Venice and the unexpected trip to Portovenere

You already know that Russian trains hate me.  So the Italian trains decided to try to hate me as well.  But this time it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Earlier in the week we found out there would be a train strike on the day we wanted to go to Venice.  First of all, it is very nice of the workers to warn us about the strike.  Second of all, it is very rude of them to try to foil our vacation plans.

The strike was to occur from 9pm on Thursday to 9pm on Friday, and we needed to get to Venice on Friday morning.  Which fell exactly in the middle of the strike. After talking to some people (who all gave us good hints, but also warned us that "you never know" with these strikes - which occur, very often by the way), we decided our best bet was to take off from Cinque Terre to La Spezia early on Friday (trains were guaranteed from 6-9am - which is nice, but seems to defeat the purpose of a strike) and then try to catch something to Florence or Bologna, then on to Venice. 

We woke up at 5am, took the train to La Spezia, and tried to get a train to Venice.  Any train.  Or wagon.  Or spaceship.  Anything.  It was 7am, and the next route we could take was at 9pm, getting us into Venice at 5am. That's 9pm, not 9am, which would have been nicer.  Of course, after planning on that, that train got messed up and we could only get to Venice at 8am...which was 24 hours from the time we wanted to go!

To kill time (it was only 8am), we wandered around La Spezia hoping the day would pass quickly. Did I mention that the luggage storage at the train station was also on strike?  Yea, so we had to carry our luggage with us all over La Spezia. And time did not pass quickly. We wandered the street markets, passing through parks, and sat in a coffee shop taking pictures of ourselves.  Like literally, each of us was sitting there taking pictures of ourselves. Ok, so we were bored. And we checked our watches, thinking maybe it was lunch time...but it was barely 10am!  The time was crawling like a legless turtle (i.e. it was not moving).

So we decided to try to take the bus to Portovenere, the coastal town we tried to go to the day before but couldn't due to the high winds. We found the bus stop, bought our tickets, and waited.  And waited.  A guy approached us to tell us (in very broken English) that the buses were on strike so we'd be waiting a long time. We thought he was a cab driver trying to trick us into hiring him to drive us to Portovenere, but it turned out he was right! He wasn't even a cab driver!  He was just a citizen trying to warn us.  Dang this stupid strike!!

Feeling defeated, we wandered towards the port just to see what it was like, and wouldn't you know it, we found a boat with big letters "Portovenere"! The sun came out and then it seemed it would be a great day, and getting 'stuck' in La Spezia wasn't so bad afterall. If only we didn't have to carry our luggage with us everywhere!

After a nice boat trip, we got to Portovenere, which is a nice little town on the coast, with a nice castle above, little shops and restaurnats everywhere, and locals laid out along the water.  There was no real sandy beach, but lots of rocks and places to lay out. With the sun coming out, this was going to be a nice consolation prize, thanks to the strike (and it turned out to be much cheaper and easier to get to Portovenere from La Spezia than from Cinque Terre). 

Portovenere



At first I didn't want to go in the water, but after contemplating "we won't regret going in, but we might regret NOT going in", we decided to unpack our swim trunks, change under Kevin's towel (not at the same time), and jump in. We even took jumping pictures of us going in (they are on Kevin's camera, so I don't have them now).  Strangely, none of the locals take jumping pictures when going into the water.  Weird. 

It was very refreshing in the boiling sun. Groups of friends were everywhere, hanging out, playing cards, kicking a ball around, and swimming.  It felt like we were fitting in with the locals.  Except we were Asian, and we had suitcases. 

Locals hanging out on the rocks in Portovenere

Eating gelato on the rocks, with luggage



After 3 straight days in the sun, my skin got pretty red (mostly on my nose and my back where I couldn't reach with sun block - I can reach my nose, so I'm not sure how that burned).  Kevin was dark but a bit red, and Pert still looks like a Cambodian fisherman. After a few hours, we went back to La Spezia to catch the train to Venice.  We had tickets for La Spezia -> Parma -> Bologna (with a 5 hour layover at 1am) -> Venice.

The train to Bologna was so packed that some people had to stand up, and as an extra bonus, it smelled like manure.  And not the good kind.  People were making friends with everyone because you were basically sitting or laying in each others' laps (a product of the backup from the strike).  One Italian guy was super friendly with us and asked if he could Facebook me (he still hasn't added me as a friend, so I am a bit offended!). He was introducing us to everyone on the train as if he knew them all!  Nice guy though.

