Somewhere a Clock is Ticking

(From yesterday)

Today is day 1 of 11 without internet at home (I’m going to start a survivor’s log), and in my last entry I said that you may not hear from me for a while, but I’m starting to think that without constant access (albeit shitty access) to Facebook, Pintrest and Project Free TV, I may be writing here more often. Which is where I find myself now. 

I finished my phonetics and grammar exams, and I have conversation and reading and writing tomorrow. After that, all I have left is my Nabokov essay, which will be 10 pages of whatever I want (and I really do mean that - whatever I want, Valerii Germanovich Timofeev!), and that which is due simply before I leave the country. I can see the home stretch, and I am seriously itching for it (although I have no mercy for myself. This semester hasn’t been nearly as stressful as a week at Conn in terms of work). 

I find myself fantasizing about arriving at JFK and again at Logan Airport. More specifically about being surrounded by people who speak English, and who also dress normally (well maybe not at JFK or Logan since their airports, but you know what I mean). The other day in the summer gardens Will, Jackie and I found ourselves behind four visitors: two men and their wives, and something just told me they were American. One of the men had a baseball cap on, and he was wearing running sneakers too. There was also something about one of the women’s outfits as well that made me think this, and when we eventually passed them I heard them speaking English. They happened to be British, but I was still pretty proud of my intuition. Getting back to JFK, I’m looking forward to being surrounded by people who dress, well, like Americans. 

I also participated in a room swap for next year’s housing at Conn this afternoon (I got a bad lottery number a month ago and consequentially selected an undesirable room), and I ended up getting a single on the second floor of my top choice dorm. I’m so happy! 

I know, a few entries ago I was super sad about leaving. That’s still true. I AM really sad to be leaving. In fact, I, oh gosh, don’t even want to think about saying goodbye to my friends, and, oh no, my lovely host mom, but ever since my trip to Tallinn and Helsinki I’ve become increasingly more excited to go home. Maybe it was because I had my passport on me all the time and I went through borders and security and other sure-tell signs of international travel. Maybe it was because I spent a few days in more Western cities, where people spoke English and where people smiled and said “how are you?” like they meant it. It’s probably because of the mere fact that I KNOW I’m coming home. In any case, something about it made me realize that my return trip was actually right around the corner, and ever since then I've been thinking about all the things I’ve missed. 

It was during my little trip outside Russia that I finally allowed myself to make a food list; that is, a list of foods with which I plan on stuffing myself once I get home. And because I’m feeling silly, I’m just going to go ahead and list everything off, in their original order (don’t know what to cook for dinner tonight? You may find some inspiration below!):

“American Food to Eat When You Get Home!

Home-made burgers

Onion rings

Mozzarella sticks

English muffins with peanut butter

French toast

Scrambled eggs with ketchup

Chobani

SMOOTHIES

Avocado, tomato, cheese, hummus wraps

Tacos salad or burritos 

Applesauce

Celery and cream cheese

Bagels and cream cheese (lox!)

Greek salad

Tortellini

Coconut dates

Sushi

Italian subs

Tapioca pudding

Zucchini

Ravioli

Grilled Cheese

Shrimp

Veggie burgers

Chickpea, avocado, fetal salad

Shepherd’s pie

Pumpkin pie

Spaghetti and meatballs

Colored pasta

ICE CREAM (Ben and Jerry’s)

Italian ice

Peas

Corn.”

Here’s to getting gloriously FAT. 

Anyways, I was going to write about how much I can’t believe four months have passed already, but writing that list of food has oddly enough put me in a less philosophical, depressed mood. I guess I’ll save that for my next entry. 

Tootles!

Life in Technicolor

Time for a study break. My first final is tomorrow at 1, and it’s phonetics. If there is going to be any final that I fail, this will be it. All we have to do is read a piece we picked out at the beginning of the semester (I picked a folk tale by Pushkin) with correct pronunciation, and unfortunately, my accent has probably gotten worse since I got here. Жаль.

These past few days have been super busy, but before I get into any of it, I must start with this: I saw Putin! Or at least, I caught a glimpse of what I believed to be the back of his head. How did this happen? Well, Putin was in Petersburg for the weekend for a few different reasons. The main reason he was here was definitely for the economic summit, which lasted three days and was held at Lenexpo, which is on Vasilievsky Island (where I live), and it’s also where they held that Romanov exhibit back in February (oh goodness, back in February?!). The city is also celebrating it’s 311th birthday this weekend, and so there have been lots of events taking place all over. As a result, there have been hoards of policemen literally on every corner of the city. Police really scare me to begin with, so you can imagine how on edge I’ve been walking around these past few days. 

