inside the wonderful world of vee

Alrighty, then. What’d I do today? Today was my first official day being entirely alone. Bonnie and Sarah went off to the cleaners and walked around and did some English book shopping and such. I went to the Reina Sofia, where I spent… I think around four hours. Pretty good for a museum. It was a confusingly laid out museum because a lotta random parts of it were closed down, but the one Maquinas Y Almas exhibit is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. Definitely the most amazing thing I’ve seen when it comes to modern / contemporary art. AMAZING.

But before I got to the Reina Sofia, I was wandering a bit and stumbled across this row of outdoor used book sales tables. I started looking through them. Was going to buy an extraterrestrial sightings book but decided not to. Then I saw some Jane Austen? (maybe?) book and was going to buy it because I like to buy books to translate to learn languages. It wasn’t too hard to read and as a result, seemed really good as a potential translation match. But as I was flipping through it and reading maybe a page or two, this crotchety old woman came up to me and started muttering a bunch of shit and saying that I can’t read it if I’m not going to buy it or some crap. She literally pulled the book out of my hand and slammed it back on the table. I wish I knew better Spanish because I would have actually said something useful as an argument. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

Well, I was peeving the whole way to the Reina Sofia but luckily Maquinas Y Almas picked up my spirits. By chance, it was the first room I went into in the Reina Sofia even though it was strangely places. Hell, though, everywhere in that godamn museum is strangely placed. I mean…………………….. they have four floors, but the only floors shit is on are PART of the first floor (where Maquinas Y Almas was), the second floor, and the fourth floor. What the shite? There was also a half area that was blocked off… not officially with rope or anything, but with a person sitting there telling you you weren’t allowed to walk over there. Frankly, it was all kinda fucking weird.

But Maquinas Y Almas picked up my spirits from the first piece I saw in there. Go to ____________________ to read my review about it, cause it’s a helluva a lot better than me trying to write it again. Lol.

The rest of it was OK. Saw the famous Picasso “Guernica” and some Dali pieces. Nothing else was amazingly mind-blowing after the Maquinas exhibit, though, so that’s too bad. Picasso and Dali both did have a lot more diverse portfolios than I had given them credit for, though, so that was definitely a thumbs up.

That evening, Sarah, Bonnie, and I went to a local supermarket and bought some foods. We went to a Carrefour Express which Sarah had seen. Got some Asparagus and Cauliflower Crème Soup, a beautifully packaged Carrefour brand mango lassi, some Meditteranean flavored canned tuna, tea-flavored water which I’d been eyeing for a while, and some canned marinated clams. CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. The mango lassi was like the most expensive thing. But shit was gooooooooooooooood (mango lassi = Indian smoothie type drink).

On the way back, we stopped by a FRUTAS Y VERDERAS (OR SOMETHING) MARKET. Fruits are ridiculously cheap. The banana for 0.85 EURO wasn’t particularly. Nor is an avocado for 0.99 EURO. But onions? Apples? All like 0.20 EURO each. Fucking bargainish. MONEY.

We went back, invaded the kitchen, and cooked some foods. I heated up my tuna and made some soup. Sarah had a red bell pepper which she stir-fried with garlic, and Bonnie had an eggplant she stir-fried with chili, garlic, and onions. Word.

Got harassed towards the end of our meal by two Aussie guys Bonnie really didn’t like. Turns out a lot of northernish Aussies think that the southern Aussies are um, a little off.

Later that night, I went into the kitchen and those two guys were there along with these three other Aussies (a guy named Scott who was traveling by himself for a year and a married couple). The married couple and Scott were cool. The other two guys were nice and fine but they got bit very drunk. Brendan got so drunk he was like a walking zombie and while sitting in the kitchen, leaned over the spit on the godamn hostel floor! We were all not cool with it. His friend kept muttering shite about how he had to babysit that guy and had to travel with him and how it was terrible.

We went out to a pub after, right next to the hostel. Not like I drink, but I went anyway. Brendan continued to pass out at the table. The other people were cool, though.

After that Brendan’s friend had hash, so him and married husband guy smoked some. Scott, wifee, and I left early. I obviously only know a couple names here. @__@

How they scored the hash, though, I guess, was they went to this website… I forgot the name of it… but it basically told you how to get weed no matter what country you’re in. It told them to go to a certain bus stop in Madrid and then lift up an eyebrow at a black dude there. And it actually fucking worked! The black dude sold them some hash for I guess like 30 EURO. I don’t know how much. But I can’t believe that website exists and WORKS. That’s so funny.

Then there was bed. The end.

Alright, so, like I said, I had to meet Tin-Win and Sherry at the hotel. The guy at the front desk said, “Are you going to live there?” and I said, “No,” even though I had a shitload of baggage with me. He obviously didn’t believe me, because he said, “If you’re going to live with them, you have to pay extra,” and I said, “OK.”

That evening after I got there, we went and walked around a little………. first stop… dinner. Appropriate. Dinner was this small restaurant. We got there kinda early, and I think it opened at 8PM, so we sat around for a bit and waited for it to open up. When it finally opened, the waitress was really nice and explained things to us because the menu was in Catalan and Spanish and we obviously can’t read the whole godamn thing. She had good English. We also asked her for some suggestions of shit to do, and she went out of her way and tried really hard to find us interesting things to go to. Very nice of her.

We had some bachalau and really rich mushroom pasta and some other stuff. It was fairly tasty and not too expensive. Not too expensive at all. Sherry and Tin-Win got a set meal that came with a whole! bottle! of! wine! and it was okay. Actually, it was gross, because wine is gross. But it is okay in terms of price, because it was a fucking bargain! Actually, most food in Spain is a fucking bargain. I am a fan. This place is definitely way cheaper than elsewhere in Europe… I mean, I think anyway.

