Last day in Amsterdam

Sunday:
UG wanted a breakfast of Dutch pancakes. So we walked back to the flower market where I had seen a Dutch pancake house. He got apple pannecoekes, and I got proffertjes with strawberries and whipped cream. The first one I bit into was almost pure rubber. But the rest were good. And UG loved his apple pancakes.

Since the stores didn't open until noon, and UG didn't feel like trekking to the science centre (which is not serviced by public transit), we went to the Dapper Market to look for the worlds best eclair, which we discovered on our last trip. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing that the market is closed on Sundays. By the time we got back from the market area, the stores were open again, so we picked up our souvenirs. I also bought the shoes I saw on Friday, strappy sandals in red, brown, orange and green, which appear to be very comfortable. I tried to get a banana eclair, but they were sold out.

The weather today was beautiful. Bright and sunny with just a little wind. The streets are getting very crowded due to both the weather, and people coming into town for the national holiday on Tuesday. Due to the crowds today, I'm quite happy we'll be missing the main event. We walked around this afternoon into the older area of downtown. We discovered a street fair of some sort, but kept walking due to the lines for beer. We had dinner at the Cheese Factory, a cheese shop with a cafe in the back. After dinner we wandered around the red light district. One of the toy shops was selling commemorative vibrators. Orange bullets with the new king's name on them for €5!

Then back to the hotel for an early morning wake up. We plan to get up at 7ish, pack our stuff and head back to the banana eclair bakery when they open at 9am. We're then taking a car to the airport, as dragging our luggage on the train is just such a pain. Plus it's supposed to be raining again.

Monday:
The car took 18 minutes. We passed the train! It cost €50. We may or may not have a credit to reduce that, UG is dealing with that.

We stood in 2 extra lines to get a partial tax refund on my shoes. First, we needed a stamp from customs, showing that we were taking them out of the country. We caught the tail end of a Chinese tour group in that line. The second line is at the bank behind security, we beat the tour group this time, which probably saved us a half an hour. All for €9. Whoohoo!

At the airport, I got scanned and groped again, so I was in tears before I even boarded the plane. And we had the bulk head seats for the extra leg room, but the tables are in the arm rest, a good 6 inches closer to the back of the seat than normal tray tables. So I couldn't actually use my table because my belly was in the way. It's so great to have to juggle drinks without a table on an 8 hour flight.

In Calgary, customs confiscated my tulips because they didn't have a health seal on them. Oh well, they have bad memories anyway. And because we declared them, customs forgot to notice that we also brought back too much alcohol, and didn't charge us duty on that. Score! 

Saturday: Bikes and flowers

Saturday:
Yesterday, when UG went to the front desk to ask for towels, he got them to allow us to change rooms. So this morning, we packed up our suitcases and handed in our keys before heading out. We stopped into a bakery, where I picked up a banana eclair. I ate it while waiting for a train out to the flower fields. UG asked for a bite, and I told him that if we weren't able to get more near the hotel, I wouldn't have let him have any. There was an actual banana within the cream in the middle. So good.

So we took the train to the airport, where we transferred to a shuttle to Keukenhoff, a flower park in the tulip growing region. The bus ride is about a half hour, so we were very happy not to be among the dozen people standing. At the park, instead of going in, we rented bikes outside the main gate and went exploring. UG was very happy to get an opportunity to ride a bike. He asked for a 2 to 3 hour route. The map we were given was terrible. We ended up completely off the route, but I realized it before we got too far. We also discovered that many groups have put up route markers, which makes it difficult to follow any of them. In the end, our route took over 4 hours. Most of the delay was caused by the wind. At times, I thought if I stopped pedaling I would move backwards. We were probably a week early for the tulips. Most of the tulip fields were just green, with only a few blooms here and there. But there was still a lot of colour from the daffodils and hyacinths. And the smell from the hyacinths was spectacular. That alone was worth the sore knees from the bike ride. The best tulip fields were actually right near the park, which would have saved a lot of riding. But the ride also good for UG to stretch out the muscles he's been using to limp due to his sore toe. After the ride, we went into the park, which has miles of gardens, a hedge maze and a windmill. I think we could have skipped the park itself, but we had purchased an entry ticket along with the shuttle ticket. I would also recommend finding a route mapped out by the local organizations rather than the bike rental company.

