Cultralizing at the Hermitage

i'm sure cultralizing is not a word, but it is the only thing i can think of that correctly corresponds to my activities today.....

we woke up (relatively late) at 9pm and had yet again another monster breakfast. i don't think that i have mentioned breakfast up to this point, but they are great! they don't have everything ever, but everything they do have is super tasty. so far, every morning since arriving we have taken breakfast at the hotel and every morning i have started off the day right with two heaping plates of eggs, bacon, cold cuts, rolls, hash browns, and fruit. traditionally speaking, i'm not even a big fan of big breakfasts - cereal everyday, all day, but this has been super awesome. in fact, just talking about it gets me really excited for tomorrow morning.

anyways, oh oh oh, i just remembered. the front desk girl was still there this morning and she was there just 20 minutes ago when i came up. therefore, she is a robot. it's proven.

now, like i was saying - anyways, after a delight breakfast, we met with a tour guide, not Milana this time most unfortunately, who walked us around outside a little bit to some statues and such. then, we went to the hermitage, which is a giant museum. i heard before going in that it takes several days to appropriately see the whole collection. i believe it. we were walking all over the place, from the opening until it closed, and we still did not see everything. but, we did see lots of cool stuff and well known artists, such as Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Monet among several others. this is what i am talking about when i say cultured. As it turns out (not really suprising at all though), Moshe is highly versed in the fine arts. He was basically my walking narrator. He knew everything about every piece and artist in the museum. Needless to say, i learned lots of interesting stuff about art.

so we went to a museum and walked around......a lot. by the time we arrived back to the hotel, i was extremely tired and decided to take a nap in the hour that i had available until Moshe and I were suppose to go get dinner. Well, i ended up sleeping for 3 hours instead. Moshe didn't take it personally (though we did joke about my effort to ditch him) and had gone to get food on his own when i hadn't emerged for an hour past our appointed meeting time. so, i was on my own to get food. options at this point include: order room service, go to the restaurant on the first floor, or go exploring. it's me, so of course i chose option four: find the closest liquor store!

but real quick, i'll justify my decision. the room service is absurdly expensive. let me give you an example. a cheeseburger and fries costs 560 rubles. at a current exchange rate of 24.5 rubles to 1 US$, that works out to be about $22..........for a cheeseburger. i could buy the entire checkers menu for $22 (which i plan to do when i return anyways, because checkers is amazing)! but, that's how everything is at this hotel -- really expensive. it's also part of the reason that i didn't go to the restaurant again, while the other is that i already ate at the restaurant, and it was just ok. plus, i really wanted to go exploring a bit, and option number four is really just a more specific version of option 3.

so, our friendly, neighborhood front-desk robot assisted me with the general location of vodka, and off i went. nothing really notable happened until achieving my destination. it is late sunday night at this point, so very few people were out and even fewer shops were open. but, lucky for me, the liquor store is actually a 24 hour mini mart. it's funny because we have passed this location several times. i didn't realize that it was a mini mart before this trip because there was always 10-15 seeming hooligans hanging out in front and appearing very rowdy. this was no different tonight, it just so happen that this time i was able to see the sign that said 24 hours (in russian of course). that's when i realized that this is Leningrad's Wawa! how fantastic! and the hooligans in front - they are basically me. just chillin' with their friends in close proximity to the nearest all night food outlet. that's awesome. if i lived in Leningrad, they would be my friends. this made me extremely happy.....my kindred spirits half a world away.

the store itself was surprising linear. it wasn't arranged in aisles, it was one aisle that just wound it's way around the store. and the best part about this mini mart was that half of it was a liquor store with all kinds of stuff and a wall full of vodka. i got what appeared to be the expensive stuff, even though it was still just 400-some rubles for a liter, which is actually super cheap. that's low-end vodka prices in the US. and, there were ones that were even cheaper. like 5 bucks for 0.5L. that's insane! no wonder russians like it so much, it's stupid cheap.

during lunch with my russian counterparts yesterday, we were talking about drinking briefly. i was informed you can purchase alcohol at 18, but most start drinking around 14. the one girl told me that she heard that the US was 21, which i confirmed. she then went on to tell me that 21 is when russians stop drinking (heavily). it makes sense. i suppose drinking will decrease in fun once you've been doing it for the better part of a decade.

i got a couple bottles of vodka (look forward to that 331), but, unfortunately due to the fact that i don't have a big suitcase and because you are only allowed to carry 3 bottles out of the country anyways, i had to stop at that point. i did also pick up a couple food products to complete my original intent, and i got a 0.5L (16.9oz) of cold beer for like $0.90. i've been drinking it the entire time i've been typing this by the way. it's pretty good. once again, it's no yuengling, but good nonetheless. and it absolutely destroys other beers that are in the same price range (natty, beast, keystone, etc.).

so i spanned the gambit today: the day at one of the premiere museums in the world and then a 24-hour liquor mart at night. it's pretty much the Leningrad equivalent of going to the philly art museum then to a 7-11 and the beer distributor on 42nd.

class, the whole way........

stats!:

25.11.2007
st. petersburg - 2245 GMT+03
frankfurt - 2045 GMT+01
philadelphia - 1445 GMT-05

start time - 1430 GMT-05 21.11.2007
time elapsed - 96h 15m

Current Song:
"4'33"" - John Cage
A little lesson in music history: John Cage was an American composer in the 20th century, and a controversial one at that. His most famous piece 4'33" does not contain any notes played by the musician - they just sit still for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. the music, if you will (though it kinda depends on what your personal definition of music is), is the noise of the audience during this time, often characterized by coughs, murmurs, and awkward laughing. basically, it's the sounds of musical silence. as such, i feel it's appropriate for a day that i spent at the museum where i heard no music the entire day. in retrospect, that is really depressing. it's rare that i am awake for that long of a period of time and don't listen to music for at least part of it.

points - the world:
i didn't get boned at all today. nice.

points - ryan:
not getting boned by the world = 1
discovering kindred spirits = 1

score:
the world - 5
ryan - 7