It may be time for new passport pictures

Oct 1
Breakfast at 2:30 am   Did we sleep much?  I didn't , Nick did fine, til I woke him.  Bags packed and out for the ship's crew to gather and we went to have coffee/ tea and banana bread.  It was one of the best things for breakfast most mornings-- very good and moist.

The bus left for the airport at 3:30 and the traffic was not horrible.  Took about 20 minutes, while last week at 9 pm, it tood 2 hours.

This is a small airport but the minute we walked in everything (bags, purses, jackets, everything) was xrayed.   Again, it's small and only one of 3 check in kiosks was working-- 50 folks trying to use one machine is a little crazy.  Finally we were allowed to go stand in line to let a human person check us in, but they didn't come on duty til 4:30, so we waited and waited and then we waited some more.  Finally we made it up to the human, bags were weighed (and whew, we weren't over 50 lbs). and then headed thru passport control.  Remember this is the country that insisted on a visa that had questions that were none of their business.  Anyway the passport control lady (young) looked at my passport and looked at me, she looked at the passport and looked at me (several times).  She then called a security person over and asked him to look at me and look at the passport.  They finally decided that I could go thru.  Realize that the passport is about 9 years old and I'm 10 pounds lighter with way shorter hair. Interestingly, Nick had the same experience.  Had to take off his glasses and cap.   Guess it's time for new passports.


After the passport control, we waited in an ugly room for the folks running the security to come on duty.  Once we went thru security we were trapped-- no bathrooms, no last minute shopping (nothing much was open anyway) and we waited and waited again.  Finally we were allowed to get on the plane to Frankfort.  N and I were in different parts of the plane, which doesn't happen often, but is okay!  The best thing is that our bags were checked all the way thru to DFW, so in Frankfort, we didn't have to deal with the large bags.

We were given ample food on our flights throughout the day-- I'll give Lufthansa that, you stay fed.  Now the quality?  Another story.  We had our boat breakfast, and then onboard the airplane we were given breakfast.   The food is hot, but breakfast was a nasty looking egg thing with some red sauce on it.  The bread was good.

We had sufficient time in Frankfort to get rid of the Euros that we got on the way over.  Folks shopped some and just waited and walked around anticipating the LONG flight from Germany to Texas.    Again when we boarded, Nick and I were in the back of the plane and when "lunch" was handed out, no choices were left.  Chicken was okay with me, but I would have liked a choice.  No one ever said that "regular" airplane meals are exciting, but they are sustenance, and an appreciated break from the 10 hr monotony.

Several movies were available and I watched Madagascar 3, Dark Shadows, and the t.v. pilot of Grimm (interesting)  I also watched an NCIS, and a REALLY OLD MacGyver.  I read some and tried to nap (unsuccessful).  I checked the music available and clicked the country/folk button.  If these are country, what have I been listening to on my radio station every morning?

Available was "Trampled by Turtles" by Stars and Satellites- a cd
Carolina Chocolate Drops by Leaving Eden
Smoke Fairies by Blood Specks
I have heard of Bonnie Rait
Have your heard of this country music?


We FINALLY arrived at DFW, went through customs, picked up our luggage and eventually found Super Shuttle.  They had to deliver someone to Grand Prairie before taking us home, which took an extra 30-45 min, but we were home way before our Brownwood friends- who still had a 3 hr bus ride to get home.

Russian Educational system and other misc info

On the way back to the bus from our busy day of seeing The Hermitage and Catherine's Palace, the guide asked if we had any questions.  One was about toll roads and she said yes they have a few and Russians aren't happy about them-- their use costs the equivalent of $1.
N asked about the Education system in Russia.  Being really frank our guide said that her education "in Soviet times" was very good, very strict and quite complete.  She feels with the new "freedom and openness" that Russian children today are not getting as good an education as she did.  She says that when she entered public school at age 6 she was expected to be able to read  Elementary and secondary - first 8 years of school are free, then about 9th grade students are put on a track.  Really smart students go one way, average and below average students are given a technical school training.   University used to be free to everyone who qualified, not it is free for only those having the absolutely top scores.  Others must pay for university.
When she was in school, her university was free, BUT, she said NOTHING IS FREE!  She was assigned to work for 3 years to pay the state back for her education  She was sent to a very unpopular place and she had no choice, but to go put in her 3 yrs.  Not a bad plan for the U.S  students to pay back loans.    They could have a choice, pay back the $$ or do X number of years at minimum wage to repay.