As part of one of these events to celebrate Petersburg’s birthday, there was a massive choral concert of 5,000 participants yesterday in St. Isaac’s square, and according to Sean, whose host dad sang in this choir, there was a rumor that Putin was going to show up to it. I woke up on Saturday morning, started getting ready to go to the gym, and then metaphorically slapped myself across the face. Why would I even consider going to the gym when I could possibly see Putin?! That was enough. I took the day off and met some friends by the Bronze Horseman at 11 am. It took me 25 minutes to get there on foot, and in those 25 minutes I saw dozens of policemen. It gave me this eery, calm-before-the-storm feeling, and it made me excited. When everyone found each other, we walked around St. Isaac’s cathedral in order to get past the barricades that had already been built around the square. We found an entrance and I passed my backpack through the security and metal detectors that were positioned in the middle of the streets.  We made ourselves to an open space in front of the cathedral, and proceeded to bake for a good 45 minutes before the concert started. The weather was beautiful. Almost too nice, actually. It was incredibly sunny and it was at least 80 degrees. I wore a tank top yesterday, and I woke up this morning with that awful, itchy sunburnt feeling on my shoulders. 

There were, as expected, a ton of people. By the time we got there people had filled the first few rows of space in front of the barricade which separated spectators from the choir participants and announcers and whatnot. There were cameras everywhere. St. Isaac’s had undergone quite the transformation. The choir of 5,000 stood on a very, very long bleacher, and there were two television screens on either side of the front of the cathedral, which played on loop a clip about the city’s celebration. To begin the ceremony, the conductor of the choir was introduced. Some important man, who was particularly famous during the Soviet Union, and whose name I forgot. He got a big round of applause though. 

And then, before the concert started, the patriarch (good ole Kirill) gave a speech. His face was broadcasted onto the two televisions, and we could hear his voice projected through all the speakers, but we had no idea where he was. It was impossible to see anyone behind the barricade because of all the rows of people in front of us. He was apparently there though, about 30 feet from us. I wasn’t paying attention to what he said, but I guess if it was something earth-shatteringly important my ears would have perked up. The concert began and St. Isaac’s square reverberated with, well, the voices of 5,000 singers. I took my nalgene out at one point for some water and felt the vibrations of the water through my nalgene. The songs they played were, surprise surprise, incredibly nationalistic. Songs from World War II, songs about Easter, and oh, get this, they broadcasted for one song the choir from, ahem, Sevastopol in the Crimea. Awkward. 

Although there were just as many people celebrating Maselnitsa (blini week) with traditional songs and dance (we saw them at the Peter and Paul Fortress months ago), this concert rubbed me a bit in the wrong way. Maybe it’s because a lot has happened politically since Maselnitsa, maybe it’s because I could read the lyrics on the screens in front of me, but I definitely felt that the songs they sang were a little too aggressively proud for me. Ahh, I don’t know. They were probably all fine, but there were a few times when I looked at all the cameras and wondered to myself, “I’m curious what they’re going to say on Russian television about this celebration, and more importantly, how brain-washingly patriotic are they going to make it all out to be.” Ugh, I feel like a hypocrite. Obviously we do this kind of stuff in the US, but, I mean, it really freaks me out how much the media, especially when it’s practically 100% run by the government, influences the masses. Just to go slightly off topic for a second, I’ve had a few mini-crises while I’ve been here concerning whether or not how I’ve been raised, how AMERICANS have been raised, and the values and philosophies we preach vis-à-vis Russians is right or wrong in the context of the... universe? That seems too grand. This is a complicated thought I’m about to unpack. In the states, we (for the most part - I hate to generalize, but roll with me on this for just a sec) firmly believe that there are parts of Russian culture, such as the corruption of their politics and judicial systems, and how they feel about human rights (gay rights for one) that, to us, are straight up WRONG. But here’s the thing. Some Russians, from the way they are brought up, firmly believe with the same amount of strength that American values are fundamentally wrong as well (this statement can be applied to other cultures too). Could you imagine living in a world where everybody else in the world thought that what you believe with your entire being was inherently wrong? Ok, I’m getting way too philosophical here, and I'm not sure I understand what I'm writing anymore, but what I meant to say was, my world and how I view the world, in a sense, has been shaken up (not that I've changed any of my opinions).

But I digress. Getting back to Putin...

After about five or six songs, over the microphone all of a sudden I heard something something something ваш президент российской федерации (the president of the Russian Federation...), and then I ceased to hear anything else that was said. I felt the mood of the entire crowd in front of me shift into action. Cameras were out, and heads all turned to the same direction. And then all I cared about was seeing the one and only, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Regardless of how I feel about that man as a politician (or as a human being, for that matter), it all went out the window. I tried as hard as I could to push and shove my way through, but it became apparent very quickly that I probably wouldn’t be able to see him. At this point I started jumping up and down. I put my wide zoom lens on my camera specifically for this moment, but I also realized that it wouldn’t be any help to me. I jumped and jumped and then, like seeing the loch ness monster or big foot, I think I caught a glimpse of the back of Putin’s head. But again, all of his body guards were in similar suits and bald, so I could have easily been mistaken. That is going to drive me crazy for the rest of my life, but I can’t deny that my memory, especially when I really want something, can be deceptive. In any case, I can say for certain that I was about 30 feet away from him, and I was in the audience he gave a quick speech to on the 311th birthday celebration of St. Petersburg. It’s closer than I’ve ever gotten to any of our American presidents! (Famous people don’t really exist in real life anyways). 

