Party in the office and..... Mishka again

I met a bunch of foreigners this weekend and I lost track of the number weeks I have already spent in Russia ... I checked the calendar this morning and it was my 6th week in Piter! However, meeting foreigners on Saturday certainly was exciting, although most of them are leaving really soon, because the academic year is over! Nevertheless, I spent the Sunday with some Germans going to the museum of religion and to a cool restaurant!

On Friday we had a great party in the office, and I was really tipsy by the time I left the office. Some of you had to suffer from weird ICQ messages and emails... I'm sorry about it! Everything is back to normal now!

Mishka is still dominating my life... he likes to be where I am. And whenever he does not follow me around in the flat I get really suspicious... being silent has never been a sign for good behavior! But he adapted to my rules and I'm a little softer than I wanted to be, so we met in the middle somewhere!



Telphin: Dania, Anna, Katja and Konstantin
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My dear co-workers


And the party goes on


The "gay" front :-)


I was trying to wash my clothes... no chance!


I m still trying to wash my clothes!!!


I was taking a shower....

The longest day of the year in Piter

Besides the fact that I consider white nights extremly annoying, because I can't sleep properly - my stupid brain associates daylight with activities and not with sleep... it is BEAUTIFUL!!!! Have a look at the pics I took! It is simply awesome!!!


Nevskiy Prospekt at 11:30 pm

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St. Isaac's Cathredral at 1 am


The bridges open at 1:40 am


Saint Petersburg at 1:49 am


View from St. Isaac's Cathedral at 2:39 am


Sunset/Sunrise at 2:17 am

Mishka and Hermitage

What can I say? This was my 5th week in Russia and it was mainly ruled by a beautiful black cat! I spent most of the evenings at home entertaining Mishka, and Mishka entertaining me... Yesterday evening he gave me true shock when balancing (once more, although I try to teach him NOT to do it) on the balcony and almost fell down. I live on the 7th floor... I was angrily yelling at him and he disappeared as fast as he could in the bathroom! After that he was calmly sitting at my feet, trying to show that he is a good cat; I dare him to set his cute little paws on the balcony again!
I went, however, for several walks through the city and admired St. Petersburg's white nights! On Saturday and Sunday I tried to sleep as long as I could, which is rather difficult with a cat that learned that I have to get up at 8am and is doing an excellent job as an alarm clock! Thank God, I brought my ohropax!!! He is a heartbreaker with his shy meows!

On Saturday we were having Simona's farewell party (the girl from the Czech Republic and my fellow AIESEC trainee), because she is leaving on Thursday :-((( Besides the AIESEC dances it was a great party and I got really good Czech food! :-) Later that evening Simona and I even got to see a (only half) striptease!!! Yay!

My fifth Sunday in town was finally dedicated to the Hermitage. The best thing about it is - I still can't believe this is possible in Russia - ALL students get in for free!!! Usually the entrance fee for whatever Russian museums, theaters etc. ranges from Russian students, Russians adults, foreign students (and at this point the whole thing gets expensive) to foreign adults. So, as a consequence, people accompanying me to museums tell me to shut up :-) Lovely country!!!

Have a great week!


Kunstkamera
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Hermitage


Simona and Anna in Zoom


Mishka...


Mishka on the balcony


Tyoma and Simona: apparently Tyoma doesn't want Simona to leave! Nobody wants her to leave!!!


Anna and Russians souvenirs


Zhenya and Lesha (It would be boring to upload the official pics!!!)


Metro


Hermitage


View from Hermitage (Winter Palace)


Anna in the Throne Hall in Hermitage


Catherine the Great and small Anna :-)

Day of Russia and a cat

One entire month has passed since I arrived in Saint Petersburg and I have the feeling that I have been here forever already. This passed weekend was one of those funny and typical Russian weekends when I didn't know for sure whether Monday is a holiday or not. Sunday, 12th of June was The Day of Russia and since Russians do not waste any of their holidays, we also had Monday off :-) But I wasn't sure about that until I called my boss Sunday evening!

