Bike ride through Kazan

The rat

Damn! Today I saw a rat walk down the sidewalk in the middle of the city. Boy, those things are ugly suckers. And this one was right across from a pizzeria. Oh joy.
But let’s back up. The guy from Kazan who rode his bike around the world last year wrote a book about it. I ordered it and the lady from the bike club told me she’d meet with me Saturday afternoon to give it to me. So first I spent Saturday morning cleaning, then I took off for downtown. I meet Aigul at the coffee shop and after she gave me the book, she asked me to to say a few words about it in Russian so she could post the video of my book review on the website. I told her I needed a chance to look at the book first! I told her I’d look at it over the weekend and have someone at school record it.
The book is actually very good. I understand a lot of it and the pictures are beautiful. I’ve been recommending it to everyone I know here. So I wrote a little blurb in English and had our foreign liaison guy at school translate it into Russian. Then I practiced it for a few minutes, he recorded me and I sent it off to Aigul. What was really neat was that the guy crossed the US along the Southern Tier route, which was the way I rode. So I recognized a lot of things that he wrote about.
Sunday we had an enjoyable breakfast with the gang at Beanheart’s downtown. We had some really interesting conversation. Claudia and Ravil assured Sonia and me that it’s not just our school that has a messed up bureaucracy. They too had tells of horror to tell about totally arbitrary decisions, unreasonable waiting times and rude clerks. Ravil even had to spend a couple of hours in a jail cell when a policeman stopped him and he wasn’t carrying his passport with him.
After breakfast we split up. Sonia and Claudia headed for the flea market and Ravil and I met Anna and we walked all the way down to the Kremlin. Ravil left is there and headed home, while Anna and I co tinted along the promenade by the river. The weather was sunny and pleasant and we walked until we found an empty  recliner bench and just really relaxed for an hour. Then, wouldn’t you know it, the clouds started rolling In. So we headed back into town and stopped at our Favorite Italian restaurant for a salad before we headed home.
Today I started talking to the kids about the US. At the end of the week I will let them know that I will not be their teacher next year. I figured this would be a good way to edge into the news, by talking about where I live. Then one of the boys celebrated his birthday today. Mom sent an entertainer into the classroom so we had a lot of excitement in the afternoon.
After work I went downtown for coffee with Dmitry. We’re planning a bike trip for the holiday on June 12.

Sunset on Kremlin Street in Kazan

Called on account of rain

Granted, it doesn’t rain that often in Kazan, but this one really blows my mind. We had a thunderstorm on Thursday and rain throughout the day. And Sonia’s Russian lesson got cancelled because of the rain! This is a city that has snow 5 months out of the year, but they can’t handle a little rain. That is really shocking to me!
But let’s start with last Sunday. Anna and I went out for breakfast and then ended up spending three hours at an art gallery. There was a whole hall just full of pictures painted by Shishkin. He happened to be born in that little town of Yelebuga that I visited lasted Friday and we visited his home there. It was a really pleasant afternoon.
On Monday several parents and kids from the class went to the professional soccer game together. The dad of one of my kids plays on the team and got us tickets in the really exclusive section. We got served snacks and tea! This was really classy. I was disappointed that some parents ordered tickets but then never showed up. The kid’s mom went out of her way to get them for us and then they just don’t bother to show. Pretty rude, as far as I’m concerned.
Tuesday was German night! Claudia had some guests from Germany so she invited a couple of us German speakers from Kazan over. We had a nice dinner, we sang some songs with guitar accompaniment and got into some great discussions. I got on the wrong bus going home and had to jump off a couple of stops later and catch one going in the other direction. I was afraid I wasn’t going to get to the metro in time before it stopped running. But I made it.
Wednesday was table tennis with Ravil and Paul. Paul taught me a new serve and I’m getting better and better. I really have to find a table tennis club to practice at when I get back.
Thursday was the rainy day so Sonia’s Russian lesson was cancelled. So instead, I went with her downtown to complete the paperwork she needs done to get her Mongolian visa. She and her friend are taking the Transsiberian Railroad this summer.  This sounds as if it’s going to be a real adventure.
It was raining lightly when we went downtown. We got things down at the visa bureau and left. Then she realized she hadn’t asked them to make a copy of her passport. The passport had to be sent with the paperwork to Moscow. But you don’t dare walk around in Russia as a foreigner without your
passport. So we turned around and went back to get the passport copied. This time, when we left the bureau it was really pouring. Sonia had to go on to  a meeting with friends and I wanted to get back home. So I caught a quick bus to the metro station. But then I decided to run up to the English book store and pick something up because I had just finished my last unpacked book. I didn’t find anything that interested me, so I walked downstairs to the metro and headed home. And I was nice and wet. Sonia said that she was drenched when she got home.
Tonight is cleaning night, tomorrow I meet with a lady who’s going to deliver a book that I ordered to me. It’s written by the guy here in Kazan who rode his bike around the world. I know it’s in Russian so it should motivate me to keep learning so that I can eventually get through it.
Sunday the group is going to get together for breakfast and then will see what the day brings.
On the school side of things, it was the last day today for the little boy whose dad plays soccer. Then next week I’m going to talk about the US and break it too the kids that I won’t be their teacher after this year. There are also some birthday parties coming up and we will be throwing a going away party for all the kids who are leaving. So this next month will go by quickly.
It’s time to go.