Once we got to Bologna, around 1am, we had 5 hours til our next train.  There was no way we'd stay awake the whole time, so we decided to sleep on benches in the train station. It wasn't what I would call fun, but it wouldn't be a "backpacking" trip without something like this. It's especially great because none of us had shaved in a long time (especially Pert), we hadn't showered, and were living out of suitcases.  We literally looked like homeless people laying on benches.  I'm surprised we didn't wake up to a pile of food scraps and some loose change in a cup. 

McDonalds in Bologna saved our lives at 1:30am - with toilets and food. And impressively a lot of people there were pretty good with their English (not like a lot of the people we ran into). But, looking back, the worst English speakers we tried to talk to were from Quebec! Strange that Canadians would be so unable (or most likely unwilling) to speak English out of everyone we met.  Or maybe they just didn't like us. 

My bed in the Bologna train station

We finally got to Venice at 8:30am. It was a 30 minute walk to our hotel, and the directions were very sketchy...it gave directions to one square then said "you better ask someone how to get the rest of the way". Seriously! If you have been to Venice, you know that the streets are tiny, winding, and it isn't possible to know your way around. Even with a map it's confusing because the streets are so small that not all street names fit on the map.

One of many canals in the city



We finally found it, showered, resisted the temptation to sleep the rest of the day, and set out to explore the city, as we only had 24 hours. The city and all the canals are beautiful. The dense crowds and high prices are not. We visited St Marks Square, the Rialto Bridge (looking for love), and wandered along the canals. We didn't take a gondola ride because it is a massive rip-off, but we noticed that not all gondola drivers sing to their customers!  What an urban legend that is...apparently you have to hire a separate singer, which makes the already expensive trip even more unaffordable.  After some lunch and some tapas (yes, we had both), we met with Federica, a fellow Couchsurfer who agreed to meet us and show us around town. She took us along the canals, through some side streets we never would have found, and enjoyed a nice walk around the city.

St. Marks Square

Scenic views everywhere



Federica is Italian/Austrian and lives in Venice in the Summers. She sells her dad's paintings on the street, and the way she describes her dad, he is a bit of a legend among the street vendors. Plus, he met Federica's mom when he was a 36 year old Italian artist and she was a 17 year old Austrian tourist in Venice. Wow!  As we walked around and Federica told us about the city, we stopped for gelato twice, a drink (I forgot the name but its orange and bitter), and then she left us so we could go eat more.

With Federica at her favorite gelato shop

We found an outdoor BBQ/festival where we had a "primi" of ribs/chicken/polenta/potatoes. Then we found a restaurant that was recommended for some seafood risotto. After this you could say we were quite full. But it was my last dinner in Italy so I didn't mind. We thought about meeting Federica for some drinks, but after wandering for 40 minutes (somewhat lost) trying to find out hotel to drop our backpacks off, we decided we were too tired.

The festival we found, where we ate dinner part 1

View from Rialto Bridge

It's too bad we weren't in a party mood, because the neighbors in our apartment were having a party til 4am, and everytime they woke me up I thought about joining them, but decided I needed the sleep. Maybe next time.

In the morning we had time to grab a 'sandwich' (aka a rolled up pizza) then head to the train. I used my last lactaid (which made for 19 on the trip), so I guess I did a pretty good job rationing...I used about 2.5 per day, mostly on gelato (at least 10), pizza, and different pastas. My belly is very big now.

I had a long, but uneventful trip to Milan, to Malpensa airport, to Warsaw, and to home. A trip of great fun, and surprisingly a lot of rest since we went to bed early every night (except for when sleeping in train stations).

I am already looking forward to my next trip, my next holiday in the sun, and my next chance to gorge myself without feeling bad about it.  And you should probably come with me!

My favorite Italian location so far: Cinque Terre

I'm super crispy right now. And by that I mean I spent too much time in the sun over the last few days in Italy that my skin is crispy! Even with multiple layers of sun block, spending time Under the Tuscan Sun really does a number on you.

