Lost!

Yup, it was really only a matter of time before I got royally lost in this city. I was on my way back from a job interview for an English teaching position in the southern part of the city (I am not going to accept the job; it requires that I travel too far and I know I sound like an unmotivated slug but this whole thing has caused me TOO much stress already, believe me) when I decided to get off at Sadovaya, which I thought is a shared metro stop with Gostiny dvor, which is on Nevsky Prospekt. Today has been the third day in a row that the sun has been out, and I thought it would be a good idea to get off at Nevsky prospekt and to walk around the Winter Palace and Palace square by myself. So I got off at Sadovaya, but I underestimated how far you can walk from one metro station exit to the other underground, and I exited the metro to a part of the city that I have never seen before. No matter, I thought. Sadovaya is connected to Gostiny Dvor; Nevsky Prospekt has got to be right around the corner... 

So I thought. 

Well, if I wasn’t already 95% sure that I had a horrible sense of direction, today most definitely bumped it up to 100%. Before I knew it, I had zero idea of where I was. My immediate thoughts were to look up past the tall buildings to try and see if I could find any recognizable monument, like the column in the middle of Palace square, so I could orient myself. I should have known that this was going to happen. Just last weekend I told my mom  that it was practically impossible to get lost in Petersburg. Oh yeah! There are so many monuments and canals throughout the city that all you have to do is look up or follow a canal and you’ll know where you are instantly! For the most part, I want to say that’s still true, but I’m no Pochahontas. In retrospect, I’m astounded that I never found Nevsky Prospekt. I literally have a map of the city on my bed to my left right now, and where I got out of the metro should have been wicked close to the city center, but somehow I managed to go in the most unhelpful direction you could have possibly chosen. 

I didn’t fret at first though. It was so nice out, and I walked along the Griboyedova canal for quite some time completely content. I plugged my iPod in, and I felt confident and secure as I walked through these streets by myself, but after a while when I still didn’t see any monument I recognized, I started to wonder where I was. I had only been walking for ten minutes at that point though, so I decided to keep walking. I was bound to end up somewhere familiar, right? Right. 

WRONG. 

I basically walked in a HUGE circle on the left side of Nevsky Prospekt. It took me an hour of walking before I remembered that I had a map in my backpack that I could have pulled out (I should have), but by that time I saw a blue onion dome with white stars on it in the distance, and I thought I knew exactly where I was. I originally thought it was the Mosque, but I had my doubts because the Mosque I was thinking of is on the other side of the Neva by the Peter and Paul Fortress, and I didn’t think I was anywhere near that. I must be wrong, I thought; how many blue onion domes with small white stars can there be in this city? It turns out that I was walking to the Holy Cathedral Cathedral, which is even farther south of the city. Thankfully, on my way there, I turned a street and just like that, St. Isaac Cathedral’s golden onion dome came into view... in the other direction. It had been hiding behind all these buildings all this time, and when I saw it I swore aloud. How I managed to miss it I had no idea, but thank god I found it or else I would have found myself walking in the direction of Sochi. 

By the time I saw the golden onion dome, my legs were cranky. I dragged my boots the whole way home, and I metaphorically hit the back of my head when I walked past so many places that, oh, if only I took that left instead of a right, I would have known exactly where I was. I’m bummed I never got to walk around Palace square, but hey, at least I got a better view of the city! I did walk past St. Nicholas Cathedral, which is a beautiful robin’s egg blue. I didn’t go to the gym today, but I think I certainly made up for it. 

On another, completely different note, my host mom made a comment about how terrible the situation is in Kiev right now at dinner, and I jumped all over it. I told her that I was really happy she made that comment; I wasn’t sure if I could ask her about politics, I told her. She seemed okay with it though, so I asked her what she thought about Kiev, and if she knew what the general public thought. She said she thought it was all awful, and that she thinks everybody else does too, but that she couldn’t speak for everyone officially. And then I asked her what she thought about Ukraine “going to Europe.” “How can Ukraine go to Europe when it’s located right where it is? Hm? You tell me.” By this point I had a huge grin on my face. Yesss YEEESSS muhaha YES tell me everything!! And then, oh ho ho, I had the guts to flat out ask her if she loved her president. “I LOVE our president,” she said. JUICY, but not surprising, was my reaction. She went on to say how, before Putin, Russia was in shambles. Something something about Gorbachev (“the west loves Gorbachev though” - me; “of course the west loves Gorbachev!” said she). Everything is stable under Putin, she continued. We are not fighting with the United States anymore. We can have conversation and eat dinner as we are now, and there is peace. Everything is good when there is no war. You can’t be sad, she said, when the sun is out and the birds are singing. There is no war right now, and for that we have to be grateful. Well said, Nina Vasilievna, but “a lot of people do not understand that” I said. I mean, I’m definitely guilty as charged. I honestly don’t appreciate a peaceful world like someone who has lived through something like the Cold War does, but I appreciated what she had to say nonetheless. 

I need to appreciate the sun and singing birds more.