So that’s that, and my day actually got better too! After Putin showed up we left the choir, which, I must add, is хор in Russian, pronounced exactly like the word “whore” in English, I walked back home, made lunch, and studied briefly for one of my finals. A few hours later, I set off for the second time that day to the Bronze Horseman to meet friends for a picnic on the grass there. I bought cookies, and because I had plans to meet more friends to play soccer around 6 pm, found myself walking around the streets of Petersburg in my neon pink Conn College nike shorts and a grey tank top (gasp!). The next hour and a half was spent lying barefoot in the grass in between the Bronze Horseman and St. Isaac’s cathedral (who says that?). Becca brought henna, and others brought fruit and more sweets. We alternated between English to Russian (April had brought a few of her Russian friends), and we enjoyed the summer weather in lush green grass. 

Around 5:30 I set off for Smolny, which is located about 20 minutes away, to meet some guys who planned on finding an empty soccer court to play on for a while. We all met around 6, and then, dear god, for the next TWO HOURS we basically walked around the whole city trying to find courts that weren’t occupied (we ended up going back to the Bronze Horseman at one point). Eventually we took the metro to Primorskaya, one metro stop north from me, and walked for another half an hour trying to find a space to kick a soccer ball around. We finally found a small ice hockey rink that had turf on it around 8 pm. By the time we got there, after all the walking I had done that day, my little legs were just about ready to give out. It was sweltering hot out, and I hadn’t had dinner yet, but oh my, I REALLY wanted to play soccer, as did the six others, so we kept on. 

The next hour and a half playing soccer on that small turf filled ice rink was probably one of the best few hours spent during my entire time abroad (I’m so serious). It was me, Dylan, Will, Adam, Bill, Hunter, and Lea on and off, and we were all so into it. We took frequent water breaks (I was happy to know that all my work on the treadmill still left me huffing and puffing), but we kept on until 9:30. I can’t tell you how nice it was to touch a soccer ball again. I absolutely made a complete fool out of myself on multiple occasions and Hunter and I both went down at some point, but it felt so good nonetheless. Hah, there were a few times when Bill had the ball in a corner, and I found myself practically body checking him. I have my Waynflete soccer coach, Todd Dominski to thank for that one. The last time I played soccer with a guy was indoor gym soccer with Todd, and Todd was so convinced that all of us on WVGS were all painfully “soft. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it!” He always told us to “PUT A BODY ON HER!” or just “BE AGGRESSIVE!” And so when we had the rare opportunities to play with/against Todd, he would take the liberty to up the anti and in a very safe but playful manner, completely rough us up. It was all in good fun of course, but I guess it left an impression, because I actually treated Bill the same way I did Todd when we played. That is to say: sloppy, aggressive and slightly dirty, but only cause we weren’t taking the game seriously. After I did it the first time I was so taken aback that I kind of grinned to myself for remembering such a habit from high school soccer. I also found myself shouting things like, “one on!” or “turn!” or “time!” Oh, how WONDERFUL. God, I knew I would miss playing for Todd, or just on a soccer team in general as a senior in high school, but wow. I really do. Frisbee is great, but it’s not the same.  

We played until 9:30 pm before we called it quits, but we could have kept playing because the sun doesn’t set anymore! How insane. I was absolutely beat, and I headed back to the metro with Adam and Will. I made dinner, showered, and fell asleep after ten minutes of the first episode of 30 Rock. 

Today I woke up sore, but it was a good sore. Later this afternoon we went for a boat cruise around the canals and the Neva for our end of the semester celebration. There were fruit, pies (pies filled with meat and salmon, and others with strawberries), and some champagne. Until I left my apartment to meet everyone outside Gostiny Dvor it was just as beautiful and hot out as the day before, but, alas, it started to downpour and the sky darkened just as I left. The downpour just became rain, but the boat trip was still on. The boat we took had a downstairs (what's that nautical term... below deck?), and so we didn't have to worry about getting wet. Eventually the rain stopped completely and the skies started to clear. It was pretty awesome to be on a boat throughout all the canals of the city, and it felt especially amazing to exit into the Neva in front of the Winter Palace and in and around the Peter and Paul Fortress. After having walked along all those embankments and along that same bridge a bagillion times since I arrived at the end of January, it was so cool to see all the views of the city from the river. 

Okay, I’ve written enough. Exams start tomorrow and my monthly internet runs out in two days. I’m not going to buy another month because I’ve got less than two weeks left here, so my blog posts may be a bit absent for a while. I’ll do my dandiest to keep you updated during my last few days here. 