After taking the train from Florence to Pisa to La Spezia, then another to Corniglia, and walking up a long winding hilly road (trying to talk to some girls from Quebec on the way, who weren't having any), we finally got to our apartment in the middle of the 5 villages of Cinque Terre.  I actually never thought about visiting CT, but after a friend in London mentioned it, and after Kevin told me he wanted to go, I was up for it.  And now I can't wait to go back.  I HIGHLY recommend this trip the next time you are in Italy. 

Corniglia at dusk

The apartment was very nice, cozy, and after exploring the 5 villages, maybe in my favorite place to stay of the 5...it was a cozy place with few tourists, and everything we needed. We had A/C, clean and new appliances and even a small flat screen TV.

We set out to explore our village, which took all of 15 minutes. The population is supposedly 240 people, and the streets are lined with little shops and restaurants. Clean clothes hang-dry from the windows above the streets, drying in the warm sea breeze. The same friendly faces greeted us from benches as we walked by each day, chatting in Italian with their neighbors, or watching their kids kick a soccer ball in the streets. I wonder what it'd be like to grow up in a small town like this where you know everyone, and the whole town is based on tourism. Everyone works in a shop or restaurant, and you even see the same tourists every day.  It seems like all the locals have a great time.

The streets of Manarola, one of the 5 villages

And boy can they cook.

We had dinner at a place in the 'center' of Corniglia, called La Lanterna. We used Rick Steeves as a guide for a lot of places and his top ranked place in this village was always too crowded for us (one night we tried to go in and the guy just yelled "too crowded" and waved us away.  The second night, he just gave us a back-handed wave, as if to say "shoo!", without even saying a word...I guess they were booked that night too). Anyway, at the place we went to I had great lasagna and the best bread I've had in italy. The table wine was also great, and cheap (7 euros for a liter). After eating so much cheese in Italy, I really need to consider eating more in the future (mom, can you bring more lactaid?). I haven't really missed it until now.  I had a ration of 2.5 lactaid pills per day, and it was really hard to stick to that...with 2 meals and at least 2 gelatos per day, I needed double the allowance!

Lasagna and Lactaid go well together

The next day we did the hike from Corniglia to Monterosso, which took about 2.5 hours. We explored the village in between, Vernazza, and took lots of pictures along the way. Around every corner is another gorgeous view of the cliffs, the blue Mediterranean, the white waves crashing against the rocks, and villages built above them.  I have a hard time picking my favorite view. 

Vernazza - maybe my favorite view

Or maybe this is, from the other side

Or maybe this is, of Manarola

Or Riomaggiore

With all the sun and hiking, we went through 1.5 liter bottles of water like they were...well, water. I don't think I've ever had that much water on a vacation ever. Which meant I had to pee a lot (in case you were wondering). 

Once we got to Monterosso we camped out on the free section of the beach and laid there for about 5 hours. Kevin was much more tan than I was, and I spent the 5 hours trying to catch up to him. I lotioned up quite well, but still burned somehow.  You can see on my back where I couldn't reach with the lotion...the top half is light brown, the bottom half was burned to a crisp.  We needed some girls with us to lotion our backs (any volunteers for the next trip?)...we are too tough to lotion guys' backs!  By the way, Pert is super dark from spending so much time on beaches in the last 3 months that people think he is a Cambodian fisherman.  Or at least I do.

The beach at Monterosso

A couple things I noticed on the beaches:

- The sand and the waves aren't the nicest, but the views are amazing

- It is confirmed that some Europeans are not afraid of showing boobies on the beach (but sometimes the views are NOT amazing)

- Italian kids all play soccer on the beach (and anywhere else they are). No wonder they are better than us at it

- The Mediterranean is beautiful, and the coast resembles the coast of California around Big Sur. With different-looking buildings of course.

The day ended with more pasta and more gelato. Kevin and I tried to find something to do after 10:30 in Corniglia, but everything was closed! Wine bars, gelato places, restaurants, everything. So bedtime was 11pm in CT. It wasn't bad because it meant we'd get up early to explore the next day.  I don't think I've gone to bed voluntarily at 11pm while on vacation in years!

The next day we tried to take a ferry ride to another coastal town, but the high winds shut down the boats. So instead, we decided to repeat the previous day. After exploring the other villages (Manarolo and Riomaggiore), we went back to the beach in Monterosso for sun and gelato.