Back in town, we attempted to go back to H&M and a local department store next to it for some souvenirs, but it closed at 6pm. We then tried the sushi place again, but they were full, and the seemingly disorganized host claimed they were booked up for the evening. We went back to the hotel to check into our new room (5th floor, almost identical, but it's nice to be able to get natural light), and warm up before going looking for another place to eat. I took a bath because my legs were not enjoying the combination of a 4 hour bike ride and the cold. When I came out, UG had fallen asleep, so I went out for pizza on my own.

Amsterdam: shoes and cars

Friday:
It was raining this morning, which reminded UG that his dress shoes have a crack in the sole that lets water in. So we started the day looking for breakfast somewhere nearby, with a plan to go buy UG some new shoes.

We found a little convenience store/deli for breakfast. I got a cream puff, because we're in Amsterdam. UG had a salad. This shop also sells individual sized bottles of wine for €1.50. Why can't I get that in Canada. No, I didn't pick one up for breakfast, I just made a note for later.

For shoes, UG looked online and found an H&M and a Clarks store nearby. So we walked down that street. H&M was a bust, they didn't have any men's shoes larger than a 44, and he needs a 46. But it turns out that the pedestrian walkway from the H&M to the Clarks is actually the shoe district. It's about 400m long, with at least 20 shoe stores. I saw a pair I liked, but didn't try them on because UG didn't see anything in that store to try on himself. He did eventually find a pair, which he wore out of the store and has been calling his magic shoes ever since. Apparently his foot is now feeling better.

From there, we walked through the floating flower market. I bought 40 tulip bulbs to take home from the biggest jerk in the market. I should have walked away when he grabbed the bulbs I Had picked out from marked bins and tried to throw them together in a single bag. He finally gave me 4 bags, but I had to pay extra for the bags. And of course, he only had plastic bags, likely so he could charge for them. While I was trying to write notes and put them in the bag, he was moving them around and repeating what I owed him. My concern for marking down what I bought, and his obvious lack of concern made it important to write my notes immediately and pay later. But UG decided to pay him. As we were leaving the shop, I noticed that they had prepackaged bags of the same tulips I just bought. And cheaper if you consider that you don't have to pay extra for the bags they come in. I went back to ask if I could exchange them. He looked at me like I was insane, and then got all philosophical about sticking to your first choice. Again, my first instinct was to walk out of his shop on my first meeting, so I guess he was right about that one.

 The shoe street.

Getting some pickled herring. Mmmm!

Rembrandt, dressed for Tuesday's Queen's Day celebration (and inauguration of the new king).

After our shopping adventure, I was cold, wet, hungry and my feet were starting to hurt. So we went looking for a late lunch. We stopped into a sushi place behind the hotel, only to discover that they don't serve sushi until 5pm. So we went over to the Middle Eastern restaurant across the street, where we had, go figure, Middle Eastern food.

We headed back to our room to dry out and warm up. Apparently the maid got called away before finishing our room, so we had no towels. And since there's no instructions on how to use the phone in the room, UG went to the front desk to ask for more. After a rest, we headed out to the Top Gear Live show out in the suburbs. This is an arena show based on the popular British car show, involving car stunts and goofing around. All 3 of the show's hosts were in this event. I found out that this was happening several weeks ago and purchased tickets in advance. To get there, we walked to the subway across the canal from the hotel, and took the train directly to the arena. The arena is in a relatively new entertainment complex. There's a large soccer stadium, the arena we went to, a concert hall and several restaurants and stores. The show was a lot of fun, although a little shorter than we expected, and didn't actually have any explosions. But there were lots of choreographed driving, and a bunch of sports played with cars. One of the hosts described what they do as "cocking around". UG loves this phrase and has used it several times since the show.

