The 12 Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, David and I flew from London to Minneapolis/St. Paul to be with my family for the holidays. Both of my parents grew up in Minnesota so almost all of my family lives there. This year, my parents and both my sisters (and Emily’s boyfriend, Kendal) were able to make the trip back home, as well as most of my cousins.

A couple of years ago after we flew in, my family started the tradition of eating at Mickey’s Diner near the airport for dinner following our flights. This year was no different, and because it’s impossible to find good, greasy diner food outside America, we thought Mickey’s tasted better than ever!

There's nothing like a bowl of steaming chili

and a grilled cheese/bacon sandwich to warm you up!

On the second day of Christmas, my mom’s sisters and most of her nieces and nephews met up with my family at Macy’s for our biannual walk through the winter wonderland. Every year, the downtown department store brings a children’s story to life through gorgeous displays. We’ve been going to this since we were babies and have seen past exhibits like the Nutcracker, Harry Potter, and Cinderella. And the best part is, at the end you get to meet Santa!

This year, Macy’s featured A Day in the Life of an Elf.

All the animals helping the elves decorate for Christmas

And at the end, David got to sit on Santa’s lap for the first time since he was 3 years old... and he didn't cry this time!

After we left Macy’s, we decided to try out ice skating at the Depot. I haven’t ice skated since I was a kid. I was really wobbly at first but I eventually got the hang of it. Because David’s so athletic, he was a pro right away. At one point, Elizabeth, David and I were all holding hands skating around the rink when Elizabeth lost her balance. She brought David down with her but I managed to let go of them and skate off. Only problem was I couldn’t stop. A little kid came skating right in front of me so to avoid a collision, I fell on my back. The kid was horrified and stopped skating, just staring at me. Then his dad came up and yelled at him, “Did you make that woman fall?!” I felt bad, but then it turned out the kid was a mini ice hockey player and easily could’ve gotten out of my way! He just wasn’t paying attention. I am proud to say that was the only time I fell, though!

Ty, Elizabeth, Dad, me, Uncle Bob, Matthew, David,

Aunt Karen, and Lauren about to head onto the ice

On the third day of Christmas, we celebrated Christmas Eve with my dad’s side of the family. We always see a Christmas movie in the afternoon, and then spend the evening eating lots of yummy finger foods and playing brutal rounds of the card game Nerts. At the end of the night, we go to church for the candlelight Christmas Eve service.

This year, we suffered through Arthur’s Christmas 3D since it was the only Christmas movie out. Then we went back to the house where everyone got to meet my cousin’s new baby, Zooey! Erich and his wife Michaela live up in Alaska and just adopted this precious little baby girl. It’s been a long time since the St. Paul Kurzwegs were all back together, so it was really special that David finally got to meet the Alaskans on this trip.

Zooey is almost 2, so this year we broke tradition and went to the children’s Christmas Eve church service instead. All of the little kids led us in carols and for the sermon, the pastor read us Humphrey’s First Christmas, a story about a camel that met baby Jesus.

I couldn't help it when I burst out laughing when the pic of Humphrey and

his dislocated-looking jaw came up on the screen at church! 

The church then gave out free copies of the book. With some of my cousins starting to have families, there was a lot of baby talk during this holiday (but no babies for David and me in the near future – sorry, Mom) and my dad even got in on the action when he snagged a copy of Humphrey’s First Christmas for his “future grandchildren.” Oh boy! We had fun playing with Zooey and getting to share in her first Christmas with her new family.

Zooey fell in love with David once she heard his "Baby Beluga" voice. 

I don't know how he did that for so long...
my throat would've hurt so badly!

On the fourth day of Christmas, it really was Christmas! We always celebrate Christmas day with my mom’s side of the family. We had a big slumber party at my grandparent’s house the night before and then woke up early to open presents from Santa! And this year, David and I decided to actually get each other presents (usually we’re boring and count our trips as presents). Then we had a big breakfast and headed over to Aunt Karen’s and Uncle Bob’s house. There we had our Secret Santa gift exchange, where David and I made out with a Christmas-tree shaped candy dish and a fun new dice game called Farkle. Elizabeth was thrilled with the gift we brought back from England, a warm winter hat embroidered with the Union Jack.

Papa and Grandma with all of their grandchildren

+ David and my Uncle Brian's fiance's girls

Then we had some Italian sandwiches for dinner along with lots of good sides and played more board games, like Mexican Sorry. I love that game but don’t know anyone else besides my Aunt Julie and Uncle John that has it, so we always play when we go to Minnesota. After smoking the guys and drinking maybe a little too much homemade Bailey’s (yum!) we called it a night.