Feeling quite "Corniglian" after this trip

That night at dinner I think I ate 10,000 breadsticks and drank a bottle of wine by myself without realizing it.  I woke up with a little headache the next day, if you can imagine.  The wine is so good and relatively cheap, that you don't realize you are drinking a lot. Good thing there is 11pm curfew in this town!

Upon our travels we found out that the trains were going on strike on the day we needed to get to Venice...that isn't good news. Why do trains hate me so much? We asked around for alternatives, but nothing seemed like a great plan...so we waited it out...and you'll have to wait to find out what happened!  It was great and not great at the same time...

Venice and a surprise side trip coming next.

Pasta al ragu, and other interesting things in Florence (and Pisa)

The most famous thing in Florence is a 500 year old statue of a naked man. And usually it takes a couple hours of waiting to get to see it. Is it worth it? Why is it so famous? I think to myself that if I had a giant piece of marble, I could make a statue. No problem! So if we don't get to see the real Statue of David, I won't be too bothered.

I flew into Rome to meet with Kevin and Pert at the Rome train station, where they had spent the past few days (in Rome, not at the station). It was much cheaper for me to fly to Rome to meet them and catch the train to Florence together. I really want to see Rome someday, more than just the airport and train station, so I'm sure I'll be back.

It was easy to spot Kevin and Pert because they haven't shaved since they've been traveling: Kevin for a week, and Pert for 2.5 months. Pert's been mistaken for anything other than American (Chilean, Southeast Asian, Fidel Castro, and just plain confused) because he is so tan and has an ungroomed fu man chu...he isn't even trying to grow it that way, it just does it on its own!

A well-groomed Pert and Kevin enjoying gelato

Kevin had been eaten by mosquitoes the few days before I saw him. He had at least 50 bites all over his arms and legs. Everyone we met commented on the millions of red dots on his arms. We went into a pharmacy to get mosquito repellent and when he asked for it, the lady responded "Yes we have spray for prevention, but I think in your case you need for after bite".  I was laughing for about 10 minutes, but the lady didn't know what was so funny. 

To get to Florence, we took the 4 hour version of the train, instead of the 1.5 hour version, since it was 30 euros cheaper, and that means more money for food. We got to Florence in the evening, and walked the 5 minutes to our hotel. Kevin did a great job finding central budget hotels that gave us easy access to everything. The only strange thing is that this hotel advertised itself to being 1-star.  Is that a good thing???

If you haven't been, Florence is a pretty small town, and everything is walkable. The main attractions are the billions of museums, statues, and churches and just wandering the streets and piazzas (not to be confused with pizzas, which are also good).

Wandering the streets of Firenze

One thing I have wondered is why we name places in English different than the real name? In Italian, Florence is "Firenze", which is not impossible to say, so why can't we just say it that way? Or "Italy" instead of "Italia"?  Or "Roma" instead of "Rome"?  Is it so hard to say the extra "a"?  Why must we re-name everything to make it confusing for everyone? Then we make the Italians say it our way so we can understand. We're so selfish!

And we've figured out that Italians in general don't learn too much English. Even in some restaurants in tourists areas, people spoke Italian and we just figured it out.  Luckily we get trained pretty good when it comes to Italian food, and Italian hand motions. 

Anyway, there were 2 BIG highlights of this trip: David, and the food.

We must have eaten gelato 6 times in 2 days, which means I went through my lactaid at a very high rate...I needed to pace myself to make it through the trip. That, and the fact I ate cheese for every meal for the first few days. Each day in Florence we had 2 or 3 course meals (pasta and a meat) and then pizza at midnight. We are trying to eat as much as possible, because...well, why not?

My favorite meal was the toppe al ragu at Trattoria Mario - these noodles were so good, I can't explain it. Usually I eat fast when something is good, but I couldn't help but eat really slow because I didn't want it to end. It was so good that after his meal, Kevin ordered another one. I couldn't do it...but we did go back the next day for more.

Mario's is such an unassuming place

Toppe al ragu - the noodles were so amazing!



Other meals I enjoyed:

- Frutti di mare

- Every pasta

- Every pizza

- Fried steak at Il Contadino (13 euro including pasta, salad, meat, water and wine!)

Frutti di mare

Great pastas everywhere!

One side note is that the bread is not very good at the restaurants. Maybe they don't want to mask the greatness of their main dishes? In any case, they could use some lessons from Subway in that department.

