Russie Russie

Disclaimer: I totally stole the title to this post from a French girl on the trip. Maybe it actually means Russia in French? I don't know but it's cool so I'm taking it as my own.

Ten days in Russia and I really had no expectations going in. I also had no idea what to anticipate since I was not well read on this country at all.

We began with an early morning flight from CPH to Saint Petersburg, with 1/3 of the group getting shafted (me included) and having to do a 2 hour layover in Stockholm. We got there just in time for the welcome dinner which was very tasty with dumplings very similar to the ones in China! Except that they were served with sour cream. One thing about Russia: They love their sour cream and dill. They put it on absolutely EVERYTHING. Dumplings, potatoes, chips, borscht soup just to name a few.

 Borscht soup with dill and sour cream on the side

Dill and sour cream flavoured chips - actually quite tasty!

The welcome dinner started us off in classic russian styles - huge shots of very strong vodka for everyone. Ugh. Talk about gross. The only way I ever drink vodka is with a nice big dose of girliness, aka cranberry juice. So this (and all other shots) did not really go down. I sipped it, decided it tasted like gasoline and gave it to the friendly neighborhood 'baller', JD Cooper. He's a big guy. He can take it.

Oh yes and we stayed at Hotel Azimut - a major shithole establishment in the almost-heart of Saint Petersburg. Check out the creepy Soviet-era like hallways. It was this place that gave me bed bugs within the first 2 days of being in Russia thereby ruining my sleep for the rest of the trip. Needless to say, a germophobe getting bedbugs in Russia of all places and being trapped there for 10 days made me a very tired and cranky 'crabbo' by the end of it all. I basically wrapped myself up like a mummy every night when going to bed and spent many hours ironing the crap out of all my clothing in the hopes of killing off the buggers.

Onto happier things! We spent our first day on a bus tour visiting many important sight-seeing landmarks in SPB. Apparently SPB was built by Peter the Great and was an effort to Europeanize Russia - so they hired many architects from Italy and other places to design the beautiful buildings everywhere.

And for lunch we had beef stroghanof! Yummers!

 

That night we went to see the famous Russian Mikhailovsky ballet school. The performance was called Duende. Nunc Dimittis Prelude. It consisted of 3 separate acts that were not supposed to contain any kind of plotline. I definitely liked the final act which was much more like the traditional ballet that I'm used to. In any case, I thought it was really cool to see something that Russia is so well known for! Plus the theatre was beautiful. I also tried to capture the dancers during their curtain call but that didn't work out so well.

It was while at the coat check of the ballet that a particularly classic Jen-moment occurred. In Russian, thank you is something that sounds like 'spesiba.' I had learnt this earlier on in the day but had completely forgotten and while the coatcheck lady was handing me my jacket I desperately wanted to say something back that meant thank you without saying it in English since that seemed less sincere. Somehow, in my moment of panic, what came out was 'Botswana!' Just as the sounds were coming out out I knew it was wrong and that it was actually the name of an African country but it was too late. My Russia roommate overheard me and laughed at me. To be honest, I have no idea why botswana came to mind then but it just goes to show you: In moments of panic, weird things happen.

Over the next few days, we visited the infamous Hermitage Museum (also the Winter Palace), the Summer Palace, ate blinis (Russian version of crepes), met up with some Russian students, took a walk through kommunalkas (the poorer communal living establishments) and drank more vodka. Below is just a glimpse of some of the things we saw, ate and did.

 Inside the Hermitage Museum (Winter Palace)

 Apparently this is a copy of a similar hallway in Rome - Catherine the Great loved it so much she had to have one for herself

 Us + SPB Students

 Summer Palace (just outside SPB)

On our last day in SPB we did 2 tours: First of one of the private homeless shelters in SPB (this was particularly striking for me with my experience at Feed the Hungry back home. Apparently there are ~30,000 homeless in SPB. Wow.) Second was the walking tour entitled 'Behind the Facade.' It was this tour that took us into one of the buildings that was so beautiful on the outside but a total wreck on the inside. Due to non-maintenance and the overall effects of the Soviet-era, the communal apartments were dark, dirty, unkept and smelled like sewage. Our group of 15 people were left speechless after seeing the deplorable conditions that existed behind the beautiful ornate outside wall. Obviously we weren't allowed to take photos inside but here are some of the surrounding neighborhood.

Again, on a happier note, the behind the facade tour also took us to a local pub where people grab shots of vodka and grub to go with on a daily basis. We were served vodka with pickles and caviar with hard-boiled eggs. Not the most intuitive combination but it was ok. Again, I sipped my vodka and JD Coops took care of the rest. =)

Ah yes. And we all found out very quickly that Russians are not a very friendly people. They all keep a very stern face and no pleasantries are exchanged during normal day-to-day transactions. This is us with our best 'Russian face.'

Now onto one of the major highlights of the trip! (at least for me) We saw a hockey match on our last night in SPB - SPB vs. Kazakhstan! It was AWESOME. I hadn't realized how much I had missed watching and talking about hockey. At home I'm really not that huge a fan but most of my family and friends are so I get sucked into it too and this year NOBODY has been talking hockey with me. So seeing hockey in Russia (and seeing all the local fans getting so into it!) was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

The arena where the game was played

The teams lined up and sang national anthems 

A bunch of rowdy fans

The SPB horse mascot and the cheerleading squad

I love how the European girls got all into the spirit of the game! Face tatoos and everything!

