Winter Palace -surprisingly hypoallergenic

The State Hermitage Museum.  More commonly and easily referred to as simply 'The Hermitage",  this is one of the largest museums in the world.  It houses over 3 million works of art, so it is no surprise that it holds the Guiness World Record for housing the world's largest collection of paintings.  Some names that spring to mind; Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Monet, Renoir... not to mention Faberge jewellery and apparently the largest existing collection of ancient gold from Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

The best part?  I can see it when I look out the window of my university... Right down the road and across the Neva River, sitting there in all it's opulent stucco-fied glory, like a giant green baroque birthday cake, is the Winter Palace.  And with a Studientchisky billyet (a student card), entrance is bezplatno -free.

Today we (Evan, Laura, Katie-my suitemate, and I) journeyed to the Hermitage.  But today we weren't there to see the Da Vincis or Monets, we weren't there for the architecture, or even in hopes of seeing the giant gold clockwork peacock open it's tail...

We were there to see cats.

Yes. Cats.  See, the Hermitage museum currently employs around 50-70 workers who are of the feline variety.  They live in the basement, and are supported and fed by the government.  Their job of course is to protect the priceless art from Death By Mouse.  Or Rat. Or whatever other snobby and cultured rodents insist their beds be made from only the finest artwork.

Apparently once upon a time the cats were free to roam the halls of the museum, but nowadays they keep them hidden in the basement.  I'm not sure why -maybe the risk of a tomcat marking his territory on "The Prodigal Son" is too great, or perhaps too many royal russians were sensitive to pet dander... I'm not sure.  But the tradition carries on.

And today was a special day: today, they let the cats out.

Aaaaaaaand now I'm tired. So I'm going to finish this post later.

In the meantime, here is a picture of me outside the Winter Palace section of the Hermitage.  This picture doesn't even begin to capture the grandeur, or the ridiculous ornate decoration and architecture on it...

Very cool.

Busy busy busy

Quick update:  All is well in St. Petersburg.

I know I'm WAAAAAAAAAY behind in keeping everyone up to date. I still have to explain Maslenitsa, I took a trip to Novgorod a month ago, it was women's day last weekend, I walked on the frozen Neva, been clubbing, I've discovered Shaverma and LOVE them, my roommate left and was replaced by a sweet little Korean...and I still haven't described my internship.  I have lots to talk about, and the longer I leave it the more difficult it becomes to recount.  I wish I kept a real diary, but whenever I try to I spend 2 hours every day writing every little detail, and it takes up way too much time because I get bogged down in stupid details, and second guessing my thought processes.

Yesterday I attended Evan's birthday party (www.spellbananas.blogspot.com), which was great and deserves an entire post to itself.  But I won't even try to describe the evening until I have photos to show -words alone are not enough.

So although it's a shame I'm not currently putting more effort into my writing, at least it goes to show that I'm keeping myself very busy and having a lot of fun. The weather is wonderful, so I'm not cooped up in my dorm room on the computer, which is a good thing.

Picture of me on the Neva -in the background is the Hermitage, St Isaac's Cathedral, and much more.  In front of me, (which obviously you can't see) is Peter and Paul fortress.  Quite a view.

Loves to all! More soon,

Bimini

Maslenitsa!

So I'm extremely backlogged with my blogs.  I really should have written a blog about Maslenitsa a week ago, while it was still clear in my mind and my enthusiasm was fresh.  Maslenitsa was amazing fun, but now the details of the day are starting to slip away from me.

Anyway, in an attempt to capture the fun of it all I made this little video collection of clips from the last day of Maslenitsa week.  My editing skills are still extremely basic, so forgive me for that.  I was thinking about Rick "Spiderman" Westphal all day (a brilliant professional videographer/director of photography friend of mine) and what he would film, and I tried to channel the Spiderman genius and find interesting things to shoot, but I'm not sure how well I fared in that department.  Also, I left a little bit of extra footage on the end (that isn't put to music) because I thought that you should hear the chanting/singing/general ruckus being made at the time.

Hopefully I caught a little tiny bit of the fun that was Maslenitsa :)  Enjoy.

PS: I will blog soon, and explain exactly what Maslenitsa is.

LOVES!

Gulf of Finland Photos

So, I've been meaning to walk out on the Gulf of Finland for awhile now, but the weather has been lousy and grey.  Then I was worried that the weather was getting too warm for walking out on the ocean to be safe.  But this afternoon it was beautiful and sunny, and I saw a kiteboarder out on the ice, so Evan and I decided to mish out there.

It was GORGEOUS, and to see more pics go to THIS link...

Maslenitsa is the bomb.

Today was the last day of Maslenitsa.  I went to a park with my classmate Claudia for the festivities.  It was AMAZING and FUN and I need to dedicate a lot of time to writing a huge, gushy, oh-my-god-I-love-Maslenitsa post....But right now I am reeallly tired.  Need sleep.  Will update later.

Loves!