Today’s bike festival

I’ve never seen a school that throws events together at the last minute like this one. So, a month ago the bos lady decided that this would be the Saturday we would do our spring bike festival. Great. Whoops, it’s  also the same day as the robotics competition. Nope, it’s ok. Robotics is I. The afternoon and we will do it in the morning. We will go back to the treetop adventure park where the kids had so much fun. And in addition, I will create a scavenger hunt with questions in English on the way to the park to make it more interesting. Whoops. Nobody called and reserved a cabin at the treetop adventure park . Now there are none available. Ok. We will grill on the playground at school. Good solution.
Ok, now that we are not going to climb through the treetop adventure, we will start the morning with laser tag, then the bike ride/scavenger hunt, then the grill party. I texted the designated “organizer” the night before and asked if he need help putting up the signs. He had pushed that responsibility off on the new lady because he had to grill the hot dogs. Ok. Tell her to SMS me if she needs help. No message comes. I think she’s got it under control.
I’m not going to show up at 9 for laser tag. I’ll go right before the bike ride. Whoops. I get an SMS from the new lady asking me where I am. Oh Lordy. This means the signs aren’t up and it’s 9:45. I’m on my way. As I arrive, the “organizer” asks me what guests are coming. I told him I had given him the names of the people he should officially invite two weeks ago. Oh, he answers, I thought you were going to invite them. So, no honored guests.
In any case, New lady and I walk the course through the woods and put up signs at 10 different stations. It’s now 10:30, we’re almost back at school, and boss lady is texting to know where we are. In the two years that I’ve been here, this school has NEVER had an event start on time. Why today?
Ok. Back in the courtyard there are only about 20 kids and 10 parents. It turns out, the school has so many WhatsApp threads it posted the bike fest information on none of the ones that most parents and teachers would see. (Russian use their phones too damn much. They live and die for the social media sites.) I told the boss later we should get rid of all the WhatsApp threads except one in Russian and one in English which is available to all.  Do we really need a WhatsApp for left-handed, blue-eyed Tatar speakers?
Ok. Be that as it may, I started off with a few words, then gave the kids a bike lesson on the bike path on our courtyard because the police had donated some traffic lights to us and we practiced with them before we took off into the woods.      
Once we got into the woods, we stopped at each station, the kids read the signs out loud and we answered the questions. We had varying riding abilities so we always had to wait awhile until
everyone caught up. At the last sign I collected all the answers, we took the signs off the trees, and headed back to the picnic.
There were hot dogs, fruits, tomatoes, actually a nice spread. I grab a hot dog and go inside with new lady and all the quiz answers. We go through them all and I ask her where the prizes are. She doesn’t know. She has to call “organizer”. Organizer tells her I was supposed to organize them. Let’s be clear about something. I create these events for them and give them ideas they never even heard of. My Russian isn’t adequate enough to interact on a business level with people. So I ain’t doing the leg work for these projects that THEY request. Get your act together and find someone who can organize. And boss lady, follow up to make sure they do it!
But new lady saved the day but finding enough Bala City School pens and notebooks for everyone. We presented the prizes and called it a day. We were lucky with the weather, the kids who were there had fun and used their English, but it’s so frustrating and exhausting to get them to organize something that doesn’t involve dancing and ball gowns! And impressing rich parents.

