h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thursday, July 18, 2013

I spent the morning catching up on my journal on a pad of paper
I bought at Logan Airport on the way over. I planned to transfer it to my blog after I got home. Unlike the hotels in Riga and Tallinn, the hotel in Saint Petersburg lacked a public Internet computer, as far as I could see.

At 10:00 a.m., we got into the bus for our visit to the Hermitage Museum. There were long lines in front of the museum as we drove by, but Natalia assured us that we would enter from a side door that would be less crowded. The bus turned a corner and drove into a vast courtyard, and we entered through an entrance that had a turnstile, wearing earplugs so that we could hear Natalia's scintillating comments on the art in the museum. We proceeded upstairs and
downstairs, from one building to another. We saw an Egyptian Room, a Greek Room, A Rembrandt Room, A Florentine Room, a Venetian Room, etc. In each room, Natalia explained the significance of selected paintings. There was an omipresent din because many tour groups were doing the same thing, but as long as we were close to Natalia and kept our earplugs on, we could hear her. The walls, ceilings, and floors were heavily adorned. All the while, there were multiple levels of
experience: the art in the room, and the equally magnificent view through the open windows, where we could see the river and the magnificent palaces along the opposite bank. The hermitage is no ordinary museum, grand though it may be; it's just one part of a city that is a museum itself.

Continuing through the Hermitage, we saw a magnificent throne room and other treasures. There was even an Impressionist Collection -- dominated by Cezannes -- that had been added long after Peter the Great's death. When the sensory overload of the place left us unable to take in any more, we found our way downstairs to the gift shop and
the cafe. There was a computer bank along the wall, where tourists were accessing info on the museum's collection, but we were more interested in feeding our bellies and quenching our thirst. I had a tuna sandwich [the tuna was okay, but Russian bread tends to be heavy
and too dry] and a strawberry cake that was heavy on strawberries, thank goodness!

From the Hermitage we were bussed to the town of Pushkin for a tour of the Catherine Palace, built for the wife of Peter the Great. Heavily damaged in the war, this palace has some restored rooms and some unrestored rooms. The latter contain photos along the walls to show how badly they were damaged in the war. There are numerous restored rooms of one dominating color or another: green rooms, a white dining room, even the famous Amber Room, furnished with panels that represent an educated guess as to what the originals [destroyed during the war] must have looked like. Peter the Great had received the original
panels as a gift from another government, and had not wanted them because they seemed too luxurious for him [!!], but his wife liked them, so they became the centerpiece of her palace. Crowding was extreme here, resulting in shoving by other tourist groups. As in the Summer palace, we had to wear plastic shoe protectors.

We exited the Palace through the gardens and made our way back to the bus, in which we were carted to our final group dinner in a restaurant in downtown Saint Petersburg. Some of us had requested caviar, so we each got a teaspoon of it in the first course, which consisted of
Russian pancakes with sour cream. The main course was beef stroganoff with mashed potatoes. Dessert was ice cream topped with a berry sauce.

There's a serious moral to paragraph 2, excessively strict limits on ATM withdrawals can discourage tourism and accumulation of valuable foreign exchange.

Hi, ITIWBS.

I could have withdrawn more, but didn't know how far a thousand rubles would go. I thought it would be fine.I didn't know yet that a group supper would be proposed, nor that it would eat up 70% of the rubles I had taken out. By the time the proposal was made, I was on the bus to Peterhof,k with cash in my neck pouch but no ATM card [we had been told to take as little as possible, because of thieves. In fact, our accompanist brought his wallet and had it stolen from him. The thieves withdraw $1,000 from his credit card within two minutes]. A thousand rubles is worth about $33.00. I fwlt very rich when I saw that the balance in my account was worth 67,000 rubles!It looks much less impressive when expressed as dollars.

Aha. So you shared a need for rubles with Mihail Baryshnikov:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGlN54Qa8P8

Get somebody to pay you 500 rubles for each high note you hit.

It's an honor to be compared with Baryshnikov.

For all I know you may even sing better than Baryshnikov

Baryshnikov dances better than I do, though.

That remains to be seen

Baryshnikov on his worst day would still dance better than I would on my best day.

Hm, I guess you are right

But I would still like to see you try

You will need a lot of aspirin and some stiff drinks once you're seen it.

So now you are even tempting me with stiffdrinks?

I threw that in because it was a weakness I could exploit.

That it is, my friend

But it was in no way harmful to you. Also, it got me off the hook as far as d_____g was concerned, which was the real aim.

Leaving Europe before I could catch up with you was a smart move, but I may get my chance to see you dance yet!

But for now: Welcome home!

Looking forward to hear about the last days of your journey!

The last day was a long, long one -- almost 24 hours of continuous sunlight. I watched the sun come up at 4:00 a.m. in Saint Petersburg. The sun had just gone *down* in Boston at the time, and I was flying East for most of the day. So, by the time the sun went down again in Boston, I was there to see it do so.

a trip went spent

The movie version will be called "The Longest Day."