After that, we went to La Rambla and just walked around a little. There was this famous? cafe? there and we went outside it and sat on a street bench. Didn’t buy anything although all these people had a red drink and we were trying to figure out the whole time what the red drink was. Anyway, the bench fit three people. It was divided in half. The three of us sat on the left half, and the right half was empty. At some point, a chubby dude with glasses comes and sits down next to us. He has a flyer. He wants to know where so-and-so place is. This, by the way, is like the second time someone has asked us or me for directions. When I first got to Barcelona and was running through the EXTREMELY HOT subway, some guy stopped to ask me for directions. More of those to come later in Spain as well. Apparently, we look like we know what we’re doing, even when we don’t.

Anyway, guy sits down. He has an interesting accent. We ask him where he’s from. He’s Russian. But he doesn’t have the hot Russian accent, so what good is he?!!! He’s asking around and trying to find out where the bar is, but no dice. No one knows. Everyone’s a tourist. I tell him I’ll go with him, because I can translate, because he doesn’t know any Spanish. We approach a group of people, but he insists on speaking English… it’s a group of relatively young kids from Guadalajara, Spain. Apparently, only one of them knows how to speak enough English to answer us. He tells us he doesn’t know, though, cause he’s a tourist, too. Hell, most Spanish tourists are Spanish. It’s pretty fucking weird.

So we approach an Indian dude standing near the Metro. He doesn’t speak English.

So we approach a taxi driver, and he knows what’s up. We return to the group. This Russian guy without hot Russian accent is, by the way, there with two of his friends. They work for CitiBank or some shit and are there for training. Why doesn’t he have a hot accent? He’s Russian, but lived in New Zealand for seven years. His name is also weird. It’s Maxim. Anyway, I’m really interested by all this, because, I just went to Russia, and well, he’s a random stranger and random strangers are fun. Tin-Win and Sherry, however, don’t seem to be amused or enthused at all. Maxim’s friends, Vladimir and Dmitry (nice Russian names… Dmitry joked that we can call Vlad “Putin”), were there with him as well. They didn’t really talk to us… Dmitry said a couple lines, but the other guy didn’t say anything.

Maxim wanted us to go with them but Tin-Win and Sherry didn’t want to, of course. I can’t wholly blame them, because it didn’t seem that exciting anyway, but it was just funny how much they didn’t even want to talk to them. Finally, Sherry said that we would walk with them halfway and we would part ways then.

Along the way, Maxim said that he wanted to say something to Sherry. Sherry was jokingly scared. He asked if he could be honest. What he said next is not, I don’t think, what any of us were expecting.

He started off by saying that I was cool and supportive and open and easy to get along with. He said that was the good stuff. Then he said that Tin-Win was supportive of me, because although Tin-Win didn’t want to go out, she said, “If you want to, I will.”

He said that Sherry seemed defensive and insecure. Interesting. o__O

The only (primarily) funny part was that after he said that, half an hour later, Sherry was still saying, “I can’t believe he said that!” which kind of, in some ways, proves his point. Ha ha? But yeah, kinda weird that he said that stuff to begin with.

What was also funny is that he couldn’t believe our English was so good. He’s not the only one, we would soon find out. Many Europeans are quite amazed when Asian people have good English! It’s quite funny. We said he was American, and he’s like, “But you look Asian!” How to we even respond to that?!!!!

lip piercing infection hath temporarily caused vacation to take a turn for the worse. off to the supermarket i go, at 9am, in hopes that they: 1) are open and 2) have sea salt for me to soak my piercing with. BLoOrG, I SAY! BLoOrG!!!

just a uber quick note from the denmark airport where i’ll be for the next 800 years. my flight is at 2:20pm. i got here at 9am. thus, i had to pay 80 denmark kroner for 4 hours, which is equivalent to about $15 usd. which is actually exceptionally cheap for an airport. and after being on the cruise, it’s like a fucking STEAL. D: D: D:

anyway. more updated posts about oslo, norway (AMAZING!!!) and well, i guess that’s it ^_^

Didn’t see much in Copenhagen… all I saw was the view from the bus… weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Real fun. But the bus driver was talking about Copenhagen, and that was interesting, cause he was quite proud of the city. I mean, why wouldn’t he be? It’s awesome. It’s Socialist. Sign me up. He was talking about how there are like 10 million bikes there. I’m quite very impressed by Copenhagen’s biking system. The bikes have their own signals on major streets! That’s insanity! But in a good way, definitely. I’ve never seen a city with so much attention paid to cyclists. And there are all kinds of cyclists, too… from the anal kind who wear skin-tight clothing to the women who are biking with high heels on. Awesome.

Well, I took the shuttle to the airport from the cruise. Twas like a half hour ride. When we got there, Hans Christian greeted us. He said that if we had questions to ask, to ask him. So I said, “I have a question,” and he said, “Yes?” and I said, “Is Hans Christian a popular name?”

Ho ho ho.

I’m so funny.

Anyway, I got to the airport at like. 9:30 @__@ My flight was at 14:20. @__@ And boarding was 13:50. They didn’t post the gate until 13:30. Ridiculous, Copenhagen airport!

Here’s my entry from the airport:
I must say, I feel pretty freaking strange flying out of the Copenhagen airport to Barcelona. Judging from passport, I’m pretty much the only non-Danish person here. Or at the very least, non-Scandanavian. AKA I’m the only Asian person. Not even that… but the only like, etchnic non-Caucasian person, period (Spaniards being hard to distinguish).

