Some General Rules to Live by While Abroad

While I am waiting for pictures, gathering the last bits of history before I tell all of our continuing adventures, dealing with school, and coming out of my stress bubble, I am going to share some general rules that you may already know or think about, but that you really need to act upon if you plan to be abroad for an extended period of time.

1. Nothing will go as planned.

While Hot Stuff and I have been able to keep things under control lately, we still haven't managed to fully keep everything from not going how we would like. Both of us have had to move since we've been here, and, while she moved to make things easier for her, I moved because the institute required it and have not had the best of times. While my host mother had lightened up a bit, she is still known between Hot Stuff and I as the "Never Lady". I still come home to find things reorganized in my room (I'm still waiting to come home and find the gifts on my table moved somewhere, and, like my charging cables, I will have to search high and low for them). I still have to eat foods I don't care for. I still only get one load of laundry a week in a tiny washer. We still don't talk despite efforts.

And then there is outside of the home. Different buildings/churches/museums have different hours. (I am working on a list of everything along with locations, hours, and costs that I will post in the future.) Google maps isn't the best in Russia. Spend the 150 rubles. Get a map. Mark on the map the location you need. Otherwise you may end up going to a Lutheran cemetery because the park looking place is where you think you need to go when, in reality, you already saw the church you wanted to see.

2. Don't plan on going into churches that aren't specifically tourist attractions.

If you don't have to pay to go in, don't plan on seeing the inside. There are so many services, special occasions, or events going on that going inside will be a little difficult. Also, just because it's a tourist site, doesn't mean you can take pictures. Another general note: When going to a church, always bring head covering. It's better to be safe than disrespectful.

3. Bring a camera, but expect to have to pay for photography.

While this isn't the case everywhere, Hot Stuff and I have found through our adventures that photography isn't always free or even allowed. Look for signs such as "NO FLASH" ans "NO PHOTOGRAPHY BEYOND THIS POINT". It may be really pretty and you may want to photograph the moment, but you might not be able to. Also, a resent change in Russian laws have made it illegal to photograph the inside of the metro stations. Luckily, there are many pictures online.

4. Send out a weekly or bimonthly email to your family.

While blogs are nice for telling people what you are up to, it doesn't answer the questions they actually care about. How are you? What's the weather like? How are classes/work? Do you need me to do anything for you? These are the questions your family wants answered. Not "We had so much fun doing x,y, and z and here's some history on it and here are pictures and i'm just running around seeing so many sites every minute I can!!" It's your family. They need more than that.

5. Skype

Skype is a wonderful and glorious thing, but it is also your enemy while you are abroad. My rule to you all (Note: This is not a suggestion), only get on Skype 1-2 days a week. Stress will hit hard, especially if things aren't going as you would like, but you can bet there will be people back home who don't care about how much stress you are going through because they think it's equal to theirs. In some cases, it may be. In others, it's not. They are dealing with the comforts of home, getting stressed out by school/work, and being able to see their friends, go places you miss, eat foods you miss, and participate in activities you miss. You, on the other hand, are in an unfamiliar place, communicating in a language you may or may not understand, having to learn what you can do and what times you have to do those things, you may have a curfew (either because of your host or because they raise the bridges at night), you may have a hobby you love but can't do... And to top it all off, you have to deal with stress. You may see this as not being fair and think that you are suffering a much higher level of stress than the people back home. It may be the case, but you should never assume so. You should never think that someone is  not understanding to your situation. They may not be able to fully understand what you are going through unless they have gone through a similar situation themselve, but it isn't and shouldn't be a competition.

I've found that, the more you communicate with someone, the more you seem to compete, the more stressful it becomes, and the less understanding people seem to be, because your stress is making it appear to be that way. Limit your time. Save yourself from getting angry. If you want to communicate on a daily basis, send emails until your days for Skype. If you have a family, Skyping more regularly is understandable. You probably want to say goodnight to your kids. Just don't try to  communicate with people every minute you have available. You need time for yourself as well in order to calm down from your "stress bubble".