This week in entertainment

It was another busy week and very fulfilling. Monday was coffee with Dmitry. Tuesday after school, I went with Sonia to the visa center. She is traveling across Russia on the Transsiberian Railroad this summer and needs a visa to get through Mongolia. Holy crow! They’re making her jump through hoops. She had to so all her reserved tickets and hotel rooms. Then she had to pay a bucketload of money. Now they’re telling her she has to go to the Mongolian Embassy in Moscow to pick it up. They won’t mail it. But here’s the catch 22. They have to send the passport in with her application papers. But she can to travel on trains or planes in Russia without showing a passport. So how’s she supposed to get to Moscow to pick up her passport with the visa, without having a passport to travel with? This is truly a sticky wicket!
Wednesday was table tennis. This time it was Paul, Ravil and me. Same old, same old. They kill me every time, but it’s good practice and good exercise.
Thursday was couch surfing. I met a couple new people, one of whom is very interested in anime. I stayed for about two hours because Friday the bosses had organized a trip to Yelebuga.
Yelebuga is a small city with a population of about 74,000 in the east of Tatarstan. I would label it a company town, like the old coal mining regions had in the States years ago. The companies owned the houses, the stores and the mines. In the case of Yelebuga, it’s a group of high tech companies (some of them foreign) and they have created a campus with a school, a kindergarten and lots of very modern homes for school staff and employees of the companies who send their kids to the school. The campus also has a camping area, bike and walking paths, grill huts and a traditional Russian bathhouse.
The school is a multilingual school which concentrates on science, technology, engineering and math. Much of the subject matter is taught in English. Our delegation (8 of us) was sent to see what ideas we might be able to transfer from Yelebuga school to ours. We spent the entire morning touring the school and then had a nice lunch there. Because it is Ramadan now, some of our staff members couldn’t eat so they had a walk around the campus. Then we took a quick bus ride around campus before we rode into town and picked up a tour guide who gave us a tour of the city and the home of the great Russian landscape painter Ivan Shiskin. For a small city, it has a big history. And it was so beautifully green. Every time I’ve driven in this direction before, it’s been in cold weather when the snow has been up to my eyebrows. It was really refreshing to see it in green!
Our overall impression was that the school doesn’t do enough to educate a well-rounded child because it concentrates so much on the sciences and tech. But it’s undedstandable that they do so because this is a “company town” which is educating for the express purpose of leading this kids into these companies. When I asked a question about the liberal arts portion, or lack thereof, they said they teach emotional education and social skills. Ok. I guess my point would be, if you teach a kid about art, music, languages and different cultures along with science and tech, you probably would need emotional education.
The older classes spoke English well. The kindergarten kids answered in Russian when while the teachers spoke in English. Not one of them asked the kids to try to say it in English. It certainly is an interesting concept and serves the purpose for which it is intended. I’m just not sure if it’s the right education for every child. Even in the States we wait at least until the end of elementary school before a kids decides whether he wants to go to a School of the Arts, or a STEM school or just a regular high school. I’d love to see this school again in five years and look at the success rate. They at least had a 10-year plan and didn’t seem to do things as piecemeal as our school.

What a week

It was interesting in school this week. We started talking about what you can buy in different stores. We learned vocabulary like groceries, furniture and sports equipment. Then we “bought” things and they all had to come up to me at the toy cash register and decide whether it was “cash or charge” and “Do you need a bag for that?” This all led to the subject of what happens if you lose your credit card. We decided we had to notify the bank and tell them our names. Which led us to the fact that many kids did not know their last names because the way the Russian naming system. So we learned all our last names and learned that, if you are a girl, your last name will always end with an “a”. The kids all went home and fold their parents who were all surprised that the kids were asking them what their last names were.
I think I’ll talk about the US and Rochester next week and ease them into the idea that I will not be back as their teacher next year.