Lunch and Catherine’s Palace

 

9/30

Gate to Catherine's Palace

We’re going to lunch at one of President Putin’s favorite restaurants.  Pushkin is a small town about 40 kilometers from St Petersburg.  The town now has an unpronounceable name (changed from Pushkin) and was the village where Tsar Peter’s servants lived.  He would go there to relax and feel ordinary.    Peter I and his wife Catherine had 11 children, but only two survived to adulthood—Anne and Elizabeth.

The meal was a 5-course affair with “cold starters”, “warm starters”, soup, entrée, and dessert.  Along with the meal, red and white wine and vodka were provided on the table (more about the vodka later).   The cold starter was sliced meat and pickled garlic, pickled tomatoes and pickled cucumbers.   There were halved tomatoes with white stuff on top—no body figured out what it was, but it was really good.    The warm starter was a kind of mushroom soup stuff.  The soup was borsht (very good taste).   The entrée was ground beef wrapped in cabbage leaves and baked.  Dessert was a cowberry filled blini with ice cream on the side.  (no, I have no idea what cowberries are)    

Very interesting meal and the entertainment (singers and accordion player) was very enthusiastic.   

Entertainers in the restaurant- note the instrument around his neck.

 Several of the musicians used percussion instruments that hung around their neck and clacked together.  I thought about getting one (they were selling for 15 Euro) for Lily, but her mom might have shot me.  Picture 8-10 playing card shaped pieces of wood hung on a cord with spacers between the pieces.  The pieces of wood clacked loudly together.  This instrument is called a trishoika.

We sat at long tables and the woman across the table from me was "loving the vodka". She must have missed breakfast because she cleaned all the serving plates of the cold starters.  She ate everything in sight.  She filled her friend's glass with wine when she wasn’t looking “so she’ll be less grumpy”.  Later this same lady went to another table where no one was drinking vodka, swiped a full bottle and put it in her purse.  A little something for later, I guess.    When we left the restaurant, the rain was coming down! 

We drove just a little way to get to Catherine’s Palace.  On the way, we passed the house that the last tsar, Nicholas II and his family used in winter.  This is the palace where he and his family were imprisoned before being sent to Siberia and their death. 

Rainy day at Catherine's Palace

Before we could enter any of the public areas of Catherine’s Palace, we were required to put on paper overshoes to protect the floor

We walked into the first room of the tour and the entire group gasped.  I don’t think any of us had ever seen so much gold before.  This room is purported to contain 9 kg of gold (1 kg=2.2 #).   This room alone was decorated with 19.8 pounds of gold on the walls, the ceiling and the decorative elements.    This was the ballroom and it was said that Catherine didn’t like to sleep so she danced the night away.  Lots of mirrors (framed in gold) in the room caused the gold to be reflected again and again, making it seem like there was twice as much.  From this room we went from gold room, to gold room to gold room.   Our guide told us that the entire house contains 100 kilograms of gold (x 2.2 for pounds).   

These rooms were designed by Empress Elizabeth, --when Catherine became Tsarina, she didn’t particularly like the ostentatiousness of all the gold.  She felt that the abundance of gold was bad taste.    Some of the rooms are much more simply decorated with a minimum of gold, but with silk wall coverings, or with red or green foil décor.

Gold Ball Room

There were several dining rooms, one with no chairs for dessert after dancing.  People just stood and helped themselves to sugar and vodka candies, chocolate covered with gold and marzipan. 