And here’s my entry from the plane… sin accentos porque no puedo hacerlo:
Finalmente entiendo porque volando en Europa es demasiado barata! Todos cosas cuestan monedas! Por ejemplo, un jamon y queso SANDWICH es 5 Euros. Un agua? 1.5 Euros. No puedes tener mas que una carry-on. El dos cuesta 22 Euros o similar. Es 14:30. No comi nada mucho desde… 6:45. Y 6:45 comi solamente tres PIECES de WATERMELON y un huevo de tipo “sunny side-up.” Tengo muy muy hambre!!!! Y no se cuando debo usar mi espanol porque mi espanol no es bueno, pero, quien hablan ingles? No estoy seguro cual es el menor – mi espanol o sus ingles. Pues, voy a ver en Barcelona. Antes de ahora, siente muy EXCITED a ver si ya se espanol, pero ahora, estoy nerviosa porque estaran muchas anos que hablo espanol (sin cuando eva y yo tenemos los “dias de espanol” y cuando alex y yo hablamos espanol en la casa – pero en estes situaciones, siempre usamos los mismo palabras y nadie… sabia espanol muy bien… es como, “THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND.” No es practiccar realmente, solamente es un poco divertido.) Escribando este ahora es similar, pero estoy usando palabras que no use mucho. Pero, no se si los CONJUGATIONS son correctos o no. Problamente no. Haha. Sobre una otra nota, espero que no voy a morir porque estoy sobre un vuela de Spanair, y el mes previosa, muchas personas orien sobre una vuela de Spanair. Una otra cosa. Mi padre me cuenta que en Europa, el ELECTRICITY es el mismo, y no necesito un ADAPTOR especial. No es la verdad!! Compre INTERNET en el aeropuerto por 80 Danish Kroner ($15 USD)… por cuatro horas. Use esto para dos horas cuando mi BATTERY morio. No use dos horas. El ADAPTOR cuesta $50 USD; no compre. Estaba en Europa es mucha mucha cara. No puedo lo AFFORD. Yo REGRET EXTENDING mi viaje una semana. Y voy a Japon tambien! No voy a tener monedas T__T Ayo.

So now it’s nighttime at the hotel. From the airport, I had to take the train and then the metro to get to the hotel. It wasn’t so bad, just took like, an hour. I was supposed to meet Tinwin and Sherry downstairs at 6:30 but I didn’t get there til 7:00, and they went upstairs already, and I was confused, so I asked the front desk where they were. BAD IDEA.

More about this later @__@ Gotta go to bed now! Ta ta.

Oh man. What to say about Oslo other than it’s great and very expensive?!! From the first moment you land in Oslo, it’s a little different from landing in the other ports. Other ports are a bit secluded and segregated from the city. In the case of Oslo, though, the port is located right next to an old fortress, and that view alone gives Oslo a homey feeling…

It’s ten minutes to town once you get off the ferry. Walking. Everything is fairly compact. There are only about 4.5 million people in Oslo, with 1/5 of them having summer houses either on the waters, in the woods, or similar. Quite a few of those houses don’t even have connection to electricity (same in Sweden, Finland…) and are pretty much just for nature retreats. Fairly amazing, really.

When we first arrived in Oslo, we took a quick trip through the town on the bus and then headed over to the Vigeland Sculpture Park, where Erik Vigeland created hundreds of sculptures depicting different scenes from birth until death. Some of my favorites were these four pieces that were atop a white column… made of some kind of white stone… possibly marble. Those pieces were on each end of the park. Each end on two. On the end we came in on, there was one of a woman embracing a lizard-like beast and one of a woman fighting off a lizard-like beast. On the other end of the park were the same images, but with men. The image tells of either accepting fate or fighting fate. I liked these pieces immensely.

Door to the sculpture park.

Rejecting fate.

Embracing fate.

Many other great pieces were visible in the park… all good times. GOOD TIMES.

A view down the row.

“I GOT POOPS IN MY HAIR!”

I like these old people.

Beautimous.

Sagittarius.

After that, we went to the Holmenkollen (?) ski jump, the most famous ski jump in the world… although they’re planning to tear it down and replace it. Oops.

ZE JUMP!

Then we went to the Open Air Museum. Oslo has this little island with like 5 museums on it. All of the museums are pretty unique and pretty distinct to Norway. We had originally planned to go to the Viking Ship Museum, but I really wanted to go to the Open Air Museum because it’s a little more unique. Basically, old houses from throughout Norway’s different eras were dismantled and brought in for a park dedicated to Norway’s former architecture. Many of the houses were just simple farmhouses or barns and weren’t particularly exciting. The main attraction was a stave church, an intricate wood-carved church that was the first thing we saw upon entering. Inside were some faded remnants of paintings, and very little light. Apparently the church is used to this day as a popular wedding chapel. I dig it.

Wedding chapel church.

Inside the wedding chapel church.

They tried to make it all cute and ‘real’ farmlike. Aww.

Like I said… farm-like.

I thought this was cool.

My mom and I. I like reflection pics. Sucka.

Thus concluded the tour. When we went back, I wanted to explore that little fortress thing, so I prepared to go. Dad wasn’t up for more walking and I didn’t really think mom was either, so I said I’d go by myself. NOT ALLOWED. You don’t know the time, my mom said. I said, THERE’S TWO HOURS LEFT! IT’S RIGHT THERE! But no, still, she had to tag along, but she didn’t want to be there, so it made things slow and awkward. She kept telling me to walk ahead and then towards the end said, “I’ll stay here, you go on ahead.” What’s the point? Just go back. Jesusssss.

And so that was Oslo. Again, no idea what the Norwegian people are like, which is unfortunate. What I do know is that they are the third largest exporter of gas… after Saudi Arabia and Russia… and that shit there is EXPENSIVE. It’s about $12 for a regular bottle of beer!! And that’s local beer, not even exotic beers! Pretty crazy.

Pulling away from the docks.

But I would live in any of those countries – Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland – in a fucking heartbeat. Too bad I can’t afford to live there. And it’s probably not easy to live there anyway. What can a girl do?

Ahh, Poland, practically known only for Auschwitz and Warsaw. Which is why it was to my utmost surprised that Gdansk is Poland’s largest city, and one of the most thriving ports in the Baltic Sea area. WTF? I’ve never even heard of this place. Although I’m sure the number of places I’ve never heard of is certainly up there.

The drive to Gdansk from Poland was rather far, as Gdansk is inland and the boat actually parks in Gdynia, not Gdansk.

Gdansk is a pretty old city, dating back 1,000 years. Lots of brick buildings, and it was one of the earliest ports in the area, so it had a brick building that was what was formerly a crane used to lift up items from ships, I reckon. But the cranes are obviously nothing like the cranes we have now. They’re giant building with what is like two giant hamster wheels inside… and each wheel would have three people – the larger the better – in it, that would walk and thereby pull things up. Haha??