AHHHHHHH.  

Soak Up the Sun

And somehow, it’s 90 degrees in Petersburg. I truly didn’t ever think the day would come when I would be missing the colder temperatures, and I don’t think I am at the moment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I start whining about the humidity in a few days. Until then though, I have relished in walking to Smolny in a tank top. Thank god I brought a few pair of shorts, because I anticipate whipping them out... tomorrow. Besides the fact that it was hard to breathe walking outside today, the sun felt heavenly on my skin as I crossed the bridge back home after classes finished. I’m glad that Russia experiences all four seasons, but my goodness are they extreme. The winters are usually severe (except this past one), and I get the sense that these last three weeks in Russia are going to be жаркие (there is hope I may not come back home ghostly pale)!

Along similar lines, it's light out most hours of the day now. Today the sunset is scheduled to BEGIN at 22:38, but I think I went to bed around 23:30 the other night without it being completely dark out. My friend Hunter stayed up the other night until it started to get light out, which was apparently around 4 am. It is how you would expect: incredibly weird - especially considering the fact that it was dark around 4:30 pm and the sun didn’t rise until after 10 am when we first arrived here at the end of January. Despite the fact that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sleep in in the morning, I enjoy all the light. It totally messes up your sense of time, but in a good way. You think it’s 3 pm when it’s really 8 pm, and as a result, you have more energy to do things. It makes going out a lot more fun, and it makes me feel more comfortable walking around at night in the sunlight as opposed to in the dark. Needless to say, I’m pumped for the white nights, when the sun virtually never sets. The sun may never have set on the British navy, but it doesn't set for a while every summer in Petersburg, and it is going to be AWESOME. 

This past weekend was pretty busy. On Saturday during the day Jackie and I took the metro several stops up the blue line from Gostiny Dvor with the intent of finding a souvenir market. What we found turned out to be more of a serious junk yard/flea market extravaganza. There were stands and stands of people that extended far back into a dirt filled open space. Can’t describe it in a more pretty way than that. For the people who didn’t have there own stands, they laid tarps out on the dirt with all their items on top. These items, however, looked like they came out of garages and storage bins. I hesitate to call it all crap, because I’m sure some of it was actually valuable, but for all intents and purposes, what we walked through was virtually piles and piles of random crap. There was so much of it too; your eyes were all over the place, taking in Soviet pins, rusty spoons, clothes, roller blades, books, pictures, movies, cassettes, more clothes, shoes, etc... Basically any knick-knack that you could imagine. Jackie and I did our rounds and concluded that no, these were not the souvenirs we had in mind (I did see a hollowed out shark skin though). 

By the time I got home, it was almost time to head right back out again. For those who signed up, we were to meet at 5:30 pm to see the play Поздняя Любовь (“Late Love”) by Alexander Ostrovsky. I went into the play thinking that after almost four months in Russia that I would be pleasantly surprised as to how much I would understand of this play. I mean, unlike a ballet or opera, these actors will use gestures and have intonation. That should help me understand, right? NAHT. Forty-five seconds  into the first scene and I had already accepted defeat. I got the general gist of the play (a mother and her two sons live in an apartment which is being rented out to a father and daughter - the daughter is their house maid - the daughter falls in love with one of the sons - that son is a cad - something something something loan - something something something black mail - something something something the debt has been paid), but definitely not any of the important details. I’m happy I went though; I hadn’t seen a play in over a year, and Ostrovsky is supposed to be quite the famous playwright. 

The next day was spent at Tsarskoye Selo with the group. We had an excursion to the park and to Catherine palace, and we took a private bus there. Because the weather has been so nice lately, the park was so sunny and everything was in bloom. The flower beds were fully occupied and decorated, and the grass was super green. Poor Meg was sneezing the whole time because of her allergies, but I’m sure she’d agree with me that walking through the park was gorgeous. Eventually our guide gave us a nice tour of the palace, which reminded me of Versailles in Paris (which it should have considering the Catherine palace is supposed to be modeled after Versailles... or wait.... is that Peterhof?). There was a giant hall of mirrors which shined brilliantly with gold (at this point, can we expect anything less?), and apparently, you can actually rent that room out for parties. Elton John actually played a concert in that room a few years ago.

Around 3:30 we had a late lunch not too far from the palace. I decided to go back to the Alexander Palace by myself, so I broke off from the group at 4 in order to get to the palace before it closed at 5. It was nice to see the Alexander palace interiors again, especially since I have reread some chapters from Massie’s book since the last time I was there. It was a quick visit, for I left my camera in a locker, and when I got done I walked back to one of the main streets and caught a marshrutka back to the city center. 

