Jule in Russia:Day 6&7

Although I’m already back in Helsinki I still wanna give u an overview of the last days in Russia. On Saturday we woke up early-ish to do some more sightseeing. It was very cold outside but we walked the entire time.

First stop was the “eternal flame” at the “Field of Mars”. We already passed the flame with the bus on day 1 but as it was kinda far away we felt like going there and check it out properly. We spent some time there warming up our hands(and asses lol).

warming up

And then we proceeded to the Peter and Paul Fortress. It was far away but we got to see a lot of St.Petersburg. We checked out the cathedral which was very pretty(and very gold).

cathedral

I don’t know why but there where 2 TV teams with cameras that filmed and interviewed people. Unfortunately they must have missed our awesomeness as they did not interview us 😉

By the time we were done we could not feel our toes anymore. It felt horrible but we were strong and walked back all the way and had some hot chocolate and tea and relaxed at the bakery next to our hotel.

At 3.30pm most of us left for “Catherine’s Palace” which is in Pushkin. It was the summer residence of the Russian tsars in the 18th century.

Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin

It was so beautiful! I could definitely live there! The rooms were amazing and I even liked(most) of the paintings. The guide we had was the same we’ve had in the Hermitage. But I think this time she did not hate me that much. Maybe because I was very quiet(i felt horrible and sick that day). Before we could all enter the holy rooms we had to put on special “slippers” so we would not ruin the floors.

fancy slippers

We all looked very fahsionable. We were all allowed to take pictures (without flash only) except of the famous Amber Room. It looked amazing and I can’t believe that it took them almost 30 years to reconstruct it. I know it wasn’t allowed but I might have taken a few pictures of the room 😉 (was not the only one though lol).

cheese

After the tour through the palace we had a little walk in the garden. People have told me that it looks prettier in the summer with all the flowers etc but we had lotsa snow which made it look like a winter wonderland. As I mentioned earlier I could totally live there!!

grass??? lol

I don’t remember what time we were back at the hotel but we(aka the girls) did not have a lot of time to get ready. Most of us changed and put on some make up for the limousine tour which was after our dinner at the yummy sushi place. This time our waitor did not speak good English but he and his waitor friend laughed at us(or maybe even with us? lol) all the time. We had a good time. After dinner we rushed back to the hotel and then there was that little white shiny car waiting for us outside. We were all very excited and could not wait for the tour to start. The driver did not speak English but he got us 4 bottles of champagne which def. helped us to understand him better or maybe vice versa lol. The more I drank the better I felt…I think the alcohol kinda desinfected the germs and bacteria in my body lol.

yaaayy

some of us

inside

whad up?

We stopped a few times so people could smoke,take pictures and pee. Of course girls had a harder time to go pee as the public toilets were closed and we did not really feel like peeing on a tree. So we just kept it inside and almost died(but thats another story). We had 2 minor tragedies as 1 of us had to throw up cuz he had stomach problems(not because of the alcohol but food i guess) and another one just fainted twice. I have no idea why but it looked very scary. We dropped them off at the hotel and then we continued our last night. We went to some club(forgot the name) and the minute they noticed we were foreigners they tried to get money out of us. They wanted to have 2000 rubles deposit from each so we could get in. They told us we would get it back later…jajaja right come on we’re not THAT stupid! Then they just wanted 1000 rubles and after telling them that we’re gonna leave again they let us in for free.

The club was so much fun! There even was a pole in the middle of the dance floor where all those Russian girls tried to impress us with their prostitute-dance.

here we go

next time she gets dressed she should turn on the lights

Later that night we kinda took over the pole and used it for our fun dances and I think those Russians where mad at us. I could not have cared less. I am not sure what time we left that club but I remember that I fell asleep there.Not because I was drunk but because I was so tired(loooooooooong day). Thank god Jacque joined me and napped as well lol.

Back at the hotel we went to the hotel bar and had a little snack. Don’t remember what time we left the bar either as I fell asleep AGAIN lol. When I was in my room I was so tired that I did not even take off my make up but fell right into bed which I regretted when I woke up the next morning lol.

Nothing spectacular happened on Sunday. Just some packing and then we checked out the church right across our hotel. I liked this one better than the “colorful church” because people actually went there to pray and there were priests. Very interesting but still a bit scary as those old Russians in there gave us evil looks even though we behaved like professionals 😉

The train ride back was blaaaaaaaah. Whenever I fell asleep I was woken up by customs, the people who check out your passport and visa like 10 times or the annoying sports team which consisted of loud 12 year old Finnish girls who steppped on my feet everytime they passed my seat. Life is hard!

We arrived in Helsinki at 10pm on Sunday and I was so glad when I was home and could fall into my precious bed before going back to class Monday morning and falling sleep in class.

All in all I can say that I had an amazing time in Russia even though the people kinda scared me (a lot). Thank you to all my ladies and my lords for making me drink vodka shots like a Russian 😉

Jule in Russia:Day 5

I started the day by waking up early-ish to have breakfast with some friends and then we went to the “colorful church” because we wanted to go inside. It was snowing again and the snow melted right away so there was a lot of water on the streets. By the time we arrived at the church I had a lake in my boots. I had so much water in there that you could already hear it moving in there…sounds funny but it was fucking cold. Anyways, it was very pretty inside the church but I expected it to be more spectacular. It was just one big room.

church from inside

We had to hurry a bit as we had to be back at the hotel in time for the visit at the brewery. We took the metro to some weird place in St. Petersburg with lotsa snow and from there we were picked up by a bus. It was actually the first time this week where we were on time but of course the bs was not there so we had outside for like 30 minutes. That does not sound a lot but it feels like eternity when it is fucking cold. The guys used the opportunity to have another one of their famous snowball fights where they accidentally hit some cars which caused their alarm to go on. Nice sound…really! Eventually the bus came and it took us to the “baltica” brewery…Russia’s most famous brewery. It was actually kinda interesting…just the smell was bad! The best part was the “tasting”. All of us got to taste over 12 different beers.(I stopped counting after that one) Oh boy that was fun. I don’t even like beer but it was for free and I thought I’d use that opportunity 😉

beer number 5 was actually pretty good!the Asian one(blue bottle)tasted like detergent and made me wanna throw up

back in the metro station…with the present we got from the brewery

After that we had our fancy 4 course Russian dinner in some mansion. We experienced some more of that amazing Russian “service” all the foreigners get here.

1st course: weird salad

2nd course: soup called Borscht or sth like that

3rd course: Stroganoff

4th course: Blini(pancake)

The food was not that good. Not for that price at least. And I am not sure if it is supposed to be like that or if Russian food is supposed to be almost cold in general…cuz that was not the first time we had that…whatever. At least we had fun.

Back in the hotel some of us chilled out in the Hotel Bar and then finally we (aka me and 2 friends) ordered the limousine for tomorrow. It’s actually gonna be the biggest limousine in St.Petersburg: a Hummer. We’re gonna be 18 people and the limo is gonna take us through the city for 2 hours. Unfortunately we had to pay right away so it was lotsa fun(aka NOT) to knock on everybody’s door at 1 am to collect the money(650 rubles…which is like 15€…pretty cheap i think).

Anyways…I’m going to Russian dreamland now as I have to wake up again in not 6, not 5 but 4 hours again for our self-made sightseeing tour. And it better not snow otherwise there’s gonna be at least 1 mad German with wet feet in town!