In spite of my checking – and occasional double-checking – of my day counts, I’ve managed to lose a day. In fact, the whole year of our Longest-Date-Ever, travelling from here to there, we’ve managed to only lose the following: one debit card (mine), one Cobber (Pierre’s), one day of activities in Thailand, a few pens, a couple of short-sleeved shirts, our tempers (a few times) and one day of our year-less-a-day count. That’s a better track record for me than usual.
We spent our last week doing a mix of things. I assist my friend Melanie while she shoots a wedding on Day 356. We help out with the kids a bit, babysitting here and there, and after a particularly successful day, Pierre and I celebrate with our version of a high-five: we make fists and clink our wedding rings together. This, I think, was born both from reading/watching too many comics/cartoons (rings of power!) as well as from often, though not always, being high-five people. Either way, the clink is very satisfying though it’s taken us a while to get the knack of lining up our fingers properly to make it work every time.
For our last week of our year off, we “house sit” (read: couch surf) at another friend’s house while she’s away on vacation, and try to take care of a few details of our life in Canada. We renew our health cards just before they expire, meet friends to have dinner and catch up in person, and sign the papers for our new apartment.
I scrupulously procrastinate working on the blog, though I’m several months of posts behind. As much as I’m not in a hurry to get back to the office and start working, blog-wise I’m looking forward to the end of our vacation day count. For the whole trip, every time I get caught up on the blog, time keeps moving on and on and then suddenly I’m weeks in the hole again. And with the lack of photographs for the Russia leg of the journey it’s even more daunting. Still, I know I’ll eventually wrap things up.
Pierre continues to mourn the loss of the Russia photos and, whenever I work on the blog, he gets a bit sad. Especially when he notices my notes where I’ve listed the ID numbers of photos I had already selected to cut and paste into specific parts of the narrative.
“I thought of another one we lost,” he says. “Remember in Suzdal, that pic where the two beams of light illuminated the two small figures in the painting?” He pauses. “That was a really good one, too.”
I’m sympathetic, but eventually break down and start offering sympathy with a chaser of practicality.
“Why don’t you start doing something useful every time you feel bad about the pics,” I suggest, trying to link into something he already does. “If you did 10 pushups every time you dwelt on it, you’d increase the number of pushups you can do like crazy.”
The idea is not pursued and sporadic mourning continues.
On what my notebook says is Day 363, but which is really Day 365, we pack up our bags and head back to Mel and Al’s to man the door for Hallowe’en and to get ready for our first week back at work.
We’ve done an informal countdown to this day all week. It's not that we're sad about it being over – we enjoyed ourselves far too much to be sad - we’re simply aware that something major is wrapping up. We haven’t really planned anything special to mark it. After a quick hug we start to pick up our bags. Pierre stops.
“Best date ever,” he says and smiles.
We clink rings.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Days 345 to 355 – Tues Oct 13 to Fri Oct 23 – Road Trip!
To keep up the goal of travelling in some form or another for all 12 months of our leave of absence, we decide to squeeze in a road trip before our year less a day finally ends. Destination: mom’s house in Northwestern Ontario.
“Is this our first real road trip as a married couple?” Pierre asks me. He looks like he’s about to get all misty-eyed.
I think for a moment. “You mean besides our honeymoon?” We took a 10-day road trip through Western Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Oh, yeah,” says Pierre. “That.”
The road trip goes the way most road trips go. There is a lot of sitting. We don't really like to stop once we're on a roll, but we take a short break to check out the Terry Fox memorial just outside Thunder Bay:
On the first day we drive 14 hours and make it to Wawa. We randomly choose a roadside motel called “White Fang” because it’s the first place we pass when we get near town. We’re not expecting much – the last time I stayed in a roadside motel along this highway was about 15 years ago. The room back then was pretty basic and tiny and, with rooms at the White Fang going for 65$ a night, I figure things probably haven’t changed much. Instead, the room is gorgeous and cozy and we think it looks like something from a style magazine. Or maybe we just had very low expectations. Either way, we eat well and sleep well and get going early in the morning.
People complain about the prairies being monotonous to drive through, but I think the drive up to Northwestern is a close second in terms of monotony. Not boring, exactly, just not much variety in a lot of ways. We listen to music, and amuse ourselves with the road signs. There are a lot of lakes and roads to be named, so there are hints of humour and artistic touch in various places. Near Wawa we pass Mom Lake, Dad Lake and Baby Lake. Not long after, we pass Desolation Lake and eventually wander past a sign pointing towards “The Yellow Brick Road.”
The further north we travel, the more often we see the small traffic signs in the ditches, installed for the snowmobilists in winter.
We find the city/town highway signs a bit mysterious. Often a town will be announced by a sign but then there’s no sign of the town itself for miles and miles. Often we pass through a town completely without ever seeing anything that we could identify as a town. We feel a little homesick for the European system of identifying town limits with two signs: a sign before the town says: Blind River. And then, at the point at which the city limits end, you find a second sign, with the name Blind River with a red line through it. Clear and easy.
We read out loud the town mottos when we see them.
Espanola – Not just a fine paper town.
Nipigon – Nestled in Nature.
“More like ‘Adrift in nature’,” Pierre says.
Mid-October is late autumn for this part of the country – they’ve already had several centimeters of snow come and go in most places. Northwestern Ontario colours in late fall remind me of photos left in the sun too long. Yellow, green, beige. Yellow lines and road signs. White leafless birch trees. Gray phone poles, poplar trunks, side railings and asphalt. Once in a while we pass by a royal blue lake, depending on the angle of the sun, but usually they’re a dark grey while the sky is a faded blue. The colours mostly come from one side of the colour wheel, and the warm tones of red and orange are missing. Instead, some days the landscape is a palette of sickly yellows and ill-mixed greens – puce-coloured cliffs and shrubs the green of canned peas. I think I lived here too long as a kid to find every part of every season charming.
When we finally reach Dryden (Ontario’s leading small city) we’re glad to stop. Mom spoils us with home cooking and my favourite snack food, which we can’t find in southern Ontario, La Cocina chips. We gorge ourselves and go to sleep.