Yelabuga in pictures

The clean bicycle

After 3 days of school, we got another vacation. This time it was for the Russian version of Memorial Day. We had a ceremony at school on Wednesday to commemorate the event. My kids don’t get too much out of it, of course, because they’re just too far removed from historical events.
Yesterday was the big parade downtown. Streets were already blocked off Wednesday night when I went down to play table tennis. (It was only Claudia and me, so it was essentially pure training for me. I’m definitely going to pursue the sport when I get back.) I had originally planned to go to the parade but Claudia suggested a two-hour boat ride down the Volga to a little town called Tashkivo. Geologically it looked a lot like Chimney Bluff on Lake Ontario by Sodus Point. It is a really old farming village with lovely old wooden houses. Meanwhile some of the younger residents have built summer dachas there. It’s basically an escape from the big city. There is one major road which runs along the mountain ridge from Kazan parallel to the Volga and there are turnoffs for little towns like Tashkivo along the way.
The twin still has dirt roads. There’s one little store in the back of a semi which serves the community’s needs. There’s no pier for the boat to land at. The board just pulls up close to shore bow first and let’s down a set of steps for passengers to get on and off. And the boat was full going down. It made several stops before we got to  Tashkivo and all the villages were similar; Stoney beaches, old, rickety steps going up the embankments to the old wooden houses, and dirt roads. This was really countryside.
There were some day trippers like us, but many of the passengers on the boat were older people with bags of plants and gardening tools. They were obviously headed to their dachas for the long weekend to work in the garden.
When we got off at Tashkivo, we first walked up through town, past the goats and through a very interesting and colorful old cemetery in the woods. After looking at some of the graves we walked down a set of metal stairs to the stony beach where we spread out our blanket and had a picnic. It was just nice to sit and relax and look at the Volga......until the fishermen came. It seems we had settled down in an area which the men felt should be reserved for them. We got the evil eye more than once. They made it seem as if we were intruding on private property. Nope. We weren’t.
But it was getting late in the afternoon and the last boat would leave at 5:20 p.m. so we figured it was time to wander on downtown where the boat would land. We practiced skipping stones there and just generally watched the people. It was definitely a different side to Russia that I hadn’t experienced before.
Then today, I decided it wad time to clean my bike because I hadn’t done it since buying it. Where to do it? Hmmmmm. Ok, outside my building there’s a little patch of grass right behind the garbage containers. It was in the shade, so I figured, Why not? I took out my oil and my cleaning rags,  turned the bike upside down and got to work. You can’t imagine how many people had to “throw away their garbage” just to check out what I was doing. One young father with a little boy and a baby came by and struck up a conversation but the others just seemed to be weirded out. I told Ravil about it and he says people here don’t sit on the lawn and they NEVER clean their bikes. Oh well, it was a new experience for the Russians then.
I also got my haircut, went to the post office and rode to school to water or little garden. It was a very productive day.

Faberge Museum

Story, continued.

Thank God the bus driver made an announcement so I was able to jump off in time and go stand at the correct bus stop.
Everything else ran without incident. Except that the stupid airline charged me for my hand luggage this time! When I got back to Kazan,Sonia had a cab waiting for me and other than that the cabby was really snotty, nothing else went wrong. I got home, went to the store and now I’m getting ready to really call it a day. I’ve got school tomorrow.

Ok. St. Petersburg is history now. And this was a terrible pun.