6. Schedule

SCHEDULE EVERYTHING!!!

There is so much you want to do and so little time unless you plan. Plus, if you just go off and try to do something fun every free moment you have, you are going to neglect something. Schedule your days. I'm not saying "Today I'm going here. Tomorrow this is happening, etc.", but more like "I need x amount of time to get the important stuff done, leaving me with this time to enjoy myself." I'm playing catch up right now, which is why I'm saying this.

7. Have fun.

The most important thing to do is to enjoy your time. Don't let other people and things ruin your time in another country. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don't want to spend it being miserable. Before you leave find out what you want to see. Research what's available as far as entertainment options. Know what you have before you go. It's not because you don't know if you can find something, but it will make it easier instead of  wondering around saying, "If I only knew about this sooner..." It's your trip. Do what you want. Just, please, think about the safety of what you're doing. Everyone wants you to come home in one piece.

Snowy Days Were Meant For....

Last week, Hot Stuff and I tried to go to St. Isaac's Cathedral, but, as it was a Wednesday, the cathedral was closed. Yesterday, however, classes were cancelled and we spent that time actually going inside.

Before I begin, I may or may not have mentioned a while ago that a Russian Student ID card will actually give you benefits. Hot Stuff and I went to St. Isaac's Cathedral and the State Historical Museum of Religion for free by showing them our ID cards.

While the latter museum did not allow pictures, we (well Hot Stuff) took many pictures of St. Isaac's.

This actually brings me to a very important lesson. Always have two sources of photography on hand. While both of our cameras were dead for one reason or another, my phone was not. And since I am smart and brought a cable that will allow me to charge my phone with my computer, I can actually upload pictures. Half of the pictures I have taken this trip, were on my phone.

Anyway.... before I get to the pictures, I will give you a bit of history.

St. Isaac's Cathedral (Isaakievskiy Sobor) is the largest Russian Orthodox Cathedral in St. Petersburg, and was dedicated to St. Isaac of Dalmatia who happened to be the patron saint of Peter the Great. It was designed by this guy

Auguste de Montferrand under order of Alexander I. The Empire Style architecture was hated by everyone but Alexander I, and after he said build it, construction began on the cathedral, which took 40 years to complete (1818-1858).

In 1931, St. Isaac's (without all of the religious trappings) became the Anti-religious Museum. The dove was removed and replaced by a Foucault Pendulum, which was first publicly demonstrated on April 12, 1931.

In 1937, the cathedral became a museum and all of the anti-religious material was moved to the Kazan Cathedral, which used to be the place for the Museum of the History of Religion.

During WWII, the dome of the cathedral was painted grey and the skylight housed a geodesical interception point used for locating enemy cannons.

When communism fell, worship resumed in the cathedral. To this day, the chapel on the left hand side of the cathedral is used for services and the main body of the cathedral (where tourists get to walk around) is used for services on feast days.

The cathedral is beautiful. They have done a great job reconstructing the cathedral. Some of the mosaics are still being repaired, but the ones they have repaired are gorgeous. For comparison...

The first didn't turn out as well as we would have liked, but that is the finished reconstructed mosaic. The second is the painting that was holding it's place during reconstruction.

The ceilings of the cathedral were so beautiful. I couldn't take any ceiling shots (I did something to my back), so Hot Stuff did that for me.

These are just two examples. If I were to put anymore, I know I would get carried away. I will just end my discussion of St. Issac's here and say that, if you're ever in St. Petersburg, you should go. Whether you are religious or not, this cathedral is just too beautiful to miss.

The snow is still coming down quite heavily. It makes me want to go to "The Home of Happiness"...

A Night on the Town & One Movie Later....

Lately I have been devoting my time to school and writing in my travel journal. Honestly, I haven't really felt that motivated to blog. "What should I write about?" becomes replaced with, "I have nothing to write about and I am not blogging about doing absolutely nothing so...."

