St. Petersburg

I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get a Russian visa. So once I got mine, I convinced David to get one too and meet me in St. Petersburg over the weekend.

Like I mentioned in the previous blog, usually I’m a good planner but this time around I didn’t do much. Luckily Jenn, Joey’s wife, was travelling with us. So she scheduled both our weekend in St. Petersburg as well as our following weekend in Moscow. One thing we did leave until the last minute, though, was train tickets from Moscow – St. Petersburg. We thought it would be better to get them all together through the concierge at the hotel but then it turned out there were no seats left on the high-speed train to St. Petersburg Friday night.

Instead, we did what we swore we would never do – we booked a domestic flight.

Russian airline Aeroflot has one of the worst safety records, if not the worst, of all time. If you are ever afraid of flying Southwest or American or United within the US ever again, just take a look at Aeroflot’s record and you’ll feel much better! Before the dissolution of the USSR, there were about three crashes a year. I truly felt like I was risking my life by flying within Russia during the winter. I’m sorry, but Russian aviation authorities just don’t have the same safety standards that I trust and love.

In the end, the flight was fine. I have to admit I was gripping the seat and praying pretty hard as we came down to land in the wind and rain in St. Petersburg. But I attribute that more to me no longer being a good lander than Aeroflot. (This past summer our small plane from Nice landed so hard that we bounced off the runway and had to take back off. Most terrifying flying experience of my life, and now I hate landings.)

Once we met up with David and checked into the W, we headed straight to bed to get as much sleep as possible before a long day of site-seeing Saturday.

The next morning, we met up with our outgoing guide, Sasha. She really took a liking to David and even got his email address at the end of the day to “discuss Marketing opportunities in London.” But we all joked that he’d found his Russian bride and she'd found her meal ticket into the EU!

We started the day off with a drive along the city’s main river, Neva, while Sasha explained that Peter the Great and his family loved Italy so much that they wanted their new city, St. Petersburg, to be the “Venice of the North.” Of course this was not going to happen because it’s Russia and it’s freezing so people are not going to be strolling the canals or taking boat rides, but it was a nice thought.

Peter and Paul Fortress

Hermitage/Winter Palace

We first stopped outside a row of museums and old lighthouses. St. Petersburg’s first museum, the Kuntz-Kamera, was a collection of all the abnormal things that fascinated Peter the Great, like preserved giants and Siamese twins. I was kind of interested but the rest of the group did not want to see any pickled people. So David threatened to take me to the soil museum if I subjected him to Kuntz-Kamera, and we saw neither.

Lighthouse

Next stop was the Peter and Paul fortress. It was deserted at that hour (10:30) so we had the whole place to ourselves. Before entering the island, visitors are supposed to toss a coin over the bridge and try to land it next to a little rabbit statue while making a wish. If your coin makes the landing, your wish will come true! Jenn and I both did great but the boys missed.

Once inside the fortress, there is a distorted statue of Peter the Great. Visitors are encouraged to sit on his lap and hold his hands for luck. So since David failed the coin toss, he hopped right on up to Peter’s lap and made a new wish!

We took a few minutes to view Peter’s boat inside the boathouse before heading into the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Cathedral was built in the early 1700s along with the rest of the fortress after the Russians finally took back the land from the Swedes.

The spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral

All of the Russian czars following Peter are buried inside the Cathedral. The last Romanovs, Nicholas II and his family, were buried inside St. Catherine’s chapel, within the cathedral, in 1998, 80 years after they were assassinated. Two of his children are missing though, Alexei and Anastasia… which further fuels the “rumor in St. Petersburg.”

Interior of the Cathedral

After listening to a short concert inside the cathedral, we walked past the mint and through the Neva Gate, which marks where prisoners from the fortress’s political prison were loaded onto boats to be executed elsewhere. One of the first prisoners was Peter the Great’s own son.