Yesterday everything finally went according to plan and this morning almost everything did too. But first I have to mention myroom in the hostel, because it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced in a hostel. The staff in the place was great. Very helpful and nice. But nobody in the room spoke to each other. I don’t mean that I wanted a deep conversation with anyone, but these people had trouble even saying hello when I greeted them upon entering. That is certainly preferable to sharing a room with a noisy school class that stays up all night. It was only that it was the first time every I encounter total silence in a hostel. It was a pleasant change.
So, now for my good day yesterday. Up early, down to the Ermitage and get in line an hour early. I read and talked with some of the people. Ate a banana and cookies. The gates open to get in line for the ticket office and the ticket online terminals at time. I’m the first one at my terminal! It doesn’t activities until 10:30! I guarded hat sucker with my life. Meanwhile, a million people come by and ask if there’s an advantage to buying tickets at the terminal. I get to tell them my sad story from yesterday. They even understand me. At 10:30 the terminal switches in, I put in my credit card and.....it’s reject. Again. Rejected. Crap! I was glad I had enough cash in my wallet. It worked! I got a ticket and got to skip right past the line into the museum. That as neat. I spent 3 hours walking around and lookin* at all the art and historical treasures. I was so glad I made it in.
By 2 o’clock I’d had enough and left. I went into the park and had a hot dog before I walked across the river to Peter-Paul Fortress. First I walked down to the beach on the rive4vin front of the fortress and then memories of 52 years ago came flooding back. I can remember being her with my study group, I can remember the faces and the conversations. This was the only time that I actually remember that I was there. What a feeling that was.
I walked around inside the first rtress for awhile after that, but then it was just too much and I caught the bus home. The day had been cold, but not rainy and I did a lot of walking. When I got off at m bus stop I realize I needed some cash for the taxi tomorrow and wanted to go to the ATM at the train  station . The only problem is, you have to walk the entire way around the traffic circle to get to it.      
You can’t cross the road on this side of the street to get to it. Screw that. I’ll go later.
I stopped at at Subway sandwich shop (Yes. THAT subway!) right next to the hostel and got a take out sandwich to eat in the room. Fortified and rested, I put my shoes and coat back on and went to he train station. It turned out to be a pleasant walk. There were a gazillion people there but it had an excited and exciting atmosphere about it. I asked a security guy for directions to my bank’s ATM and even understood his directions. So I got enough cash to make my trip back manageable, went back and settled in for the night.
By this time, a noisy family had moved into the room next door and was making a lot of noise in the hallways. And the little girl was freaking out because I was using an electric toothbrush at the communal sinks.
I set my alarm to make sure I woke up before 8, but didn’t need it. I was up, ready and had the bed torn down a little after 8 and was on my way.  The game plan was to grab a coffee to go at Burger King and get in line for the Faberge Museum, which was just down the street.
When I got to the top of the street where the museum is, I saw that a line of about 30 people had already formed. Oh, crap again. But when I got to the door, it had miraculously disappeared. The doors opened at exactly 9:30 to let people into the ticket counters.
Not only did they have an exhibit of the exquisite Easter Eggs that Faberge made for the czar every year, there were tons of silver settings that belonged to various czars and aristocrats. It’s beautiful, but  who really needs it. There was also a visiting exhibit of Frida Kahl land Diego Rivera works.
When I got done there, I walked down the street to the Russian Museum just to take a quick look at paintings by one of my favorite Russian painters. Unfortunately, the lady at information told me most of them were on loan to museums in Moscow.
So, change of plans. I only had about an hour so I ran around the corner to St. Michael’s Castle and looked at some paintings of the early czars. Boy, these guys just had too much money and flaunted it. It doesn’t surprise me at all that the Russian revolution took place.
So, I start walking back to the hostel to pick up my suitcase and hop on the subway to get to the bus that takes you to the airport, when I suddenly remember that they didn5 give me my registration yet! Every time I leave Kazan, I have to be registered by the police in the new city. Oh Lordy, how could I have forgotten to pick it up when I left my suitcase at the desk?!  I was almost panicking when I rang the doorbell to get in. But I went to the desk and they checked through their papers and still had it. Relief!
I grab that and my suitcase and get to my bus stop. I promptly get in a bus going in the wrong direction!

