2-10-07

2-10-07

Well. I’m exhausted.

Last night after posting that entry I left Kolobok, came back here and took the time to drop off my laptop before heading out to the Georgian restaurant, Café Tblis. This place was swanky. Still not ridiculously expensive. More like what I’d expect to pay at, say, a Texas Roadhouse back home. But a million times better. The ambience was great. Everything was well-decorated, the lighting was soft and there were candles, overall just a classy, classy place. The light fixtures hanging from the ceilings were made from horns, which was really cool. All employees were dressed in traditional Georgian folk outfits, and there was a trio of guys going through the restaurant playing instruments and singing folk tunes, in Georgian, of course.

I had a nice spicy chicken dish that I absolutely devoured. Everyone loved his or her dishes. But we all agreed that the best part of the restaurant was the English menu. The descriptions of dishes were oddly translated, but they must’ve been odd in Russian, as well. Something was described as being “filled with the cheesy stuff!” And another dish was, “Airy like a dream and warm like the lover’s breath.” Classic.

This morning I slept in til 10, as did Marina. Had some kasha and then hit the town. My original plan was to meet up with Hannah to visit the Russian museum. But when I woke up, opened my curtains and saw that the sky was ridiculously, ridiculously blue, I knew that I couldn’t spend today in a museum.

Instead, I just took my camera and wandered around, taking pictures. I’ll post a few, obviously. I walked around the Church on Spilled Blood and then down through the arch of the General Staff Building out in front of the Ermitage. My plan then was to hit up the Bronze Horseman and then go to St. Isaac’s Cathedral, circling back around onto Nevsky to go to the Fontanka Canal and then get some lunch. Well, on my way to St. Isaac’s, the batteries in my camera died, and I had forgotten to bring the extra batteries that I have. So I thought to myself, “I’ll just find a produkti (little grocery) nearby and grab some batteries. Well, I kind of had to wander a bit to find a produkti. At this point I was more turned around than I thought I was. I ended up going the totally wrong direction and walking around in the cold for about an hour before I got my bearings and headed back to Nevsky.

I met up at Chainaya Loshka with Hannah and Mattison who had spent some time at the Russian Museum. Kate joined us as well because she was also on Nevsky. After some blini, we met Hillary at the Metro and Kate left us and the four of us headed by trolleybus over to Vasilevski Island to the Kunstkamera. Interestingly, we randomly met up with Anthony at the Kunstkamera.

The Kunstkamera was Russia’s first museum, founded by Peter the Great. The first level is purely collections of artifacts from the cultures that fascinated Peter: Native Americans, the tribes of the Amazon, Southeast Asia, etc. There were a large number of life-sized mannequins in terrifying poses. We all agreed that this area had an odd vibe about it. Whereas in an American museum, you would be getting a message of tolerance and appreciation for different cultures, this felt more like, “Hey, look how these people dress, isn’t that CRAZY?”

Of course, the main draw of the Kunstkamera is not on the first floor. On the second floor is the other reason Peter the Great founded the museum. He wanted to educate the masses, and let them know that physical deformities were not the work of the devil, they instead just scientifically happened sometimes. So Peter solicited abnormal fetuses from across the country and Europe and had European scientists preserve them properly. So it’s a room full of malformed fetuses in jars. It was, of course, interesting and disturbing at the same time. It was also kind of hilarious because mixed in with babies with three heads in jars would be, like, stuffed lizards and other flora and fauna. So the description at the bottom of a case would read like so: “1. Fetus with two heads, three arms, and four legs. 2. Fetus with fused legs. 3. Fetus born without limbs. 4. Coral.”

The other (I say “other” like there were only two) disturbing thing was that while most of the labels said “Fetus” a couple actually said “Monster.” I was okay through most of it but at the end the shelf of children’s heads in jars got me a little lightheaded. I don’t know how the two pregnant women who were there managed to make it, and I certainly can’t fathom why they decided to come.

So then Hannah and I relaxed at an internet café for a while before heading out to meet Hillary and Anthony at the restaurant Ivanhoe. It’s medievally themed. However, the only real medieval food on the menu appeared to be a couple of things that could be roasted on spits. Hillary and I had excellent, excellent beef stroganoff.

Then I came back here and tried to call Emily, but she wasn’t answering her cell phone and I hadn’t written down her home number or Maggie’s home number. So then I tried to call home to get it, but no one was home. So then I tried to call Julia, but her phone went crazy. So then I called Elyse and she was more than happy to be my last resort call.

I walked around so much today, I am absolutely wiped. Time to hit the sack, I have a ridiculous amount of homework tomorrow.