The whole Cocchiarella family

On the fifth day of Christmas, we went tubing with all of the cousins from both my mom’s side and my dad’s side. It was really nice bringing the whole family together! Most couples don’t have the opportunity to introduce their paternal cousins to their maternal ones, but since everyone is from the same area, all of ours know each other and get along great!

The original title of this blog was going to be “I’m Dreaming of a Brown Christmas” because there was no snow in Minnesota this year! It was soooo strange flying in and seeing brown, dead grass everywhere. I can’t remember the last time Minnesota had a brown Christmas. It was weird. Luckily the tubing slope was prepared and generated its own snow for us!

One patch of snow for the tubers. 

At least it was nice and warm - a beautiful day!

Because the snow was man-made, it was icier than ever and we flew down the hill.  All of us except Emily, though...

On her first run, Emily somehow couldn’t get down the slope.

She pushed herself about halfway and then gave up and walked back up…

In the end, David won the contest for who could go furthest. And Elizabeth won the contest for worst injury by accidentally kicking a girl in the face! Oops! I also had a collision... As I was spinning out of control down the hill, I smashed right into a little boy just chillin' in his tube at the bottom. Stupid kid – get outta the way! I had bad luck with running into little boys on this vacation.

All of the ladies getting ready to slide!

The whole gang... minus Uncle Bob and Matthew

(I don't know where they disappeared to during this pic)

On the sixth day of Christmas, we drove down to Faribault to hang out with the Lechtenberg’s.

On the way, we had to stop and get some Taco John’s. Taco John’s is kind of like the Taco Bell of the North. The sauce is a bit sweeter, rather than spicy, and every order contains potatoes. The potatoes, called Potato Ole’s, are basically tater tots with special “Mexican” seasoning. For dessert, our favorite is the Tex-Mex apple pie. Prepare yourself. It’s apple pie filling layered between two crispy tostada shells, topped with cinnamon sugar, red hots, and cheddar cheese. It sounds like a disgusting combination but it’s so good! David doesn’t understand our obsession with Taco John’s. I guess you had to grow up with it to appreciate its deliciousness.

Back to the Lechtenbergs!

Lee Ann Lechtenberg was my mom’s best childhood friend. And even though the girls grew up and got married and moved away and had kids, they’ve still always found time for each other and maintained their friendship. Lee Ann and Brad have four kids – Jacob, Charlie, Emma, and Annie. Jacob and Charlie are the same age as Emily and me and we found out Elizabeth was coming the day that Annie was born! We love going to Faribault to hang out on the lake with the Lechtenberg’s.

The winter tradition is to take a late night walk out on the frozen lake to have a bonfire on the island. Since it hasn’t been that cold in Minnesota, it made me really nervous walking across the ice. But everyone kept reassuring us that because there’s no snow, the ice is even more solid. The snow insulates the ice and can make it slushy and melt. I have fallen through ice (luckily only up to my knees!) twice before, and once on that very lake, so I’m always cautious. Everyone was right, though, and it was frozen solid and safe to walk on. This year, we built the biggest bonfire EVER.

David feeding the flames.  This was before the fire became ENORMOUS!

Elizabeth and me.  My hand looks HUGE in that glove.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my mom’s side of the family went to the Mall of America (MOA). When we were little kids, we would go to Camp Snoopy (the amusement park inside the mall) every year! Even though Camp Snoopy has been changed to Nickelodeon Universe and we can’t recognize the place, this year was better than ever! A lot of the rides are new and more thrilling. There’s now a SpongeBob Plunge that tilts riders back until they’re staring at the ceiling, and then drops them over the edge of the rollercoaster before spinning them upside down in giant loops. There’s also the Avatar Airbender, a giant skateboard that throws riders back and forth while also spinning them out of control. That one’s my new favorite! And thankfully there are still the oldies but goodies – the haunted house, log chute, and Screamin' Eagle.

This year we were even more excited because for lunch, we got to pig out on American food in the food court. Even Emily, who lives in Connecticut, was excited to chow down on fast food she can’t get in New England. David was thrilled to see Pita Pit, an old favorite I turned him on to during college. He got a turkey club while I headed to A&W for a root beer float, chili cheese coney, and onion rings. My sisters and I also split a side of Wisconsin cheese curds and hush puppies from Long John Silver’s. It was a hodgepodge of food, but it was so good! There was no dieting or working out during this vacation!