That changed last night. It was supposed to be a night out on the town. We were going to go to a karaoke bar, have some well deserved fun, and get me out of this apartment full of misery. Instead, Hot Stuff and I ended up going to a rather classy cafe and enjoyed a nice meal, talking and laughing the night away. It was then that we decided we were going to try to follow proper etiquette for the remainder of our time here. ...well, meal etiquette anyway.

Today, we actually did what we planned (not that it hasn't happened in the past), and went to a movie. Let me explain something about "foreign" movies for those who don't already have this experience. Some languages are just impossible to dub over so subtitles are a must. Russian is not one of them. We didn't know this. We were debating about how the movie would be translated, and found out with the first trailer. 007: Koordinatiy Skaifoll (in English: Skyfall). If it wasn't for the fact that I already told Parker I wasn't going to see it without him (plus, it wouldn't be fair as it was released yesterday in Russia), I wouldn't go see it solely based off the fact that I wouldn't be able to hear any of the British awesomeness that comes with any Bond film. Alex Cross was interesting in Russian though...

Another good thing about Russian theaters... well, the one we went to, is that you have an option between salted and sweet popcorn. We decided on sweet and received caramel corn. My taste buds are so happy right now... Plus, for less than $10 Hot Stuff and I were able to get a jumbo sized popcorn and 2 drinks. That just doesn't happen in America.

As today was a coffee, bubble tea, popcorn and a movie kind of day, we disregarded the whole etiquette thing. That will have to start on another day. Be prepared for a post on the catastrophe that is to follow. I know I am.

Why am I not surprised....

I spent a good portion of my evening and this morning looking up information about St. Isaac's Cathedral, the square it's located on and the rather famous buildings that surround it, and what do I get? A closed cathedral. And, you know what, I'm not surprised. There seems to be a recurring theme here in Russia.

Everything that is connected with a museum is closed on Wednesdays.

Since Hot Stuff and I had something else on the agenda, we went ahead and did that, so it wasn't too much of a let down. ...That is, if you consider going to post offices enjoyable.

I'm going to say this now, this particular post office worked more like a DMV or the Social Security Office than any post office I'm used to. Now, as I didn't have to actually send anything, I sat there and watched, trying my best to understand how the system works. I'm not entirely sure, and I could be completely wrong, but here is what I saw happening.

A little note before I begin, I'm going to base this off of a woman who I'm going to call Package Lady.

Package Lady obviously arrived after we did and she was carrying a rather large bag of things she needed to mail. She approached the appropriate window (yes, there are different windows you go to for different mailing needs) and, after talking to the lady, was handed a box that was put together on the spot and a slip of paper (I'm assuming this had a number on it, but I'll get to that later). I watched this lady try her hardest to get everything to fit into this box that wasn't necessarily small, but was definitely too small for her needs. But Package Lady was determined to get everything to fit in that box, and she did it, though the box was not in very good shape afterwards. She approached the window as soon as she was done, but was turned away because her number hadn't been called.

Now to explain the number thing. From what I have gathered, everyone gets a number that corresponds to a certain window. When the window is available to help the next person, a loud noise goes off in the room and the the screens in the corners display the window number and which client number they are ready to serve.

So Package Lady had to wait a little bit before her number flashed on the screen. When that number flashes, you better get there quick. If you aren't ready, the number will change before you can get up. She was up at the window before I could blink. The lady handed her a slip of paper and Package Lady returned to fill it out and wait patiently for her number to flash on the screen again. (Package Lady must have been in a hurry, because she was insanely impatient. In the amount of time it took for her to complete the whole process, some people hadn't even finished filling out their address forms.) When it finally came to her number, Package Lady again approached the window and quite a bit of tape later, she left the post office knowing (or maybe it's hoping) that her package was one step closer to reaching its destination.

Now, as I said before, I didn't actually have to mail anything, so my idea of how this works could be completely different from how it actually works, but at least I am one step closer to understanding the workings of the Russian post system.