Neva river surrounding the fortress

After the fortress we drove to St. Michael’s Castle, which was built as a highly fortified palace for Emperor Paul I. He was petrified that he would be assassinated so he had ditches built around the castle and a draw bridge. Ironically, he was murdered in his bedroom just 40 days after moving in.

St. Michael's Castle

We then saw the cruiser, Aurora, whose gunshot signaled the start of the attack on the Winter Palace during the October Revolution. If you can’t tell by now, the Russians have a long and bloody history and most of the stories we heard were “terrible, just terrible.” The czars were constantly battling and murdering their own family for power. Sasha told us during the second half of our tour that she would focus on more romantic, happy stories.

Next stop – the Winter Palace, now the world-famous Hermitage Museum.

The palace square of the Hermitage with

St. Isaac's gold dome in the background

I thought the Museum would have more objects inside, especially from its days as a palace. But during the revolution, the palace was raided so now it’s mainly a museum with paintings. Lots and lots of paintings. We saw works by Monet, Picasso, da Vinci, etc. etc. etc. The place is enormous, so we were glad we had a guide with us. We only saw a small section of the Hermitage, yet it still took about 3 hours to get through.

Me, David, Joey, and Jenn after our tour

When we came back outside, magically it had cleared up and the sun was actually shining! Amazing! So we booked it over to St. Isaac’s Cathedral. This was the largest Cathedral in Russia after it was constructed and offers great views of the city from the gilded dome. After climbing up and down the stairs and viewing the inside of the church, we went back to the W.

St. Isaac's

Around the corner from our hotel was the Astoria Hotel, where Hitler planned to celebrate his victory over the Soviets. He even had invitations printed with the name of the hotel and the time, only leaving off the date. It’s weird to think about how different the world would be if things had gone his way and he had been able to have his parties.

The Astoria

That night we ate nearby at a small restaurant called Gogol, named after the Russian writer. The restaurant looks like a small home and we were given a bell to ring for service. We were afraid to use it and have the wrath of the Russians descend upon us, but once the table next to us starting ringing for attention, we finally did too.

I had the boar pelmeni (dumplings) to start and then a mystery meat dish with gravy and potatoes as my main. The boar was too game-y for me but the mystery meat was good! David got to try the borscht and Joey, David, and I also had small glasses of vodka.

As I came out of the bathroom at Gogol, I happened to look around and noticed a group of familiar-looking Americans in the corner of the restaurant. See, when I travel internationally, I’ve noticed how Americans tend to notice other Americans. I don’t know if we just seek each other out like magnets, or if this is because we’re usually just louder than everyone else so it’s impossible not to notice. But back in Moscow, at the Hotel National, there was a group of auditors from Chicago in town for a month for an audit. So after coming back from the restroom, I told Joey and Jenn that I thought I'd just seen the auditors from Moscow in the corner. Jenn thought they looked familiar too so we convinced Joey to take a shot of the horseradish vodka (David claimed it was delicious) and go over to them. Joey complained the whole time he was drinking the nasty vodka, but once he had his liquid courage, he turned into Mr. Social. And it turned out it was the same group of auditors from Chicago!

What a coincidence that our American “friends” from Moscow just happened to be in St. Petersburg the same weekend as us (especially since they were in Russia for a month), eating at the same restaurant, on the same night, at the same time. What further blew my mind was that they were risk-takers like us and on the same Aeroflot flight the next day back to Moscow.

After dinner we all headed to the Hippo, a nightclub, but once we saw the red velvet rope and line to get in, we decided we didn’t want to wait and there was no way we were getting in dressed the way we were anyway. Russians are just too damn fashionable. I don’t know how those women walk around in the ice and snow with 3-inch stiletto heels without breaking their necks. Jenn and I were having none of it and wore our boots the entire time.

On Sunday, we woke up early to check out and then walked to Stolle, a pie restaurant near the Church on Spilled Blood. David and I split the Russian soup (beef, potatoes, cabbage, herbs and sour cream – yum!) and cabbage pie. Cabbage pie is my new favourite pie. I don’t even really like pie that much, because of the crust, but this was really good! For dessert, we had whortleberry pie. Then we walked to the church.