Time at mom’s is always mellow and always involves a trip to the library to pick up a ridiculous number of books to flip through in our spare time. We visit, eat, go for walks down the back road and watch the occasional movie.
On Day 349, we drive up to my hometown to visit some friends. Pierre has never had a chance to visit my town, or meet any of the friends I grew up with, so it’s a chance for everyone to meet and greet and eat some food. We eat bran muffins with my friend Barb and cruise around town a little. The architecture in town tends to be pretty spare but there's something about the colours and angles and bare-boned-ness of it that I really love. The town isn't very pretty but it does have it's moments when it's kind of handsome.
My friend Liane and her husband graciously host us for the night and spoil us with an amazing meal. We house hop and drink tea, beer, scotch, and play rock band.
There’s a Hallowe’en game going on in town, and my friend Liane has a few bags of candy she has to give away. It’s a bit like candy tag, and works like this: You hear a knock on the door, and when you look outside all you see is a bag of candy. A note inside explains that you have been “ghosted.” Your assignment is then to cut out the image of the ghost provided and stick it to your door so that people will know that you’ve already been tagged. You have to put together three bags of candy complete with instructions, and knock on someone else’s door. The catches are that you can’t be caught by the person – it has to be a mystery who dropped it off with them – but you also can’t leave the bag on the doorstep if no one comes out to claim it: the candy could attract animals that way, which wouldn't be good.
We take the bags out for a walk and unload them at a couple of houses that haven’t yet been ghosted. I find a loophole in the rules and take advantage - almost every single house in my town has a two-door system at the front: screen door, wood door. I accept that it’s not ok to leave the candy on the doorstep, but it seems perfectly ok to leave it between these doors if no one comes out. We use this system on two doors; at the third door someone comes outside but they don’t catch sight of us.
The night is as varied and rambling as I remember our nights of drinking in high school: we drop by the Legion briefly, stop by someone’s house for a few drinks, listen to a bit of live guitar, wander home in the dark, cutting through the ditches to shave a few minutes off our time. It’s possible to walk across most of town in about 10 or 15 minutes in any direction, so the walk is always pretty short to begin with.
Morning is a slow start with coffee and toast and a chance to finally see the video and photos from Liane's wedding that we had to miss this past summer. We leave our lovely hosts so they can take the afternoon to catch a bit more sleep and enjoy the rest of their Sunday. My friends’ parents treat us to lunch and reminiscing before Pierre and I officially settle back in the car to leave town. We take a final tour around town, which doesn’t take long at all, and head back up the highway to mom’s house, an hour and a half away.
The three of us spend a few more days talking, reading, eating, walking and enjoying the surroundings. A few deer wander by...
...and, one night, the sky shows off a little:
Pierre and I finally start the long drive home early on Day 353. Our on-the-road entertainment alternates between random music and a book on tape: “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. We start it on a whim thinking that Pierre might enjoy it since it touches on astronomy, physics and science. It’s a good call: we can hardly bring ourselves to turn it off. The first day we drive ten hours, the second day - fourteen. At least half of both days is spent listening to the Bryson, and we make it back to town in the early evening.
“Is this our first real road trip as a married couple?” Pierre asks me. He looks like he’s about to get all misty-eyed.
I think for a moment. “You mean besides our honeymoon?” We took a 10-day road trip through Western Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Oh, yeah,” says Pierre. “That.”
The road trip goes the way most road trips go. There is a lot of sitting. We don't really like to stop once we're on a roll, but we take a short break to check out the Terry Fox memorial just outside Thunder Bay:
On the first day we drive 14 hours and make it to Wawa. We randomly choose a roadside motel called “White Fang” because it’s the first place we pass when we get near town. We’re not expecting much – the last time I stayed in a roadside motel along this highway was about 15 years ago. The room back then was pretty basic and tiny and, with rooms at the White Fang going for 65$ a night, I figure things probably haven’t changed much. Instead, the room is gorgeous and cozy and we think it looks like something from a style magazine. Or maybe we just had very low expectations. Either way, we eat well and sleep well and get going early in the morning.
People complain about the prairies being monotonous to drive through, but I think the drive up to Northwestern is a close second in terms of monotony. Not boring, exactly, just not much variety in a lot of ways. We listen to music, and amuse ourselves with the road signs. There are a lot of lakes and roads to be named, so there are hints of humour and artistic touch in various places. Near Wawa we pass Mom Lake, Dad Lake and Baby Lake. Not long after, we pass Desolation Lake and eventually wander past a sign pointing towards “The Yellow Brick Road.”
The further north we travel, the more often we see the small traffic signs in the ditches, installed for the snowmobilists in winter.
We find the city/town highway signs a bit mysterious. Often a town will be announced by a sign but then there’s no sign of the town itself for miles and miles. Often we pass through a town completely without ever seeing anything that we could identify as a town. We feel a little homesick for the European system of identifying town limits with two signs: a sign before the town says: Blind River. And then, at the point at which the city limits end, you find a second sign, with the name Blind River with a red line through it. Clear and easy.
We read out loud the town mottos when we see them.
Espanola – Not just a fine paper town.
Nipigon – Nestled in Nature.
“More like ‘Adrift in nature’,” Pierre says.
Mid-October is late autumn for this part of the country – they’ve already had several centimeters of snow come and go in most places. Northwestern Ontario colours in late fall remind me of photos left in the sun too long. Yellow, green, beige. Yellow lines and road signs. White leafless birch trees. Gray phone poles, poplar trunks, side railings and asphalt. Once in a while we pass by a royal blue lake, depending on the angle of the sun, but usually they’re a dark grey while the sky is a faded blue. The colours mostly come from one side of the colour wheel, and the warm tones of red and orange are missing. Instead, some days the landscape is a palette of sickly yellows and ill-mixed greens – puce-coloured cliffs and shrubs the green of canned peas. I think I lived here too long as a kid to find every part of every season charming.
