Tag: Lost

Last day

SDSpivey
Tiny, tiny flowers

I have nothing left to see, but I scrolled around the map looking for anything. I visited Gorky Park, but only the northern most part. So I took the subway to near the south side and went in.

Actually, I find that I’m not in Gorky, not even near it yet. This is Neskuchny Garden, a pleasant wooded area with paths going every direction. It is wooded, so how is it a garden?

The paths are hard packed, and meandering. It doesn’t matter which way I go, I’m just exploring.

Quack!

I pass soccer field, tennis court, basketball court (in a cage), and a bunch of ping pong tables. At a playground, there’s a building, so I use the camera translator. It’s the chess club. I would not think a playground would be the quietest place to play chess, but I’m not that good either.

More ponds with ducks, this one had a duck and drake protecting the ducklings from an ogre trying to take their photo.

Peahen

I find a cage with a peahen inside. Don’t know what the point was.

Another war memorial, this had a fountain, but you can tell it hasn’t operated for years, not in the budget.

There is a bridge across the river, but I find it is just a pedestrian bridge. Geez, that’s a lot just for a few people to walk across.

It doesn’t matter where or when, I keep running into groups of kids on field trips. This must have been an easy day for the teacher, I can’t imagine they are really learning anything looking at fountains.

I see a bunch of balloons on a building, must be a party or wedding, nope, just some people doing tae bo, but no Billy Blanks.

I’m looking at a fountain for a bit, before realizing it is the same one I saw a few days back. It looks different without the stage and all the kids around it.

I meet a UK lady walking her dogs, so I ask her if there’s anywhere with Russian food. She tells me of a place, Grand Cafe Dr. Jhivago. Obviously, named for the famous movie.

It only has two $$ on google, so I decided to splurge, I don’t have to worry about keeping to a budget anymore.

I was seated on the sidewalk, I don’t know if I would be comfortable inside, it was still a bit fancy. The wind was ok, but it did pick up before I left.

Fortunately, the hostess and waitress both had English comprehension, and the menu was multilingual.

I had an appetizer of mushroom “dumplings,” really ravioli, with a wonderful sour cream. I could have just eaten a bowl of the sour cream.

Then I had a Siberian cod, covered in French fried onions and a cream sauce. It also had potato chips, made themselves. This feels like the kind of place where you don’t use your fingers to pick up food, but there is no other way to eat crispy thin wafers.

It had a side of grilled broccoli, almost an entire head, way bigger than I expected. It had a mustard seed and vinaigrette coating.

Everything was so good. I don’t know if it really was Russian or not, but I’ll pretend it was.

We are on the road next to the Kremlin. A large motorcade goes by, but can’t see into the cars, maybe Putin.

An expensive Maybach, a sub brand of Mercedes-Benz parks right next to the sidewalk, the hotel doorman places cones around it. That’s what being rich is like, you just park your car wherever you want. To hell with those poor people trying to get to work.

Total 2410₽, I paid in hundred ruble notes, which I suppose is the equivalent of a stack of $5’s. I’m so low class, I made a faux pas.

As I eat, it is getting colder and windier. As I leave I begin to feel drops. It could have remained nice out, I only need another 24 hours.

Tomorrow, I have to checkout by 11, but my flight isn’t until 9:20pm. I could roam around, but I’d have to lug my bags around, no fun. So I guess I’ll have a nice long day at the airport. Hurray!

I need it to not be raining while trying to get to the train platform. After that, pour down, it won’t bother me.

Long pedestrian bridge.

Getting lost

SDSpivey

A juxtaposition of a very new car, with a extremely old one.

Since I’ve checked out everything I wanted to see, I decided to get out of town.

I took the red-line all the way to the end, outside of Saint Petersburg, to a small town called Мурино (Murino), in Leningrad Oblast.

An oblast is like a little state within the nation. Like DC or Rhode Island.

This was the first “subway” that wasn’t underground, being much like a regular train station platform. Also, every other station has the platform between the tracks, this had the tracks between two platforms, which also means you couldn’t just get on the opposite train and go backwards. All doors led out, returning requires another ticket.

First thing I noticed was these huge apartment buildings, larger than anything in the city.

I walked along, having no destination, just trying to get lost. Hard thing to actually do.

There were many single family houses. Many were interesting, but everyone had a corrugated steel fence or wall, I wasn’t going to get good pics. Whether for noise or privacy, probably both.

Despite the first real graffiti, it did seem to be a decent place to live. Quiet, not too much traffic.

I passed by a small memorial for the aviators lost in WWII, with a cemetery behind it. The cemetery had fences around all the grave sections, perhaps to show the family’s area. It was somewhat overgrown, not weeds, but trees and bushes. You couldn’t really see far away.

Between the fences, you had about a foot or so to walk through. Interesting, most of the tombstones had photographs or etched images of the deceased. That is somewhat new in America, so to see it on 50+ year old graves, is surprising.

There was a small park, overlooking the Reka River. The sketchiest bridge I have ever crossed, lies over the river. I passed a small pond, with a mallard duck. I quacked to it, but it didn’t understand my accent.

I browsed through the local garden center, not like I can buy anything. It was larger that the supermarket, the Лента (Lenta). Lenta had more beer, wine, and spirits than anything else. I suppose that tells you something about the life there.

The buses in town were very modern, but the few I seen here were 1960’s at least, if not war era. Surprising, since most everything here, except houses, looks newish. The houses do need some work.

Tulip

 

Day Three, Vatican City

SDSpivey

After a good night’s rest, we awoke a the crack of noon and set out to explore a bit more of Rome.

We walked down the road a bit to the Basilica Laterno, one of the original seats of the Catholic Church prior to the Vatican City being built.

They have confessionals with kneeling pads on each side, many have a language on the front, presumably so the priest can understand your confession.

The ceiling was covered with gold, very likely real gold. Painting were on every flat surface.

We then decided to go across the river to see a few things, walking down the streets, enjoying the sites. Unfortunately, we went down a road that angled a bit more than the one we wanted to walk down, both of which went off the bottom of our map. We ended walking about an hour and a half, before we came across a Metro station that we didn’t know about. We could have taken the Metro and saved ourselves a bunch of effort.

On the way, we saw our first gas station. It seems strange to not have seen any so far.

Finally we reached the river, then met a couple from Holland with two kids. We all walked towards a large church, but somehow missed the entire thing. Seems impossible to over look something of that size, but we did.

We also wanted to see a fountain nearby, but following the map, it was not anywhere on that road. Very likely on one of the very steep side streets that we were too tired from walking to climb.

Being so late in the afternoon and being nearby to the Vatican, there should be fewer people, so we followed the river there. It was also closer to the Metro than the station we had passed, so there was going to be less walking. Or so we thought.

We walked into St. Peter’s Square and up to the portico of the chapel, only to see we were on the exit side of the barriers. Circling round to the other side, we got into line and went through security. But instead of going straight into the chapel, we somehow end up in line to go to the top of the dome. OK, that seems cool, until Mom spots a sign stating there were over 300 steps to the top of the dome’s cupola. Oh, no!

The Pope was performing a service while we were there.

A quick walk up the road led us to the Metro, with a straight shot back, no transfers needed.

After more than six hours of walking, we had earned a good Chinese meal and a good night’s sleep.