After the MOA, we said goodbye to Emily and Kendal at the airport. Then we changed into our UT gear and headed over to Aunt Julie’s and Uncle John’s to watch the Texas bowl game. For dinner that night, my mom was treated to her absolute favorite – chow mein. It was a great day at the mall, an awesome lunch, an equally delicious dinner, and an okay game. David and I were just glad UT won.

On the eighth day of Christmas, we relaxed! Whenever we go to Minnesota, it’s a marathon to see everyone and fit in all of the traditions like the MOA, tubing, and Mickey’s. This year was no different, but we did have a few days to unwind towards the end of our trip since we stayed longer than usual. On Thursday, we hung out at Papa’s and Grandma’s before meeting up with the rest of my mom’s siblings at a bar and grill, where we ate dinner before seeing Moneyball.

On the ninth day of Christmas, we met back up with my dad’s brother and his family at the MOA aquarium for Tayler’s, my cousin, birthday. We saw the usual fish, lots of sharks in the giant tank, and cute tiny turtles that couldn’t get enough of swimming against the man-made current. We even saw a pregnant seahorse, a first for all of us! In the seahorse world, the men carry and birth the babies. Crazy!

Male preggers seahorse

Shark Tank

Aunt Christine with her first grandchild, Zooey

For lunch, we were able to meet up with our friends from Austin, Jill and Noah. They are both from Minnesota and had driven up with their chocolate lab, Bailey, for the holidays. On their way out of town, they made some time to have lunch with the Houses. How sweet! It was so weird seeing them in Minnesota when they are our “Austin friends.” It was great to catch up. We miss our Austin family!

That night, we had dinner with the Kurzwegs at the Gasthaus. My Uncle Paul met my Aunt Christine when he was stationed in Germany during his Army days. They were married there and then moved back to his hometown in Minnesota. But every year the family visits Germany and they made sure that all of their kids speak fluent German. Dieter even lives there now and was able to take the train to visit us in London last year!

The Gasthaus is a traditional German restaurant where my German family likes to eat way too much food, sing loudly along with the accordion, and order enormous beer steins. What a great way to celebrate having the family together and Tayler’s birthday!

Sonja and Tayler

After stuffing ourselves, we caught the midnight showing of Sherlock Holmes – Game of Shadows. It was pretty good, but not as great as the first one.

On the tenth day of Christmas, we celebrated New Year’s Eve at Aunt Christine’s and Uncle Paul’s. We went over early in the afternoon so the guys could go ice skating out on the lake. They were so happy they decided to skate when they did because later that evening… it finally started snowing!

The family sporting T-shirts and souvenirs Dieter

brought back for us from the brewery he works at in Germany.

Dad and David showing off their moves on the ice

We rang in 2012 with big, hearty bowls of homemade chili and Michaela’s yummy jalapeno cornbread. Then we watched the NYC countdown and toasted with glasses of champagne and lots of hugs and kisses. In Germany, it’s customary to run around the streets at midnight on New Year’s Eve, so a bunch of us braved the cold and took off down the road to celebrate German-style.

The first snow of 2012.  Minnesota finally looked normal again!

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Papa and Grandma made their famous spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. Then my mom got her family together to play card games and poker. David actually won! A whole $9 – yay!

For dinner we headed to Culver’s for old-fashioned hamburgers and frozen custard. I had a sundae with vanilla frozen custard, marshmallow cream, and hot fudge – all toppings I can’t find in London. That night we saw Mission Impossible 4. My family loves going to the movies, and with the flights’ movies added in, I definitely got caught up on some recent films during this trip.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, we packed up all of our stuff and had leftover meatball sandwiches for lunch before heading to the airport. Those twelve days went by way too fast. :( But next year, the family’s headed to London for Christmas and we can’t wait to share our English Christmas traditions with them!

Moscow

I decided to spend a couple of extra days in Moscow site-seeing after I finished up work. Like the weekend before in St. Petersburg, Jenn helped plan a lot! She worked really hard to try to get us tickets to the ballet at the newly renovated Bolshoy Theatre, but tickets sold out. So instead, Joey, Jenn, and I had dinner at Café Pushkin on Friday and then headed to the Ritz Carlton’s rooftop bar, the O2 lounge.