When we finally reach Dryden (Ontario’s leading small city) we’re glad to stop. Mom spoils us with home cooking and my favourite snack food, which we can’t find in southern Ontario, La Cocina chips. We gorge ourselves and go to sleep.
Time at mom’s is always mellow and always involves a trip to the library to pick up a ridiculous number of books to flip through in our spare time. We visit, eat, go for walks down the back road and watch the occasional movie.
On Day 349, we drive up to my hometown to visit some friends. Pierre has never had a chance to visit my town, or meet any of the friends I grew up with, so it’s a chance for everyone to meet and greet and eat some food. We eat bran muffins with my friend Barb and cruise around town a little. The architecture in town tends to be pretty spare but there's something about the colours and angles and bare-boned-ness of it that I really love. The town isn't very pretty but it does have it's moments when it's kind of handsome.
My friend Liane and her husband graciously host us for the night and spoil us with an amazing meal. We house hop and drink tea, beer, scotch, and play rock band.
There’s a Hallowe’en game going on in town, and my friend Liane has a few bags of candy she has to give away. It’s a bit like candy tag, and works like this: You hear a knock on the door, and when you look outside all you see is a bag of candy. A note inside explains that you have been “ghosted.” Your assignment is then to cut out the image of the ghost provided and stick it to your door so that people will know that you’ve already been tagged. You have to put together three bags of candy complete with instructions, and knock on someone else’s door. The catches are that you can’t be caught by the person – it has to be a mystery who dropped it off with them – but you also can’t leave the bag on the doorstep if no one comes out to claim it: the candy could attract animals that way, which wouldn't be good.
We take the bags out for a walk and unload them at a couple of houses that haven’t yet been ghosted. I find a loophole in the rules and take advantage - almost every single house in my town has a two-door system at the front: screen door, wood door. I accept that it’s not ok to leave the candy on the doorstep, but it seems perfectly ok to leave it between these doors if no one comes out. We use this system on two doors; at the third door someone comes outside but they don’t catch sight of us.
The night is as varied and rambling as I remember our nights of drinking in high school: we drop by the Legion briefly, stop by someone’s house for a few drinks, listen to a bit of live guitar, wander home in the dark, cutting through the ditches to shave a few minutes off our time. It’s possible to walk across most of town in about 10 or 15 minutes in any direction, so the walk is always pretty short to begin with.
Morning is a slow start with coffee and toast and a chance to finally see the video and photos from Liane's wedding that we had to miss this past summer. We leave our lovely hosts so they can take the afternoon to catch a bit more sleep and enjoy the rest of their Sunday. My friends’ parents treat us to lunch and reminiscing before Pierre and I officially settle back in the car to leave town. We take a final tour around town, which doesn’t take long at all, and head back up the highway to mom’s house, an hour and a half away.
The three of us spend a few more days talking, reading, eating, walking and enjoying the surroundings. A few deer wander by...
...and, one night, the sky shows off a little:
Pierre and I finally start the long drive home early on Day 353. Our on-the-road entertainment alternates between random music and a book on tape: “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. We start it on a whim thinking that Pierre might enjoy it since it touches on astronomy, physics and science. It’s a good call: we can hardly bring ourselves to turn it off. The first day we drive ten hours, the second day - fourteen. At least half of both days is spent listening to the Bryson, and we make it back to town in the early evening.
Days 333 to 344 –Thurs Oct 1 to Mon Oct 12 – Back in Ottawa
We start our apartment search on Day 338 at around 11am on Craigslist, find something interesting posted around noon, visit it at around 3:00 and have agreed to take it by 3:15. The whole process takes around 13 days less than expected.
When I tell my mom we've found something so quickly, she tells me I have a horseshoe stuck in my body. (This may explain how I set off metal detectors even when my pockets are emptied. )
The apartment has its pros and cons, like any place:
Pros:
Here are pictures of the apartment as it stands now:
The Dining Room/ Living Room :
The master bedroom:
The back yard:
Until then, we are doing a bit of informal couch surfing. For the first week and a half of October, we're graciously hosted by our friends Melanie and Al. At the same time as we adults all hang out together and get caught up on the latest news, Pierre and I also get to try our hand at being babysitters and playmates to their 4-year old daughter and 18-month old son. The kids are great and very patient with our sub-par snack-making abilities and our clumsy (but fairly quick) diaper changes. We read books, go for walks, colour in books, and get to know Madeline and the Wiggles.
When I tell my mom we've found something so quickly, she tells me I have a horseshoe stuck in my body. (This may explain how I set off metal detectors even when my pockets are emptied. )
The apartment has its pros and cons, like any place:
Pros:
- It has three bedrooms, a private backyard, free parking, a washer and dryer
- There's a library branch about 7 minutes away
- Pierre and I can still walk to work
- We're one minute away from the Rideau Canal.
- There's no decent grocery store or gym within walking distance
- The living room is fugly.
- We can't move in until December 1st
Here are pictures of the apartment as it stands now:
The Dining Room/ Living Room :
The master bedroom:
The back yard:
Until then, we are doing a bit of informal couch surfing. For the first week and a half of October, we're graciously hosted by our friends Melanie and Al. At the same time as we adults all hang out together and get caught up on the latest news, Pierre and I also get to try our hand at being babysitters and playmates to their 4-year old daughter and 18-month old son. The kids are great and very patient with our sub-par snack-making abilities and our clumsy (but fairly quick) diaper changes. We read books, go for walks, colour in books, and get to know Madeline and the Wiggles.Day 328 revisited – Sat Sept 26 – “I wish they’d taken my wallet” or Why the Russia posts have no pictures
Considering how long our trip is, we have done a great job keeping track of our things. I lose more in Canada in an average year than I've lost on this trip - so far, our losses have amounted to small things: one bank card, one neck-cooling gadget called a Cobber, a pair of underwear, various pens. It's not much of a breadcrumb-trail - we packed well, we packed light and when repacking to leaving a place we can quickly scan a room and tell when something's missing. We watch our wallets in crowds, watch each other's backs in uncertain situations and know the quickest way to travel through a busy sidewalk is to split up and meet on the other side.