Friday I went out with Simona to the nice chill out bar/restaurant/cafe "Zoom" where I had been on my very first evening in the city. I tend to return to good places! By the time two Zhenyas (one of them my former flatmate) joined us, I was a little tipsy already and I didnt really care about closing metro stations and opening bridges. We moved on to a rather small club/bar called "Datsha" where many foreigners were said to hang out. I didnt spot too many of them, but that might be caused my "more-than-tispy/half-drunk" state of mind :-)

Saturday I spent in bed, unable to get up before 6pm and then went off to check out my island. Yes, I'm living on an island: "Vasilevsky Ostrov" :-) I found loads of Russians doing "shashlikiy" and fires at the beach. Honestly, I love Russia! I assimilated most of my so-called "laid back" attitude here. People seem to know how to enjoy the short periods of free time to an outstanding degree. And things always work out anyway, even if there is no plan at all. All it takes is patience and time :-) This doesn't mean that I don't freak out anymore about unorganised and stuborn Russians!
Simona told me this hysterical story from her last camping adventure: They arrived at the lake and hundreds of hungry mosquitos were ready to eat them. Having grown up in Europe, Simona started hunting and killing mosquitos, and happend to hit one of the guys three times rather fast and hard. After the third time he gave her a disapproving look and informed her that there is no need to hit so fast and hard... Russian mosquitos are not fast at all! :-))) (They are smart however: I still havent found the one that kept me awake till 5am Sunday night!!!)

All right, I'm writing too much again... I did a great sightseeing trip on Monday and I'm more than happy to inform you that I'm the proud owner (well, part-time caretaker) of a wonderful black cat called Mishka. His owner will be traveling for some time and I'm the lucky one who got the cat. Don't tell him that I really wanted the cat... I would lose my advantageous position ;-) Mishka is currently checking out my appartment and I'm trying to teach him that my bed is a forbidden zone. I'm sure though that he forgot about it this morning no later than 5 secondes after I walked out of the door! :-(

Have a great week!


Vasilevskiy Ostrov
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Vasilevskiy Ostrov


Gorkovskaya


On the lap of Peter the Great :-)


St. Peter and Paul Fortress


View at Hermitage, St. Isaac's Cathedral and Birzhevaya Ploshchad


Neva


Poser Anna on top of St. Peter and Paul Fortress


Watching the sunset from my appartment


Mishka, my new flatmate

The trip to "Ladoga"

This past weekend certainly had a bad start, which caused me to have my "I HATE RUSSIA-5 minutes"! As you might know, some AIESECers had planned to go to lake Ladoga on Friday evening with two cars to spend the weekend camping in the forest. I was on my way to the meeting point (well, I was just having a little pee break in the toilet...) when I got the really exciting phone call from Yulya, who informed me that there was only one car going and it was already full! Yay! One driver had refused to drive Friday evening! Couldn't he have thought about it when we asked him the evening before??? However, all the people had the alternatives to go by train in the evening or by car the next morning. Zhenya and I decided to take the train, which in the end seems to have been a good choice: Simona (who was one of the lucky people in the evening car) told me ALL about the difficulties they had meeting everybody, going to the supermarket to buy the food and finding the way... So, Zhenya and I arrived about 20 min earlier than the others in the car :-) although we had left later. Note that the train station was called Komarovo which means mosquito...

Russia is a big country and in contrary to Germany it is no problem to park your car somewhere in the forest, set up a tent and make a great campfire. I m okay with that, especially with the last part :-) Ignoring the murdering crowd of mosquitos, we had a really nice fire and lots of even nicer drinks :-)
I even managed to sleep for several hours before I woke up with my feet completely frozen. Poor Tyoma and Vitja had not slept all night long, but had gone fishing (for the result see the pictures below). Of course, after a week of exams, stressful weekend plannings and a night without sleep it is rather difficult to concentrate on things... It turned out that they had closed the car with the keys and all the food inside! We were especially unhappy about not being able to have breakfast!!! So one girl, who was the driver of the morning car, took Tyoma to the "Datsha" where his father was, get the keys to the appartment in the city, take the 2nd keys for the car, return the keys to his father and come back to the lake. :-)

To give you a full picture of camping in the forest, OF COURSE, there are no toilets (but millions of hungry mosquitos) and no water besides the lake. No problem :-) I happy to state that I m not a spoiled city chick!
I forgot to mention that it was not lake Ladoga where we went, they had changed the plan at some point without telling me :-) But it was a nice place, so, who cares!?

I passed out Saturday night in my comfy city bed for about 10 hours though! :-)
Yesterday I finally started my "culture-program" in St. Petersburg! Masha took me to the "Kunstkammer", the first museum in the city, which hosts the "chamber of curiosities"... no comments, but see the pics!


Lake "Shuchye" (It is meant to mean "Hecht" in German)
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Ania at the campfire


Zhenya doing his morning exercises


Anna enjoying the clean air :-)


Vitja trying to clean his feet


Simona brushing her teeth


Galya and Yulya on a boat trip


Zhenya still busy with the morning exercises :-) (and NO, Zhenya, you can not make fire by just pointing at it!!! It was MY work!)


Lesha preparing firewood


Anna, Tyoma and Ania finally preparing lunch


Lesha, Vitja, Tyoma and Simona waiting for the "shashlikiy"


The first fish is ready! Yummy!


In the chamber of curiosities


Kunstkammer