Another thing I noticed is that places close in the late afternoon, and they take it very seriously. We were denied pizza at 4:01 when it closed at 4. One guy said it was ok, then another very mean guy said no. I couldn't explain to them that they are throwing away money and that it impacts their reputation, because they don't care. They work to live, not the other way around.  Thus, customer service is not always the highest priority.

David is located in the Accademia museum, which was closed on Mondays (our first day there), and since our hotel failed to get us tickets in advance (we asked them to), we had to wait in line...for about 2 hours. We met some girls from Canada in line and told them about Mario's...and when we went to the restaurant after the museum, we saw them there...all eating the pasta ragu! I'm pretty sure it changed their lives forever.  

Oh, about David.  He is HUGE.  No wonder he defeated Goliath.  Goliath is tiny compared to the 17 foot David!  At first I didn't think I'd be impressed, but after seeing this giant statue, carved out of a junk piece of marble by the famous Ninja Turtle Michelangelo, I was in awe.  Every detail is perfect (well, I didn't focus too much on the man-area, but everything else was perfect).  It really is something to look at. 

Illegal picture of David, who is not shy at all

We also went to the Batigglio museum, Ponte Vecchio, and Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo). 

My favorite statue of the trip

Enjoyning Ponte Vecchio



The Basilica is one of the largest in the world, and apparently the dome is the largest made of brick. They had free English tours and when it got too loud a recorded voice said "shhhhhhhh!!! Silencio! Shhhhhhh silencio per favore. Shhhhhhhh. Quiet please." We wanted to be loud just to hear the voice again!

Under the Dome

The tension rods are what has held it up all these years



We were off to Cinque Terre via Pisa, by the end of the second day, where my main goal was to get more tan than Kevin...for the first time in 10+ years we've known each other, he was more tan than me. That needed to change!

There really isn't much to do in Pisa, other than take 1,000 jumping pictures in front of the tower.  It's so funny seeing everyone pose in front of their own cameras for pictures.  When you look at them, it all looks strange.  And in no way, do my jumping pictures look strange (I have others, but they are on Kevin's camera). I have to admit, it was a lot of pressure deciding what to do!

Trying to be creative with my jumping picture

Everyone and their moms posing for pictures

Speaking of Kevin and my other Seattle friends, for some reason when we are around each other we act like 10 year olds and have been saying the same jokes for the past 10 years. Somehow it's still funny.  I don't think we will ever grow up. 

More from Cinque Terre and Venice coming soon. 

Moni and Kuba get married

I think I have it figured out. The recipe for a Polish wedding is simple: Eat, drink, dance, repeat. Then repeat again. And again. Really. The music stops and everyone goes back to eat and take shots. Then they dance it off.  Again. And again. And I loved it. 

It's one thing to have 1 or 2 scheduled meals during a wedding reception, but 4? Plus cake? And the last food serving at 2am? I asked around and people say it's because there is so much drinking and dancing, that you need to serve multiple meals. And I'm not complaining one bit.  In some weddings the scheduled meals even go as late as 4 or 5am!

The schedule of meals (everything on here is food/alcohol)

This is not how it works in the US...but I think now it should be. At least it will be at my wedding, whenever that is (and assuming I'm not too old to stay up that late).

Monika has been a good friend since I moved to Poland. She always helps me with my Polish, with shopping, and currently she is helping me get wi-fi in my apartment (10 months after I arrived). She's always super helpful and made me feel very welcome when I first moved here. When she invited me to the wedding of her and her boyfriend Kuba, I had to say yes. Especially since it meant I could write a blog about it.  And especially since she personally invited every single person (as in, physically goes to them to invite them...that's a lot of work!!)

In the days leading up to the wedding, people would ask me things like "Are you ready for it?" and "Is there anything you want to know about it?".  This confused me because I have been to many weddings before.  What do I have to be ready for when it comes to this one?  Their response: "Oh, you'll see..."

I got a ride to Sochaczew (where the wedding was) with a couple co-workers: Angela (my boss from Romania), Gosia (my coach in Warsaw), and Andrew (a partner in Advisory). Sochaczew is about an hour from Warsaw, and is near Żelazowa Wola, where Frederick Chopin was born.