On day 328, we do the latter. We're in front of the Kazan Cathedral, a typical Sunday, working our away around the bus shelters and pedestrians. Busses pull up, unload, reload and leave. I find the quickest way through the crowd and stop to wait for Pierre on the other side.
I'm used to killing time waiting for Pierre - we spend a lot of time waiting and getting just the right shot - so at first I'm not surprised when he doesn't appear at first. I wait 10 seconds, 20 seconds, let my mind wander and then find I've been waiting a lot longer than usual. I flicker through my file-o-fax of reactions: irritated (what could possibly be so interesting to photograph?), curious (could it really be that good?), confused (is he waiting for me further ahead?)... Eventually, Pierre strides out of the crowd and for a split second it's hard to read his face: it's a cross between teenage-temper-tantrum and the expression on my brothers' toddler faces in our family's beloved we-just-kicked-our-favourite-ball-into-the-ocean photo.
He flashes the empty bag on his hip toward me. "They got the camera."
The pickpockets are long gone, but we walk around to see if there's anything we can do. Every fifth person in St. Petersburg seems to wear a uniform - soldiers, sailors, police officers - and the meanings of these uniforms are a mystery to us. We have no idea who to talk to on the street.
We speak to a couple of men in uniform that seem to be responsible for the Kazan Cathedral. Pierre explains the situation: 3 guys in black jackets (at least 2 in front, 1 to his right) stop walking in front of Pierre in the crowd, which blocks him from going forward (guys in black jackets), left (bus stop booth) or left (guy in black jacket).
At first it seems like an 'oops, pardon me' sort of situation but after a few seconds he starts to get suspicious, then the camera bag jostles...and when he reaches back the bag is already empty. It takes only a few seconds but the camera is nowhere in sight, probably already passed off to someone else like a sneak pass in football. Pierre looks at the thugs, the thugs look back, no one's holding anything and there's no one to get mad at. Players in the scene include “innocent bystander” who tells Pierre in English that the thief ran the other way down the street. Moments later, everyone's dispersed onto buses and into crowds and it's over.
The guys in uniform listen to our story, but they can't help us - it's not the type of thing they're responsible for, it seems. We hurry here and there, hoping we'll see someone that Pierre recognizes, or see our camera. We ask people directions to the nearest police station. A couple of non-uniformed employees come out from behind the counter and talk to us in the lobby. Can you tell us what happened? Did you see the men? Do you have insurance? They write us a letter that we could give to an insurance company if we had insurance on our camera. They see this almost every day.
Losing the camera is not our biggest problem - our problem is that we haven't backed up the pictures since leaving Huizhou. We've just lost Beijing and all of Russia, which works out to several hundred photos and approximately 2 months of our trip. We have a grip on reality - we realize we haven't lost a person or each other, and we're both safe and healthy.
Still, it blows.
We feel pretty stupid. This pretty stupid feeling lasts for quite a while and shows no sign of stopping once we get home. It's pretty constant the first night, only slightly less so the next few days and still kicks us in the ass every so often a months later. We feel stupid... for not having backed up the pictures...for losing the camera on a day when we didn't use it...for having extra water in our bags that we didn't drink which kept us from storing it in the pack like we often do at the end of a day... And so on.
On top of that, we think of specific pictures that we'll never see again. This happens every few minutes in the beginning : "Remember the one of the guard in front of the Forbidden Palace?" "Remember the mountain valley in Arshan?" We cringe again, and feel stupid.
After the 5th or 6th time this happens, I decide we need to be more proactive - we sit down and spend an hour or so writing down every photo that we can remember and that we're really sad to lose. We think of a picture, feel bad about it, then think of a new one and feel bad about it too. The mosaics in the cathedral, the Lenin head in Ulan Ude...Not a fun way to spend our time but we get most of the feeling sorry for ourselves out of the way, and are then able to simply deal with feeling stupid and angry. Plus, that way we have a list of pictures to retake someday when we come back.
We put up a poster near the place the camera was swiped - all we want is our memory card back:
We only have a few days to re-take photos of St.Petersburg. Pierre takes out our little point-and-shoot Canon Powershot to get a few photos of our apartment building...
...the view from the kitchen (the Neva river is just behind this white building)...
...as well as our cozy, furnished, and usually messy bedroom...
...and the kitchen:
He gets a few photos of the pillars of the Kazan Cathedral...
...the Church of the Spilled Blood where Pierre had originally gotten gorgeous pictures of the interior's floor-to-cathedral-ceiling mosaics.
Damn.
He reshoots the exterior of the Isaac Cathedral...
...various street scenes...
... and tries a few shots of the canals that carve rings through the interior of the city:
He even gets a little of his sense of humour back.
For me, most of the sting fades over the next few weeks - it still bothers Pierre months later, usually when we see a picture of a landmark in Beijing or Russia.
He looks, assesses and humphs. "Ours was better."
On day 328, we do the latter. We're in front of the Kazan Cathedral, a typical Sunday, working our away around the bus shelters and pedestrians. Busses pull up, unload, reload and leave. I find the quickest way through the crowd and stop to wait for Pierre on the other side.
I'm used to killing time waiting for Pierre - we spend a lot of time waiting and getting just the right shot - so at first I'm not surprised when he doesn't appear at first. I wait 10 seconds, 20 seconds, let my mind wander and then find I've been waiting a lot longer than usual. I flicker through my file-o-fax of reactions: irritated (what could possibly be so interesting to photograph?), curious (could it really be that good?), confused (is he waiting for me further ahead?)... Eventually, Pierre strides out of the crowd and for a split second it's hard to read his face: it's a cross between teenage-temper-tantrum and the expression on my brothers' toddler faces in our family's beloved we-just-kicked-our-favourite-ball-into-the-ocean photo.
He flashes the empty bag on his hip toward me. "They got the camera."
The pickpockets are long gone, but we walk around to see if there's anything we can do. Every fifth person in St. Petersburg seems to wear a uniform - soldiers, sailors, police officers - and the meanings of these uniforms are a mystery to us. We have no idea who to talk to on the street.
