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Other entries in Sankt Petersburg

Hermitage, Bigger Boat

We had a plan to hit the hermitage by storm, or something like that. We woke up early enough to enter the queue about 15 minutes befor ethe museum opened.  It was already a long queue stretching into the palace square with the its famous Alexander Column. At the appointed time the gate opened and there was a rush of tourist pushing forward into the palace court yard to wait while 2 ticket counters worked on a crowd of about 500 people. To compound the calamity, the russian tickets are complex, with different prices for Russians, Students, photo permits, foreigners, and I believe you could buy ticekts for different exhibitions within the Hermitage complex. To compound the matter there was a range of different languges for the ticket women to contend with. Laura with her student card got in for free.

The Hermitage is big, but at the same time in total gallery area it seemed smaller then the Metropolitan museum in New York City. There were a couple of problems that made the Hermitage difficult to navigate. 1st was the tour groups with 50 Japenese, or chinese, or korean tourists. With such large groups they had a tendency to clog the corridors and make it hard to get past them. Even if you got past a tour group you would only tun into another. The tour groups had their own special prebooked entrance, so that 30 minutes after the museum opened when we entered the door it was already packed with people. Also with the Hermitage is that its corridors are quite a maze makign it difficult to figure out where you have been... or make it to new art without visiting some of the art twice. To add one more step to the difficulty many corredors that were listed as open on the map were closed in such a way that 10 or so galleries of art would only have one entrance it would be far away.. and more walking through places you had already seen. Being in charge of trying to navigate this maze was my responsibility and by the end of the day I found it frustrating. So many of the galleries were arbitrarily closed.. at different intervals of the day.

The palace was magnificent.  I have never seen anything so opulent or wasteful in my life. Some of the galleries were awe inspiring in and of themself. Some of the art was quite good, some of it was quite famous.

Any way you look at it the Hermitage was a memorable experience.

It was on this day that I ran into an older couple trying to buy food in hermitage cafe. Their bill was 260 and they tried to pay with a 500 ruble bill.  The cafe could not make change and this I realized was part of the national change crisis in Russia. The couple was turned away. The 500 ruble bill is about 18 dollars. For anyone, but especially for a tourist could easilyt spend a few these a day. Its just important that you plan it all out very carefully. Try to break bills on larger purchase and importantly withdraw ATM money with something that ends in 400 rubles so that you can have the prescious 100 ruble bill which anyone will except...because there are not enough to cover those 500's. And of course its every cashiers duty to balk and get upset when you try to pay with one.. even if they do have the change you may still get your purchased refused. Competition should eliminate such behabior... but it hasn't yet. And russian psyche doesnt seem to mind. Even worse is the highest bill.. the 1000 ruble worth about 37 dollars. Its actually a lot of money.. I have seen cashiers turn them away because they thought they were counterfeit. I have been refused many times.  My favorite was when Laura payed for a 50 ruble water with a 1000 bill. The cashier started to make change while Laura opened the bottle. Go Laura is all I can say.. cause I was thirsty.. and had enough of the change bullshit.

We came back to the hotel, took a bit of rest and then ambled down to the river where Laura quickly found a bigger boat for an evening river cruise. We even able to figure out where the boat was going and the price before we decided to go. It was perfect because the boat headed in the opposite direction of the hydrofoil letting us sea portions of the city that we hadn't seen before.  Things were a little cold and rainy but that certainly didn't hamper the relaxed spirit we were cultivating.

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