The black thing is the old crane!!!

They also had a lot of medieval buildings in Gdansk, that were destroyed or covered up. Archaeologists make their way into the place often, as Gdansk has a lot of uncovered buildings in the city center area. The old part of the city has been reconstructed in recent times based on these archaeologists’ researches, and very little of the buildings are original. It’s easy to distinguish between the old parts of the buildings (darker, hand-crafted bricks) and the newer parts of the buildings (lighter, machine-made bricks).

Dutch-influenced architectures!

And then some.

BEAUTIMOUS!

The archaeologists dig up these old buildings and look very much for medieval toilets, where many of the buildings sunk into. The toilets, pits of what was poop and piss, manage to preserve things very well… including their smells. Haha! I guess they pull artifacts out of those poop holes all the time though, now that they’re excavating them.

Church under construction!

Gdansk also had Dutch influence, so in its main shopping strip area, the architecture is kind of random and Dutch and all over the place. Very cute and brightly painted, with every building a little different… some with just fancy trim, others with sculptures popping out of its facade… shit, I don’t know. Pictures doth sayeth a lot more than I.

Church.

While in the main square, this Ah-Yi was standing next to me and some dirty, possibly homeless but possibly just dirty, guy stood next to her and kept staring at her, supposedly. It freaked her out and she’s like, “This guy keeps staring at me,” and moved away behind me. She walked away. I looked up and he was now staring at me, so I said hello to him, and he made little conversation. He said hello, how are you, and I answered and such, but then he said some other thing and I didn’t understand… and he said, “Of course.” [?] I have no idea. But I must say… I don’t know if this is a good thing or not, but I am certainly not scared of speaking to strangers with staring problems. I mean some people are pretty obviously people you don’t want to talk to, but as far as the like, kinda dirty, slightly nutty, possibly homeless people, I find them to be generally harmless if you speak with them with the correct tone of voice or something. I’m not sure quite how to explain it, but I pretty much think I have a good way with the afflicted. Or maybe it’s just because I’m not afraid of them. I’m not sure…

After that, we drive like 1 hour (I slept unfortunately… not sure why I was so tired today) to Malbork Castle in Malbork, Poland. It’s the largest brick castle in the world or something. Pretty trippy. Created by monks, I believe… monks who were better warriors than religious men. They were apparently not the brightest light bulbs in the bunch, as supposedly all they had to do to get in was learn the Lord’s Prayer in 6 months time. Rofls.

The castle!

Gate!

Moat? Ex-moat!

The castle itself was taken over by Nazis (godamn they took over everyone and everything) and so the Soviets bombed the castle immensely. The castle is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and although it had been destroyed in many places, the Polish government has slowly been restoring it. In 1990, the EU gave Poland $4.5 million to restore a wall that was crumbling… which was supposedly quite a big step due to the fact that Poland was not even in the EU at the time.

Hot castle.

There is a church in the castle that is pretty much in shambles, but they are not yet sure if UNESCO will have the funds to give them to restore the church. Frankly, I don’t think it should be restored. To me, part of the beauty of it is that it is in a state of disarray. I mean, there’s already SO MANY churches to look at in Europe, with so many of them being the same. This church, though old, is no real exception. It’s in the classic Gothic style and frankly doesn’t have that much more to offer. But the fact that it is in shambles gives it some personality some other churches don’t have, and its history is worn on its sleeve… not so the case if it were to be restored.

I got this cool shot… or at least I hope it is cool… I didn’t have that much time to take it… of plants overtaking this church’s Gothic paned window. I had to go back especially to get it, because the imagery and message seemed to convey so much to me. ^_^ Wish I had had more time to get a perfect shot, though. The castle required you to buy a sticker that cost 5 Euro if you wanted to take a photo, so I didn’t buy one… so I didn’t take pics really (I snuck one in but then I felt bad) even though it would have been pretty easy to take pics sneakily. I guess someone’s camera broke, though, so my mom managed to get that person’s pass and I went back to the church to take that photo.

The church the church, of course, of course. Mmmm.

And I leave you with a quote from our tour guide today…
“And so you shall follow me, as Mother Goose her ducklings.”

I must say that I certainly had not expected going to Estonia anywhere in the near future of my existence, but going to Estonia was certainly an educational experience.

James’ dad decided to walk into town in Estonia because it was only a mile off from the port. I would have done that, too, but my parents are the touring type and they’d never let me go on my own, so that’s that.

Upper Town of Tallinn.

The tour basically took us on a spin around the forests of Tallinn and then to its Old Town, which is basically the only thing to see there. It’s certainly a nice-looking Old Town, though, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, I do believe.

View into Lower Town.

There’s an Upper Town and a Lower Town in Old Town, and all of the roads are cobblestone. Busses are not allowed through. There is limited vehicle access. And frankly, there’s not that much to look at other than interesting scenery. As a town, Tallinn is very old, dating as far back as 5,000 years ago, supposedly. The things we saw in the town itself obviously were not that old, although some of the buildings dated back as far as 1400 or so, which is pretty crazy.

View into Lower Town.

Essentially the whole stay in Tallinn consisted of looking at the Old Town and shopping. Pretty boring, but it was a unique setting with cone-roofed buildings. Lots of brick. Haven’t quite seen architecture like what was in Tallinn, so that alone made it worth visiting, I reckon.

FUN SCHTUFF!

Other parents bitched about the cost of the tour since it was only a mile off from the port, but the part that we paid for was basically the tour guide’s description of Estonia, which was a unique take. Estonia has had quite the rocky history through its lifespan, being conquered by other countries again and again and again. It was owned by Germans, Swedes, Russians, etc. Yet, funnily enough, its closest neighbors and language cousins are the Finnish… in fact, between Helsinki and Tallinn runs a ferry that comes every couple hours, and as mentioned by both the Finnish guide and the Estonian guide, about every 1 out of 3 Finnish people head to Estonia every year, and that it is almost a hip and relaxing thing to do to head over to Tallinn to get a haircut or shop, where things are notably cheaper. Now, if Estonia ever catches up to Helsinki in price, I’m not sure that these new cruiseliners will be able to sustain themselves quite as well, but who knows.