Gosia, Angela, and me

The ceremony was held in a nice church in town, and was a bit different that our weddings in the US. First of all, it started on time! When we arrived a few minutes before 3pm, Moni and Kuba were already waiting near the front door, in plain sight, to walk down the aisle. We got to say hello to them while they were waiting to walk, which seemed strange, but nice. When it started, there was no entry of the parents, the wedding party, or cheesy dancing while playing Chris Brown's "Forever": just the couple, flower girls, and the maid of honor and best man.

Moni and Kuba enter the church

Another difference is that they sat down in chairs during the ceremony (which lasted a little less than an hour). I had no idea what was happening, except that every 5 minutes or so, everyone stood up. I have to admit, this helped me, because after 4 hours of sleep the night before, and since it was all in Polish, I was getting a bit tired.

They get to relax during the ceremony

I did notice that after they said their vows, they said "Chcę", which means "I want".  I guess it's their version of "I do"! 

After the ceremony, everyone ran out of the church, in no specific order...almost like they were running for the open bar or something. There's no need for ushers here! Apparently they were racing to be first in the greeting line. After the ceremony, since not everyone joins for the reception, everyone lines up to congratulate the couple, present gifts, and give 3 cheek kisses (please see my prior blog on how long triple cheek kisses take when everyone does it).  The most stressful part of the day was having to do a triple kiss. 

The post-ceremony greeting line

Another observation I had was that the wedding party doesn't all dress the same. In the US everyone wears the same dress or suit, but here, everyone is unique. I guess its partly because they don't all stand during the ceremony, so you never see them side by side.

Moni and her bridesmaids

Oh, and there was a girl with a see-through dress. I guess every wedding has one of those girls whose friends never tell her "hey, i can see your underwear and butt cheeks when you wear that".  Sorry, no picture of that.

Afterwards, we went to the reception at a Magda Gessler restaurant next door to the house where Chopin was born. Before we went in, the party hosts presented the couple with bread and champagne. After they drank the champange everyone started yelling at me "Uwaga!" to get me to back away. I didn't know this was coming, but all of a sudden, they both threw their empty glasses over their shoulders and the glass shattered near my feet. Luckily I'm so fluent in Polish and I understood the warning.  It saved my life. 

The moms wait with the bread and champagne

The restaurant was very nice, and before I had a chance to walk around and find out where we were sitting, everyone was already at their tables, giving a toast, drinking champagne and starting to eat. These people don't mess around! They wanted to get the party started. And that they did. 

Tables are arranged in rows to make it easier to pour vodka for those across from you

Within 5 minutes, the guy across from me had poured me a shot of vodka. 5 minutes after I drank it, he poured me another. And it was only 5pm.

After our first course of salads, appetizers, soup, pork, and vegetables (dinner #1, which was served immediately upon arrival), we went for a walk into the park, where we sat outside Chopin's old house and listened to a piano concert especially for the wedding. Kuba's dad made a short presentation, saying part of it in English.  From my observation, only Angela and I needed the English, so I appreciate it!

Enjoying a little Chopin concert in the park

After this, we went back to the restaurant, and yep, we ate again. This time, we had more salads, meats, and veggies, and of course more vodka. The dancing had started, and it was such a fun environment. Rather than the couple dancing first, they did something untraditional, and got everyone to dance in circles around the room from the very beginning. It looked like so much fun and a great way to warm the crowd up. I didn't participate in this round because I didn't know what was happening, and also I wanted to take some pictures.

Everyone danced around me, while I took pictures

How do they all know what to do?

After the dancing, the music stopped again and people started mingling, eating more, going outside for air, and drinking endless shots of vodka (my final count was 17 shots - yikes!). The 3rd meal came at 8pm, which was some beef stroganoff/soup/goulash thing. This pattern continued for the next several hours, with a BBQ at 10pm, delicious hand crafted cup cakes at midnight, and soup at 2am, mixed around more dancing and drinking.

10pm BBQ?  Yes, please!

Midnight cup cakes

Moni and Kuba were having a great time, and there was lots of cheers, Polish songs, and jolly behavior that I can't really explain. It just made everyone, including me, feel like part of the family, even though I had no idea who anyone was, or what they were saying.  Everything was very orderly and organized and everyone seemed to know what was going on, like they had done this many, many times.