We speak to a couple of men in uniform that seem to be responsible for the Kazan Cathedral. Pierre explains the situation: 3 guys in black jackets (at least 2 in front, 1 to his right) stop walking in front of Pierre in the crowd, which blocks him from going forward (guys in black jackets), left (bus stop booth) or left (guy in black jacket).
At first it seems like an 'oops, pardon me' sort of situation but after a few seconds he starts to get suspicious, then the camera bag jostles...and when he reaches back the bag is already empty. It takes only a few seconds but the camera is nowhere in sight, probably already passed off to someone else like a sneak pass in football. Pierre looks at the thugs, the thugs look back, no one's holding anything and there's no one to get mad at. Players in the scene include “innocent bystander” who tells Pierre in English that the thief ran the other way down the street. Moments later, everyone's dispersed onto buses and into crowds and it's over.
The guys in uniform listen to our story, but they can't help us - it's not the type of thing they're responsible for, it seems. We hurry here and there, hoping we'll see someone that Pierre recognizes, or see our camera. We ask people directions to the nearest police station. A couple of non-uniformed employees come out from behind the counter and talk to us in the lobby. Can you tell us what happened? Did you see the men? Do you have insurance? They write us a letter that we could give to an insurance company if we had insurance on our camera. They see this almost every day.
Losing the camera is not our biggest problem - our problem is that we haven't backed up the pictures since leaving Huizhou. We've just lost Beijing and all of Russia, which works out to several hundred photos and approximately 2 months of our trip. We have a grip on reality - we realize we haven't lost a person or each other, and we're both safe and healthy.
Still, it blows.
We feel pretty stupid. This pretty stupid feeling lasts for quite a while and shows no sign of stopping once we get home. It's pretty constant the first night, only slightly less so the next few days and still kicks us in the ass every so often a months later. We feel stupid... for not having backed up the pictures...for losing the camera on a day when we didn't use it...for having extra water in our bags that we didn't drink which kept us from storing it in the pack like we often do at the end of a day... And so on.
On top of that, we think of specific pictures that we'll never see again. This happens every few minutes in the beginning : "Remember the one of the guard in front of the Forbidden Palace?" "Remember the mountain valley in Arshan?" We cringe again, and feel stupid.
After the 5th or 6th time this happens, I decide we need to be more proactive - we sit down and spend an hour or so writing down every photo that we can remember and that we're really sad to lose. We think of a picture, feel bad about it, then think of a new one and feel bad about it too. The mosaics in the cathedral, the Lenin head in Ulan Ude...Not a fun way to spend our time but we get most of the feeling sorry for ourselves out of the way, and are then able to simply deal with feeling stupid and angry. Plus, that way we have a list of pictures to retake someday when we come back.
We put up a poster near the place the camera was swiped - all we want is our memory card back:
We only have a few days to re-take photos of St.Petersburg. Pierre takes out our little point-and-shoot Canon Powershot to get a few photos of our apartment building...
...the view from the kitchen (the Neva river is just behind this white building)...
...as well as our cozy, furnished, and usually messy bedroom...
...and the kitchen:
He gets a few photos of the pillars of the Kazan Cathedral...
...the Church of the Spilled Blood where Pierre had originally gotten gorgeous pictures of the interior's floor-to-cathedral-ceiling mosaics.
Damn.
He reshoots the exterior of the Isaac Cathedral...
...various street scenes...
... and tries a few shots of the canals that carve rings through the interior of the city:
He even gets a little of his sense of humour back.
For me, most of the sting fades over the next few weeks - it still bothers Pierre months later, usually when we see a picture of a landmark in Beijing or Russia.
He looks, assesses and humphs. "Ours was better."
Days 323 to 332 – Mon Sept 21 to Wed Sept 30 – Week 4+ in St. P
Week four brings more lessons at the school, this time ending off with a certificate awarded for my time there (lower intermediate!). We say goodbye and thank you to all of the staff, and take a few more days to explore the city. Pierre does a lot of exploring on his own as well and visits the museum across from the Hermitage (which is not of the Hermitage, but one of a family of Hermitage museums - confusing) to check out the exhibits - as always, it's very large, very impressive.
Together we travel to Peterhof and make a point to hunt down each of the fountains that sound interesting - a few are activated by trick rocks. You walk by it, accidentally triggering a sensor, and a few seconds later it goes off. It doesn't really catch tourists unaware since the spots are pretty popular and the soaked stones and screaming kids give it away. During my last visit, these trick fountains were covered in tiny children running around in their bathing suits - their parents had brought them to the park to enjoy the fountains and cool off from the summer heat.
This time, it's teenagers who can't get enough of it. They walk past us, dripping with water as they head away to meet their school groups or as they head back to the trick fountain for another dousing. The inside of the palace itself is smaller than I remember, and very oddly organized. There are two rooms where we are not allowed to stop and look - we are shuffled through by the "gatekeeper" before we realize this, and then aren't allowed to walk back through the room to look. Pierre sneaks back in anyway and does his best to look until he's done looking. The gatekeeper is not amused.
Within St. P, we take time to see the Yusupov Palace, which is infamous for being the place where Prince Yusupov tried to kill (several times in a row) Rasputin before he finally succeeded. The house of one of the only former private residence that we visit, and it's beautiful, from top to bottom. It was not destroyed during the war and was kept in pretty good shape during the Soviet years, and so it's all original work, and not a reconstruction. The wealth of the family is pretty obvious in every detail (including the miniature Baroque-type theater in the basement, complete with tiny orchestra pit) - they might have been even wealthier than the Tsar's family at the time. The place is a bit more bare-bones than it was during its glory years (the art collection of paintings and tapestries now belongs to the Hermitage) but the detailing that couldn't be removed - the woodwork, the plaster work and carvings - are really impressive. (there's a site with great photos of the interior here)
After a few false starts (closed for renos and holidays), we finally visit the Zoological Museum and get to see the collection of mummified mammoth carcasses:
They're one of the many really unique things that only St. P seems to have, which is why we've been so stubborn about trying to make it to the museum. The mammoths (4 in total) are a little leathery but in good shape - the rest of the exhibit is good, but some of the displays are a bit bizarre. What's best described as Vultures Eating Man's Best Friend is a personal favourite...