The Church on Spilled Blood was built on the site where (get ready!) Alexander II was assassinated (shocking, I know). Even though Sasha had told us the day before that the interior of the church was covered in mosaics, I didn’t anticipate how beautiful it would be. Literally every inch is covered in colourful mosaics. It looked like one massive painting, but as you got closer, you could see the teeny tiny tiles creating gigantic images. We were blown away. It was honestly one of the most stunning church interiors I’ve ever seen.

Colorful onion domes top the church

Across from the church is a row of souvenir stalls, so David and I picked up some Christmas ornaments and matryohska dolls. Then we needed to get warm so we headed to Nevsky Prospekt, the main shopping street in St. Petersburg. We had hot chocolate in the café of Dom Knigi, St. Petersburg’s largest book store. The hot chocolate in St. Petersburg was so thick it was like eating warm pudding. It was sooo good.

David enjoying his hot chocolate at the bookstore

in front of the Kazan Cathedral

The book store café overlooks Kazan Cathedral, modelled after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. As you can see from the picture, the Kazan does not even compare to St. Peter’s. On our walk back down Nevsky Prospekt was saw the hotel where beef stroganoff was invented and stopped inside the smallest chocolate museum ever, and then it was time to head our separate ways.

David got on a flight back home to London while Joey, Jenn, and I (and our American auditor friends) took off for Moscow. The flight was really smooth, so I have a much higher opinion of Aeroflot now… or maybe it was the lucky rabbit!

Russia

For some crazy reason, the audit organization decided to schedule an engagement in Moscow in December… couldn’t this wait until the Spring?? Apparently not, so for the last couple of weeks I was in Russia for work.

During the week, work was extremely busy, but our team of four still managed to get out in the evenings and site-see a bit.

Joey, Ana, me, and Peter wearing Russian hats in front of St. Basil's

It helped that we stayed at the Hotel National directly across the street from Red Square. The National is not only a historic hotel, but was also once a luxury apartment building. Lenin even lived there. Now it hosts presidents and foreign ministers... and the Dell team. My room was just down the hall from the French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s (there was a plaque on the wall commemorating his visit).

One of the prep questions our teams always asks before a site visit is ‘What are your hours of operation?’ For example, in the US it’s about 8:00-5:00, while in Europe they tend to start a bit later around 9ish. In Russia, the admin told us most people don’t start to trickle into the office until around 10:00 and they leave at 7:00. When we woke up on Monday morning, we saw why. It was pitch black outside. It didn’t start to get light until almost 11:00. So people do rise with the sun, but they are night owls. Most of the restaurants and bars and shops were open well into the night. We later learned that Moscow and St. Petersburg only get about 75 days of sun a year. I could never live there… I would be too cold and depressed without a steady Vitamin D intake. The UK is about as far North as I go.

Besides affecting everyone’s schedules, the weather seemed to affect everyone’s moods as well.

David and I love “An Idiot Abroad,” a British reality TV show that follows Ricky Gervais’ friend, Karl, around the world. Karl hates to travel, so Ricky has forced him out of his comfort zone by sending him on adventures that are always hilarious. This past season, Karl met his Russian twin when he took the Trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow to China. When he arrived in Moscow, his taxi driver was absolutely miserable. Karl asked him what he should see and do in Moscow and the driver responded with, “Nothing! It’s awful here! Just terrible!”

We got that vibe a lot.

When we were in St. Petersburg over the weekend, our tour guide showed up at 9:50, 20 minutes past our scheduled departure time, exclaiming, “Why did you schedule this so early? It’s too dark and cold. It’s terrible!” Then she went on to complain about how much she hates being Russian with her “stupid Russian passport” that doesn’t allow her to easily leave the country to travel or live abroad. Poor girl!