Tomorrow a bunch of us are headed to Peterhof again, but this time all the fountains will be on. I still have the Nabokov museum, the Dostoevsky museum and the Alexander Nevsky monastery left on my to-do list. I’m going to try to see them in these remanding three weeks, but in all honesty, I may not. I’m so content with everything I’ve done, and I’m totally whipped out. We’ll see though. Finals are next week, and after that we have the last week in Russia free of classes. And my internet will have run out by then, so I’ll need to find something to do. 

The Unwinding Cable Car

So, apparently my blogs haven't been able to show up against the black backdrop on the website. Sorry about that! Hopefully it's fixed now... 

Anyways, here is what I started writing when I got back from Tallinn and Helsinki last week. This is where I left off: 

I am currently drained both physically and mentally. I turned in my Cold War final earlier this afternoon, which should be ashamed to even call itself a final exam, and I just finished the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. I know that most of the male population tends to automatically tune out after those two words are uttered by any female, which, I feel is a battle I cannot fight, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you watch the show, but you gotta believe me when I say that the pain I’m feeling right now is REAL. Have you ever gotten attached to TV or book characters? I mean REALLY attached? I feel that I am the perfect subject for any author or director; I’m not that analytical enough to see characters as simply characters, and as a result, I feel every emotion an author or director would want their audience to feel. I am the perfect pawn. I get lost in shows and stories, and my god, I think I sincerely believe that these characters really DO exist somewhere in this universe, and my god do I love them as if I’ve known them for years. 

Last night at 9m (EST), the world said goodbye to one of TV’s best beloved characters, Christina Yang (yes, I’m actually going to do this right now). I don’t think it’s possible for me to describe to you what watching Grey’s Anatomy has meant to me over the past seven years (= my adolescence and young adulthood), so I won’t even try, but AHH. I feel as if I have just said farewell to a good friend. I’m sure my host mom is convinced that I’m on drugs after hearing all the weeping and laughing and “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD?! OH MY GOD!!!”s that have seeped through my wall and into the kitchen over the past hour...

On second though, I probably shouldn’t have decided to blog in such an emotionally crippled state. 

Apologies, apologies. You probably want to hear about Finland, or maybe even my adventures in St. Petersburg, considering that’s what you really signed up for when you decided to check my blog out in the first place (you poor, poor soul).

So, Helsinki. We took the 7:30 am ferry to the Finnish capital, which took about two hours. The ferry that we took ended up looking like a cruise ship, and we sat in a cafeteria and watched a hockey game as our ferry sped through thick fog over the short distance across the Gulf of Finland. 

When we arrived we took a tram to the center of the city. Unfortunately, our hostel wasn’t too close by. We ended up walking in a circle for 15 minutes before we were able to orient ourselves and find the right way. Our hostel, Cheapsleep, ended up being a 45 minute walk from the city center, but I’m sure it could have been worse. 

I’m confident that the overcast weather influenced my opinions of Helsinki because I found it a little too modern and grey for my taste. It was such a contrast to Tallinn and Petersburg, but I’m glad we went! I don’t know how big the city actually is, but it didn’t seem too daunting from the one day that I was there. On the way to the hostel we walked past the opera house, the parliament building, the main train station, a contemporary art museum, the national museum of Finland and through a giant green park that outlined a bay of sorts which reminded me of Baxter Boulevard (somewhat). 

One thing I noticed in particular was that there were runners and bikers EVERYWHERE. The sidewalks have separate walking and biking lanes, and chances that we walked past someone in fancy athletic clothes, black spandex and neon nike sneaks was extremely high (I was totally into it). We walked past what looked like a giant race tent, but as the day went on I began to think that this is how many people actually run and bike through Helsinki on a regular basis. Actually, now that I think of it, most of the people we saw there were fit. Good for them!

After we got our things settled at the hostel and a sandwich from the grocery store below (this hostel was more legit, thankfully), we set back out to where we came. Adam broke off on his own, and Sean and I headed back through the park. We ended up going to a Lutheran church which just happens to be built literally into a rock. Check out these pictures below. 

Then we walked a little further out of the city into a more neighborhood like setting with the intent of finding one of the beaches nearby. We walked past a pretty cemetery and strolled through that first. By the time we finally got to the beach, Sean and I were exhausted. We ended up on the pavement next to the beach, and lay on our jackets in the sun. Sean definitely fell asleep, and I lay there with my eyes closed for at least an hour. I desperately wanted to go back to the hostel to take a nap, but on second thought I'm happy it was far enough away to prevent me from actually doing that. When we slowly got up, we made our way back to the city center. The neighborhoods we walked through were quiet, but clean and tidy. Apartment buildings are tall, and there were parks every so distance away from each other. There was an abundance of cafes and bars all around, but unlike Russia, everything was super expensive because they use euros (coming back to the US is going to be hard - what is the US dollar anyway? Do I even know anymore? [Steve Kautz, you will have to give me a lecture]). We walked through the city center, which included a handful of tall malls and eventually made our way to the harbor. The sections of the city we walked through later in the afternoon were super nice; they definitely had a luxurious shopping air about them... if that makes any sense. 