The palace contains 50 rooms, but only 26 are open, while the rest are being renovated. 

We passed through a hallway with photographs of the damage sustained by the Palace during the siege during WW II.  The ceilings had collapsed, furniture was destroyed, windows and doors were broken and floors damaged.  The renovations have been going on almost since the end of the war. 

Amber room

After touring several rooms of various designs, we came to “the Amber Room”.  This room is completely covered in Amber, but it is not original to the palace.  The Nazis took the original amber off the walls and it disappeared and has never been found.  This amber room is a recreation of what was in Catherine's time-- at a cost of $1million.

One of the rooms, originally a bedroom of Paul, Catherine’s son, had columns that look like stone.  They are really porcelain.

ceiling in one of the gold rooms

Note the ceiling in the picture to the left.  The picture is blurry, but most of the rooms had artistic types of ceilings.

The Palace is a breathtaking piece of history.  It is difficult to believe that people really lived like this. 

The Hermitage

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9/30

Dobre Utra—again, I didn’t take the language class, but this is my phonetic spelling of Russian Good Morning.

Last touring day—The Hermitage and Catherine’s Palace

We were up early, walking around the deck and I noticed a man sweeping around the dock area.  This city is very clean, even though it does have lots of graffiti. 

We also saw 2 or 3 men fishing from the steps of the dock area the two mornings we were docked there.  Nick asked a man who we saw fishing during our city tour yesterday, what kind of fish he was catching, and they had bass and smelt.

front of Hermitage

We are headed to the Hermitage- a famous art museum here in St Petersburg- this morning, we will have lunch at a rather famous place in Pushkin (Alexander Putin has celebrated his birthdays there) and after lunch we will tour Catherine’s Palace.  The buses we are using provide hearing/speaking equipment for all passengers, so the tours will be much more enjoyable than some when we strain to hear and understand the guides.

An apartment building is being torn down across from where our ship is docked and it is fascinating to watch the long arm of the crane pick away at pieces of the building.  This seems to be a really slow process, no huge wrecking ball, or explosion, just pick and pick til a piece falls down.

The Hermitage is so huge, with so many exhibits, that our guide Natalia says it would take 8 years to see it all.   It is one of the largest museums in the world with 12,000 paintings and 200,000 items in their collection.  The name suggests a place for solitude, parts of it started out small (by Russian royalty standards) and grew as collections grew, and as several buildings were joined.  It began as a winter palace for Empress Elizabeth but was used by Catherine the Great as her winter residence and place to keep her growing collections.  There are 1,057 rooms in the winter palace, 117 staircases (we discovered at the bottom of each staircase is a WC-bathroom- good to know), and 1945 windows.   Catherine collected 3,000 paintings herself and founded the museum in 1764- not for the general public, however.  In the mid 19^th century,  (1851) part of the museum was opened to the public  After the October revolution (Bolshevik) the entire Hermitage parts were joined as one building and it was opened to the public

 They have some rules:  No bags, no water, no coats, we may take pictures,  but NO FLASH.

Do not think I can do the tour justice in this blog entry.  We tried to take pictures, but eventually N got a guidebook, because the paintings just didn’t photograph well.  I will scan some and include them here.

As we went through the administrative part of the building we were told to notice the really thick walls (remember this was originally a place where royalty lived in winter)  We saw a restaurant, an internet café (but no time to investigate) and of course the inevitable gift shops.

There is an Egyptian area with items brought to Russia in the 19^th Century.  One of the first items we saw was an enormous green stone vase, which caused a wall to be opened to bring it in the building.

The paintings are arranged (at least the part we saw) by chronological order and by country of origin.  We began with Italians of the15th Century.  De La Robia (please excuse my spelling, I’m doing it phonetically) was pointed out to us as a prominent sculptor in Italy during that time.   In the 16^th Century area, we saw 2 Botticelli’s, and two Da Vinci Madonnas.   The building has architectural wonders other than the paintings.  Hand painted ceilings, inlaid doors, and mosaic floors are beautiful, especially when you consider when and how they were made.