German Robert won a free team t-shirt - look how big a fan he is now!

After the game we headed onto the overnight train that would take us to Moscow. I slept much better on this night train knowing someone would for sure wake me to get off it!

Moscow was definitely not as pretty as SPB but a much bigger city. Housing a population of approximately 15 million people, it is Europe's largest city. Knowing this, you will understand how much of what I remember about Moscow was being stuck in traffic. I took countless naps on that big white tourist bus while trying to get from point A to point B and no matter what time of day or what day of week it was, it still took all of forever.

Anyhow, we still managed to see the Red Square, St. Basil's Church, the Kremlin, an embalmed Lenin, a monastery and have dinner with some more Russian students, this time in their homes.

 Some museum outside Red Square

 Famous landmark depicting the Soviety era

One of the 7 sisters - Stalin built these 7 sisters during his leadership to show that while other leaders built palaces for themselves, he built palaces for the people. Except that only rich and important people lived in these gigantic skyscrapers

They have a ski jump too! Just like COP!

Memorial to WWII 

St. Basil's Church

I also thought it was really cool that they had most all of the North American franchises that we all know and love except all the names were written in cyrillic. Check it out!

PS. Sorry about cutting off the last part of Burger King. I was in a particularly bad mood this day with the lack of sleep, eternal amounts of walking outside in the cold and not enough food. I only had time for a quick photo before demolishing my BK combo meal.

And we were lucky enough to catch the annual Circle of Light night light show in the Red Square on our one weekend there. Check out these photos and this video! (hopefully it works!)

 

All in all, Russia was Russia. And while it was fascinating to see the sights and learn about the breadth of history that made this country what it is today, at the end of the ten days, I was glad to be going home to Copenhagen. Home where my bed was clean, where people don't wear Russian faces all the time, where the alphabet is at least 97% the same as what I know it to be, where I am not forced to shoot vodka on a daily basis and where attractive men and women leave you be on the streets and in public places.

Hamburg in 2 days and Thanksgiving in Copenhagen

One word sums up our trip to Hamburg: LEGENDARY. We basically made stories that we can one day tell our grandchildren just so they know how badass their grandparents were back in their heyday.

Although the trip was short, we managed to fit most everything we wanted to do within the less than 48 hour time span that we actually spent in the city. But first off, the train ride there was full of surprises. Get this: Our train got onto a ferry. What an engineering feat! It was a ferry much like the one that crosses from the mainland in BC to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Normally I'm used to the ferry carrying cars and people and bikes but a whole train that runs on rails?! This was a first for me. We were so boggled with how this was supposed to even work!

Once we got into central station in Hamburg we dropped off our stuff at our hostel which was in a superb location a 1 minute walk from the station. Then we hopped on a bus tour that took us around all the main city sights in an hour and a half. This city is more than we had hoped it would be. Amazing architecture, water canals everywhere AND the biggest red light district in Europe? Say whaaattt!!

After the bus tour we headed to the shopping streets. And having heard that shopping was much cheaper in Germany we each had lists of must-buys. But from what I've found here in many northern European cities, shops close early on Saturdays and then stay closed all Sunday. So once we figured out that shops close in Hamburg at 20:00 hrs, we shopped really hard. And we all eventually found something Hamburgian to bring home with us. =)

Next we headed to Pinnenberg for an amazing home-cooked meal by a German friend, Sarah, who also attends law school in CPH. She cooked us all the traditional German favourites and more. Currywurst, sauerkraut and champagne yum!

Next we headed to several different venues on the infamous red light district strip but most memorable was the forbidden street that we had heard about. This was a street just for prostitutes and men only. It was said that any women who attempted to traverse the street would be egged or somehow encouraged to get off the street. This is what it looked like in the daytime from our bus tour:

Of course, being the badass people that we are, we decided those hookers don't own this street and therefore we decided to strut down it ourselves. After downing some liquid courage, I headed onto the street first and BAM. Pretty much got nailed in the face with a supersoaker watergun within seconds of getting past that fence. I got hosed in the face twice before I broke out in a very fast speedwalk down the rest of the street and got the rock out of there. At the end of the street these older German women even came over to congratulate us on our great accomplishment. Booyah!

We partied until the wee morning hours and needless to say the next day was a bit of a slower-moving day. But I did manage to walk around town for a few more hours and captured a few more pictures. Below are photos of the memorial for the concentration camp held in Hamburg.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone on the other side of the world! We rounded up some groupies and showed them how to do up a turkey Canadian-styles and man did we ever show them good! The turkey was super delicious, courtesy of J Fern. And I made my dad proud by making our traditional Kwong-family stuffing from scratch and all by myself for the very first time. Everyone said it was great and I think they're still alive today to vouch for it too! Check out photos of the spread. Unfortunately I didn't really capture people in the photos oops.

And now I have to go to sleep. This blog entry was not quite of the calibre I always hope to write at but I am tired. And half my brain was somewhere else thinking about how my superhuman packing skills are going to anticipate whatever Russia is going to throw at me tomorrow. Internet and blogging time will be hard come by in Russia so I will say toodles and be back with in 10 days!