Super-Duper Wacky n' Tacky Euro Adventure

I am now back in Moscow from a brief trip to St. Petersburg with Fiona and the rents. Unfortunately all the cool Trinity kids and Estonian expats were all out of town, so we couldn’t crash their ridiculously well-located apartment and partake in their affinity for 3.5 liter bottles of vodka. We were thus guests of the gostinitsa oktyabrskaya conveniently located directly across from the moscovskii vokzal train station where we arrived at seven in the morning on Sunday. The hotel was a faaar improvement from the gostinitza moskva that tends to believe that soviet-style quality at inflated prices is still acceptable fifteen years later.

The trip was very delightful with a good mix of museums, copious amounts of food, disco naps, and teen-aged naval officer trainees. Fiona and I passed on a third trip to the hermitage this time, because as we had both seen all the impressionism that Russia has to offer, we quickly became disinterested in the winter palace. Trips to the Blockade museum and the Museum of political history were to be had however. As usual, when traveling with people that have even less knowledge of the Russian language than I do, the shortcomings of the Russian tourism industry becomes strikingly clear. Even in such a western town as St. Petersburg, it was very difficult at times, that with a translator!

It turns out that I am not the only person in the world who gets screwed over by incompetent train ticket sales people. After realizing that there are in fact two train stations from St. Petersburg that have trains going to Moscow (why would Moskovskii vokzal be the only one?) we were able to catch some other trains back at later times with only a minor hit to the wallet. Any feelings of embarrassment or pity were immediately drowned in Sovietskoye Champanskoye.

Russia is great so far, not exactly how I remember it given that the entire Stanford group is gone, but it is relaxing and refreshing to be back in this great town. I just got up from a 12 hour sleep with a two hour nap and I couldn’t feel better. Ready for the day, which conveniently just got a lot longer since the sun doesn’t go down here ‘til 8!