So basically, Estonia was ruled by other people up until the 1920s. During 1918 through 1920, they fought Russia for independence and held their ground. So Russia signed a treaty that they would never occupy Estonia again. Estonia saw a couple decades of free rule in the 1920s and 30s. At that time, they were on par economically (supposedly) with their Scandinavian neighbors. They were a democracy. But then Russians broke their agreement and again occupied Estonia. Estonia came under Communist rule.

The Nazis also occupied Estonia sometime during WWII, but compared to the Soviets, the Estonians do not seem to consider the Nazis AS bad. Our guide was very much trashing on Russians and Communism. After Estonia became a free nation, he said that people started asking the Estonians, “Well, how are you treating the Russians?” because under Communism, Russians had treated Estonians badly, suppressing their national flag and bringing in as many Russians as they could to Tallinn. The idea for bringing in Russians was that if they brought in enough Russians, the Russians would be the majority, and it would be more difficult for the Estonian people to fight for independence from Russia when most of their inhabitants were Russian. Quite the diabolical plan, although it never happened because the Soviets were forced to leave before that was fully accomplished. Tallinn does certainly still have a prevalent Russian population, but Estonian is the sole national language now and the guide claims that due to school segregations and allowing Russians to keep their Orthodox church, it’s obvious that the Estonian people treat the Russians in Estonia just fine… and that their only problems with Russians come from Russians in Moscow. Due to human nature and the fact that our guide is Estonian (which he also mentioned might contribute to his take on the matter), I can’t believe that Estonian people would absolutely be tolerant of Russians, but who knows, maybe?

There was a lot of talk about how terrible life was under Russian rule… long lines, little food, etc. Classic. But he said people like from his grandparents’ generation remembered what it was like to live under a democracy, and that that kept their hope alive.

Our first stop in Estonia was also this little stadium where they hold a Song Festival every 3 years or something. They sing traditional folk songs, which are significant to Estonian history because those events were still held when Estonians were under Communist rule. Communist leaders liked large group events, and as a result, they let the Estonians have their events. They looked over the lyrics for the songs that needed to be sung, and the lyrics seemed kosher, so they let them sing the songs. Supposedly, though, under the surface, the songs held a deeper meaning for the Estonian people… and it kept hope alive? Shit, I don’t know.

Stadium!

The Estonian flag is blue, black, and white, with the colors representing sky, soil, and purity, respectively. It’s a fairly rare color combination, so during Soviet rule, the color combo was completely banned. Imagine not being able to wear a black shirt with blue pants!!

The sun comes out early in the day, after a whole lotta rain.

CAUGHT RED-HANDED SUCKA!!

Some tall stilted people on the cruise.

09/11/08

What to say about MATHAR RAHSSIA!

This entry is two days late so it might be kinda er, not as detailed as it should be but whatever

So, today the cruise docked into St. Petersburg at like 6:30am, which is when our excursion was set for. It’s funny because the cruise gets there basically right about the scheduled time people are supposed to leave for excursions. It’s kinda weird (but not funny, I guess… wrong word).

We had a two day thing in St. Petersburg planned, and it began at Peterhof Palace (pronounced more like Peter-golf). Our guide’s name was Ksenia, which is pronounced Xenia, basically. Evidently it’s the name of a flower?

Her English was good and she was obviously well-educated. She did have a Russian accent (aka HOTNESS) but her choice of wording was extremely strange. It was technically proficient but utilized words that simply aren’t utilized much in daily language. Here are some quotes:

KSENIA, ON TRAFFIC:
“Traffic can be quite intensive.”

KSENIA, ON GUIDELINES:
“The rules of the museum are very firm.”

KSENIA, ON JAMES & NANCY’S DAD PHOTOGRAPHING THINGS WHILE DRIVING:
“You will fall down. It is not possible to stand while we are driving.”

After my initial fascination with her use of language, though, I got over it and stopped documenting it unfortunately. Haha. But it was most entertaining.

Our tour guide!

Moving on.

Peterhof Palace was the former Winter Palace of Peter the Great, one of Russia’s earliest rulers. Peter the Great was assassinated by his wife, basically… she was Catherine the Great. D: Guess that sucks for him, falling in love with her at first sight and making her his queen and all. Ultimately… OWNED.

Peterhof Palace, on the outside.

As for the Palace, though… it was extraordinarily beautiful. Particularly because it was the first real taste of St. Petersburg. The Palace ran the gamut of different architectural styles, including Classical, Baroque, and… some others I unfortunately forgot. It was picture-taking heaven and hell at the same time. It was gorgeous, but photographing things in that Palace was EXTREMELY difficult.

WHY?
A few reasons.

1) FLASH. It was not allowed basically anywhere (not like I use flash anyway, because the built-in flash on the D40 blows chunks), so the only way to get a photo is to put it on long exposure.

2) LIGHTING. A lot of the places were both incandescent light (aka regular light bulbs) and sunlight, which at times caused a conflict with coloring on my camera since I shoot *everything* manually. The problem with that is because my camera has two built-in settings… one for incandescent and one for sunlight. There is not one for in-between, although I can probably customize one if I really knew how to (which I don’t). It simply makes coloring very difficult.

3) SYMMETRY. Most of the architecture in St. Petersburg relies heavily on symmetry. Both sides are generally equal… which makes lining things up extremely difficult. Generally I used a bottom rule or something to line it up, and then stood in the middle of room, but eyeballing those thing is not always very easy at all.

Shoe coverings they made us wear… don’t want to scuff up the palace!!!

Inside Peterhof.

Peterhof Palace. BOOBIE!!!!