After the show, we took the subway back to the downtown area, but instead of going back to the hotel, we went for a later dinner nearby at Cafe Jarren. Being the last Friday of the month, they have a DJ, which UG thought sounded interesting. We each had sandwiches, and then danced for a little while. This place might beat the single serve wine at the convenient store for something I wish we had at home. The crowd was all around our age or older. Nobody was dressed in skimpy short skirts. It was just real adults going out dancing for the evening. I mean, at least as long as we were there. Maybe the kids come out at 1am, which is about the time us geriatrics headed home. It would be so nice to be able to go out with some girlfriends at home and not have to feel out of place because we're so much older than the 18 yr old bar crowd. But the music was better than the average wedding or community hall dance.

Leaving Russia... Onto Amsterdam

UG got a text message this morning that he is out of credit for internet access. But he used his phone in Kazakhstan. I didn't roam with it, so I didn't get that message. So $7 worth of data has lasted us almost 2 weeks. Neither one of us had any strong desire for last minute sight-seeing. We took our time packing up and checked out of the hotel at noon. We left our luggage in hotel storage and went out looking for our last Russian meal. I haven't seen pelmeni on any menus since the No 57 in Moscow, so we decided to find it somewhere today. We checked out every menu within a few blocks of the hotel, and finally found it at the Ivanhoff restaurant on Nevsky Prospect. I got my dumplings, and UG ordered a chicken breast. Somehow his chicken was both soaked in butter, yet dry and tasteless. He doesn't seem sad to be leaving the culinary arts of Russia. I got a Mille Feuille for dessert, but it wasn't a berry version, so it was rather bland.

We got picked up at the hotel by a Mercedes for the ride to the airport. The driver was such an enthusiastic tour guide, pointing out sights along the way, that I wished we'd had him drive us around earlier. At the airport, we arrived with plenty of time to spare. Fortunately, there were several duty free shops to check out. Most of the vodka we bought was significantly cheaper here. How annoying. and we've already purchased our duty free limit, so we restrained ourselves. The prices on souvenirs was all much higher, though, so we were happy we'd purchased those previously.

Like most European airports, the security check is right at the gate. So after our public groping, we got crammed into a little room to wait for boarding. I suspect the room was sized to allow passengers to appreciate the space on the plane itself. There was no room to line up to board. It was a final reminder of the Hermitage, with everyone pushing and shoving to get scanned in to board. We got fed on the plane, but no rum was available, which I've come to appreciate on KLM. Fortunately, it was only a 3 hour flight.

Landing at AMS, we had fog again, but only a 10 minute taxi this time. The walk to get luggage wasn't as long as I remember from 2 years ago. And now that we have done it before and weren't half asleep, getting tickets into Central Amsterdam wasn't as difficult as before. Finding the train, however, was still a pain. First, getting down to the train platform with luggage is difficult, due to the pillars blocking wide cases. On the platform, apparently there are screens which are supposed to indicate which platform you're supposed to go to. Our train said 1 or 2. Which one? 1 or 2? We ended up standing there and asking people when each train arrived, "is this train going to Central Station?" When we finally got on a train, we were too late to get one of the 2 seats next to the spot for luggage. So I had to run up at each stop to make sure our big suitcases didn't get pulled off the train. Again, who designed a train to the airport that doesn't allow room for luggage?

We got an Amsterdam sim card, but before I put in my phone, I turned on roaming on with the Russian sim card, and I'm still getting internet access on that same $7 initial purchase. It makes the 35 Euros we spent for 4 days in Amsterdam seem really expensive. Perhaps we should have loaded up the sim cards in Russia. Too bad my battery died again, so I couldn't use it to find the hotel. We managed to get to the hotel, in the Rembrandt Square area instead of across from the train station where we stayed last time, using public transit.

