Such Great Heights

I’ve had a few random thoughts I’ve been meaning to write about for a while now but I keep forgetting to do. So here they are!

1) If my host mom was an animal, she would, without a second thought, be an owl. She doesn’t wear glasses, nor does she have big eyes, but her mannerisms remind me of an owl so much. She is such a happy woman, and I can’t find a better way to say that when she gets excited she kind of hoots and ruffles her feathers. She’s quite adorable. 

2) Yesterday after the Hermitage we stopped into a little cafe place to eat пышки (peeshkey). Basically they are small donuts made out of something like fried dough, and they come with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. I ate two, which only costed 24 rubles (less than a dollar), and I could have easily eaten six more, but I would have definitely gotten sick. I am very happy I tried пышки, but the bad news is I discovered last night a пышки cafe literally right across from my apartment. Rut roh. 

3) There are so many men in uniform around here that I would almost call seeing them walking around the streets a daily occurrence. They wear green uniforms, head to toe, and they wear the stereotypical furry Russian hats. When they are all together and moving as a crowd you feel like you’re back in the Soviet Union... and obviously I’ve never been there before. There are a lot of moments where you see people, how they’re dressed more often than not, and you forget that the USSR collapsed over twenty years ago. It’s really cool, but also quite frightening when you see them out of the corner of your eye before you realize they’re not actually after YOU. 

4) I don’t know why this story matters, but I still think about it in the metro sometimes. Last weekend, when I was waiting above the escalators in the metro for friends, I watched a little girl walk by me, hand in hand with her father (I hope). Like all the children I’ve seen walking around the city, this little girl (she must have been 5 or 6) was walking in a giant snow suit. She swished back and forth like a giant marshmallow, with only her pink face and hands sticking out of her outfit. Again, I don’t know why this hit me so hard, but when she got off the escalator and I watched her walk towards me, I noticed that her eyes were red as if she had just been crying a minute ago. The thing is though, she was still recovering. Her little chest must have been heaving slightly unevenly for me to notice, but the weirdest part was that she wasn’t really crying. She was silently weeping, in my opinion. Now, have you ever seen a child of 5 or 6 weep? Of course they cry (I cried all the time when I was little; I was THAT kid [Oh Liv you still cry all the time stoppit]), but they sob and howl if they do in fact cry. It’s never a quiet affair. If a little kid cries, dear lord do they cry. Actually, hearing children cry makes me want to strangle something, but I digress. Let’s not get my blood boiling from the safety of my quiet, peaceful, comfy bed. Anyways, this girl was hiding any sorrow she felt, and she struck me as so outrageously courageous and brave I wanted to die right then and there. Her dad seemed to walk along, holding her hand, as if he had no idea. I, on the other hand, felt my stomach flip when I saw this little girl, and that NEVER happens to me. My god! What an image that will forever be burned into my memory! 

I think that’s all the random thoughts I wanted to get down for now. Without further ado, I’ll pick up from where I left off last time. "Mykonos" ended when I told you all I was getting ready to go out. Not too long after I stopped writing I met Jackie, Beryl, and Fabi outside the metro station closest to me, and we walked back towards my apartment towards the bar called Толстой Фраер (Fat Friar). We were lucky enough to get a both right in front of the big projection screen where they had the Olympics on. We ordered our beers and talked while we watched luge and skiing. The waitress gave us complimentary beer snacks which consisted of salty pretzels, weird, hard bread tidbits, a slice of cheese, and a skinny, long fish. Yes, I kid you not there was a grey fish on our plate, with scales and eyes and everything. We all looked at each other like, “how are we supposed to eat this?” Like we would actually eat it if we knew how. I think they were herring (Rasputin loved herring, fun fact), but between that and the fish soup I had yesterday for lunch, I had had enough of fish for the day. As a result, we piled the fish onto one plate and made them say funny things (yayyy maturity). I had a really fun time, and I definitely want to go back to that bar again sometime. 

When I woke up the next morning I only had a few hours before I was supposed to walk to St. Isaac’s Cathedral where we were having an excursion at 1 pm. To be honest, I don’t know very much about St. Isaac’s Cathedral. It’s fairly close to Smolny and I walk past it often, so I appreciated our excursion there. As you would expect, this Cathedral, which has a huge golden dome at the top and giant columns around the whole building's exterior, is shiny and magnificent inside. Its much bigger than the Church on Spilled blood, but no less ornate. There are mosaics everywhere and the ceilings are works of art. The doors are huge and have statues coming out of them (are those called reliefs? I don’t know). There is so much gold, of course, and the colors catch your attention every which way. Our tour guide was a sweet old woman with white hair and bright blue eyes who spoke very slowly and enunciated every word, much to our appreciation. The tour lasted half an hour, and after a little intermission to take pictures, we all headed to the top of the cathedral where visitors are allowed priceless views of the city. We proceeded to climb up stairs that wound up in a way I thought would make me nauseous (not as bad as Blarney Castle though). When we finally got to the top, however, you forgot all about the walk up. You were instantly greeted with panoramic views of the city. While the sky was super grey out today, you could still spot all your main points of interest. It was wicked cool to be able to spot the top of the Church on Spilled Blood and see its location relative to the Hermitage, whose up close green color looks more blue and aqua from a distance. You could see smoke stacks in the distance, and the tops of all these tall, colorful buildings. It was my favorite part of today, and while my trusty camera can capture images really well, I don’t think any photograph could grasp what your eyes could see from all the way up there (which wasn’t too too high up for the record). When we finished with St. Isaac’s, we walked a few streets over for lunch. There, we had a cucumber, tomato, cilantro and eggplant salad, borsht soup, some kind of chicken with mashed potatoes, and then some apple (?) crumble for dessert. I snagged a seat right in front of a tv, and I watched speed skating as I ate. 

Thoroughly feeling our food comas, we all made our way back to the metro to head home. Once I got back, I turned on my host parents' radio to Эхо Москвы and listened to it in the background as I worked on edits for an application. Nina Vasilievna and Alexander were at their dacha today, so I took my laptop to the kitchen table, made myself some peppermint tea, and worked there until my laptop’s battery went red. Later, I heated up the pelmeni soup Nina Vasilievna left for me, and read my book and ate. 

Sunday well spent I’d say!