Ahh… good ol’ room of goldenness ^__^

Basically, for every interior photo that I took in St. Petersburg, I essentially had to take it like… a minimum of five times… to be able to get a clear shot out. Generally one of these five (or two) would turn out okay after keeping composition and lighting in mind… but it was a headache. I think it was worth it, though, because I think I got a lot of really good shots out.

I like this ^__^

This method of putting photos was apparently popular at the time.

THAT BEING SAID. I’ve been noticing this of myself and possibly other people, but cameras and technology are evil, godammit. I mean, they’re great. I like them. I enjoy them. But I do think that they hamper my ability to really LOOK. I’m so busy thinking about getting a good shot – especially when not alone and on a tour type thing, where life is all rushed – that I’m not getting the whole picture. I’m getting details extremely intricately, but not everything… which is unfortunate. What can you do though.

Back to Peterhof Palace… the Palace was located on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, past suburban housing units intermixed with many, many parks. Their parks and land are generally marshy, so that digging things like Metro in St. Petersburg is a highly difficult and slow process. The ground is practically like quicksand, so great care must be taken to dig so that it doesn’t collapse in on itself. They basically have to dig deep, past the marshland and into the solid ground. Not an easy task. So although traffic is abysmal (or in Ksenia’s words, intensive), the Metro is not of a humongous help primarily because it only spans a limited space. Same with busses. So driving and traffic are ridiculous. More about that later.

G A N G S T A.

Outside of there there were some street vendors with really good-looking nesting dolls, but my parents and their friends didn’t buy any because they were looking for a good deal or something. That turned out to be a gigantic mistake, because although the street vendors were cheap and junk, they had the best goods. By far. Best looking, best quantity, best quality, best price. Keep that in mind if you ever head to St. Petersburg, I guess. As for me, no souvenirs so far except for a pack of 16 postcards that cost $3.50 USD… and a propaganda Communist-ish magnet that cost $2.50 USD. Souvenirs are generally worthless. Souvenir is also a very strangely spelled word. Try it out for yourself.

The nice dolls outside the Palace that my parents were hesitant to purchase, but later regretted!

Anyway, Peterhof was beautiful and beautiful and beautiful. And that’s about it. It also has a humongo backyard with fountains and such.

The Peterhof Gardens.

The thing about St. Petersburg is that EVERYTHING is beautiful and stylized. Practically everything is old or molded to look like it’s old. They do not spare a godamn dime in making things look beautiful via intricate buildings or humongous parks (of which there are many, many… it’s actually quite impressive) or gigantic statues and monuments. They have an extensive number of monuments dedicated to former leaders and heroes. It’s almost ridiculous. Honestly, I have never been anywhere like St. Petersburg, which seems so proud in its past and present and wears its wars and murder on its sleeve… proudly? I’m not sure if it’s proudly, but it doesn’t seem that they are denying it much.

Seriously, though… the parks. They’re insanely huge and prevalent.

After Peterhof Palace, we went to Yusupov Palace, where Rasputin was assassinated. My parents don’t know who Rasputin is, which is a little strange because practically American knows who he is… I think. D: There was this scary wax figure of Rasputin. They killed him all sneakily. Not that I remember details about this, but he was basically lured into the Palace under false pretenses (dinner or something) and then murdered via poison? in the cellar of the Palace. The Palace was recently redesigned and I pretty much found it unimpressive after Peterhof. I must say, though, it is probably self-inflicted, but being in the underground area was very um… strange feeling. Pressure, almost.

Pressure room!!!!

More fanciful things.

I like this ^__~

Theatre.

DOGWOMAN!!!

Then came lunch. Lunch was at this random little tourist trap with table after table full of tourists. I must say… having my parents with two other Asian couples together is a bit embarrassing. @__@ I must say… white parents are much easier to get on with…

TOURIST FARM!!

There was a band there called the Bis Quintet. It was fairly entertaining. There was a giant triangular bass, which I have discovered I !think! is called a contrabass. It’s pretty much just like a regular bass, but with a deeper sound and bigger. Pretty cool, I must say. Other instruments included drums, an accordion, and… crap, I forget.

ZE BAND.

Can’t say I was too impressed by lunch, though. Lunch was like this:
- Two mini pancakes, one with sour cream on top and one with fish eggs on top.
- Potato and leek? soup.
- Chicken, carrots, and rice with basically what seemed like Cream of Mushroom.
- Berry tart.
- Coffee.

Frankly, it was pretty gross. In our table was a nice couple from Florida and these two rich-ish white ladies who were slightly scary and totally loved to spend money. They were ranting on about how Helsinki was boring and Stockholm was a lot better because there was better shopping there… and how they hadn’t seen any shops really in St. Petersburg. Zzzz.

After that was some shopping time at “The Red October,” which was a souvenir shop owned by the State… and by the State I mean the MAN.

Ksenia imparted some information about St. Petersburg on us that was fairly interesting. I don’t remember all but for starters, their population is about 4.5 million. Buying houses is fairly expensive (about 500 feet for $130,000), so most people rent from the State. But renting from the State doesn’t ensure that you get adequate space, and it’s extremely expensive. I think it’s about $1,000 a month minimum for a two bedroom? But if you OWN an apartment, you still have to pay a monthly fee to the state of about $50 for a one bedroom and $100 for a two bedroom or something. That fee is for maintenance and upkeep, or something…

Housing is a giant problem in St. Petersburg, though, and I think that contributes to the traffic problem immensely. People HAVE to live on the outskirts and commute to the city for work.

MATHAR RASSIA!!!

Guy, standing behind the lady, who looked like Santa Clause, gets sketched in a church.

Which leads me into my next thing, which was our evening excursion to the Catherine Palace.

Catherine Palace.

Not long ago, I watched a documentary on the Catherine Palace and the recreation of its Amber Room. The Catherine Palace was the former Summer Palace (aka, on the water, near the Gulf of Finland?) of Catherine the Great (Peter the Great’s wife who murdered his ass). After she died, her sister took over that Palace and wanted to dedicate a room to all of these beautiful amber pieces Catherine and Peter had obtained from Germany. So she hired some fool to create an amber room. And he created it.

