St. Petersburg to Warsaw

The last few days have been a busy combination of celebrating, sight seeing, and traveling. The State Hermitage Museum was the most overwhelming tourist attraction that we've visited on the trip so far; the day spent getting lost in the myriad halls of paintings, sculptures, and artifacts was truly mind boggling. We mostly viewed oil paintings by just about every famous artists imaginable: Picasso, Van Gogh, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Renoir, and Monet just to name a few. It was too much to see in one day and we barely did the place justice, but obviously still worth every minute. Marilyn, Nicole decided she'll have to come back to St. Petersburg with you sometime to do the place justice!

Our last full day in Russia was May 9th, a huge holiday for Russians and celebration of their victory over Germany in 1945. We got up early hoping to see a parade of tanks and missile launchers, but all we found was a slightly busier than usual street and dismally wet weather. After camping out in a cafe near Nevsky street for a couple hours we gave up on our hopes of seeing a parade and returned to the hostel to rest up for the evening. We new for sure that there would be fireworks at night and hoped that more people would be out celebrating at that point. So we picked up some Oxotaca beers (2L plastic bottles of 8% alc/vol sludge...we affectionately pronounced it Exotica) and threw a small party in the hostel with Reinier, Stephan, Ron, and Sam (Ron and Sam are officers stationed in Japan that were on leave). Swigging down the Exotica, it didn't take long for us to be confident that we were going to have a good time that night regardless of the situation on the streets. So we piled out into the streets after some fine dining at a Carl's Jr. across the street...yeah, we're not in Asia anymore.

Nevsky street was crazy. I've honestly never seen that many people mobbed into a city street before. From what I've seen on TV it is reminiscent of New Year's Eve in New York City, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were even more than that. It took about 45 minutes to walk from our hostel to the Neva River, just next to The Hermitage. As far as we could see, both sides of the river were packed with people and car traffic was completely stopped. Being at almost 60 degrees North, the sun didn't set until after 10 PM and the fireworks didn't start until about 11. The crowd comprised of mostly young people and were predictably drunk and rowdy. Several people were trying to scramble up a nearby tree for a better view and the police tried, unsuccessfully, to stop them. The fireworks were nice, but nothing spectacular. It was mostly just fun being in a big crowd of excited people. After the fireworks almost everyone started walking back down Nevsky street; waving flags and singing songs sort of like a soccer match chant. The street was packed shoulder to shoulder all the way across and the column of people seemed to stretch on as far as we could see. It was one of those mob scenes where the line between riot and celebration was paper thin - the sound of glass bottles breaking, people climbing up light poles to steal flags, small scuffles, the dull roar of a crowd, and public urination. All the necessary elements of mild chaos and a hell of a good time.

The next morning we woke up early, and a bit hung over, to catch a bus to Tallinn, Estonia (yes, two n's). Fortunately, it was only a six hour bus ride and comfortable enough to sleep for most of the trip. Estonia ranks 2nd or 3rd in our list of random places we've been while traveling. I don't think I knew it existed before we started planning our way out of Russia a few weeks ago, but I'm not exactly a geographical wizard. It turned out to be a pleasant stop on our way to Germany. Even more European than St. Petersburg, the Medieval old town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to St. Olav's Church (the tallest building in the World from 1549 to 1625). It's an attractive and interesting city with a tumultuous history. We spent most of the one day we were there in the Occupation Museum - an account of Soviet, then German and then Soviet (again) occupation during the better part of the 20th century.We noticed during the day that a stage being setup in the old town square early in the day and I made a point of returning later that night, a Friday, to see if there was any free music. The concert was one of the most hilarious live shows I've ever seen. I would call it, for lack of a better term, Viking-Metal-Rock. The smoke machine had just started pumping out its first few puffs when I arrived and there was some pre-show music playing along with a bit of green lighting. There was a small, but lively crowd of about 200 people packed up to the stage - a strange mix of tourists and rock enthusiasts. Nothing very interesting. The bass player walked out first and the crowd let out the usual mildly approving screams that a bass player usually gets. He picked up his bass and started playing some a few notes. The lead singer and drummer walked out next - more screams. It was at this point that I noticed that they were wearing tunics and chain mail. All three had long blond hair and the the lead guitar had some nice mutton chop side burns and a handlebar moustache. The three of them started playing a slow intro riff and I had seen just about enough when the fourth member of the band strutted onto stage, also wearing a tunic but no chain mail, with his electric bagpipe! That's when the crowed went ballistic and I noticed two men dancing in full mascot-like-costumes: one a giant orange fox and the other a man sized bunny rabbit. It was as if Spinal Tap, Rammstein, and a Viking had four children and they formed a band. Amazing. The bagpipe player also played a recorder and a lap harp and if you can rock those three things I think you can rock anything. It's hard to pick a favorite song, but they had an amazing Gregorian chant intro followed by early Metallica-esque thrash metal that I think takes the cake. All that combined with guteral Eastern European lyrics and rolled r's and was too good to be true.

The next day was spent entirely on a bus from Tallinn to Warsaw, Poland. Nothing exciting to report there, except that Poland is surprisingly reminiscent of Western Pennsylvania. On the whole, our time in Poland has been great. The weather is nice and it feels just like Spring at home. Nicole is out doing some shopping - throroughly enjoying the reasonably priced clothing stores. We'll probably spend another day in Warsaw and then head down to Krakow for a couple days before meeting Sara in Stuttgart this weekend! More pictures soon.