Walking around the harbor reminded me of Portland. It didn’t smell like Portland, nor did it come anywhere near close to how quaint, charming and hip Portland is, but I walked on docks past the water, and there were fishing boats. We crossed the harbor and climbed a hill to the Uspenski church (cathedral?). It was closed so we couldn’t go inside, but it had a nice view at the top. 

Shortly after we met up with Adam and went to dinner. It seemed like we all weren’t too pleased with the ruble to euro conversion rate, so we tried finding what we thought would be the cheapest place for dinner: Pizza Hut. I think the one and only time I had actually gone to a pizza hut before then was when Tommy Ryan’s mom Marybeth took us out when we were on a play date... in first grade. Anyways, it wasn’t cheap, but it was REAL PIZZA. Hallelujah! And the waitresses smiled! When they said welcome or thank you, they actually looked genuine! I had no idea how much I missed a friendly face, regardless if it was fake or not. Russians may be proud of their honesty and their lack of smiley appearance, but I am 110% American and I don’t care if people are fake about being happy or not. I can’t tell! 

When we were done with dinner, we all went our separate ways. Sean went to walk around some more, Adam went to check out a Lutheran church, and I hopped on what I hoped was the correct tram back to the hostel. I know, I know. I am beyond lame. My one night in Helsinki was spent from under the covers of my hostel bed reading Edgar Allen Poe's horror stories. Part of me wishes that I had that energy or spirit of being young without any cares in the world to go out and party until 4 am, but ehh. That sounds like so much effort. And I was tired. And full. And running low on euros. So that was that, and I was perfectly content to be out cold before midnight. 

Sean, Adam and I barely made it onto the ferry to Tallinn the next morning. We checked in at the ticket booth and after a few minutes of walking on the platform, I wondered aloud where everybody else was. The answer was that they were already on the ferry, which was about to leave the port in a few minutes. We made it to the ferry on time, but I cannot tell you how little excitement and positive adrenaline I get out of close calls. In fact, I hate any sense of adventure that could possibly be derived from anything along the lines of missing a ferry/plane/bus/[insert transportation] (I’m going to have grey hair by the time I’m 30). Ohhh the STRESS!

The ferry ride back to Tallinn was pleasant. When we got back though, we had a lot of time to kill before our bus went back to Petersburg at 5:45 pm. So Adam and I spent an hour and a half at a cute little Mornings-in-Paris type cafe, where I had a hot cocoa, a lemon poppy seed roll and read more Poe. We then spent another few hours at a McDonalds, and then walked to the bus station, where we waited for another hour or two. Five minutes before we were supposed to leave our bus showed up. There was no sign telling us which platform to get to or anything. I was radiating a lot of panicky vibes which I’m sure Adam and Sean appreciated. Luckily, we made it home around midnight, and I was fast asleep by 2 am. 

All in all, I’m so glad we took the trip. It was a lot for a few days, but I think we got a significant amount out of it. And now I get to check off two capitals on my travel list: Tallinn ✓ Helsinki ✓ Ура! 

Send Me On My Way

Okay! Tallinn and Helsinki! The trip was, in short, exhausting and awesome. I traveled to the capitals of Estonia and Finland with Sean and Adam, and they were excellent company. I love spending time with my girlfriends, but there is something to be said about spending a lot of time with guys and guys only. I certainly felt a lot safer and a lot cooler to be traveling with two twenty-one year olds, despite the fact that they’re both skinny twigs that look younger than 21 (sorry Sean and Adam). 

Getting back to the trip. It started this past thursday when we all hopped on a bus to Tallinn at 5:45 pm. I was really nervous about being carsick for six hours, and I only had one dramamine left, so as soon as I got settled I closed my eyes and made sure to not move and shift around too much (motion sickness is a CURSE). I listened to my iPod and faded in and out of a sleepy daze. We stopped at the border obviously, and we had to show our passports to a lady with the scariest pink nail-polished talons ever. She ended up keeping my migration card, and for a second I was like, uhh, why does she have one of my documents. Sean?! Adam?! Is this normal?! Yes, it was (this program has ingrained in my mind a paranoia about keeping my documents with me at ALL times). 

We finally arrived in Tallinn at around midnight. We caught one of the last buses running to the city center, and from there we proceeded to walk in one big giant circle around where we wanted to be. It was dark out, and we had no idea where we were going. I whipped out the screenshot I had taken of where Google maps told me to go, but that wasn’t very helpful, so we used a combination of our intuition and street maps to eventually find Old Town, the center of Tallinn - exactly where we wanted to be. If there is one thing that I have taken away from my trips to Tallinn and Helsinki, it’s a little regained faith in the ability of people of my generation to navigate their ways through an unknown city without the help of smart phones. 