The infamous Amber Room!!!

AGAIN!

During Nazi rule, however, Germans used the Palace as barracks and somehow found a way to remove the amber from the walls using some kind of solvent. The Amber Room was dismantled and stored away somewhere… it has not yet been found. In fact, the documentary I watched on the Amber Room was some kind of ghost hunt, going to smaller cities like Dubrovnik (just about my favorite word, by the way) and talking to individuals there who were desperately trying to locate the Amber Room.

A couple years ago, after many years of work, the Russian government finally had reinstalled their recreated version of the former Amber Room… they worked based off of drawings of the room at the time, which is, frankly, pretty ridiculous. I don’t doubt for a moment that the current Amber Room is not at all comparable to the original, but nonetheless, it was a pretty cool site.

Amber, for the unacquainted, is basically fossilized tree sap. It is NOT stone. It comes in different colors ranging from yellow to orange to red to blackish. The whole spectrum of yellow to red amber was represented in the Amber Room, in numerous shades. The majority of the pieces were basically put together like a puzzle that created a 3D wallpaper, with certain other pieces being sculpted and carved… which I imagine was quite a difficult task.

Unfortunately, when we finally got to the Catherine Palace to see the Amber Room — which was the entire point of going on that trip to begin with – we had been waiting in St. Petersburg traffic for TWO AND A HALF HOURS to go 27 kilometers!! That should only take about 45 minutes in no traffic, but that’s just how bad the traffic there was.

Because of that, the entire trip to Catherine’s Palace, and hence, to the Amber Room, was ridiculously rushed and not as enjoyable as it should have been. I had wanted to spend a while in the Amber Room – to study it – but I found that there was so much to look at all I could do was get off a couple of photos and then move on as our tour guide ran down the hall into another room.

The room she ran into turned out to be a banquet hall where they had arranged a champagne toast and some live music and demonstration of dancing. I thought the dancing was pretty awesome – it was to classical music and was um, very jumpy. I don’t know how else to describe it, and unfortunately, I was unable to record it because of lack of batteries (even though I really liked it… my parents, on the other hand, found it extremely boring).

Dancing couple!!!

After that, there was a couple dressed up hoakily as Catherine the Great and her counterpart, and then announced for us to follow them outside, where we were greeted by a live band and Catherine the Great and counterpart headed off in a carriage. Then there was some more dancing by a man and a woman. Somewhat entertaining, but it was cold and dark and I didn’t have the best view…

BAND!

Catherine Palace at nighttime!

Dinner was after that, with more of the same fucking meal. WTF. Is that all Russian people eat??!! I SURE AS FUCK HOPE NOT.

Band playing to us during the meal.

By the time we got back home, it was 12am, and my parents were cranky. Particularly my dad. The way American people celebrate things… with dancing and alcohol drinking… is NOT their bag of chips. Not their bag of chips at all. I swear… the more I hang out with Asian parents, the more I wish I were white. Seriously. Not the scary uber-Christian white, but the cool hippie white. HAHA.

Or hippie Asian parents would be fine too… but they don’t really exist so much.

I am so ready to go home.

***

09/12/08

Early morning in Russia!

Day two of St. Petersburg! It began with a quick drive around one of the city’s main avenues, Nevsky Prospect. Prospect is what they call very large streets. In the case of Nevsky Prospect, it was about 4 lanes wide on each side. Which is crazy! As that’s in the middle of the city and isn’t even a freeway or anything. Almost everything is located on Nevsky Prospect, including many of the cities main churches (all kinds) and lots of shopping.

We then took a canal tour on some lame boat. I dunno. I found it all to be very boring. I sat mostly on the upper deck… aka outside… just because being inside isn’t very fun. Even though it was kinda cold…

It was also pretty embarrassing because James’ dad kept taking photos of everyone a million times and getting in everyone’s ways… @__@

Eventually I went inside, and the bridges in St. Petersburg are rather low and the people on the upper deck, including my parents and friends, kept having to duck down. The people on the inside were like hella nervous about it… they kept looking up to the outside. Ha.

After that was the Hermitage, one of the four largest art museums in the world, I believe? Not sure. It was kinda rushed and not particularly exciting for me personally, mostly because I’ve been to a fair amount of art museums in Europe and primarily the collections represented in the Hermitage are from the type I’ve seen a lot of… Dutch, Italian, etc. European. You know. But probably the other problem was the lack of time to really take everything in, so I basically only could pick highlights here and there… :/

Hermitage!

Hermitage!

One of the best things about the Hermitage, though was the floors. They had many of those inlaid wooden floors everywhere, with all types of patterns. None repeated, really. Same thing with the Peterhof Palace the day before, but that was amazing as far as wallpapers went… colorful embroidered silk wallpapers in every room. Never repeated twice. This trip to Russia was an absolute textural heaven… and I do love me some textures.

Beautiful inlaid wooden floors ^__~

MORE!

More Hermitage!

Mosaic floors ^__~

Sorry. I’m obsessed with these floors.

Hermitaginginginginingg.

Then cometh lunch, which was literally the same as the past two meals. WHAT THE FUCK?! I made good convo with the lady to my left, who had been to my left again the previous lunch. She was nice-ish, older lady from Florida. Her husband was from the Czech Republic. They both spoke German, I think.

Tourism lunch!

After lunch, I was approached by this dude who had been staring at me / my camera the entire trip practically. I must say I was slightly weirded out, but then I found out why… his camera had started acting up and he had wanted to know what mine was and if I liked it. I told him I had a D40 and recommended he get my lens, 18mm – 200mm, for everyday use… and that he buy a body alone and then buy a lens, instead of buying the stock lens kit which sucketh balls. I do believe he is going to buy one.

His face got owned!!!