We walked through an ornate hall, which is supposedly an exact copy of a hall in the Vatican, for which Catherine received permission.

The museum originally had 5 Raphael paintings, but 3 were sold after the October Revolution.  One, Madonna Conistable is the usual grouping of Madonna and child, but she is reading a book- it was bought by one of the tsars for his wife, but then was given to the museum when the tsarina died.  

Raphael's Holy Family

 The other Raphael was of the holy family dressed in 17^th century clothing.  It was considered quite unusual to depict them in “modern” dress.

We saw a Michelangelo statue called Crouching Boy, which is not finished.  He was told he wouldn’t get paid for it, so he quit.  

Michelangelo's crouching boy

In one really huge room we were directed to look at the skylights.  This was (and is) the best way to light the paintings so that museum viewers can have the best view of masterpieces.

Several huge (entire wall) paintings of Venice and Dresden were used to rebuild and restore the cities after they were destroyed in the bombings of WW II. 

Moving from Italian to Spanish painters  we saw a painting by Diego de Velasquez of men having breakfast.  The Spanish paintings are very dark and not “clear”.  We were asked how many people were in the painting, most people answered 4, turns out it was only 3, an optical illusion made it look like 4.  Paintings by Goya and El Greco were in this area as well.

The Hermitage has the second largest collections of Rembrandts in the world, with Amsterdam, having the most.    He was considered to be too realistic for his time.    The picture of Christ being removed from the cross was an example of his realistic depiction.  I mentioned earlier that one of the rules is that no water may be brought into the museum.  That was not always a rule, but a man with a bottle of “water” asked a guide which was the most expensive painting in the museum and he was taken to this one.  He opened his bottle and threw acid on the painting.  It has been “restored” but only 20-30% of the painting is Rembrandt, the rest was painted by restorers.  So—no water in here.

 Some of our group went to see impressionists, but I didn’t.  Picaso  and the others of this type don’t appeal to me. And by that time I had lost N and tried to back track to find him.  He was in the bus before me, but I was a little concerned.

St Petersburg city tour

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Saturday, 9/29

 Most city tours by bus give the traveler the “lay of the land” and we see the highlighted buildings, some quite memorable and others, pretty and interesting, but not particularly memorable.  We take lots of pictures and when we get home and go through them, some will strike a chord of remembrance, and most will not.  It is easier when I look at my notes, altho’ I must admit I do not write down every fact, but just the ones that I personally find interesting.  I do not know where the most important general of such and such a war lived, although we were told.

Our bus for the day was extraordinarily fancy.

The city (which now has about 5 million inhabitants) was founded by Peter the Great as a fortress to protect Russia from attacks by Sweden.  Our guide told us that it is larger in land mass than some European countries. 

It has had several names, first St Petersburg (for Peter’s patron saint), then Petrograd, then Leningrad and it was changed back to St Petersburg in 1991.

It seems to have been built upon a swamp, we saw several rivers and canals were also dug, but were later filled in to make streets. 

Empress Elizabeth’s convent which was built for her to enter as a nun- but she died before its completion—is a lovely complex with blue and yellow and white walls and decorations.

Convent

As we drove around the city, I noticed a great deal more graffiti than I saw in Moscow.  Maybe I just didn’t notice it before, or the “art work” is more colorful here, or whatever.

We saw St Isaacs Cathedral with its gold dome. 

Gold dome of St Isaac's

 It was shelled by the Germans in WW II and the damage is still visible today.   The word Prospect  (which is like our word avenue) means long wide street taken from the architects prospective drawing.

We were told that St P is an industrial city but it also has a great number of museums and 30 Universities.     

Many of the city’s cathedrals, chapels and churches were “re-purposed“ during the “Soviet time” as morgues, warehouses, skating rinks, and offices because Lenin felt that “Religion was the opiate of the masses” and wanted to eliminate all worship experiences.  At least he was smart enough not to destroy the buildings, so that later they could be brought back to their original purpose and brilliance.  We have probably seen and toured more churches on this trip than on any of the other trips we have experienced.

