Day two started off with a visit to the sketchy co-ed shower room. Complete with shower curtains that covered ~2/3 of the stall opening and water that was either boiling or freezing, the experience was further dampened by my lack of shower shoes. However, I survived, and soon the other girls and I were sitting in a cafe for breakfast and I was eating a not-quite-cold ham and cheese omelet. After an unsatisfactory amount of coffee, we headed back to the hostel, met up with the rest of our group, and took a van outside of the city limits. Here we visited an old palace of the Russian nobility. The first thing you notice upon entering the rooms is the enormous amount of gilded decorations. The second thing you notice is just how bad their design taste was (at least by today's standards). The ceilings had paintings, the floors had intricate woodwork, and the walls were covered with an assortment of gold objects, paintings, mirrors, and pattered fabric. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, just far from subtle.
The scope of the palace was a bit mind boggling, how did people not get lost? After finishing our tour of the palace we stopped for lunch and then visited another palace, which had much of the same design choices and such. Once done, we got dropped back at our hostel. The other girls and I decided to almost immediately head back out to visit the Church of the Savior on Spilled blood; I'll let you read about it's history on your own. I saved 100 rubles on admission by showing my ISIC card, which was nice, but definitely would have paid full price. This was my favorite place of the entire trip. The church was absolutely massive with floor to ceiling hand-tiled mosaics depicting a variety of religious scenes; it was stunning.
We looked inside for a while and then left in search of food. After eating we took an Uber back to the hostel and let me tell you, riding with Russian drivers is quite an experience. Do lines on the road exist? Do blinkers exist? It's organized chaos. However, if you die in the Uber, at least it only cost you ~150 ruble. Back at the hostel we took a much needed nap, sought out some discounted pastries, and then headed out to a bar with the rest of our group. One lemon beer and some group bonding later and the night was over.
Second impressions of St. Petersburg: do you really need this many chairs? vegetables are great, driving on ice is a skill even Russians haven't mastered
--
Emily Gentles is spending the spring 2018 semester studying math in Moscow.
Read more from Emily at
transcontinentalgen.wixsite.comDon't miss your opportunity to study abroad! Start your search at
http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/.
