That time the boat crashed into the wall

Russia is nothing like I expected it to be. Before we arrived I assumed that it would be almost boring, mainly museums and churches. I also really didn't know what to expect the people to be like. I had always assumed Russians were on the meaner side. I actually had very little of an idea of what to expect, I can say that any ideas I had were probably negative and misinformed. I am not going to touch any political opinions or ideas in this post because I really don't know enough about it.

When I woke up at 7am and looked outside my window I saw land again and many cranes and just trucks, boats, trees. Nothing to glamorous. We ate breakfast quickly to be able to get off the ship early and start exploring St. Petersburg, only to be waiting for about 2 hours until the ship was cleared and the people who had field programs got off first. I was surprised at the level of security on the ship and how seriously they take it. We have to swipe out with our ID cards and then before getting onto land we need to show our passport and visa. Coming back on to the ship we show our visas/passports again, show ID, bags through security, get patted down, walk through a metal detector, and swipe back in. All water is poured out, no open food. It's crazy, but now that I think about it, very necessary.

OK, so we are now finally off the ship and walking to central St. Petersburg! A quick and mostly accurate summary of the city: Peter the Great wanted to be a part of European trade so he was like, yo we need a new city on the water. AKA St. Petersburg (at one point called Leningrad). Before they started building it was swamp land and very unappealing. The peasants and slaves were sent in to start building in the 18th century and most of them died. This is the reason why the city is often called the city built on bones. So Peter the Great also wanted the city to be European in style. He brought in European architects, made the nobles shave their beards and wear the "fashionable" clothes, as well as changed the language spoken in court to French. The city is known as the second Venice or Amsterdam and has many many palaces. Catherine the Great was another top dog around St. Pete who ruled later (after killing her husband) and whenever she got a new lover she would gift them with a new palace all their own which is why the city is literally stacked with gorgeous palaces.

When we got to central St Pete I was really shocked as to how European it looked. Our pre port meetings included some history but I was still completely taken aback by how European it is. If I had been dropped there not knowing where I was and there were no street or restaurant signs I would have assumed I was in Europe. The giveaways are the signs with Cyrillic/ Russian on them. The buildings for the most part are all stunning and were all built hundreds of years ago. Canals occasionally pop up, their are a lot of beautiful gardens, Russian fast food mixed with sushi restaurants, hostels next to a DKNY store, outdoor markets and museums and amazing cathedrals are all right there.

The very first thing I did was try and find a map. We crossed the bridge into the main part of the city and realized we had no idea where to go. That is a really unsettling feeling especially when you can't speak the language. After wandering slightly we find a map and had toward Nevsky Prospekt, the central avenue in St. Petersburg. We find St Isaac's Cathedral and want to go to the top, so we set about trying to find the ticket stand and communicating with the lady selling them (who speaks maybe 5 words of English). The general way things have gone when buying/ordering things here is pointing to the menu/sign very carefully to indicate what you want, gesticulating and repeating key words (up?! up?? top!) , and then being confused when trying to convert Roubles to USD to make sure you aren't paying too much. We buy our ticket to the top viewing area of the cathedral and enjoy the breathtaking views of the city.

Side note, "we" is my friend Sumi and I

We spent the next part of the day walking down Nevsky Prospect, shopping, exploring and just orientating ourselves. Some funny/awkward/notable moments.
We stepped into DKNY to look and came across five salespeople who spoke no English. We kind of smile and they know we're not Russian (probably because of the whole smiling thing because apparently Russians don't take smiling lightly) so they just watch us. They are standing completely still just watching us. It was so uncomfortable. But the funny kind of uncomfortable. but still mostly uncomfortable. I was really caught off guard with this whole language barrier thing. I am still struggling with that. We left quickly.
There are no black people here.. I have seen maybe 4.
Sometimes you enter into an area that just smells of body odor and nothing else. That was really common in Gostiny Dvor, one of the first indoor shopping malls ever aka Mecca but not actually because it was slightly disappointing. Shopping here is not really good, most things are either really crappy/souvenir places or so so fancy. We shopped in a Russian Zara which was actually pretty fabulous but that was really the only mid range shopping area I have seen.
Gosh we walked a lot. That is really good because the food is soooo good and I can't resist. We tried to find authentic Russian places to eat but we couldn't read any of the street signs and naturally didn't know what was what and we ended up at the most American looking cafe. It had wifi which we all know is the most important factor in picking any place to stop and eat abroad. We keep walking all day, randomly finding the landmarks like the Kazan Cathedral and the Saviour on the Blood Cathedral.

We passed through a very charming and surprisingly large market full of just Russian Dolls (they are everywhere) as well as stands of amber jewelry. We end our self guided walking tour right in front of the Hermitage, quite on accident. I forgot to mention the Hermitage earlier, a museum so impressive in its art collection that it is said to be one of the top art museums in the world. Right across from it is the Winter Palace. Both are stunning.

All of these monuments/cathedrals/museums are spectacular even if you just look at them from the outside. Personally that was enough for me, I didn't take the time to go inside them. St Petersburg is walking friendly and I really enjoyed just walking around with no particular aim.

I have to mention this amazingggggg Indian restaurant because it was that good. It is called Tandoori Nights and is directly across the street from Admiralty Gardens. Great food and atmosphere, it is really popular locally it seems because all the tables were reserved. We had a great meal and rested our feet and most importantly, we were able to check our Facebook because it has WIIIIFFFIIIII. woo!

At this point I needed to get back to the ship, and its like a 50 minute walk, for my field program. Field programs are optional trips we can sign up for at an additional cost. I signed up for White Nights Canal Cruise and was great! The city is beautiful by night, every building is lit up, it was freezing cold but they gave us blankets. There was one little blip in the night though..
We crashed into a wall at a pretty high speed mind you. We were be bopping along the canals and we hear a clunking noise. It was not really alarming, we just thought it was normal boat noises. As we start to make a pretty sharp turn under a bridge we start getting very to close to the wall. Most of the people are looking behind us at this wedding going on but I am now starting to get a little concerned about the rapidly approaching wall. For my cousin Laura, we used to scream when my dad got close to a wall when driving the boat and quoted Mulan I think the whole time going "Don't panic, don't panic, now is not the time to panic… " and then we got close and screamed "Nows the time to panic AHHHHHHH". It was great fun when we were six and I honestly believe we did it every ten minutes. Anyways, this is what is going through my head as we are driving at the wall. Usually when you get to close to something on a boat you just throw it in reverse. I'm waiting for the guy driving the boat to do that.. but he never does and we crash into the wall.
Part of the boat falls off and lands in the canal, and then I realize we are taking on water. Everyone luckily was able to scramble up onto the street before anyone gets anything more than their feet wet. We don't know what to do but just watch the boat sink slowly.. No I'm just kidding, we did crash into the wall at full speed but everyone just had to get into the cabin of the boat after an initial moment of surprise and slight panic. The boat was completely broken though. Couldn't move at all. The sound we heard before was actually the boats rudder breaking or something. We had to wait twenty minutes for another tour boat to come and get us and finish the tour.

That was my bit of excitement for all you guys, I hope you enjoyed it. We got back to the boat around twelve, I went to shower and to sleep right after because I was d.e.a.d! That was the first day of Russia, I hope I did it justice because it truly was amazing.