...as well as the displays of house pets...
...though the cat mummies behind the stuffed house cats are pretty cool.
We have a few final visit with our hosts, Tatiana and Viktor and later get together with Sergey and his friend Grigor for drinks at Loft Proekt Etazhi - a series of galleries and restaurants hosted in what used to be a bread factory (as far as I know). It's a suitably funky last night for the arty city of St. P. At the end of the night, we head home for the last time, and do some final packing.
Together we travel to Peterhof and make a point to hunt down each of the fountains that sound interesting - a few are activated by trick rocks. You walk by it, accidentally triggering a sensor, and a few seconds later it goes off. It doesn't really catch tourists unaware since the spots are pretty popular and the soaked stones and screaming kids give it away. During my last visit, these trick fountains were covered in tiny children running around in their bathing suits - their parents had brought them to the park to enjoy the fountains and cool off from the summer heat.
This time, it's teenagers who can't get enough of it. They walk past us, dripping with water as they head away to meet their school groups or as they head back to the trick fountain for another dousing. The inside of the palace itself is smaller than I remember, and very oddly organized. There are two rooms where we are not allowed to stop and look - we are shuffled through by the "gatekeeper" before we realize this, and then aren't allowed to walk back through the room to look. Pierre sneaks back in anyway and does his best to look until he's done looking. The gatekeeper is not amused.
Within St. P, we take time to see the Yusupov Palace, which is infamous for being the place where Prince Yusupov tried to kill (several times in a row) Rasputin before he finally succeeded. The house of one of the only former private residence that we visit, and it's beautiful, from top to bottom. It was not destroyed during the war and was kept in pretty good shape during the Soviet years, and so it's all original work, and not a reconstruction. The wealth of the family is pretty obvious in every detail (including the miniature Baroque-type theater in the basement, complete with tiny orchestra pit) - they might have been even wealthier than the Tsar's family at the time. The place is a bit more bare-bones than it was during its glory years (the art collection of paintings and tapestries now belongs to the Hermitage) but the detailing that couldn't be removed - the woodwork, the plaster work and carvings - are really impressive. (there's a site with great photos of the interior here)
After a few false starts (closed for renos and holidays), we finally visit the Zoological Museum and get to see the collection of mummified mammoth carcasses:
They're one of the many really unique things that only St. P seems to have, which is why we've been so stubborn about trying to make it to the museum. The mammoths (4 in total) are a little leathery but in good shape - the rest of the exhibit is good, but some of the displays are a bit bizarre. What's best described as Vultures Eating Man's Best Friend is a personal favourite...
...as well as the displays of house pets...
...though the cat mummies behind the stuffed house cats are pretty cool.
We have a few final visit with our hosts, Tatiana and Viktor and later get together with Sergey and his friend Grigor for drinks at Loft Proekt Etazhi - a series of galleries and restaurants hosted in what used to be a bread factory (as far as I know). It's a suitably funky last night for the arty city of St. P. At the end of the night, we head home for the last time, and do some final packing.
Days 316 to 322 – Mon Sept 14 to Sun Sept 20 – Week 3 in St. P
Pierre's been in the country now for about 6 weeks and has a good grasp of the Russian alphabet. Reading signs is one of his favourite pastimes. More often than not, it's trendy for signs to use "international" words that are common in English. It's not unusual to hear Pierre sound something out ("Kom. Pyoo. Terr") only to discover it's not really Russian. ("Kompyooterr. Oh - computer"). Some of them crack us up. "Business lunch" sounds like biznes lanch. "Snack" is snek.
During my class days this week, Pierre stays in and works at home or goes to the islands in the north of St. P to explore. Together we visit the Kunstkamera which is infamous for its babies- in-formaldehyde-in-jars exhibit, but which really should be best known for its ethnographic exhibits (in my opinion), especially the one on the Inuit. 100 year old waterproof jackets sewn from the intestines of whales are by far some of the coolest things I've ever seen. We also take a trip to the Russian Museum, which is a lot less sprawling than the Hermitage, but still huge. We make it through about half of it one afternoon and never make it back for the second half. The wing with the art from the 1900s is under renovation during our visit, unfortunately, so Pierre doesn't get to see the amazing collection of Soviet art. Next time.
The main event, when it comes to museums, is still the Hermitage. With several hundred exhibit halls (approx 400) it covers prehistoric time, the ancient world and carries on through to the start of the 19th century. It's very overwhelming and very easy to get disoriented in its halls. You can spot the tourists that have only enough time on their bus tour to drop by for an hour or so, because they look very impressed and exhausted all at once. Pierre makes a point of visiting every hall at least once, even if it's only to walk through it. By his 5th visit, he almost knows how to find his way around without the map. Almost.
During my class days this week, Pierre stays in and works at home or goes to the islands in the north of St. P to explore. Together we visit the Kunstkamera which is infamous for its babies- in-formaldehyde-in-jars exhibit, but which really should be best known for its ethnographic exhibits (in my opinion), especially the one on the Inuit. 100 year old waterproof jackets sewn from the intestines of whales are by far some of the coolest things I've ever seen. We also take a trip to the Russian Museum, which is a lot less sprawling than the Hermitage, but still huge. We make it through about half of it one afternoon and never make it back for the second half. The wing with the art from the 1900s is under renovation during our visit, unfortunately, so Pierre doesn't get to see the amazing collection of Soviet art. Next time.
The main event, when it comes to museums, is still the Hermitage. With several hundred exhibit halls (approx 400) it covers prehistoric time, the ancient world and carries on through to the start of the 19th century. It's very overwhelming and very easy to get disoriented in its halls. You can spot the tourists that have only enough time on their bus tour to drop by for an hour or so, because they look very impressed and exhausted all at once. Pierre makes a point of visiting every hall at least once, even if it's only to walk through it. By his 5th visit, he almost knows how to find his way around without the map. Almost.