The hotel is a huge disappointment. It looks nice. Very modern, concierge desk, etc. But they gave us a room on the first floor looking into an alley I'm not entirely comfortable with the safety factor. There is no book in the room outlining hotel features. It's not even possible to call the front desk. I walked to the front desk to get ice for UG's foot. And they looked at me like it was the strangest request they have ever heard. No ice machine. They handed me a laundry bag and sent me to the bar. We had to ask for towels because all they gave us was 1 bath towel and 1 hand towel. No clock in the room. And gas station style toilet paper dispensers, which spit out individual sheets. But the internet seems to be working well, at least.

A couple more days in St Petersburg

Tuesday, we decided to investigate whether St Petersburg has Starbucks. There was one in Moscow right near our hotel, but I completely forgot to stop in and see what they had for souvenir mugs. I have a few cool mugs from Starbucks around the world, and a friend at home collects them. We have seen a sign on Nevsky Prospect for a Starbucks that is *Opening Soon!!*. Google maps says there's another one further down Nevsky Prospect, but the Street View car drove this block next to a bus, so it's impossible to see what's really there. The Starbucks website says there are 2 out in the suburbs. Trip Advisor says that Starbucks couldn't possibly compete here because there are other more established companies which have more comfortable seating. We stopped at the front desk, and were told that the one Google maps indicates is actually in a department store. So we decided to head out in that direction as an excuse to explore. We took the Metro to where the Starbucks might be. On the way to the Metro, we stopped into these other "better" coffee shops. Whoever said Starbucks wouldn't be able to compete has clearly never been in a Starbucks. First off, both locations we stopped into allow smoking. The smell in these places were awful. Second, the comfy seats were those pleather banquets from Burger Kings in the 70s. Also, coffee is REALLY expensive here. Starbucks could easily put a 50% markup on what they sell in Canada, and still be the cheapest place in town. Go figure, Starbucks for discount coffee? So on the Metro, we went too far again. My excuse here is that if there are 2 lines running through a station, each line/station has a different station name. So when I wanted the far end of the second stop station, I thought it was 3 stops away. Why not just name the station and indicate that several trains stop there? Anyway, the "department store" was actually a mall. They seem to have the terms confused here. It had a Starbucks, as well as several North American brand clothing stores, and a grocery store. I picked up a couple of mugs, 1 for the friend back home, one for me. They also had travel mugs vaguely shaped like Matryoshka dolls and painted like them. They came in various sizes, but you had to buy each size separately? Shouldn't they all be stacked inside each other? Starbucks also had some donuts like the ones I saw in Gorky Park (but didn't buy there because I thought the guy said they were $20 each, and I believed that was possible in Moscow.) I bought one at Starbucks to give it a try. It was kind of stale. So the question is, are Russian donuts kind of stale, or is Starbucks food terrible everywhere?

The Metro on the way back stopped at Gostiny Dvor, the ancient "mall" which is actually a department store. We went up to check out the second floor this time. Meh, nothing special. I then went back to where I saw the bracelet the other day, and it was sold! Boo. I did get a couple of pendants. A lady bug made out of green Amber for myself, and a miniature Faberge egg, which opens and holds a little dog inside, for UG's mother. I also picked up a bottle of Beluga vodka to take home. Oh, and I bought a few individual candies from a bulk seller, to figure out what I liked, so I can buy a bag of something good to take home. Apparently I'm the first to buy 1 candy, it amused the salesgirl to have a total so low.

We then went for dinner a couple of blocks away to a place that's rated #1 in St Petersburg by Trip Advisor, Cafe Zoom. It was okay, but nothing special. We messed them up by 1) UG ordered a soup which takes 20 minutes to prepare, and 2) I ordered a salad, but wanted it with my main (as side dishes are to be ordered separately here, and the Greek salad was more appealing than any of the side options). Somehow the 20 minute soup came in 10 minutes, at the same time as my food. Then his main came 40 minutes later. We actually asked twice if it was coming, or if it had been forgotten. None of the food so far has been spectacular. So we're starting to think that rave reviews are more based on service. But even the service wasn't great here. Oh, well.

