Day Trip to Florence - Definitely Not Long Enough!

Today we hopped on the Eurostar train up to Florence, and apparently in Italy, seat assignments DO matter. People are very defensive when they think you have taken their seat, which has not been my experience before in Europe. Oh well.

After some early morning craziness trying to find the bus stop to actually get to the train station (the signs lied!!), we made it to the train and eventually to Florence, where we were met by our guide, who thought he might make our day more fun by holding the sign with our name on it upsidedown.

This guy obviously knows his Renaissance art, architecture and Florentine history.  Our day was pretty much like this: walk quickly through tiny streets, stop for a second while our guide explained what we were looking out, retaining only the famous name he might have thrown out, move on quickly to the next point of interest, rinse, repeat. It was like the quick-and-dirty version of Florence, which is not a bad thing if you really only have a day to do it all, but its exhausting! Pretty sure that if there was a thief on our train on the way home he could have scored big with us, because all four of us passed out cold.

In all, we saw 3 big ol' churches, two mueseums, and so many paintings and sculptures that it makes my head swim just trying to remember them all. Botticelli and all those old artist types must be rolling in their graves when they find out that the average tourist spends like a minute looking at one of their masterpieces. Don't get me wrong, everything we saw was pretty amazing and beautiful, but that is a LOT to absorb in one day.

Some highlights:

• The huge market with all its hanging sausages and produce and cheeses and wines and pasta hanging in bags. So pretty with all the yummy smelling food. I could eat my way through there pretty easily, just point, pay, smile and say grazie!
• