We have gas back on in our apartment. YEA! The workers woke us up twice the other night, first to have us turn the gas spigots off, then later to have us turn them back on and make sure it was working. They don’t come to work early, but they certainly stay late when necessary. They have also repaired the mess they made and things are looking great.
Thursday the Lunas (the office couple training us), the McArthurs (church education) and Phil and I took the day off since we won’t have Saturday off this week (training meetings for all the branch presidents in the mission). So we all trooped down to the Hermitage—the Romanov Palace that has been turned into an art museum. The building itself is a massive work of art, and it was meant to be. The walls and floors are fantastic—dripping in architectural splendor and decorative wealth meant to impress. No expense was spared, in spite of the fact that the rest of the vast majority of Russia was nothing more than collections of hovels. I figure we could go to the Hermitage once a week the whole time we are here and still not see everything. We will definitely go back again. The first Thursday of every month is free for Russians and cheaper for foreigners, although we got in free because there was such a crush of people at the cashier’s. The poor woman just gave up trying to tell who was foreign and who wasn’t and handed us free tickets since the Americans couldn’t hear or understand that she was asking for payment. After the tour, we walked around a bit and found a Georgian restaurant where we ate a late lunch. The portions were small and it was fairly expensive, but it tasted fine. We got home just after 4 pm and flopped on the couch. My foot was killing me and I’d developed an incredible headache that lasted the whole evening. Not sure what “spices” they put in my soup, but I won’t eat there again.
When we got off the downtown Metro, we were lucky enough to see a long convoy of spanking new Army vehicles parading down the street on the way to the main square. They obviously are going to be part of the big national May 9th celebration on Monday. May 9,, 1945, was the end of the Great Patriotic War against Germany that freed Russia and all Eastern Europe from Fascism. They mentally and emotionally exist in the great moments of WWII and this is the biggest celebration of the year except maybe for the national binge that takes place on New Year’s. This is very akin to our 4th of July. The TV channels are full of old war movies celebrating the Great Patriotic War and the blockade of Leningrad (now called St. Petersburg). I wish I could understand Russian so I could watch some of these historical shows. I will say that if Jay Leno went Jay Walking here in Russia, everyone would be able to tell him why they celebrate May 9th. They do know their history on this one. I remember Leno asking Americans why we celebrate July 4th and the answers made you want to deport people to Antarctica—things like, “to celebrate fireworks?” It was unbelievable. And those people, unfortunately, looked intelligent.
It was fun to walk around St. Petersburg a little. I hardly felt like I was in a Russian city. There are canals that weave through that part of the city like in Venice and the buildings look more like what we saw in Prague than in the rest of Russia. There are so many things to see in St. Petersburg, I doubt I will get to them all while we are here.
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