fool without feeling like a fool. yay women's self-empowerment through modern and jazz dance! and the music was great, it was all gotan project and celine dion and christina aguilera hahaha

- lols the movie 2012 playing on mute while the pianist was playing music

- jazz club was. amazing. the pianist was cool, and the three people i met were great characters:

Aleksei (aka Obelisk) - 24, camo bandana, lanyard with keys and usb hanging around his neck, fingerless leather gloves, sleeveless sweatshirt, crazy eyes; definitely a strange character, i dont even think it was fully the alcohol esp since he only had like two beers. he first approached me asking what kind of asian i was in russian, only i didnt realize it until he said "koreahna? yaponiya?" and i was like "oh...niet, ya kitaika" and he was very amused that i knew almost no russian. i was very amused he knew almost no english except at one point he was remarking something at the next table and said "holy shit, motherfucker!" hahahah. he got into a cute tussle with another dude over who could get into the bathroom first, and it was just. lols on many levels. he was nice, he invited me over to his table and was very animated. offered to walk me home but i told him i was close and he backed off like a gentleman haha. before he left, he took both my and Alice's hands and kissed them, and then gave me a little kiss on the cheek before he left. haha what a character

Dmitri (aka Brahjah) - 28, tall lanky awkward looking guy, bowl cut; very much embarrassed that he didnt know a lot of english, and he kept trying to ask me things but totally failing. ended up saying "i love you" a lot to me without fully realizing what it meant hahaha. things like "i love you fight," "i love you music," "i love you deutsch." apparently is learning (and struggling with) german. not as much of a character as aleksei, but talkative and nice haha. made me a nice napkin rose since aleksei wanted to know how to make one himself.

and finally,

Alice - 18, college freshman, russian hipster :O since she was wearing red converses, jeans, and hipsterish glasses and was constantly on her blackberry haha; when i sat at the table, it was between her and dmitri, and she kept looking at me up and down without saying anything. i started feeling awkward but then i was like oh fuck it and turned to her and asked what her name was in russian. then she responds "Alice. Do you speak English?" and i was like HOLY SHIT YES I DO, HELLO :D instant bond. hahah she's an international studies major at Smolni Institute, which is where the other international study abroad program is based, so she's met some other people from abroad. she had pretty good english and she doesnt drink alcohol, but smokes. she's also bi and has a girlfriend in Moscow, which is where she's originally from (and then the woman behind us at the next table was like "oh my god me too, we're like neighbors!") she also knew the pianist since he's also a student, and she helped translate some of the questions obelisk and dmitri had for me. she also told dmitri what "i love you" meant and he was like O_O OH and then looked away all embarrassed hahahaha. she was super friendly and also gave me a kiss on the cheek before she left. gotta love russian customs which essentially is sitting with strangers and talking to them as though they've been old chums haha

i got all three of their numbers but i dont think i'll ever see any of them again unfortunately :( but the whole experience was just. excellent.

best decision ive made since being here :)

i am so happy.

i just had korean food for the first time in months and it was orgasmic, i dont even care that i paid $15 and ate by myself. it was just that good.

i had to do it because i am tired of trying to find ballroom shoes, and being bitten out by mosquitos. x-x;

swiss center english classes have been good, i hope both girls don't drop out -_-;

long week ahead, so many excursions and meetings and outings..

"Korean Hamburger Time!"

three things today:

my russian professor is the nicest woman in the world. today we were supposed to have an epic 4 hour class (11am to like 2:40pm with a break), but when I asked to clarify what time we would get out, she asked me if I had plans later. I told her I wanted to go to the Hermitage and pick an object for my final project. And her response? "Oh okay, that sounds good, we can end earlier. But don't you need to drop off your bag at home?" And I told her that I would just leave my textbooks at the University for tomorrow and she goes "Oh so then I can't give you homework...it's okay, you can just do it over the weekend!" When we approached 2pm, she then was like "Oh no, we went a bit over time, do you want a ride? I'm driving near that same area anyway." Uh. Yes. lol her car has a stickshift, and it was just so interesting watching her drive. Not as crazy dangerous as I thought it would be, and we talked about driving in general. I also go to look at her college students' English workbooks, which were really colorful and looks like something for an elementary school. During class, we even talked about Sex and the City and how Baryshnikov played "Aleksandr Petrovski" lol she's so great.

When I got to the Hermitage, it was amazing. So many rooms and I nearly died seeing all the famous Gauguins, Matisses, Cezannes sitting just rooms apart. Their Asian art was pretty good, but kind of awkward since they also have like. Asian armor and swords next to statues of Buddha and scroll paintings...

Our group ran into two reporters from the Toronto Star, who are in Russia to do some pieces on Saint Petersburg. They were both from Poughkeepsie, even! They recognized Vassar College, and even mentioned that last night they were at a bar where they met more Vassar people, who are actually part of the other Russian study abroad program through Bard. They also wanted our opinions on the Hermitage. I mean really, crazy coincidence on so many levels.

After the Hermitage we went to get some coffee and snacks at a bar right next to the first Korean restaurant I've spotted here. Would've loved getting Korean, but it was so expensive. Saw a lot of Koreans sitting and eating though which is a good sign. It's just nice knowing there is a korean restaurant somewhere near me (about like an hour away) and that it also has karaoke. Ahhhh I must go at some point.

recap

pavlovsk was amazing. i love the fall and all the photos i took there, it was absolutely gorgeous

gregoriev was definitely in his element and was very happy today being in the print room. so interesting seeing the storage at the hermitage, filled with albums and portfolios from as far back as the 17th century just sitting on these huge shelves. i did cringe a lot since he kept touching the prints with his ungloved hands--but he's the head of prints and knows what he's doing i guess haha.

uhhh yeah

fun weekend, more fun to come, yay.

peterhof

woke up at 6

went to peterhof

really pretty

pictures to come soon

no work done today

must try sleeping to wake up early and do more work

bye