Taking the party to the streets

  
Even the older folks were taking vodka shots, dancing, and just having a blast. And there seemed to be a few "known" dances and songs that they all did, and helped me to be a part of. I don't remember much about them except that I was holding hands with older Polish guys dancing in circles a lot of the time. Holding hands with older Polish guys may not sound like much fun, but in this situation, it was a blast.

Thankfully there was no "Electric Slide" or "YMCA"

I had to catch a flight to Italy the next morning, so I had to leave somewhat early (before 1), but I know the party went on. 10 hours after the ceremony, it was still going strong. I am very happy and grateful to have experienced it, and it makes me want to marry a Polish girl so I can have this same kind of party. 

I am now accepting applications. 

White Nights in St Pete > Moscow

Before we get into the actual trip to St Petersburg, let me share an email I received 1 day before I arrived, from the apartment we booked:

"Hello Tristan.  We would  like to inform you concerning the address of  apartment: Bldg.11, Millionnaya str., Metro station –Nevsky Prospect ( ул.Миллионная, д 11.,станция метро- Невский проспект, поблизости находится Эрмитаж и Дворцовая площадь),- Russian version, just in case. You should go to this address (This is not the address we made a reservation for). We also inform you concerning the rule of the payment in our apartment service: When You check-in  you should pay for the whole period of your stay. Temporarily we had to ask you to pay by cash because of changing the system of terminal (credit card) machine"

Does that sound sketchy or what???  They are asking us to move to a different location I have no idea about (20 minutes away on foot), there is no longer a jacuzzi or karaoke bar (2 PRIME selling points of the first apartment), and we have to pay 100% of the bill upon arrival, in cash????   I have to be honest...at this point, I was REALLY nervous. I mean, this is Russia! I figured this new place would be a dump, far away from everything, we'd pay the cash up front, a bunch of things would go wrong, and then we'd never hear from the people again. I even considered that maybe it wouldn't even be their apartment building...and some innocent owners would come home to find 7 tourists with stuff all over their apartment.

When I finally got to St Pete, I couldn't deal with it. The woman told me to meet her at "new" place at noon, and I'd check it out then.  It was only 6am. I had 6 hours to kill before making any decisions.  At least she was nice enough to answer the phone at 6am.

I walked around for about 2 hours with my suitcase and computer backpack, taking in what turns out to be a BEAUTIFUL city. There are clean streets, nice architecture, and canals and rivers, like a mix of Amsterdam and Prague. Basically opposite of Moscow. And I've never been to Venice, but people also compare it to that (by the way, I will be in Venice in 2 weeks, so you'll hear about it soon).



Canal welcoming me to the city, which got this trip off to a good start

After becoming familiar with the layout of the city (including realizing that the new apartment was in an even better location than the first place!), I was too tired to walk any further. I found a nice park bench, where I took my shoes off, had some breakfast (whatever I could find in my backpack), and took a nice little nap. There were a few happy-looking bums a few benches down from me, so I knew this was a good place to sleep. There was also a motorcycle gang riding around the park (at 8am), but they didn't bother me. They were probably scared of me since I was all dirty and smelly coming off the overnight train.

Finally it was time for guests to start arriving.  Patrizia was first.  She's an Italian friend who lives in Warsaw. We met at one of the networking events I go to once in a while, and when she heard we were planning a trip to St Pete, she joined in without hesitation. After she arrived, we went to the apartment, to meet Olga, the woman who sent me the scary email above. We decided that the apartment was perfectly fine for us, and because of it's location, it wouldn't be worth putting up a fight. I was able to talk Olga out of making us pay 100% cash up front, and she became flexible and just said "pay whatever you want now, and we'll collect the rest when you check out". That made me feel much better, and in the end, we were all very happy with it.  Olga turned out to be very nice and accomodating...even though her email was so scary. 

Next to arrive was Natalia. Natalia is Romanian, but has lived in Warsaw for several years. She is fluent in Polish, as well as Russian, and 3 or 4 other languages, including Female and Alien, which blows my mind. We're lucky we had her on this trip, because she spoke to everyone in Russian for us. The other friends who stayed with us were Cristina (also Romanian), Jessica and Nick (married English-ish couple), and American Kate, who you met during my Barcelona trip. We also met up with Alena (Russian friend who lives in Warsaw), as she was visiting St Pete with her family for her birthday. My Latvian friend Irina had flights and train tickets booked to join us, but a snafu with her visa prevented it.  So all in all, there were 7 of us in the apartment, 5 girls and 2 guys. 

