Roosyia!

Hey everyone! Sorry this is a little bit late, but better late than never right?

Anyway, Russia was great, definitely not what I expected. My roommate and I woke up at 5:30 to watch us pull into port. It wasn’t too exciting. It was very industrial. We had to get our passports before they would let us off the boat. This was because we had to go through emigration every time we wanted to get on and off the boat. Also, the police have the right to stop you at any time and ask for your passport to make sure you are there legally. It was scary carrying them around everywhere because pick pocketing is so prevalent. Luckily, it didn’t happen to me there. We got off the ship, but just to get to an ATM. We all had trips to do in the early afternoon so there wasn’t enough time to go anywhere.


My first trip of Russia was a home visit. I was nervous about this trip, but it turned out to be a really really good trip. The couple that we visited did not speak English. Their names were Oleg and Helena. Oleg was in his early 70s and Helena was in her late 50s. They were very nice and made us tea and we had many many different kinds of Russian cookies. It was interesting to hear all their stories, one in particular was kind of crazy. Oleg was on a ship that was bringing missiles for the Cuban Missile Crisis.


After the home visit, we rushed back and I took a shower to get ready for the RUSSIAN BALLET!! It was soo cool, we saw Swan Lake. We didn’t get to to the big theater, but the theater that we went to was nice. We had kinda crappy seats, it was a box seat up high and in the back and was a little hard to see from. I had fun though. It was not really what I expected. When I think of the Russian ballet, I think of dedication that rivals Julliard dancing. It was a little off at times and not quite on. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. After the ballet, my friend Marissa and I had to hurry and get to sleep for our 4 am wake up call for Moscow the next morning!

They provided a small breakfast for us in the lobby while we were waiting to get to the airport. We left around 8 and got there a little before 9:30. I slept most of the way because I was dead tired. When we got to Moscow, we loaded the bus and headed to the Kremlin. This is the central government located in Moscow. It as pretty cool, it was mostly a museum inside, at least the building we went in. There were a lot of old garments and dresses and thrones. We quickly were getting bored because it was around 11 or 12 and we had not eaten in a while and we were very hungry. After the Kremlin, we drove past Saint Basil’s Cathedral but they wouldn’t let us out to look for a few minutes because there were 90 of us. I was a little mad because it is such a huge landmark for Moscow. So around 2 or 3, they FINALLY took us to lunch. It was at a pretty neat Russian restaurant that looked like a paradise. When we walked in, there was a weird ham and potato salad waiting for us on the table. I tried it, but it was not very good. It was smothered in some kind of weird creamy sauce. The next portion of lunch was soup. I got really excited in anticipation for the soup, until I realize what it was. Borscht. Ew. I did try it, staying true to trying new foods in each port, and I didn’t really like it. It was not terrible, but it was not enjoyable. For the main course, we had something that I previously thought was a German dish – beef stroganoff. Apparently it is a Russian dish, and thank God it was good. After eating lunch, we headed out to the Red Square which was named after all the red brick that it took to construct the buildings and the road. We were so excited to see that St. Basil’s was located just behind the square!! Marissa and I took like a billion pictures here! I took a sweet jumping picture in front of it which some of you have had the pleasure of seeing. It was so cool to see in person. After, we went to the airport and got on a teeny tiny airplane with no room, which was a huge contrast to the very spatious and comfortable plane we took to Russia. We got back to the boat around 1 am – just shy of missing the bridge. The bridges are low to the water in Russia and at 1:30 every night, the bridges go up to allow boats to pass through. If you get stuck on the wrong side, you are basically stuck until 6ish in the morning!!