We finally found our hostel, Mr. Ryokan’s house, around 1 am. This hostel turned out to be some dude’s (he was a dude in every sense of the word) three room apartment; it was made up of a hallway with a few appliances to constitute a kitchen, his room, a bathroom, a living room, and then another bedroom, which you could only get to by crossing this one living room. The apparent owner of Mr. Ryokan’s, Luke, looked to be in his late twenties. He was very tall, attractive and spoke English like any one of us. We went into the living room where we paid (around 20 euros for two nights for each of us), and he whipped out a tourist map to show us all the places to check out the next day. I remember noticing that he held the pen weird, and the length of his fingers reminded me of the project I did on Marfan’s disease in Jonah Rosenfield’s class my freshman year of high school. We asked him a few questions genuinely out of curiosity. Luke moved to Tallinn six years ago, apparently because he took a vacation - “a really good vacation” to Tallinn. He asked us where we were all from, and when he said that he was from Connecticut, I exclaimed, naturally, “oh! I go to Connecticut College,” to which he responded, totally nonchalantly, “yes I know. I saw that on Facebook... (looks up at us all)... I like to know who’s coming...” Heh... 

We were in the bedroom off the living room the first night, and we slept in bunk beds. There were no curtains, and at exactly 9 am someone upstairs started playing the piano. I guess that’s what you get for 10 euros a night! It was fine though, mom and dad. The door had a secure lock, and Luke was friendly. Would I go back there? Probably not, but it was all apart of the experience. We got up around 9 the next day. It was overcast and the forecast said it was going to rain, but luckily it held off until late afternoon. I packed my camera, hat and other items in my bag and we set off to explore. 

Tallinn, and I can’t stress this enough, is absolutely adorable and charming. Old Town is super small (we definitely didn’t need more than a day there) and enclosed by a kremlin fortress, but all the streets are narrow and cobble stoned and cute as all hell. The buildingss have really old doors and their architecture mimics some medieval style in their appearance (I think I just made that up?). Old Town was very quiet, and the streets were filled mostly with tourists. From the locals we did see though, they were dressed infinitely better than any Russian, and were that much more attractive as well. People strolled in the middle of the streets at a leisurely pace, and we followed them in and out of side streets as we walked past tourist shops, bars, restaurants, and residential houses. 

First on our agenda was to check out the three spots in the city with birds eye views. It didn’t take us long to get there, only stopping to take pictures and to try and decipher the street names in Estonia, which looked like absolute gibberish to me. Estonian also seems much harder than Russian. We eventually climbed a hill (haven’t experienced a hill in MONTHS) and past many castle towers before we ended up on a patio with, oh my god, spectacular views of Old Town. You could see towers and the tops of churches, which looked like they had a mix of both Russian Orthodox and Christian influences. The roofs of practically all the buildings are a burnt reddish-orange that contrasted nicely with the cream colored bodies of the buildings. Tallinn is an extremely old city (I want to say 11th century?), and it certainly shows. At certain points I shared with Sean and Adam that Tallinn is what I imagine parts of Scotland, Amsterdam and/or Copenhagen to look like. It was so different from Petersburg it was overwhelming, but in the best way. There were so many times when I said how much I already loved Tallinn. I’m not sure I knew where Tallinn was until a few years ago, but I’m so glad I went. It’s a gem of a city, and I would recommend anyone traveling around Eastern Europe to make it a pitstop. 

After we saw three different views of Old Town from three different high points, we made our way through a park which was the ahh, the greenest green. We walked past the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the pink parliament building and a few statues. We only passed a few people; Old Town seemed very quaint and quiet that Friday morning, if not always. We ended up in Freedom Square next (think protests and the dissolution of the Soviet Union), and walked through more cobble stoned streets with churches and tavern looking cafes and restaurants. 

Later in the afternoon we continued to explore by leaving Old Town and exiting the kremlin. We wandered to the harbor and found ourselves on the Roof of Linnahall, which according to our tourist map was “originally built by the Soviets for the 1980 Olympic regatta[.] This tremendous concrete edifice also served as a defense structure in case the Finns attacked the USSR by sea. Occasionally Tallinn youth gather on the roof to have a beer and watch the sunset before a heavy night of clubbing.” We just wandered in and our of the graffitied concrete walls and eventually sat down on some exposed stairs to gaze at the ocean. There was a helicopter launch pad right in front of us, and as if on cue, a helicopter landed on it about a minute later. 

After that we went to a park and sat on a bench. Although all we really did was walk around, we were dog tired after a few hours. We sat on the bench for at least 45 minutes as the sun disappeared and reappeared from under the clouds. I had this weird urge to read Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories a few weeks ago (I had until that point only read The Cask of Amontillado [thanks, Mr. Hoy!], and my Nabokov professor won’t shut up about how Poe is the closest thing Americans have to Pushkin [are you serious Valerii?]), and by some odd coincidence, Jackie just happened to bring a book of Poe’s short stories with her abroad. So I ended up reading a few stories from The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales on that park bench. Weird, I know, but you know what/who’s even weirder? EDGAR ALLEN POE. That guy was messed up, but obviously brilliant. As much as his stories gave me the creeps, I haven’t read a short story since, wow, probably Guy de Maupassant in my French classes in high school (great choice, Madame!), and I forgot how nice it was to read something short, but complete like that. 