Later on, he was trying to make convo with me again… on one of the occasions, his wife had bought something at a stand and he told her to show it to me so that I could take a photo of it. Which was kinda weird. His wife said, “She doesn’t want to take a picture of this,” and he said, “Sure she does, she likes unusual things…” — a comment which I found extremely strange cause what? I don’t know this guy! I talked to him for like, 60 words! How does he know I like unusual things?!!! Turns out he’s right, though… his wife got this nesting doll with Harry Potter character on it, and I must say, I found it quite interesting. But where does he get the idea that I like strange things?!! That’s what I don’t get.

Reminds me of when I was in a crowded Starbucks with Alex, in the U-District. This was in the past month. There were hella people in the Starbucks, but this guy comes in, walks straight up to me, and gives me a photocopy of this page… he said it was a page of a story book he was writing for his grandkid or something, and that he thought I’d be interested. After giving it to me, he walked out of the Starbucks. Now, why would he do that? I WAS interested, he was right… but what about me gives people that impression? I don’t quite understand. I mean, I look normal, with the exception of my lip piercing… I don’t dress very ostentatious… my hair is normal… what is it?!!! Why do people think they’ve got me all figured out?!!!!

After lunch was one of the most mind blowing things I’ve ever seen, the Church of Spilt Blood. Holy shiznack. This place is insane. From the outside it looks beautiful, but like a fairly typical Russian Orthodox church. The inside is completely mind-bogging. It’s entirely comprised of mosaic images. HOLY SHIT. Amazing colors, amazing imagery, and mosaics everywhere the eyes can see. This church was where Alexander the Great was assassinated, hence, the name.

ONE. OF. THE. COOLEST. PLACES. EVER.

MOSAICS, MOSAICS, EVERYWHERE!

More amazingness.

Amazingness.

AMAZINGNESS.

AMAZINGNESS!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry I’m in love with this place. ~__~

One special thing about the mosaics is that they were apparently made up of only 12? colors or so, but because of the way the sun lit up the place, it looked like more colors were represented at every time. I’m still not 100% convinced of that simply because it looks like there were so many colors, but they wouldn’t lie about that, would they?? I highly highly recommend going to the church… and hell, to St. Petersburg in general. It’s a complete wonderland… with things being restored more and more as time goes on.

On the way to that church, Ksenia was warning us that there were pickpockets around that area. My dad heard this and saw some people on a street corner (2 men and 1 woman, smoking) and concluded that, “Zhe xie da gai dou shi,” which means, “These people probably all are [pickpockets].”

Turns out that we were still many many many city blocks away from the church, and it was a completely ridiculous and unfounded opinion. :/

This guy was so ridiculously cute.

Outside of the church, there were some street vendors. My mom was looking to buy those nesting dolls, so she approached one of the booths. The guy said hello. His display had nesting dolls with 9 pieces inside, but instead of showing all 9, he showed 3 from each. My mom asked how much they were, and he asked which one. She pointed to the middle one in one of the sets of 3, and he said, “You can’t buy that individually. There are 9 pieces.” My mom said, “I know.” He muttered under his breath, “No, you don’t know anything. You don’t know anything here.”

As we were leaving, I was watching him, and there he went, steaming and explaining the situation to his friend in Russia. Chill the fuck out, man. Pretty mind-blowing explosion from him. Lol.

Also as we were leaving the church, James’ dad found a Russian newspaper, written in English. He was reading housing prices and one of the classifieds or whatever listed a house that cost equivalent to $5,000 USD in rent a month. He asked Ksenia about this, and asked if that was really possible (since she had said that people there didn’t make that much money). She said that yes, it was real, and he said something like, “Wow, it’s like compared to New York! That’s so expensive!”

He didn’t mean to compare the cities but the prices. However, Ksenia took it that she was considering St. Petersburg to New York, and became very defensive. She asked him where he was from, and he said around San Francisco. She asked how many people lived in his city. He said, like 1 million? And a lady from San Jose said, “We have 1 million. You have less than that in San Ramon.” So James’ dad said, “Maybe a half a million?”

Ksenia responded by saying that St. Petersburg has 4.5 million people, and that it is beautiful and not comparable to American cities because it is a European city. It was all very strange and awkward hahaha. A whole busload of people listening to her and his miscommunication @__@

But real quick… a short note about the Russian people and some observations. I must say I didn’t meet barely any Russians, but I do have some opinions just based off of things I saw.

For starters, people are extremely good-looking in St. Petersburg. I mean, ridiculously. I don’t know if it was the sheer quantity of people I saw because I was there for so much longer or what, but there were many good-looking young men and women. I’d say at least 1/3 of the young men I saw were good-looking… classically or in my opinion. Even keeping in mind that they were mostly blonde or dirty blonde and I don’t usually even like blondes!!! REALLY. Good-looking. Though. I must say I was consistently surprised by that. They all look kinda the same, though. Well, there were a few parties. All the blondies looked a little similar, though, and a little like Alexander the Great. They were all skinny-faced blondes with sharp noses and very classically nice, sharp features.

What else? People seem to mind their own fucking business there. Tourists aren’t HUGELY prevalent in Russia, I don’t think, because it’s quite hard to get a visa. Yet, as these tourist busses go barreling past, barely anyone looks up. It seems like the younger people pay more attention than the older people – kind of to be expected, I guess – but for the most part, people just keep looking at the ground or straight ahead, not really noticing all that much around them.

They also do seem to be fairly proud of their country. Or at least our tour guide was. She might not be representative, though.

The whole time I was there, I took very slight note of ethnicity, and only saw 2 redheads, 3 or 4 black people, and maybe a dozen Asian-ish people (probably from southern parts of Russia?).

Last stop was another church… one I was not as thrilled by. It was more along the lines of the Vatican in style… not as unique as the previous… but I did get this wonderful image of Jesus Christ, with his disciples… only Jesus is holding what looks like a bowling bowl. KAKAKAKAKKKAKAKAKAKAKKAKA.

JESUS WITH A MOTHAFUCKIN BOWLING BALL SON.

Cruise food, before.

Cruise food, after. He’s a dead man!!!