From Russia with Love: Diary 3

Welcome to my travel diaries from my Russian travels in Dec-Jan 2018! These seven posts are a collection of photos and memories from the trip! To start from Diary 1 click here :)

To see photos enlarged, click on them and they will open in a pop-up and you can continue clicking through the gallery until it's finished! [P.S. I would recommend reading and scrolling on a desktop computer because images are larger and the webpage itself is more functional]

Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy <3

Tuesday 19 December

{ 23:29 }

Woke up at 7:33am and went out at 10:23am.

This morning we set off to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. On the way, we walked by Pushkin's apartment and Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant. Interesting contrasts.

When we got to the church, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was. It seemed like it was carved out of wood, and tiled with beautifully vibrant icons. It looks amazing, even with a grey sky as the backdrop.

We took a tour through it and found out how Peter the Great (I think) was assassinated on the very road that the church is built on. It even has a little square of the actual road from the 1700's which they have kept 'unbuilt' since it is a sort of memorial for him. Every inch of the interior is covered in mosaics. Even the ceiling. I can’t explain how beautiful it is.

After being awed by the amazing memorial church, we walked through the Mihailovsky garden.

Had a photoshoot with the snow covered ground. While walking through there was a little lake and it was completely frozen over! We were so surprised to find water completely frozen.

It was so cold at -4 degrees. After our stroll through the snowy gardens, we walked to Nevsky Prospect. To hide from the cold we walked into gostinyi dvor and we decided we wanted hot chocolate. There was a super funky vending machine that makes hot drinks. So Toni got some but when I was inserting the money, the vending machine ate 5 roubles, didn't let me put extra change into it and didn't give any drink! I was kinda sad but by absolute chance Mama saw the machine workers when we were walking away and asked for the change. They gave back the 5 rubles (which is literally like 10 cents) and I also got a hot chocolate drink for free!!!! So nice :)

Walked through the shop then decided to visit the famous horse statues on the bridge. They are super impressive 👌

When we were crossing a light, there was a loud bang and young boys were running away. Apparently it sounded like a firework going off, but honestly it was scary. Eeek

Tempers were running a little loose but we walked into the Zingers bookshop again. I also found a Russian star wars novel thing which was very tempting. Might buy it tomorrow.

Afterwards we stopped at Zara and I found a bunch of dresses to try on. A tight velvet green one was so nice but it had a hole in it so nope because Zara doesn't want to give discounts. I got a short flowery one which I really like the sleeves and top bit of. Even though I have double checked its a dress (and not a long shirt like my sister keeps saying), I'm still doubting it. Typical.

For lunch we went to a restaurant called Hamlet + Jacks, and it was a gastronomical experience.

We went expecting nothing extravagant but were served with interesting presentations and flavours. We got set lunch menus that were about $20 per person for 2 meals.

Home rest sleep.

Briefly had a distant relative over for afternoon tea. Then we were off to the Mariinsky theatre!

Since we walked all the way there, we were almost late and the four of us were feeling stressed. We brought a change of shoes in my backpack as we couldn't walk all the way there in heeled boots and it was a bit of a mess when we had to check our coats in, change into heels in narrow corridor seating all the while being in a massive rush.

The performance was ok. It was the only performance we could get tickets to in this season. It was the graduating concert of the Vaganova ballet school.

I didn't like the choreography very much, but the lead girl was absolutely stunning! The guy though, he tripped and it looked like he rolled his ankle while he was lifting her in the air. Ouch.

The theatre itself is beautiful, even the greenish, mint hue of it was nice.

There was such a rush from everyone in the theatre after the concert to get to their homes, it was a mess on the narrow path outside the theatre. We luckily caught a taxi back home.

Supper of cheese, ham, suxari and chocolate milk.

The fam chilled and talked and discussed the wonderful happenings of the day.

Toni is letting me sleep on the bed again. Thank you <3

Wednesday 20 December

As we descended the stairs to the entrance of the apartment building, we get told by a fellow resident that roof tiles are falling.

Huh?

We open the door to the street and WHABAM it's raining with the roof tiles. Imagine being hit on the head with one of those things. You could get a legit concussion.

Dad shouts to the workers on the roof to stop so we can run to the cafe 10 meters from the apartment building.

We went to a vegetarian cafe for breakfast and it was pretty good. I was so full after a huge mug of coffee, an omelette and pancakes.

We went back to the apartment to ready ourselves for the long day of journeying through a huge, historically saturated museum and then headed out. (Did I mention we lived a 3 minute walk away from the Hermitage? Amazing.)

It was snowing lightly as we strolled to the white, gold and green palace, the Hermitage. It was a magical entrance.

Words can't describe how beautiful it was so here is a photo-story for you to enjoy...

Lunch Caesar salad was the best salad I ever had in my entire life. No joke.

Toni got a sandwich

Two cakes to share

Coffee and tea

Seeing an exhibition dedicated to the revolution, in which the point was to remove the imperial bloodline, inside the home of the royalty is really bewildering.

The exhibit is curated so well, that each item displayed really reflects the lives of the royal family.

And the history of the objects, the meaning each one has. Ugh so much history.

So many rooms, it's so amazing.

Went back to the apartment, feeling culturally oversaturated.

Mama and papa went to meet up with friend for dinner while Tonia and me stayed at home chilling after a long tiring day.

Thursday 21 December

Packing in the morning was very calm and not at all hectic, quite literally.

Breakfast was all the leftovers.

When we went for a walk outside, everything was covered in snow from the night before. Us being little kids, we were in a heavenly winter wonderland.

We went to Pushkin's last apartment where he died after his last duel. It was amazing and the tour guide we had was so passionate about his life and work.

I finally appreciated how magnificent his work really is. He cannot be compared to Shakespeare or any other great English poet, because he just manipulates the Russian language so beautifully. It seems like the words flow out of his pen onto the paper effortlessly and naturally.

It was getting late and we had to get to the train station, so we inelegantly had to excuse ourselves from the tour group to take a taxi to the train station.

Then it was the train to Moscow, then another to Kazan.

It got dark very quickly so we couldn't see much outside. But there was lots of food again so we weren't bored.

Dragged our belongings off the train with the objective to get to the Kazan station with our gypsy amount of suitcases, which was on the other side of the road (luckily there was an underground walkway).

The train stations are really impressive and pretty! All the architecture and décor makes it looks like a museum. The ceiling of the business lounge actually reminded me of the Hermitage.

It was about 19:30 and we quickly decided to pay for the business lounge so we could wait, for another 3 hours before the train, departed in peace.

Compared to the outside seating area, it was super quiet and relaxing.

Then train to Kazan at 23:08.

We bought tickets for the 'business class' wagon, so there are only two people sleeping in each small room as opposed to four. I can't imagine how cramped it would be with four people!

The waiter took our order for breakfast, and we got the traditional tea with lemon before bed.

Got ready for bed.

I couldn’t sleep for the longest time. Although the train really crawls along the tracks compared to Sapsan (the high speed one from St Petersburg), it's kinda noisy and the cabin rocks around a lot.

I know it sounds like I'm very spoilt :') but I'm a light sleeper so the rocking really didn't help. It was VERY smart of us to leave the blinds up [insert sarcastic voice]. Whenever the train would pass through a station, huge spotlights literally blinded us every 3 seconds.

// Thank you for reading part 3! \\