The Bolshoy

The restaurant/bar is all-glass and kind of suspended in mid-air in the center of the hotel. There’s an outdoor area that was completely deserted due to the cold, but we braved the weather for a few minutes to see the view and take some pics. Then we warmed up indoors with $30 vodka cocktails. That was nothing compared to the caviar - $1,500!! There is no way fish eggs taste that good. Even though I was in Russia, caviar was one thing I refused to try. Fish is not my thing.

O2 Lounge from the roof

Jenn and me in chairs designed after the Faberge eggs

On Saturday, we tried to fit in everything we wanted to see so Sunday could just be a relaxing day before our flights home. Luckily, the protests had cooled down a bit and Red Square was re-opened. Because of the elections the week before and the subsequent mass demonstrations, there were military and security personnel everywhere. Since military service is mandatory for teenage men, all of the soldiers seemed so young to me. But I definitely felt safe with hundreds of them surrounding my hotel and the big tourist destinations. It was very clear throughout the week with the sites closed and increased security that Russia was not going to risk an uprising like Egypt’s or Libya’s.

First stop on Saturday’s itinerary was Lenin’s Mausoleum in Red Square. Before his death, Lenin told everyone not to make any monuments to him. But after he died, and against the wishes of his wife, he was embalmed and put on public display. To this day, he's shown in a glass case inside his mausoleum, exactly as he was when he died in 1924. His body is so life-like that when we were passing through, I couldn’t help thinking his eyes would pop open at any moment, and he'd sit up and wave at us. The tomb is heavily guarded and only a few people are let in at a time, for a short amount of time. I guess Jenn and I were taking too long, so we were shuffled out by security. Behind the mausoleum, other famous people like Stalin and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, are buried. But since we couldn’t read the cyrillic writing, we had no idea whose tombs we were looking at.

Lenin’s Mausoleum

After the mausoleum, we walked through Alexander Gardens to the Kremlin. We passed the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then under Trinity Tower before entering the Kremlin. The Kremlin is the seat of Russian government, so it was also heavily guarded. I took one step off the sidewalk and immediately a guard blew his whistle at me to get back on the path. Oops!

The Kremlin's Saviour's Tower

(This gets blown up in the latest Mission Impossible)

Alexander Gardens

Once inside the Kremlin, we visited the State Armoury. The Armoury holds much more than just weapons and armour and was really interesting. We saw carriages and sledges (giant sled carriages for the royal family to travel in through the tundra) as well as Catherine the Great’s dresses, original Faberge eggs, and the State Diamonds (similar to the Crown Jewels of England but the Russian collection).

Also inside the Kremlin walls, there is a courtyard containing three cathedrals and one church. The exteriors of the church and cathedrals all feature gold domes. The Cathedral of the Assumption held the crownings of the Russian princes and was the burial place of important people within the Orthodox Church. Across the square is Ivan the Great Bell Tower. Outside lays the largest bell in the world, the Tsar Bell.

Cathedral of the Annunciation

Ivan the Great Bell Tower

The Tsar Bell

After leaving the Kremlin, Joey, Jenn, and I walked to Arbat, a pedestrian street full of souvenir shops and cafes. We had lunch at Tepemok, a fast-food joint known for good, cheap blinis, and then walked around for a while.

On our last night in Russia, we went to Khachapuri, a Georgian restaurant. Georgian cuisine is extremely popular in Moscow, being that Georgia is part of the CIS (former Soviet countries) and it’s delicious! Khachapuri lived up to its name and served all different types of khachapuri, or cheesy bread. So on Saturday night, I had the traditional khachapuri with potato and cheese dumplings and vegetable soup. For dessert, I tried the mountain honey pot. Europeans eat honey by itself, which I’ve always thought would be too sweet, so I ordered yogurt with my mountain honey. And to be honest, it was disgusting. The honey was so bitter. I’m not sure if that’s how real honey is (without the added sugar) or if it was the added “mountain” flavour. Not a great end to my really, really good meal. Oh, well.

On Sunday morning, we toured St. Basil’s Cathedral. It had snowed on Saturday night and it was finally cold enough to stick, so it was nice to see Red Square covered in a light dusting.

The Historial Museum in Red Square 

St. Basil’s was a lot bigger on the inside than I thought it would be. The top floor was like a maze through all of the domes, which are each separate chapels.

Then we did some last-minute souvenir shopping at GUM, Russia’s largest department store, and the Christmas market in Red Square.

Finally it was time to head home to get ready for our trip back to the states for Christmas!

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!