The Ermitage

Friday, and what can go wrong with a plan of action

Ok, so I’m up at 8 and out the door shortly before 9, which is when the pastry shop next door opens. Grab a cup of tea and some croissants to go and take the bus to the Ermitage. I get there at 9:15. It doesn’t open until 10:30 and the line is already 500 feet deep. I get in line and read my book. It snows, it blows, I freeze. Then finally let us start moving into the courtyard at about 10. There are ticket machines right at the beginning of the courtyard that say if you buy tour tickets here, you can go to the head of the line. But I’m pretty much at the head of the line, because no there are hundreds of people behind me so I figure I’m good. What can go wrong with that? Well, it was 11:30 and they still wouldn’t let us in the the ticket offices because the people who bought their tickets at the machines got to go in first! aaargh! And it snow again and I froze again. Screw it. I’m leaving and will try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m so cold, my blood pressure tanked. I was feeling dizzy whe. I got to St. Isaac’s but only had to stand in for about 15 minutes. So they first thing I did when I got inside wa sit down on a bench and read to warm up.
And I saw a funny thing on the way over to St. Isaac’s. There’s a car parked near a crosswalk. A policeman is standing ther3 with a measuring tape, checking if he is parked too close. He is!!! The policeman takes a picture of his license plate. I’d love to see that driver’s face when that surprise comes in the mail.
In any case, I’d warmed up enough inside to start milling around and taking pictures. The opulence in many historical churches is just overwhelming. And, boy, I think Jesus would have beat the crap out of some of this people. There was just one “gift store”. At every pillar there was a stand selling some sort of religious relict. Talk about Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple! Some things don’t seem to change at all. Yes, I understand it’s a tourist attraction now. It just seems to have lost touch with its original mission.
I was done inside and I had also bought a ticket to climb up the colonnade but I decided to go back to that Indian restaurant I had seen yesterday and have a nice lunch first since I was hungry still a little cold and I didn’t want to feel dizzy when I climbed. I was glad I did. The food was great and I took a long leasurely lunch read.
I headed back to St. Isaac’s and went through the entrance to the colonnade and started climbing. At first it was inside a circular tower, then you had to climb another 50 or so steps outside to the platform. And the wind was blowing. Hard. I made it up and held tight to the railing for a quick walk all the way around, glanced out over the city and came back down again.
I caught the bus back home and crawled under the covers for a couple of hours to warm up. Then I took a walk around a lesser frequented part of the city before calling it a day. Tomorrow I’d like to see the Ermitage and the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Faberge Museum. Wish me luck.

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Fast food delivery a la Russia

Fast food in every sense of the word. People call in their orders to restaurants and fast food chains through this company. They go pick the order up for you and deliver it. How bad does it have to be when you can't even get your own MacDonald's takeout? It's MacD's, Burger King, KFC and pizza and sushi.

Pictures from today.

Thursday and a plan of action for Friday

Sorry. I can’t explain what happened to the previous pictures. I was up and about early because it’s a long ride out to Peterhof, or Petergof. That’s the way the Russian languages transcribes the “h”sound in Russian, like a “g”. So you you see it written both ways when it’s written in English.
I was just going to stop in the bakery next door for a pastry and a cup of tea to go, but they didn’t open until 9 and it was 20 of. So I ended up sitting down for a bowl of oatmeal and a croissant at another place. Food is starting to taste good again.
I then took the subway to the stop with the bus connections to Peterhof Palace. I caught the minibus going out and it was packed with people. And it doesn’t stop often. One nice lady let me know that I should pay when I get off.
This was a neat ride. Surprising to me was that, on both sides of this major, four-Lane highway, therewas green space almost the entire way out. Sometimes it’s was a couple of hundred feet deep with only occasional stores and several of what were probable mansions earlier. There were bike paths and walking paths and people were using them.
The bus stopped right in front of Peterhof and I walked through the very, very large courtyard garden to get to the ticket counter. There were at least 10 ticket windows with lines at each of them. I think I had to wait about a quarter of an hour and people buying tickets were required to show passports. I never encountered that before!
I didn’t buy tickets to any of the museums, just the lower garden. It is gigantic and beautiful. But the weather was cool and it sprinkled on and off. I walked around and took pictures for about two hours then went back out on the Main Street to catch a bus back. This time I caught the regular bus which made all the regular stops. No zippy ride this time. And there was a couple on the bus with it’s cat in a cat carrier. That poor thing protested the entire way! But the children were entertained.
I got to the subway stop and took my train to my place. I went into the bakery right next door first and got a pastry  and tea, then came in, rested up and checked out some opening times of things. I took off again and tried the Ermitage. The lines were enormous. Nope, ain’t going there today. But there was a bike race starting right on the square in front of it so I watched that for awhile then walked over to St. Isaaac’s Cathedral. (I happened to pass an Indian restaurant which I kept in mind for today.) The lines were enormous. Nope, ain’t going there.
So I walked down to a section called New Holland to see what it looked like. It took me out of the main tourist area. The architecture there was still stunning but considerably run down. It would be a shame if this old buildings couldn’t be preserved but I know it takes a lot of money and resources. The beautiful buildings are my favorite thing about the city.
So I come back home and figure out a new plan of action. I will get up early, stand in line for a big museum in the morning and hit a lesser known museum off the beaten path in the afternoon. Now that I’ve got everything figured out, I head out to a cafeteria near the subway station for a good, cheap supper. Tomorrow it’s supposed to snow. I’m glad I went to Peterhof today.