Days 309 to 315 – Mon Sept 7 to Sun Sept 13 – Week 2 in St. P
By week 2 we're pretty well set up in St. Petersburg. We know where to find a good, cheap lunch in the main parts of town. We have a room of our own in an apartment in the southeast of St. Petersburg - a retired couple whose daughter lives abroad are renting their extra room by the week, and we're lucky enough to find it. It's near a major transit line, and across the street from the grocery store. Breakfast is usually porridge at home, lunch is usually in the city at a restaurant and we share the kitchen with Tatiana and Viktor in the evenings when we have our last meal of the day.
We've been lucky enough to get our hands on a couple of student cards - my comes legitimately with my language course, while Pierre (the non-student) receives his courtesy of someone-who -shall-not-be-named-because-it-could-theoretically-get-them-into-trouble's generosity. It really is a generous gift - museum prices have gone up since the last time I was here. A trip to the Hermitage costs about 12 CAN$ a visit each - with this card, each visit is free. Other museums are anywhere from one-half to one-fifth the regular foreign-tourist price.
St. Petersburg has a staggering number of museums - some are small, like the Museum of Bread (which we don't get a chance to visit). Some are larger, like the Museum of the History of the Political Police and the State Photography Centre. Apartments of famous people have been turned into museums, and we visit Pushkin's last apartment where he died after his duel.
Some of the women working the front cashes ("kassa") and the tour guides are old school Russians, not so much about coddling the tourists, and not afraid to take down a tourist a peg or two if they use a camera flash at the wrong moment or fall behind the pack or try to walk backwards through the exhibit. Others are milder and friendlier, and ply guests with photocopies of English guides to the exhibits which they later collect at the end of the tour.
Many are even gracious when they find themselves hosting us unexpectedly. Pierre and I walk into the Pushkin Children's Library (or, as their website says, "Central Children's library by the name of Pushkin") on a whim, and are greeted by one of the head librarians. I explain that we're just tourists in town and that I really love libraries and was just curious to see the inside of theirs. She takes us on a short tour of their reading halls and multimedia rooms, and arranges us a private visit to the rare books collection.
They are a Pushkin museum - if we hadn't figured that our from the plaque out front then we would have probably guessed it from a) the collection of first-edition Pushkin printings that they have, as well as books owned by Pushkin and b) the outward appearance of the rare book curator. He's a small man, in his late 30s, with porkshop-style sideburns and a slightly frizzy styling to his balding head that is very definitely an homage to Mr. P himself. He gives us a set of white cotton gloves to protect the pages from the natural oils on our fingers and lets us flip through some of the miniature books. The ones that stick out are the the earring books (with tiny tiny pages you can actually turn) and, our favourite, the book that looks to be simply a 1"x1" white notebook with blank pages...until the curator shines a black light on it, illuminating the text and illustrations: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.
Outside in the rest of the city, St. Petersburg has changed in some good ways. People seem less desperately poor, though there are clearly some that are still finding it harder than others. Fashion-wise, the streets don't look like something from an early 80s movie, and people come across as healthier and happier. There are more food stores and they shelves are well-stocked. The stray animal problem is under control - there are not many homeless dogs loose in the city and we don't come across any of the packs that were common in the mid-90s. Most importantly, the social safety net seems more firmly in in place for the orphans and homeless kids - no more groups of hungry, neglected tweens eating out of trash cans and trying not to bring too much attention to themselves.
The kids we do meet are extremely polite. A couple of 10 year old boys stop to talk to us while Pierre tries to get a shot of a WWII plaque from an odd angle on the ground. "What is he doing?" I explain to them in broken Russian the type of shot he's trying to get. "Oh - would it be ok if we looked?" Pierre shows them the screen. "It's really beautiful. Thanks for showing us." And they're on their way.
Another day, on a crowded bus, we stand next to a small boy of maybe kindergarten age is sitting on his mother's lap. At one point he leans over to us: "Excuse me," he says in Russian, "could you please let us pass? We need to get off at the next stop. Thank you so much." He bumps us lightly as he's stepping down. "Oh! Excuse me, I'm sorry," he says and continues to the door. Pierre has no idea what the kid is saying, but even he can tell that the kid is incredibly articulate. He says every sound and letter perfectly. His mother doesn't seem like she's coaching him at all - in fact, she barely seems to notice how precocious her kid is. Pierre and I vote him, hands down, the politest, smallest, most self-possessed kid we've ever met.
Class starts on Day 309 and my schooldays tend to all follow a similar pattern. I catch the metro at 8 am, then transfer to the green line after a few stops, walk through Sadovaya market then over and along a canal until I reach the courtyard of my school at 9:15. I set up in my classroom and my teacher and I work together until 1:00 when I eat my sandwich, study in the resource room until around 3 or 5, and either meet Pierre for sightseeing or head home on the metro. Most travelling is saved for days when I have no lessons.
This week, our big tour is to the town of Pushkin (also known as Tsarskoe Selo, or the Tzar's Village) which has the large and lovely Catherine Palace - sky-blue and white on the outside with gilded detailing and extensive grounds. Palaces in Russia are a bit odd to visit because, along with the staggeringly rich rooms and portraits are often photos of the rubble that was all that remained of the palace after World War II. It seems as though the art and furniture was hidden or saved as much as possible, but the building itself has often been rebuilt almost from scratch. It was a matter of pride for the Russians, a kind of a big eff-you to the Nazis - in fact, Stalin destroyed one of the palaces himself just so that the Nazis couldn't crow over being the ones to destroy it.
The Room To See here is the Amber Room - it "disappeared" for years and it's fate wasn't known until decades later - apparently it was moved elsewhere, at which time it was burned in a fire by accident. The people responsible for taking care of the room were terrified of being punished by Stalin for it and so made up a story about it "disappearing," most likely due to theft. (Presumably they lived.) A lot of time and effort has gone into recreating the room - it's definitely impressive but it's not our favourite room. It's a bit gaudy.