Sensing that we were all at the same energy level, we walked around the city with the intent of making it back to our hostel for a nap. Sean decided to walk around (by this time it had started to rain), but Adam and I didn’t feel like moving. An hour and a half later Adam and I set out for Hell Hunt bar and restaurant, where we were to meet Sean at 6 pm. Hell Hunt is apparently one of Tallinn’s most popular bars, and for good reason. It seems like a chill place where a lot of locals go to have a good time. We ordered the recommended dark beer, and for dinner, Sean and I ordered a pesto ham pasta dish (yum!). Our waiter was a young, tattooed guy who spoke with a slight British/Australian accent? It’s incredible; in both Tallinn and Helsinki most everybody speaks English, Russian and either Estonian or Finnish (I can’t even master one foreign language!). We spent the next two hours shamelessly gossiping and sharing stories. We had to wake up early to catch a ferry to Helsinki the next morning, so I didn’t drink that much, but we all had enough to say silly things like, “SEAN TELL US A SECRET” or, oh boy, to whip out the would you rathers. The conversations we had, I’m sure, could be overheard at any middle school boy or girls sleep over party.  

And that was it. We went back to the hostel and crawled into bed, which just happened to be an unfolded couch in the living room this time, which was also occupied by two separate Japanese travelers... Awkward. 

But that was Tallinn in a nut shell. This is already a long post, so I’m going to take a break and write about Helsinki at another time. Stay tuned! 

Good Arms vs. Bad Arms

Okay, I know that I still have to write about my trip to Tallinn and Estonia, and I apologize for not having gotten it all down already (I have “finals”... [what?]), but I went to a lecture by Mark Danner last night, who, for some unknown reason, just happens to be in Petersburg for the week visiting Smolny, and I desperately need to share how AMAZING it was. 

Who is Mark Danner you ask? Mark Danner is a rather famous journalist, reporter and expert on foreign and domestic policy. He has written for the New Yorker, reported from Iraq, and he’s published several books. He is a professor at Bard and at UC Berkeley, and he ended up talking to the Smolny community (mostly Americans) for two hours last night about the War on Terror, among many other things. Mark Danner is also an expert on torture, and we discussed one of his pieces on torture extensively in my human rights government class last spring; hence, why I practically fell out of my chair when Mike emailed us about his lecture. 

I know it’s not really a big deal, but I am still so energized about the talk. Above all though, I was incredibly starstruck. Although I find myself slowly but surely challenging the opinions of my professors and other authority figures (I have a problem with believing authority without question), I am still very much smitten with anyone who knows a whole lot about topics I’m interesting in, or that which I wish I knew more about. 

In addition to his thoughts on the War on Terror, Mark Danner touched on the Light Footprint foreign policy idea, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, DRONES, and, to my joy, torture under the Bush administration. I frantically reread through the paper I wrote on torture last year right before his lecture to refresh my memory, and at the end of his lecture when the question period opened, I mustered up the courage to ask him (without stuttering!) what his thoughts were on a truth commission and of the outlook for any transitional justice for the torture committed under Bush. In sum, he said that a truth commission would be a welcomed, but that it doesn't seem so likely at the moment considering the initiation would have to come from the government itself (among other things). He answered other questions regarding the morality of drones, counter insurgencies, Edward Snowden, and how, if possible, he saw the War on Terror coming to an end. I thought that Mark Danner is obviously highly intelligent, down to earth, and overall just a wicked cool guy, to put it lightly. 

I waited to shake his hand and thank him again in person after the lecture ended. He remembered my name from earlier (he asked me my name after I asked him the question- *swoon*), and asked me about how I liked my time abroad. He said that he was happy to meet me. It’s a really good thing that Mark Danner is bald and overweight, because I probably would have proposed to him at the end of it all, haha. I hope I end up with someone whose combined intelligence and humility are on par with all the numerous professors and people like Mark Danner (ANYONE from my summer at UC Berkeley, for one) I’ve met over the years... 

I think I underestimated how much I missed a good thought-provoking lecture (in English). Of course, I’m challenged every day in a very academic way because I struggle to communicate in a different language, but I guess I’ve been craving such a debate by someone who isn’t one of my peers for a long time. It inspired me to read more of Mark Danner’s books, and by the time the discussion ended last night, I found that I had made a mental list of all these political topics I feel I need to read about. AHHH, how REFRESHING! 

On another note, I'll try to finish my Cold War final soon and write about my trip to Estonia and Finland.