Hopefully, Hot Stuff and I will be able to actually visit St. Isaac's Cathedral soon. I did tell her all the fun historical tidbits I had discovered, but I'm tired of not actually going in a historical place. I want to change that. Soon.

Instead of that, we had lunch at a place that could rightfully be called a home for happiness and walked all the way to Sportivnaya, not only to walk it off, but to go to St. Vladimir's Cathedral (or The Prince Vladimir Church or whatever it's actually called). I can officially say I have said a prayer in a Russian Orthodox church. And, I actually remembered that it's right then left as opposed to the Catholic left then right. I will admit to watching people end their prayers and what they did upon entering and leaving the church so that I didn't look too much like I didn't belong there.

But more on all of that later. Right now, I want to focus on my day dream about those cookies from earlier today.....

I'll Have Mine Filleted Please.

I was going to save this for later, but, after the dinner I just had....

I normally don't eat fish. I was spoiled in my childhood by having a grandfather who was a fisherman in Hawaii. Needless to say, a lot of fish just doesn't taste good to me, so, with the exception of sushi, I tend to just avoid it all together.

In Russia, I can't exactly turn down my hosts food. I will go into more detail about what I normally have to force myself to eat in a later post, but dinner tonight was so... I don't even know how to describe it. Let me just say, I'm happy she doesn't eat at the same time I do.

It could be my fish snobbery, but I'm use to this

Becoming something like this

With or without the skin.

To me, this is normal. This is how I've always known fish to be and how I thought fish was typically served. With the bone, blood and guts missing.

In Russia, my experience has been really different. The majority of the fish eating I have done in St. Petersburg has been at home. In the form of fish soup. There is no picture of the fish soup that I had, because no one wants to post a picture of fish soup with the bone still in it. But, no matter who's place I've had fish at, this seems to be very common.

I can make myself eat a little bit of bone. Spine. No. But the little bones are very hard to pick out. Tonight, on the other hand, was special. I literally had to pull out the fish, open it up, and remove all of the things that should not be served with a cooked fish, with the exception of if the fist is being served whole on a platter. The only think I was missing was tail fin and head.

Since I think that floating scales are a bad sign, I would just like to include this video of how to filet a fish so that anyone can learn with what to begin with when you make a meal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WABTRGUyUTc

Note: I am not trying to be culturally insensitive. I would just appreciate not having to remove the guts as well as the bone.

If You Have a Hobby......

Today is one of my days off from culture viewing, and I am not okay with that. It isn't, however, because I want to be out and about so I can tell you more about the culture of this great city (even though I REALLY enjoy doing that). I am going through withdrawals worse than homesickness.

...and I didn't think that would be possible.

Back in the States, I have several "hobbies". These include sewing, watching movies/anime, playing video games, some light reading, and music. I am a mediocre bass player, but even though I don't devote as much time as I should to playing, some of my most fond memories with Parker (no, that is not his name) involve either me playing bass/guitar and sucking at it, or listening to him play something.

I don't get to play here. I decided without hesitation that I was not bringing my bass with me, and, even if I had, my host mother wouldn't have let me play it. I didn't really think it would be that big of a deal, but now I am missing good music (popular music in Russia = pop music passed over by Americans) and playing music more than anything.

But I'm not writing this post to cry or whine or pitch a fit about how hard things are. I'm writing this to give you fair warning on your future travels.

If you are going to be away for a long period of time, take a portable hobby with you. You may not think much of it, but when the withdrawals begin to set in, you will at least have something there to help you.

As for me, this Saturday is going to be spent at a KARAOKE BAR!! I am so insanely excited. Those Russians can just try to sing an American song better than me. lol

Seriously, though, bring a portable hobby and you won't end up like me. Going crazy and looking forward to turning karaoke into a secret competition between me and the others who dare try to sing in my native tongue. As stated: going crazy.

Sundays. The Day You Aren't Supposed to do Anything.

Back in OKC, Sundays are the days you go to church (or, in my case, wake up, notice service starts in 2 hours, go back to bed and wake up to find that service is nearly over), and then spend the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing. Maybe the work you neglected until the night before it's due, but, beyond that, a whopping nada.