The youth hostel

The hallway and the room. Behind each curtain is a bunk.

St. Peterburg, day 1.

I did manage to doze on the plane a little bit. When I  landed I took a bus and the subway and got to the hostel at about 5:45 this morning. It was too early to check in but they let me park my suitcase. Then I sat in the common room for awhile and texted because I knew nothing was open yet.
 My hostel is right off of Nevsky Prospekt, the main drag here, commercially and otherwise. There are 8 of us in the room. I’m glad I have a lower bunk. They all have curtains for privacy and their own lights and electrical sockets. The bathrooms and showers are close and we have lockers to store our stuff in. They also have bikes to rent. I’ll post pictures tomorrow. Across the room from me is a nice lady from China who speaks good Russian.
When I fInally went outside at about 8, Nevsky Prospekt was already like with police and military because to day is Labor Day for just about all the of the world except the US. There are always big parades here for it. One policeman told me it wasn’t going to start until 11 so first I went for breakfast and had a big bowl of oatmeal, then I walked around for awhile. I was still tired from the flight, so I went to a park and nodded off on a bench for about a half an hour. I’m glad all the policemen were busy at the parade so the couldn’t pick me up for vagrancy. The. I slowly mossed on back to the parade route and sat on a bench at the post stop with some older Russian ladies who chases people away with their canes of the came and stood in front of us. Good friends to have at that point.
The parade itself was interesting. It was sectioned off into regions, like our counties and then there was a large section for different unions. There were so great marching bands and there were several drum corps that were only made up of women. And they were excellent.  Also intending for me was that there were several people there with flags from the Soviet Union, there were lots of pictures of Lenin and even a group who carried pictures of Stalin. I guess he’s not as out of favor as he used to be.
I watched the parade for an hour and then decided to take a scenic boat ride. I didn’t want to be too active today because I was still exhausted from the ride and still feeling a little weak from being sick yesterday. Of course I sat up on top of the boat and, although the sun was shining, the wind coming off the water was chilly. I was glad I had my winter jacket on.
After the boat trip, I went to a little cafeteria right across the street and had mashed potatoes and a chicken shashlik for $2.00! Although transportation is more expensive here than in Kazan, food is still very reasonably priced. And there are many more varieties of restaurants here; Greek, Chinese, Italian, French, you name it.
After I ate, I walked back to the hostel, signed him, took a shower and rested for a couple of hours. Since I was starting to get hungry again, I decided to go explore one cathedral and afterward have supper. Now the streets were absolutely packed. Bike rides weave in and out of traffic and are also all over the sidewalks, as are roller bladers and scooter riders. Since it stays light so long here, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of late night partying on this holiday night.
I went to the Greek restaurant just down the street. I had grilled veggies and pita bread. It was just enough. And now I’m in for the night. I feel the tiredness creeping up on me. So I’m going to brush my Teach and go to sleep. Tomorrow I’m going to take the bus to the beautiful castle Petersgof.

Beautiful St. Peterburg