We decided to go for dessert at a fancy coffee shop on the way back to the hotel. But they didn't have any tables, and their desert selection was well picked over. So we skipped desert. We then stopped into a grocery store for some water and more vodka to take home. Unfortunately, they were out of the stuff we were looking for.

A group dressed in "North American Native" costumes, playing music. They didn't speak English, so I couldn't ask where they were from.


Wednesday:
It was cold and rainy this morning. So we headed for another mall further out of downtown to go to the St Petersburg Oceanarium. I can watch fish for hours. They have a variety of small sharks, some rays, eels, seahorses and lots of other fish. The main tank has a tunnel through it so you can see the fish all around you. They also have a seal tank. So that was fun for an hour and a half. UG has been wearing his dress shoes as his toe is hurting and he's finding his sneakers too tight. But due to the rain this morning, he's discovered a crack in the sole of his dress shoes. (I'm not going to mention how unfair it is that he can own dress shoes that are comfortable enough to wear around all day. Oops, I guess I just did.) So we looked around the mall for a shoe store for him, but this mall didn't have a shoe store. They did, however, have *2* places to buy hand guns. They also had a dinosaur park and a haunted house in addition to the aquarium. So, while taking your kids for a fun day of activities, pick up a new gun! There was also a grocery store, and UG finally managed to find some deodorant! We also picked up more vodka at the best price so far for Russian Standard Platinum, 560 rub for 500ml, and some take-home candy.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in at Veliseev's Food Hall, where I picked up a vanilla eclair and a caramel macaroon. We then took a different route, along the Mosta River, back to the hotel. Suddenly a parade of military vehicles, including rocket launchers came rolling along the road, around the corner in front of us and past the Spilled Blood Church. And then a woman on a horse started chasing them. Apparently this is just Wednesday in St Petersburg?

After a break at the hotel for UG to ice his toe, we went for dinner at an Italian place nearby. We had a pizza with some kind of fatty meat and black olives. I skipped dessert and instead ate the treats I'd purchased earlier.


Cars parked on curb ahead.

More laziness in St Petersburg

This morning we started out by catching the bus to see more of the city. We walked over to the closest bus stop at the church, through the market again. I finally picked up a nesting doll, a simple, primitive style. I'm not in love with it, but I felt the need to pop the cherry in order to find something I really like.
On the bus tour, we were given head phones to listen to an audio tour in a variety of languages. But the recording kept cutting out to dead air, and then cutting back in to a different story already in progress. The bus also made several wrong turns according to the map of the tour, so the audio guide would describe things that we weren't passing. They also wouldn't take the coupon off their website. So I think the only thing I can recommend the tour for is for saving your feet.

After one circle of the bus tour without getting off anywhere, we headed back to the hotel, picked up our laundry and went to the laundromat. We had found a drop off place nearby, but there was another place about twice as far that was a cafe with free internet, and live music in the evenings. We decided to try that out for the experience. We should have paid the hotel to do it. The cafe allows smoking. Smoking isn't allowed in the room where the washers and dryers are, but there's no door separating this room from the main room where people literally sit for hours, chain smoking. Our one load of laundry took about 3 and a half hours, and cost $15. We came out with the clothes we were wearing, along with our coats and bags smelling worse than any of the laundry we took in. When we were sitting there with the fumes getting worse and worse, I was thinking that at least the clothes were in the machines, so they weren't absorbing it. But back at the hotel when we went to fold it, I could smell something faint on them. Of course, I don't know if it was the clothes, or my hair, or the shirt I was wearing. I was going to wash out a few things tonight in the hotel sink, but there isn't a stopper. Who would have thought we'd miss the smell of the Kazakhstan camp fire? UG has a cold, so he doesn't smell it as much as I do. He also keeps pointing out that people smoking everywhere is just the way it is in Russia.

For dinner tonight, we walked to Nevsky Prospect, to another location of the place I wanted to go to on Saturday. It's called Stolle, and they serve different kinds of pies. Meh. They are apparently primary a lunch place, as their selection was about half what they had on the menu, and it was even worse by the time we left. The pies are also served cold, which made them less than spectacular. The dessert pies where better, of course. But I'm no longer disappointed that the location closer to the hotel is closed.

