If it ain’t broke break it...

But we don’t have to break anything since everything seems to be fine falling apart on its own. Our shower got fixed, but the boiler was leaking a bit too much and then the washing machine started to smell like something was cooking, and it wasn’t the laundry. However the nastiest problem: we’ve got company. And it ain’t the pleasant kind. Yes tiny little cockroaches (at least that’s what we think they are), crawling under the sofa, climbing in the shower and a few unlucky ones who were taking a stroll in our kitchen sink and encountered a sudden tsunami. But we called our lovely landlady again and the boiler and washing machine were fixed quite quickly. For our new roommates we were given some kind of Russian Insecticide, and if I’ve read the Russian label correctly (really, if) we must leave the room after we’ve sprayed it full with that stuff. Since I’m not a great fan of spraying insecticide in close vicinity of our food (which is already lethal enough on its own), that’s still on the to-do-list. Btw, the insects came from the neighbours, because they’re poor, according to our landlady. I suppose she’s never taken a look at the space between our fridge and kitchen, ‘cause scary things can grow there.

So the last time I wrote I was mentally preparing for a very long walk in the city centre, but that turned out to be not half bad. The walk itself was pretty nice, we saw quite a few things we’d never have found on our own. The downside was that at the end of our walk we were nearly freezing to death and had to find warmth and shelter in the nearest little café. Which turned out to be a Belgian café. Almost like home.

The next week we’d gotten new homework for the same course and this time we had to go to a theatre and see ‘something’. So I browsed the internet and found tickets for an adaption of ‘Viy’ by Gogol (a horror story). So on the day of the play we found out that the play was in a doll/puppet theatre. However, it was also 16+, so I was a bit confused. The play turned out to be one with actual actors and the occasional life-size doll. Apparently they save the actual puppets for the children. Although I could barely understand a word of what they were saying it was really amazing to watch. I knew the story a bit so that helped and the visuals were really really good. For our next assignment we have to go to a cathedral, take pictures of it, and write a blog about what we’ve seen. But that’ll wait for next week. For this course (which btw is called: ‘мир петербурга’, ‘the world of Petersburg’) our teacher also took us, unscheduled and in our free time, to a porcelain museum. Which was.... different to what I’m used to…. and well… did I already say it was on our free Thursday afternoon?

On Friday we decided to go to Tsarskoye Selo, which is a town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family, 24 kilometres south of Petersburg. First we took the metro and then we hopped on a bus which said ‘Catherine Palace and Parks’ and asked the driver for Tsarskoye Selo. And the bus took off, and we drove and drove and drove. And after about 45 minutes, we decided to ask the driver where we were supposed to get off. He’d forgotten us :(. But he talked to another bus driver and told us we could hop on that bus so, and he would stop at our bus stop. And we drove and drove and drove. But we’d really lost our trust in bus drivers for the day so we hopped off the bus when we saw Pavlovsk station. Since we had no map of Pavlovsk we decided to walk toward the pretty forest and see where that would lead us. We knew we were quite near Pavlovsk Palace and decided to go there instead. We had a really nice walk through the park/forest, encountered an almost domestic squirrel and found out that Pavlovsk Palace is closed only one day a week, and that day is of course: Friday. Nevertheless we had a beautiful day!

Saturday night Caja and I wanted to go out Russian Style. Ergo: High heels and short skirts. (Yes there are photo’s). In the first bar we went to I took 45 minutes before we got our drinks, and another 10 to get the drinks we’d actually ordered. Which was white wine. Now I’m not much of a wine connoisseur, but I believe white wine is not supposed to be served lukewarm. So we downed the bottle of wine and moved on. We went to Dumskaya Ulitsa, which is supposed to be the bar street of St. Petersburg. Bars there were great, but on a Saturday night way too overcrowded, whih was too bad, ‘cause the atmosphere was great. We decided to go somewhere that we could breath, but first we had to walk around someone who was bleeding all over the street, a real nasty sight. On our way to some club near the spas-na-krovi we met Sergei, who took us not the club we wanted to go to but another one, but it was pretty great there, and we had a really good time. The downside of going out Russian Style is that our feet were killing us; we literally couldn’t walk from the taxi to our apartment, so instead of walking we made our way to the door by running and hopping. But we had a great night and it was definitely worth it!

On Tuesday we did some cultural sightseeing. I went with Marieke to the Smolny Cathedral. It was really pretty, and we climbed both bell towers (which had great views, unfortunately though when we reached the top it had suddenly darkened and the sun was gone). Inside it was a bit weird because it’s not a cathedral anymore, but some kind of concert hall, with a photo-exposition on the side. We had some laughs reading the English captions though, which at times were translated awfully bad.

Today we decided to go to the sea. Since it was -19⁰ C at 11.00 this morning that seemed like the perfect idea. So we hopped on the bus for a 45 minute freezing drive and decided defrost in the local Irish pub first. When we finally made our way to the sea at half past four it was only a mere -11⁰C. We walked on the Finnish Gulf for quite some time, and I even made a snow angel. I don’t know how cold it was out there but my hair in the front which wasn’t covered by my hat was completely frozen.

That is all for now! I hope you enjoyed the read.