To The Finland Gulf

I've now been away from Russian class for 4 days,
totally forgotten everything. I'm definitely getting
Babushka’ed on Monday. But on the bright side I have
seen some really interesting things. On Thursday a
group of us went out on a museum mission, First stop
the anthropology museum. Why on earth would i go to an
anthropology museum you ask? Well apparently Peter the
Great, the founder of this city took it upon himself
to eliminate some superstitions that seemed to be
circulating around Russia during his reign. One of
them was that deformed children were the product of
the devil, obviously the truth had to be put out
there, Peter informed them that the deformed babies
were in fact the result of the mothers fears and bad
thoughts about having a deformed baby (perhaps
something to look into you perspective mothers out
there). Well how do you get the message across to
millions of peasants?? yep you pickle deformed babies,
Peter would pay peasants money for their dead babies
so that he could pickle them and put them on display,
and they're still here 300 years later. Wild stuff,
and rather nauseating.
From there we went to the Defense of Leningrad Museum
where, a small World War II museum, the most exciting
thing that happened there was that somehow we wound up
with 10 tickets for 4 people, no one really knows how
that happened because the words sound nothing alike
but since they were a whopping 30 cents a piece we
took the hit. then yesterday we went to Novgorod the
oldest city in Russia, complete with a church for
every year of it's existence. Simply ridiculous, it's
a small town and it has like 56 churches (yes sue I
took plenty of pictures) that's like 2 per block. we
saw some guys doing the polar bear club thing when
it's 15 below or something ridiculous like that.
Apparently it’s not just jumping in cold water here,
instead they cut the hole in the ice way out in the
middle of the river so that you must calmly walk
(running isn’t allowed) in your speedo out there to
freeze, jump in and then walk back, all at -15 not
including the rather brisk wind.
And today I made a trek to the Gulf of Finland, which
if you look at a map might seem rather close, seeing
as how St. Petersburg is a port and on the coast. But
that is just a lie the closest subway is a good hour
walk from the sea. Oh and doesn't that sound romantic
a nice walk through the city and then along the
coastline. No, no it's not, it became real weird real
fast. Barbed wire and barking rabid dogs were all I
saw. Since the other day when we saw a man just
walking into the subway by our dorm get attacked and
bitten by a rabid roaming dog dogs strike the fear of
dog in me (the only way he repulsed the dog was to
start barking back at him). When I finally got to the
Gulf it was on lock down, couldn't come close to the
water. got a glimpse over a bridge and turned and
headed back, I thought for sure I was gonna get mugged
as I seem to look American (I got flagged today too in
the subway, finally I got asked for my "documents" I
was beginning to think it wasn't ever gonna happen).
So all in all a good week. Well it seems lately that
we've developed a confidence problem as a whole, we've
been here a month, we have the basic idea of how
things work and now we've been confidently trying new
things. Bad Idea, for instance we tried a Korean
restaurant the other day, keep in mind that we really
don't know all the words in a Russian restaurant,
Korean menu in Russian?? it's just a crapshoot what
you get. What did we get?? Sick. then after that
nauseating meal I decided that I needed a bliny or
crepe, now I’d heard that the potato ones off the
street were particularly good, well this particular
bliny stand didn't have a solo potato bliny and we
didn't know what the word next to potato was, turns
out it was some sort of mayonnaise/sour cream/
ketchup/ sweet sauce. No Joy there my friends. we got
back to the dorm and one girl didn't make it out again
(but her soup did).
we then continued our poor food day by eating a kebab
which I had no problem with but one of the kids
managed to be number 5 this week with non alcohol
related illness. More and more our ordering adventures
remind me of Keith in France when he said "I've eaten
a great deal of something, but I don't know what it
is" only to find out it was tongue (which mind you
seems to be incorporated into 9 out of 10 soups here)
one of my staples here is these "meat" filled
pastries, no one is quite sure what they are or really
what meat they even taste like (they serve them in the
cafeteria downstairs so they seem to be safe).
In Novgorod I ordered a meal, paid for it and never
received it, everyone else got served but not me
(after seeing the dish I was quite pleased that it
never arrived) thankfully it was only a 2 dollar
entree, because there was no chance of explaining in
this little cafe the concept of refund.
that's all I can handle right now, I have more to
tell but this internet cafe is making me nauseous as
the haze of cigarette smoke is pretty bad. Sorry I
never answer anyone’s emails except with these bulk
ones, someday I will. As to the question of mailing
something here, it is apparently rather expensive and
slow (apparently customs helps itself to any food
products and opens any boxes, perhaps tries the
clothing on) oh and it's not even in Russia, it's in
Finland, but I can get it. but email is king for
contacting me (I might have to by a soviet gasmask for
next time though.) ell