Just take a look at this professional technology magazine I found in the Dell office…

I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw that cover. Never, ever have I seen a magazine with such a dismal cover model.

Russians are definitely more blunt, too. I’ve gotten used to that from working with a lot of Europeans who will say exactly what’s on their minds, but the Russians take it to a whole new level. For example, in restaurants if we would ask for something and it wasn’t available, instead of hearing, “No, I’m sorry, we’re out of…” we would get, “Niet!”

Speaking of restaurants, the food experience was very interesting. Sushi is hugely popular right now in Russia, especially Moscow. I kept forgetting how big Russia is, but it made sense that Japanese food would be popular once Sasha (our tour guide from St. Petersburg) told us she was from a small island North of Japan. I only had sushi once during the trip, and it was really good.

My first taste of Russia came with my blini on the plane ride from London. Blinis are like crepes and can be prepared savoury or sweet. Dinner on the flight to Moscow was a blini stuffed with custard and raspberry sauce. That would usually qualify as dessert in my book, but for the Russians it was a typical dinner. For breakfast most days, I had blinis with sour cream. And for lunch I often ordered a ham and cheese blini with a chocolate banana blini for dessert. I couldn’t get enough of them, they were so good!

Another popular dish is borscht, beet soup. I hate beets, but I couldn’t come to Russia and not try borscht. It was actually really good. The broth is really flavorful with the different seasonings and there is beef in the soup as well, so it hardly tastes like beets at all.

Beef stroganoff was invented in St. Petersburg (more to come on that in a different blog post) so I tried that during our first team dinner… which was quite an experience.

Usually I’m a great planner and try to figure out the best restaurants to eat at and opening times of museums/sites to plan my day. But with Thanksgiving the week before and work being really busy, I was not on my game for these two weeks in Russia. So on Monday after work, we dropped our bags at the hotel and asked the concierge where we should eat. She told us about Kitsch, a nearby restaurant that served well-priced, traditional Russian dishes. We walked to the address she gave us, but we weren’t sure if it was the right place because there was a scary-looking bronze guard dog statue outside the door and the sign above said Kitsch Kock.

We should’ve known by the name…

We opened the door and saw a steep black staircase between two walls covered in black wall paper and black lights hanging from the ceiling. When we got to the top of the staircase, there was a picture of a sexy vampire staring down at us. And in the middle of the restaurant was a chandelier with the lights shining through the hollowed-out eyes of skulls. We thought about leaving, but the manager was so nice and welcoming, so we gave it a shot. She didn’t have an English menu, but she spoke pretty fluently and was nice enough to sit down at the table with us and go through every dish. I played it safe with the stroganoff and a glass of vodka with orange juice. It was surprisingly delicious.

Ana, one of my co-workers, was a very brave eater during the whole trip. She would order sushi without knowing what kind of raw seafood she was being served. At Kitsch Kock, she enjoyed the cow tongue. Later on in the week she even tried bear! I don’t know what kind of bear they serve in Russia, but I have never heard of bear for dinner before this trip.

Our engagement director had told us that last time he was in Moscow (years and years and years ago) he went to a Ukrainian restaurant with a farmyard in the middle. He LOVED it and kept telling us how we had to find it. So I Googled “Ukrainian restaurants in Moscow with farm animals” and sure enough, Shinok came up at the #1 Ukrainian restaurant in the city. So during our second week of work, we took a taxi across town to check it out.

The restaurant was so fun! It’s meant to look like a Ukrainian farmhouse, so you actually walk into the home and up three flights of wooden stairs to get to the “dining room.” And sure enough, in the middle of the restaurant there was a farmyard complete with chickens, roosters, peacocks, and even a cow! And watching over all of the animals was a babushka.