Day 3 in Russia was pretty filled as well. In the morning, I had the ‘Russian Cuisine’ class. It was not really what I had in mind. I was thinking that we would walk into a place and it would be more like a home-ec set up to learn how to make food. Instead, we walked into a restaurant and all 70 of us sat down. There was a table for 10 people to learn how to make our dinner. So only 10 could go up at a time. Basically all we did, to make Pelmeny (which was in fact really good) was get a small piece of dough, roll it out, stuff it with meat and seal it up. It wasn’t much of a cooking lesson as much as follow the leader. It was really neat to make it though. Obviously after, we got to eat it! After the cooking lesson, my friend and I went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. It was a really neat place to eat, there were ponds with coy fish and turtles and a bird in a cage. The only thing that sucked was the fact that they did not speak English and we did not speak Russiam. We were able to communicate a little bit, enough to get our food and pay. It was SOO good! After lunch, we headed back to the ship to get ready for our white nights tour of St. Petersburg. Again, it was not what I was expecting, but it was great. There were so many of us that they had to split us up into 2 different groups. One went on the canal tour first (aka my group) while it was only 6pm. It wasn’t much of a white night as it was a white day. Then we headed to some famous Russian composure’s house – I cannot remember his name! Ooops! After the tour of his very hot, non air conditioned house, we went to the bottom floor and a young Russian opera singer put on a concert for us. It was so good; it sent chills up my spine. After the tour, a group of us went out for drinks and desert. I got warm chocolate cake and an Irish coffee. The Irish coffee was terrible. It was very strong, and I was not expecting there to be a lot of alcohol in it. The cake was soo good though. They make it fresh when you order it. We stayed until 1:30 and went outside to watch the bridges go up. It was very pretty! I took pictures, of course!

Day 4 aka the 4th of July was pretty cool. I went to the Hermitage with my friend Melissa and some other SAS kids. We only got to spend about 45 minutes inside because Melissa had to be back for a trip. That was not enough time in there. What the Hermitage is is the old Winter palace for the royal family. It has been turned into a museum with so many art pieces that if you spend M-F there taking 1 minute to look at each piece of art, it would take you 9 years to get through. I ate lunch on the ship and after went to St. Isaac’s Cathedral with my friend Jackie. That was beautiful. All the artwork on the walls and ceiling was made out of tiling. On the way over to the Cathedral, we had to have seen like 8 weddings going on. These Russians are crazy with their weddings. After the cathedral, we came back to the boat and hung out on the deck and enjoyed the warm weather.

On the last day of Russia, I went back to the Hermitage with some other friends. We spent like 2 hours there that time. Before heading back to the ship, we hit up a little outdoor souvenir market where I bought some Russian nesting dolls. We went back to the ship early because we were having a 4th of July BBQ on the deck. (So maybe it wasn’t the 4th in Russia anymore, but it was still the 4th in Hawaii!!) It was a lot of fun, there was live music, good food and ice cream!

Overall thoughts:
I had a busy 5 days in Russia and really did love it. It sucked not being able to drink the water because of bacteria; everything we drank had to be bottled. Russia was a lot cheaper than Norway. There were 25 Rubles to $1. Russians drive ultra crazy. I don’t even know how to explain it, but I felt like we were going to be in an accident every 2 seconds. But I never saw one. The weather was very nice, a little hot at times. It was weird being there in such a huge city. It was almost like NYC, but with midget buildings. The buildings had to be shorter than the Hermitage. It sucked having to carry around the passport, but luckily there was nothing scary that happened to me there. One last thing – mullets were everywhere. They were taking over. It was quite scary, haha!! I did have one shot of Russian vodka. You cannot go to Russia and not taste it. It was okay, not my favorite thing in the world, or even close to being my favorite thing in the world.

I will try to post Denmark’s blog before I get to Belgium, but no promises. If not, I get free Internet in the hostel I will be at in Amsterdam. I will be visiting Amsterdam for a night while I am in Belgium! I am looking forward to seeing Anne Frank’s house and whatnot in Amsterdam and eating chocolate and waffles in Belgium. I do not really like the taste of beer, but apparently Belgium has some pretty good Belgian brewed beers, so I may just taste one for the sake of trying something of the culture.

Shoot me some emails! I am still using kmvalentini@semesteratsea.net! Let me know what you think of my blogs, keep me updated with information in the states, with your lives! Miss you!

xoxo Kate