As we walked around, we saw "actors" dressed up as Peter the Great and the tsarina.  Their purpose for being there was to take pictures with tourists for from 100-300 rubles.

The Church of the Spilled Blood is a huge place where we stopped to take pictures.  It commemorates the place where Nicholas I was martyred.  He was killed when a bomb exploded wounding him fatally.    The church was closed for a time because of the October Revolution (Bolshevik Rev.)  It was used as a morgue during WW II.  Over one million people perished in St Petersburg during the Great Siege (980 days) when the Germans tried to capture the city.  Hitler had even made plans for a victory celebration at the Astoria hotel in Saint Petersburg ( then Leningrad) and had invitations printed.  The party never happened.  St. Petersburg was not taken by the Germans.  

Our cruise ship is docked by a large number of gray concrete (ugly) apartment buildings between 15 and 20 stories tall.  We were told by a guide in Moscow that apartments in Russian cities are very very expensive.  Her estimate was $40,000 per square meter of space, meaning one apartment  in Moscow would cost millions.  In Soviet times, all apartments were owned by the state and were doled out as favors.  The higher a person was in the “party” the better, larger apartments he was given.  Those who were merely workers with no clout had to share apartments with extended family and had shared kitchen and bathroom facilities with others on the same floor.  Since “Soviet times” are gone, people are expected to pay for things, which is difficult for modern Russians to adjust to.  And apartments aren’t usually rented, but bought. 

After the city tour, N and I went out looking for an internet café.-- we found one, but our elderly lap top didn't like the connection.  I was able to get the WiFi to work on my phone, tho. 

This n' that

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 Saturday 29^th

Altho’ I didn’t attend the Russian language lessons that were provided on board ship, I have been interested in some of the signs I’ve seen.  I can’t spell them here for you cuz I don’t have a Syrillic alphabet on my computer.  Most everywhere there is a traffic light the word CTO upside down U is found.  I’m guessing that means caution, 

  I could sometimes figure out what ta shop is advertisings even without the English words.  I saw a Citibank sign and I’ll describe the letters.  C backwards N T backwards N BAHK.  A KFC sign was followed with KAACCNK--and then another KFC sign with POCTNKS.  TGIFriday (restaurant) had this on the sign  O with a line through it P A N I C.   Now you see why Just looking a the sign with the unusual alphabet a person can’t really figure out what is being sold without looking at the picture on the sign or the merchandise.

Everywhere I look young Russians are smoking.  The sailors on the ship, young folks on the street, mostly the people I see smoking are young.  Wonder if no one has told them how bad that is for their health.  I haven’t seen that many mature folks out on the street, so I’m not sure if this is a generational habit, or something that all Russians enjoy. 

I seem to always wear the wrong footwear.  When I wear my warm boots, we are walking on cobblestones and I slip and clomp (should’a worn the Sketchers)    When  it is wet, I wear the tennis and my feet get wet.   This afternoon, I noticed that my boots caught on one of the many stairs on the ship.  I looked at the soles and found both had cracked all the way across.  Do I take them home to get repaired, or trash them here?  They weren’t the most expensive mail order boots, but they’re comfy and look good.  So I guess I’ll haul them home and see if they can be repaired, -- now I’m down to one pair.  But we really only have one day of touring left and I planned to wear the tennies on the plane anyway

Lena

Our waitresses Lena and Lillya have been really special, very friendly and efficient.  They can really hustle when they need to.  Some days supper takes 2 hours, but tonite we were finished in 45 minutes because some of the passengers were leaving at 7 for a program. 

 I guess I’m drawn to these 2 because of their sweet smiles and their names.  My dad used to call me Lena and my sweet 3 yr old is named Lillian. 