I'm Russia, that is not the case. Well, not for me, the person who decided it would be the best idea in the world to cram pack my life with as much culture as possible. For me, Sundays are another free day to actually explore.

Today, Hot Stuff and I walked the rest of Nevsky Prospect. Well... that's not entirely true. We didn't walk on Nevsky Prospect, per-say, but we did follow the path of it. I just wanted to show her something cool, and get a little hidden pleasure out of it myself.

So... when it come to walking, Google still sucks, so please only pay attention to the black lines.

This was our path for the day. (Admiralteyskaya M --> Hermitage --> Place of Interest --> Mayakovskaya M) Something I carefully planned. ...and yes, it was just so I could see the Japanese Consulate. The French one was a plus! Also, I wanted an excuse to cross in front of the Hermitage again...

 When we approached the Hermitage (before we had to go out of our way to cross the street), we saw a group of people gathered in the square. We were wanting to check it out and hoping it wasn't a protest. Much to our amusement, it was Tai Chi (or some form of something) in the square. Regardless of what was truly happening, it involved a yellow hippo, who was demonstrating things to the best of its abilities and jumping around. Laughter really does make a person so much happier....

This is the Hermitage (aka: Winter Palace). This is the place where Alexander II died after being fatally wounded at the place I was not telling Hot Stuff. (At this point, it was still a surprise.)

This is the monument in the center of the square.

Okay. The Hermitage was not the cultural focal point of the day, so I won't be talking about it. That, with any luck, will be the topic withing two weeks. For now, I will continue along our walk.

The picture above is the sole reason I took Hot Stuff in the direction that I did. I don't need to know the location of the consulate. I never will. But I saw the flag on my map and had to. As Japanese is my Minor, I had to. The French Consulate wasn't a main attraction for me, but it still deserves a mention. If you ever need to know where it is, just look at the map above.

Now for the main attraction.

CHURCH OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
or as it is more famously known
THE SAVIOR ON THE SPILLED BLOOD

This was the thing I had been hiding from Hot Stuff, and, again, I had to provide the history lesson.

Emperor Alexander II was assassinated and his son, Alexander III, demanded that a memorial church be built on the site. (FYI, that's point C on the map.) Alfred Alexandrovic Parland presented the idea and official name, and, after getting Alexander III's approval, things got set into action.

To give you a timeline...
-1881: Alexander II dies
-1883: Alexander III approves plans
-1887: Construction begins
-1907: Church was formally consecrated

So, this beautiful church was built, but it was never actually used as a church. The only services it saw, were those in memorial of Alexander II. Nothing else. Period.

The Church's decline:

After the revolution in 1917, the church started to deteriorate due to looting and vandalism. In 1930, it was closed as a church and was used as a warehouse. In 1931, people voted to tear it down, but it never happened. A second motion was approved to tear down the church and the date was set for 1941. The Nazis prevented it's demolition and the only thing that saved it from being destroyed in the war anyway, was that a nearby shell didn't explode. After the war, it continued to be a warehouse, this time for the opera, and again, in 1956, proposals were made to tear it down.

By this point, the church was in such bad shape. But someone saved it.

The Director:

The reason that the Church of the Resurrection of Christ still stands today is all due to one man. The director of St. Isaac's Cathedral and Museum. In 1970, he was able to convince the government of the church's historical value and it was made a branch of the St. Isaac's Cathedral and Museum in 1971.

After completing phase 1 of restoration, the church was opened to the public in 1997.

Did we go in? Sadly, no. We are planning on going back. It was just so insanely cold that we passed on waiting in line to buy a ticket. I would love to go in it. The only thing this church has for art are mosaics, and, I don't know if people can see it, but inside the church is the blood stained portion of the street where Alexander II's assassination took place.

I only have one more thing to say about today, besides the fact that it was cold and semi unproductive. There was a bridge near the church that had locks all over it. Can you tell me what it signifies?

I will post the answer tomorrow.