That night most of the table ordered the Chicken Kiev, breaded chicken breast stuffed with butter. I had already had Kiev earlier in the week, so this time I ordered the crispy garlic chicken. The waiter brought me out a whole chicken, butterflied. I was just hoping it wasn’t the mother or sister of one of the chickens I had just seen wandering around the coop. Joey, my engagement manager, had the rabbit pie. I didn’t notice any rabbits or bunnies hopping around, but that may have just been because Joey ate the last one.

On Friday after work, Joey and I met up with his wife, Jenn, back at the hotel and then walked to Café Pushkin for dinner. Café Pushkin is owned by the same restaurant group as Shinok, but Café Pushkin was much better. The surroundings weren’t quite as whimsical, but the restaurant was inside a beautiful big house decked out with dozens of Christmas trees. They served traditional Russian and French dishes. This time, I ordered the cheesy chicken. It was like Chicken Kiev except inside of butter in the middle, it was oozing with gooey, delicious cheese sauce. And it came out on a cracker set made to look like a saw.

For dessert, they made Jenn's crème brulee at the table in front of us with a candle.

One other cultural difference I picked up on, besides the attitude and food, was that Russia was not as Westernized as I'd thought it would be. I expected with a bustling metropolis, millions of people, and advanced space and military programs, Moscow would be more developed. The first sign that this was not the case was when I had to go to the health clinic to get immunizations for my visit. The doctor warned me that I needed to get all of my hepatitis shots and boosters and told me when I was in-country, DO NOT DRINK THE WATER. That really surprised me. I expected that going to Mexico and Egypt, but Russia?? The entire time I was there, I was extra careful about brushing my teeth with bottled water and never ordering ice!

There was also a massive language barrier outside the office. Even Joey and Jenn, who are probably the most well-travelled couple I know, said it was more difficult finding an English-speaker in Moscow than in most Asian countries.

Because traffic is so awful in Moscow, the team opted to take the metro instead of a cab to and from work. Because of recent terrorist attacks at the airport and on the subway, we were extra vigilant, and thankfully nothing really happened while we were in town (besides the mass protests and rallies the second week of the trip).

The metro was extremely difficult to get around in, though. I would not have tried it on my own. The Russian language is in Cyrillic, so we couldn’t even read the metro stops. For example, my full name, Sarah Elizabeth House, translated into Russian is Сара Элизабет дом. Yes, there’s a number 3 in the middle of Elizabeth... Since we couldn’t read anything, we literally had to guess which platform to get on and then count the number of stops between stations. And if multiple lines stopped at the same place, the stop had a different name for each line. Really confusing! After a couple of days of counting stops and listening to station names, we got the hang of it though. Enough to barely get by.

While Joey, Jenn and I travelled to St. Petersburg on Friday night, the rest of the team took a self-guided tour of the Moscow metro, which is the most beautiful metro I’ve ever seen. Stalin ordered marble and statues and chandeliers in the stations to make the lives of the commuters a little bit brighter and “thank” them for their sacrifice. Peter, another one of my co-workers, took these pics during their tour:

Even though Russia wasn't quite what I expected, I had a really good time there for two weeks. It is such an interesting place and it’s growing and developing so fast! I will post more blogs about what we did and saw later, but I wanted to share this little cultural overview first!

Crazy Faces

So I bought a new phone last year after moving to London.  Being a Droid-man, I went with the HTC Desire-HD.  I was pleased as punch with my selection, and after a few weeks of playing around on the phone, I discovered the key to countless hours of tear-jerking laughter: a distortion feature built into my camera phone.  So far, almost all of our house guests have fallen victim to my sharp eye for the grotesque and ridiculous, and below I have included a few of our favorites!

WARNING:  The images you are about to see may frighten you to your core.  Houseman Inc. is not responsible for any of the following effects caused by viewing the aforementioned images:  Loss of sleep, loss of appetite, loss of friends, loss of self-respect (or respect of any kind), photographobia (fear of having your picture taken), night-terrors, and day-terrors.   Let's begin....

 

 I hope you didn't expect me to start off slow - the evil witch Sarah welcomes you to this album!