The food has been an adventure.  Every meal includes salad, soup, entrée and dessert.  The salads have been very artistic, but unusual and not especially stubtantial.  Almost all the soups have been tasty- with one exception.  The entrees have included mostly pork, with some chicken,  and ground beef and a little fish.  I think I expected more fish, but am not disappointed that we haven’t had much.    Lots of rice and potatoes.  And an enormous amount of cucumbers and tomatoes.  The desserts have been absolutely exceptional. 

Now let me describe our beds.  Think a couch with about a 3 inch cushion covered with a mattress pad in a sheet sack.  Not the softest bed, but adequate.   There is no sheet, but a duvet type thingy filled with a kind of army blanket.  The bottom pad moves around as I sleep and wads up.  I’ll really be glad to get back to my queen sized mattress.   I’m spoiled.  Imagine the crew sleeping on this type of bed (or worse) for 6 months straight.

We tried to download this today at an internet café and had NO LUCK probably because of our elderly computer that we brought..  We kept getting an error message, so you won’t see this until we are home.  Remember, pictures will be added the week following the trip.  

I was able to get online with my phone and got to read communications for a little while, so I was in contact with the outside world, kinda.

Last day of sailing the lakes and rivers

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 Friday 9/28

Don’t know why, but Thursday night was the absolutely best night of sleep I’ve had since we left home.  I’ve been waking up at 2 or 3 am not able to get back to sleep, or not been able to get to sleep til 1 or so.  Last night was wonderful -- went to sleep around 9:30-10 and woke at 6.  We leave the boat for home on Monday Oct. 1 at 3:30 am to catch a 6:30 am flight.  So I’m sure we won’t sleep well Sunday night, but we’ll be on the plane forever Monday, with lots of time to sleep. 

We were given disembarking information this morning and it doesn’t sound as complicated as the two other cruises we’ve been on.

We arrived on Mandrogi Island about 11 this morning and had several hours on our own to wander around and watch artisans at work.  They painted fabric, and painted matroyshka dolls.  

 They carved, wove, made pots and jewelry.  Lots to see and even more to buy.  

 For those who wanted it, there was also “tourist junk”—particularly a child’s tee shirt with the picture of a nesting doll and the words “Russian Barbie”

The architecture on the island was very gingerbready with the eaves and windows of every house carved.  Many buildings had sculptures of alligators (or maybe dragons?) not sure why, but….

N looked in several shops for hard candy which he needs to suck on at night, but none was found.  Lots of chocolate was in every configuration, and there were nuts and Lay’s potato chips, but no hard candy.  Realize all the packages are printed in Russian and we bought some potato chops the other day with the English word STRONG on the along with various Russian words.  The were very tasty, but we couldn’t place the flavor.  And they were STRONG flavored.

We walked past a garden with a huge pumpkin ( a little lighter than they look in Texas, but perhaps it was a different type of pumpkin.  I noticed zucchini growing, cabbage, and rhubarb.  

 I saw what I thought were strawberry plants, but didn’t notice any berries on them.  The garden was prolific with flowers.  I was wondering how they could grow such lovely roses and mine die right after I get them in the ground..

We had a barbecue picnic on the island as part of our meals for the tour.  The previous night we had kebabs which turned out to be small meat loaves on a wooden skewer, so the idea of Russian barbecue was something to wonder about.   This meat (chicken or Pork) was grilled on a metal skewer over an open fire and was delicious. and plentiful.    I had wondered what Russians have as side dishes for a barbecue picnic and discovered that cucumbers and tomatoes were available along with a sort of cole slaw that tasted very sauerkraut-ish and there was a potato salad not unlike something that would be served in the U.S.   We had very interesting music during the meal and that was followed up with a cranberry dessert—a very tart torte.  Cups of red wine were available to be enjoyed with the meal and coffee/tea-- during dessert. 

If the weather had been better—not so drizzly and windy—we would have stayed on the island and walked around more, but we decided not to get chilled anymore or wet, so we went back to the boat.   

Next stop Saint Petersburg!