My feet have appreciated the limited walking today. Only about 7 km in total, and 6-7 hours of sitting. UG's toes are not doing so well, he's been icing them whenever we're in the room. His cold is still here, but his nose is less runny, and he doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from the weird communist drugs.

A couple of observations of St Petersburg. It's not as walkable as promised. Everything is much more spread out than it appears on the map. Sidewalks are extremely narrow, and there are lots of other pedestrians. So you are constantly jumping off the sidewalks to get around people. The other is that the canals seem to be an inconvenience rather than add character to the city. I have only seen boats on the big river, the Neva. Not a single one on the canals. It's probably due to the fact that they've been frozen for the past few months. But I seem to recall the canal in Ottawa having boats dropped in as soon as the ice was clear. It seems a waste to have built all these canals just for getting around town when you can only use them for 4 months of the year. A lot of stuff seems to be closed this month. The park next to the Church of Spilled Blood, the fountains at the Palaces, etc. It feels like the city isn't quite open for business. It also gets dark really late here, a little after 10 pm. We're in the same time zone as Moscow, but further west. I can see how it can still be day light after midnight in late June.

Some pictures from the bus:

At 9:40pm, it's still daylight.

Shopping in St Petersburg

After breakfast, we climbed up to the rooftop patio on the hotel. It's really just a small spot to get a good view of the city, not much of an area to hang out.

The goal for today was to find something to do that didn't require much walking. We investigated a "hop on hop off" bus tour, but the tickets were not good for 24 hours like in other cities, so we decided to leave that for tomorrow, when we could get moving earlier ad make better use of the tickets.
I decided to find Gostiny Dvor, a large indoor mall, built over 200 years ago. The big funky Russian church, the Cathedral of the Saviour on Spilled Blood, is just across the canal from the hotel, so we passed it on the way. We also took a quick look through the souvenir market between the hotel and the church. It should only have been a 10 minute walk from the hotel to the Gostiny Dvor, and I expected some benches where we could sit and watch the crowds, so I thought this would be a good plan for little walking.

But, it turns out that a 14 acre mall is hard to find. I was expecting it on the opposite side of the street. And from the outside, it looks like yet another royal palace. So we walked several blocks past it, down Nevsky Prospect, the busy shopping street of the downtown core. Once we found it, we discovered that it's more of a department store than a mall. You have to walk through each store to get to the next. We ended up doing the full loop of the ground floor. I saw a couple of souvenirs I'd like to buy, I'll pick those up when we go back for the second floor. So much for limiting our walking!

Along the way, we found another location of the fancy grocery store from Moscow. I was excited to go in and get the souvenirs I didn't get in Moscow. Unfortunately, this one is more of cafe than a store. Lots of sweets and baked goods, a few tables, but only food souvenirs. Nothing special. But we will be back for the baked goods, I'm sure.

UG is coming down with a cold, so he picked up some drugs from the pharmacy at Gostiny Dvor. He's not exactly sure what he bought, so he had 3 people translate it for him (besides the woman at the pharmacy who sold it to him) and Googled it. It seems to be a very strong ColdFX which is sold only in Russia and China and is not approved for sale in any western country. If it works, we'll be bringing home a case. He also looked for deodourant, unsuccessfully.

We then walked back to the hotel for a rest before dinner. The weather today was bright and sunny, but there was a cold wind. I had an opportunity to sit in front of the church for a few minutes while UG went back to the hotel to get a warmer jacket not long after we left.

For dinner, we went to another well reviewed inexpensive place near the hotel, the Cafe Bagatelle. It was okay, food was good, but it's a small room in the basement of an old building, which allows smoking. So it was a smelly, uncomfortable place to sit for a meal.

A statue on one of the bridges.

Yeliseev's Food Hall

The subway station at Gostiny Dvor. How effective do you think this metal detector is?