A lot of people say that Cristy and Sarah look a lot alike... the two pics above show that they may be possessed by the same demon.

There is no doubt that Keli was EXTREMELY excited to be in London!

Normal Katie = absolutely beautiful.  Distorted Katie = one of the monsters from the castle battle scene in the movie Willow.

Dad looks like an old, confused Bruce Jenner.

I don't know what is creepier or more hideous - my ear, smile, eyes, hat, or enormous hand/wrist holding my glasses... or just the "Hey baby!" look I am trying to give.

Award for the tiniest nose in the world goes to... Boone Lawrence.

 

And award for tiniest mouth flanked by huge cheeks.... Cristy round 2!

 Charming, Sarah.  Charming....

Jordan was just trying to show his friendly Texas smile, but every God-fearing person in Nice ran away screaming at the mere sight of this beast!

Sarah looks like a alien in this one...
an alien suffering from severe depression.

 Sarah cannot stop laughing when she looks at this one, but personally, I think he looks like a really friendly and innocent guy - the kind you just want to get to know!

 This man just became a father.  Jeremy, play your cards right and Quinn never sees this...

 

Allison is completely unrecognizable in this shot, about which I am sure she is happy in case she ever wants to be welcomed back to Nice.

This truly looks absolutely nothing like my younger sister Laura, but rather the gruesome creature that ate Laura.

Amy looks like an injured animal crying out, begging for someone to put her out of her misery.

Ross looks like an eight-year-old child who belongs in The Brady Bunch (Amy is just plain frightening).

I don't know how much of this is distorted and how much is really just me being terrifying.

Such a dreamy look... minus the demon-eyes, gaping nostrils, and ridiculous half-smile/smirk.

 Two things Austin Powers fears: nuclear war and my Mom - "Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands."

 

Ahh!  Dad's back!  Jay Leno chin and almost non-existent eye - or is it a creepy wink?

Dave looking angry that he lost out on the leading role in Twilight - sweet hair, though!

My favorite part of this picture is the woman in the red pants running for her life for fear of being devoured by Sarah the Baboon.

This seriously looks like a caricature drawing by a street artist.

Even Kirby cannot escape my distorted camera shots!  I think he looks just like the dog from the intro to the TV show "Goosebumps."

Possibly the stupidest looking expression in this entire post. 
Congrats, Jeff!

Sarah looks like a mix between a chipmunk and a round-chinned old lady... with enormous Japanese cartoon cat-eyes, of course!

My wife's reaction to anyone saying, "Hey Sarah, I ate all of your pop-tarts!"

You again, Jeremy?!  Between the lazy eye, Vote for Pedro
mustache, and peanuts in the teeth,
I just don't know what else to say! 

Elizabeth would be an incredible linebacker if she joined the NFL.

Haha!  The flat head really helps to explain the seemingly brainless expression created by the distortion-feature - I'm pretty sure that this started off as just an innocent smile.

If I had to write a sound-effect for this one, it would probably be "Dddaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!"

 Jeremy's shot at the Jay Leno chin - classic!

 Back so soon, Elizabeth?!  Cross-eyes or horrific smile... not sure which will haunt me more.

 Amazingly, Renee's hair looks incredible in these shots... but the camera took no mercy on the rest of her.

 Even Papa got in on the fun, though after seeing this he may
not let me stay at his house for Christmas!

 Two fantastic shots of Dave - the one on the right is our favorite, probably because he looks like the Jolly Green Giant.

 I really love this picture - the way the light hits my face/eye, the way my mouth shows an expression of half-joy half-terror, and the fact that my eyes were filled with tears from laughing so hard at many of the other pics in this blog.

 One from far away (look at those hands!!!), one from close up - both are simply horrible, but the first pic is one of my absolute favorites - please click on it for a larger view and notice the eyes, nose, mouth, and overall expression (I love you, Molly!)

 Th.. th... th... th.. that's all folks!!!