When we're not at school or sightseeing, we hang out at our place and work. Pierre plays guitar, I study, and we relax with episodes of the American TV show known in Russia as Shpyonka - we translate this into "Spy Girl" (more commonly known in North America as "Alias"). I consider this a kind of studying - Pierre and I watch the dubbed version and turn on the English subtitles. Jennifer Garner looks very Russian when dubbed in Russian.
We've been lucky enough to get our hands on a couple of student cards - my comes legitimately with my language course, while Pierre (the non-student) receives his courtesy of someone-who -shall-not-be-named-because-it-could-theoretically-get-them-into-trouble's generosity. It really is a generous gift - museum prices have gone up since the last time I was here. A trip to the Hermitage costs about 12 CAN$ a visit each - with this card, each visit is free. Other museums are anywhere from one-half to one-fifth the regular foreign-tourist price.
St. Petersburg has a staggering number of museums - some are small, like the Museum of Bread (which we don't get a chance to visit). Some are larger, like the Museum of the History of the Political Police and the State Photography Centre. Apartments of famous people have been turned into museums, and we visit Pushkin's last apartment where he died after his duel.
Some of the women working the front cashes ("kassa") and the tour guides are old school Russians, not so much about coddling the tourists, and not afraid to take down a tourist a peg or two if they use a camera flash at the wrong moment or fall behind the pack or try to walk backwards through the exhibit. Others are milder and friendlier, and ply guests with photocopies of English guides to the exhibits which they later collect at the end of the tour.
Many are even gracious when they find themselves hosting us unexpectedly. Pierre and I walk into the Pushkin Children's Library (or, as their website says, "Central Children's library by the name of Pushkin") on a whim, and are greeted by one of the head librarians. I explain that we're just tourists in town and that I really love libraries and was just curious to see the inside of theirs. She takes us on a short tour of their reading halls and multimedia rooms, and arranges us a private visit to the rare books collection.
They are a Pushkin museum - if we hadn't figured that our from the plaque out front then we would have probably guessed it from a) the collection of first-edition Pushkin printings that they have, as well as books owned by Pushkin and b) the outward appearance of the rare book curator. He's a small man, in his late 30s, with porkshop-style sideburns and a slightly frizzy styling to his balding head that is very definitely an homage to Mr. P himself. He gives us a set of white cotton gloves to protect the pages from the natural oils on our fingers and lets us flip through some of the miniature books. The ones that stick out are the the earring books (with tiny tiny pages you can actually turn) and, our favourite, the book that looks to be simply a 1"x1" white notebook with blank pages...until the curator shines a black light on it, illuminating the text and illustrations: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.
Outside in the rest of the city, St. Petersburg has changed in some good ways. People seem less desperately poor, though there are clearly some that are still finding it harder than others. Fashion-wise, the streets don't look like something from an early 80s movie, and people come across as healthier and happier. There are more food stores and they shelves are well-stocked. The stray animal problem is under control - there are not many homeless dogs loose in the city and we don't come across any of the packs that were common in the mid-90s. Most importantly, the social safety net seems more firmly in in place for the orphans and homeless kids - no more groups of hungry, neglected tweens eating out of trash cans and trying not to bring too much attention to themselves.
The kids we do meet are extremely polite. A couple of 10 year old boys stop to talk to us while Pierre tries to get a shot of a WWII plaque from an odd angle on the ground. "What is he doing?" I explain to them in broken Russian the type of shot he's trying to get. "Oh - would it be ok if we looked?" Pierre shows them the screen. "It's really beautiful. Thanks for showing us." And they're on their way.
Another day, on a crowded bus, we stand next to a small boy of maybe kindergarten age is sitting on his mother's lap. At one point he leans over to us: "Excuse me," he says in Russian, "could you please let us pass? We need to get off at the next stop. Thank you so much." He bumps us lightly as he's stepping down. "Oh! Excuse me, I'm sorry," he says and continues to the door. Pierre has no idea what the kid is saying, but even he can tell that the kid is incredibly articulate. He says every sound and letter perfectly. His mother doesn't seem like she's coaching him at all - in fact, she barely seems to notice how precocious her kid is. Pierre and I vote him, hands down, the politest, smallest, most self-possessed kid we've ever met.
Class starts on Day 309 and my schooldays tend to all follow a similar pattern. I catch the metro at 8 am, then transfer to the green line after a few stops, walk through Sadovaya market then over and along a canal until I reach the courtyard of my school at 9:15. I set up in my classroom and my teacher and I work together until 1:00 when I eat my sandwich, study in the resource room until around 3 or 5, and either meet Pierre for sightseeing or head home on the metro. Most travelling is saved for days when I have no lessons.
This week, our big tour is to the town of Pushkin (also known as Tsarskoe Selo, or the Tzar's Village) which has the large and lovely Catherine Palace - sky-blue and white on the outside with gilded detailing and extensive grounds. Palaces in Russia are a bit odd to visit because, along with the staggeringly rich rooms and portraits are often photos of the rubble that was all that remained of the palace after World War II. It seems as though the art and furniture was hidden or saved as much as possible, but the building itself has often been rebuilt almost from scratch. It was a matter of pride for the Russians, a kind of a big eff-you to the Nazis - in fact, Stalin destroyed one of the palaces himself just so that the Nazis couldn't crow over being the ones to destroy it.
The Room To See here is the Amber Room - it "disappeared" for years and it's fate wasn't known until decades later - apparently it was moved elsewhere, at which time it was burned in a fire by accident. The people responsible for taking care of the room were terrified of being punished by Stalin for it and so made up a story about it "disappearing," most likely due to theft. (Presumably they lived.) A lot of time and effort has gone into recreating the room - it's definitely impressive but it's not our favourite room. It's a bit gaudy.
When we're not at school or sightseeing, we hang out at our place and work. Pierre plays guitar, I study, and we relax with episodes of the American TV show known in Russia as Shpyonka - we translate this into "Spy Girl" (more commonly known in North America as "Alias"). I consider this a kind of studying - Pierre and I watch the dubbed version and turn on the English subtitles. Jennifer Garner looks very Russian when dubbed in Russian.
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