Most of our trip consisted of sightseeing and eating...which is perfect for me. The great part about this group is that everyone had a few things in mind that they wanted to do, but everyone was also flexible. We agreed on a few things, but other than that, people were free to do something together, or go out on their own. This worked out great because some of us (not saying who) had a hard time waking up to get going in the morning.

Peterhof, Peter the Great's Summer hang out

Watching the bridges open at 2am (notice the "sunset"?)



The Alexander Column, which was near our apartment, is apparently the highest free-standing column in the world (about 155 feet). In other words, is not super-glued down! How do they get it to stay up??? Supposedly it took 3,000 men to put it in place. It hasn't fallen in 175 years, but I still stayed at least 156 feet away from it at all times.

Hermitage Museum, with the Alexander Column

The Church on Spilled Blood offers the type of architecture you tend to think of when it comes to Russian Cathedrals.  The truth is that it's really the only one of its kind in St. Pete.  Moscow has many more of these.  The Church gets its name from the fact that it was built in memory of Alexander II, on the spot where he was assassinated. 

Church on Spilled Blood

Of course, part of the reason for some late mornings is that we went to bed so late. With the White Nights, it was hard to feel tired. The sun never TRULY went down. At 2 or 3am, it would be kind of dark, but you could still see the sun on the horizon, as if it went from sun-set straight to sun-rise, without any true night-time in between.

At 9pm, you really do need sunglasses

Church on Spilled Blood after midnight



For food, we generally ate breakfast at home (bought stuff at the corner market), ate lunch wherever we were sightseeing, then organized a group dinner every night.

Cristina making breakfast (or a snack)

A really funny hot dog (not my best meal, but the best picture!)

Our dinners were really good. One night was a fusion place with a great view of the city (Terrassa), one night was a nice Asian-inspired place for Alena's birthday, and the last night we ate at a Georgian place, and I fell in love with Georgian food. And I am talking about the country, not the dirty South. Georgian food has a lot of meat, but also a lot of breads and vegetables that are very hearty and flavorful. Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of good pictures of the food, because it was gone within 3 seconds of getting placed on the table.

My Georgian meal (but the best were the appetizers!)

Some other observations:

- Girls wear skimpy skirts and high heels EVERYWHERE - to lunch, to museums, even to go sightseeing where you have to walk on cobblestone. They also do "photo-shoots" everywhere, posing like they are professional models - in front of castles, statues, and probably even McDonalds. The girls I was with had a good time making fun of all the styles (including leopard print everything on girls from 13-80), but I didn't mind the outfits, if you know what I mean.

Somewhat familiar, but also not.  I will never get used to the Cyrillic

- The airport in St Pete is small and crowded, and very contradictory. There's enough people where it took me 100 minutes to check in for the flight, but small enough that when I went through the security line, it took only 1 minute, and the same guy that checked my ID, ran around the x-ray machine to frisk me after I went through. I guess it says something about the process...

- When they say "First floor", it's the "Ground floor" just like it is for us in the US. "First floor" in the rest of Europe seems to be one above ground level. This was especially confusing in the museums, because in English it would say something was on the "1st floor", but in Russian, you could see it say "2nd floor".

- The Metro stations still use people to sell tickets/tokens for the Metro, rather than having automated machines. Some stations have a couple machines, but still have more clerks than machines. In one station, I saw over 20 windows to buy Metro tickets, but ZERO automated stations. Maybe it's something leftover from Commmunist times, when everyone had a job.
- One small thing that stood out to me was something that happened when we went into the Hermitage museum.  A few of us were late getting there, but Patrizia had the tickets and went early.  She was able to leave the tickets at the information desk, with a woman employee.  This was clearly outside of protocol, as we were the only ones that had tickets waiting there.  But the woman was very happy to help, and this made me realize that the generealizations I have made in the past (about service and people in Russia) can't be applied to everyone.  Or maybe it's just different in St Pete?

Overall, this was a great trip. If you ever go to Russia for any reason, make sure you go to St Petersburg. And hopefully it's during White Nights. I guarantee it will change any negative feeling you had towards Russia (ahem...Moscow) into one of appreciation and enjoyment.  I know, because that's what happened to me.