On to St Petersburg

The ride was comfortable, although the beds were a little hard. UG slept much better than he expected to. Although with only an 8 hour ride, and being woken up for breakfast about an hour before arrival, it wasn't a long sleep. Breakfast was pancakes and salted salmon, along with tea and buns and apples. Not at the same level as the Marriott in Moscow.
In St Petersburg, we were met by a driver sent by the hotel. This time, I had booked it and we were paying, so when the driver walked up to a Toyota, we were disappointed but not surprised. But then when he passed the Toyota and popped the trunk on the BMW next to it, we grinned at each other.
(Moscow train station in St Petersburg, where the trains from Moscow arrive.)

We arrived at the hotel at about 8:15am. When we checked in, there was a note that check ins before noon would be charged a half day rate. So when she handed me a room key, I asked if there was a charge for the early check in. She smiled and said yes. So I asked what the charge was, she replied, "free of charge." Okay, a charge of zero dollars, score!

So we rested for a few hours, and then decided to go to the Hermitage. It was raining and cold, so an indoor museum seemed like a great idea. However, I forgot to book a ticket online before we left, which would have allowed us to jump the queue. But it's shoulder season, and the lines didn't look very long anyway. We had also been told that we could avoid the lines by hiring a guide. But I felt like I had enough guiding in Moscow, plus I wasn't comfortable finding one and determining the quality of their English. So we stood in the rain for about 20 minutes. Once inside, there was another 10 minute wait, while people shoved us in every direction to get inside and closer to the cashier.
While waiting outside, we heard cannon fire from somewhere.
The Hermitage museum is huge. It's made up of 2 or 3 former palaces of the tsars. The perimeter is over a mile long and there are 3 stories. Apparently if you spent a minute taking in every piece in the Hermitage collection, it would take 8 years to see it all. Only maybe 10% is actually on display at any given time, but that's still a formidable amount of stuff to see. Plus, our feet are still suffering from the walking in Moscow. So we tried to be strategic about the experience, picking areas to visit and mapping out the best way to get there. Unfortunately, the map does not indicate which rooms are closed, and probably a quarter of them are. So we'd walk a quarter mile and up a flight of stairs only to discover that the route is closed and we have to backtrack to where we started. Twice, I tried to take a break on the chairs provided and was yelled at by staff in Russian. And yes, they were chairs for resting, not part of the collection. In one case, I think she was yelling at me for sitting in HER chair.
Some rooms were virtually empty of people, while others reminded me of the Komsomol'skaya metro station at rush hour. In these rooms, it's common to be pushed while people try to get better views of exhibits. There was one room of machinery, but it wasn't properly displayed, most of it was put against the far wall, with ropes preventing getting close enough to read what it was. But the cards in this room were also all in Russian, so close ups wouldn't help too much anyway. The Egyptian mummy room is also popular, but again, only Russian descriptions. Although you don't really need a description to appreciate seeing a mummy on display, or the ancient Egyptian nesting dolls. UG also enjoyed the 19th-20th century French painters rooms, displaying works from Van Gogh, Matisse and Monet. Apparently there's a Da Vinci room, but we never found it. It was probably behind a locked door. I did enjoy the rooms which were restored to the original decor of the tsars. But overall experience of the Hermitage was about a 2. It might be better in peak season, when rooms are fully opened, but then there would be significantly more people.
Outside as we were leaving, a man approached us offering to sell us caviar. Mmm, street caviar! We were almost tempted to buy some just to see what it really was. But our frugality overpowered our curiousity.



After the Hermitage, we decided to take a minor detour to a restaurant which was highly recommended by various sources. I expected we would be eating here a few times during our visit, due to it's proximity to our hotel and supposed good prices. However, it's currently closed for renovations. So we ended up buying some snickers bars at the convenience store next door, and heading back to the hotel. We noticed as we were hanging out in our room that it gets dark rather late here. It was still light out when I brushed my teeth at quarter to 10. I can understand now how the sun doesn't set until after mindnight in the summer, a phenomenon celebrated as the "white nights".
UG ordered some room service, and I fell asleep before it arrived. I was out for 11 hours straight.