The Abysmally Late Part II

Geez, it’s magically taken me over a week to fill y’all in on the second part of the trip to Pete’s. Of course, life has happened in the interim, but I believe the reader will be far more interested in the remainder of my break. Not so much a week of applications, American-style diners, and nunneries. Thursday morning (last last Thursday, that is) a few of us set off early to look at a mosque very near the Peter and Paul fortress we were to visit a little later with the group. Naturally, we had a small mishap with the Petersburg Metro, which includes non-functioning stations on it’s map. So we stared, and laughed, as we sailed by the station we were supposed to exit at–one more or less in the last throes of construction. A few turns and a walk later, we finally came upon our destination, although we didn’t get a chance to sneak inside.

Peter and Paul Fortress, while impressive, proved less memorable than some of the other sites we visited that day. Although, a quick story about the noontime cannon: it went off at noontime, and scared me to kingdom come. Screaming, ducking, covering, the whole gambit.

We decided to go a-wandering after that whole escapade, met some Americans from the Boston region (traveling their way to New Zealand, of all places),  finally arrived at Saint Isaac’s Cathedral, and unexpectedly caught some militsia in the act of raking up leaves. Apparently they didn’t want us taking pictures because they promptly yelled at us from afar. Got it anyway. Funny anecdote #2: when given the option to view the cathedral museum or the colonnade, opt for the museum. Joey, Ele, and I opted for the colonnade because a) it was cheaper and b) it sounded like a more robust experience–we climbed no less than 250 stairs to the very top of this place. I wish I had caught it all on tape; the progression from “oh, more stairs” to “no, really when does it end?” to “this must be the friggin’ tower of Babel” is all rather humorous in hindsight. The payoff: a panoramic view of Saint Petersburg in all it’s wannabe European glory. Although, truth be told, the panoramic view was at least fifteen degrees colder than the view from the street.

And now we come to my most unbelievable story from the entire trip. For all I know, it could have been a case of mistaken identity, but I swear to any number of religious deities that I saw THE Orlando Bloom outside of a McDonald’s on Nevsky Prospect that night. The man I saw had the right build, right height, right face, everything. Seeing him also made me do a double take, which I don’t remember doing ever. A few days after returning, Joey and I looked into the plausibility of this coincidence only to find that Orlando Bloom does quite a bit of humanitarian work in Russia and has made a few trips to Moscow recently. But he was also in New York a few days prior to the alleged sighting. I guess we will never know, but I believe I spied and Orlando.

I can’t remember much of Friday beyond the big stuff: visiting Mikhail Zoshchenko’s apartment, visiting the Church of the Spilled Blood, and bargaining with a street vendor in Russian, German, and English. Confusion all around. We sort of stumbled upon the little apartment museum in a super ghetto complex (these sorts of things no longer surprise me) and were surprised to find that it hosted a wonderful collection of the author’s actual belongings and manuscripts. Spilled Blood, as per usual with the Orthodox cathedrals, gave me far too much to look at. The entire interior of this place is lacquered in tiny mosaic tiles–every single scene constructed from thousands of tiny pixels. The scenes from Christ’s life and his parables took me back to my Sunday school days, making me feel both very old and very far away from home as I understood it as a kid.

Overall, the trip to Pete’s ended up being one of those vacations that make you want to take another vacation after, just so you can recover from the whole experience. That being said, it was fantastic! (Even though I much prefer Moscow.) I have yet to visit Western Europe, and Saint Petersburg imitates that whole look and atmosphere rather well. We might as well have gone to Germany or France or some stereotypically European place like that, although I’m not sure any of those places have giants traipsing around monuments claiming to be Peter the Great. A Peter the Great with a drawn-on mustache who demands 100 roubles for a picture with him. Yikes.