Last Day in Leningrad (St. Petersburg)

Wow! Sorry it's taken so long to repost. It is hecka-hard (teen lingo alert) to find reliable internet access. Could be crummy computer. Not sure. Anyway, I guess I had just finished Day One when I spoke last. Day Two began early again with a plan to see St. Isaac's Cathedral - once a famous Russian Orthodox cathedral and now technically a museum, since Stalin pretty much closed all of the churches in Russia in the 30's. 

Leningrad (easier to type than St. Petersburg) is younger than Jamestown and was created by Peter the Great as a seaport and better link with the West. He used European architects and emulated the French style with beautiful palaces. Then he made it his capital and forced nobles and others to move there. So it's a very beautiful city with awesome architecture. 

Since yesterday had been taken up mostly (actually totally) with the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, I thought I would get out and see the rest of the city in the morning. One interesting way of doing that is by taking one of the ubiquitous (vocab word - look it up) red double-decker tours of the city. These buses run a regular route around a city, going by interesting sights as they tell you about them, either with a live guide or via headsets that give the same tour in different languages.

Anyway, I walked over to St. Isaac's Cathedral,

which is enormous inside and filled with incredible paintings and tapestries. I then out to see the Peter the Great statue, showing him trampling a snake (a common way of insulting enemies you've defeated in battle). In this case the snake was the Swedes (interesting side note - we don't really associate the Swedes with military power, but they actually were tough (like Vikings) in the 17th century, but Peter defeated them and took the territory now containing Leningrad). So I "dug that scene" (60's lingo alert) for a a few minutes and then decided to hop on to one of these buses.

Really long story short...Although I knew better, I had a mental lapse and was thinking in my head that my train leaving at 1330pm (1:30pm in 24-hour clock method) was leaving at 330pm. At 1233pm (American-style), I immediately stopped relaxing and started crying cursing  panicking springing into action in order to get my train to Moscow, where a friend would be waiting for me. 

The first thing was to get off the ?>?##@ dang bus, but it had (of course) just started going again towards its next stop, further away from my hotel. I had to figure out where I was really fast and get a cab that could drop by my hotel, wait while I grabbed my suitcase and then race me to the train station (it is suggested to be there an hour before departure). Since no stinking cabbie could be bothered to be where I wanted him to be, I had to resort to running the entire way, all the while looking for an elusive "Taxi". Oh sure...they're all over the place unless you need one. (Traveler tip #2: Learn how to read a real hard-copy map, so you know how to get home, and always carry one with you in places you are unfamiliar with). I would not have made it if I had wasted time trying to ask people how to get to my hotel. (trying-to-make-oneself-look-good-when-one-is-stupid-enough-to-almost-miss-a-train alert) But seriously, at least I felt I was smart enough to check before it was absolutely positively too late.

So I made it to the hotel (it's actually a hostel - more on that later), having not seen one cab. I had twenty-three minutes to spare. People at the hostel said I'd never make it. (Tip #3 - don't listen to nay-sayers). I ran with my suitcase and backpack around the corner to a real hotel with a concierge (oh yeah, but not before all the contents of my backpack spilled out on a main street as I was jaywalking across it) and asked the concierge if there is any way to be at the station by 130pm. The concierge told the other concierge to get the car and meet me in front immediately. It would cost 800 roubles. Ok I said. Thanks! Driver said, no, it's unrealistic with traffic. I said try. He said ok. He drove like a champ - I complimented his driving tipped him the extra 200 off of a 1000 rouble note. He was very happy.  I then ran into the station and boarded the train. I was the second to last passenger. Some moron was actually unluckier dumber than me.  Anyway I got on the train, got my seat and we were moving before I sat down.

At which point I started to sweat profusely for the next twenty minutes until the stewardess (that's actually what they call them!) came with the beverage cart. 

I had a pretty sweet ride on the express train to Moscow. It went at 200km (that's 120 miles per hour in real time). Service was great! I really don't get why, if Russia, Japan, France, and a bunch of other countries can have first class high-speed travel by train, why can't we? Makes no sense. The best part is not having to first go to some location an hour away to board your transportation. Same deal with subways. Subways in Europe are much more well-run than in NYC and everywhere else I've been in the US. Even the buses in Europe are top-notch, in terms of number of buses and how frequently they come. It's an injustice when something is better over on the other side of the pond.  

I'll post the Moscow blog tonight from Berlin! I'm catching up. Check your mailbox for postcards in about a week or so. Later!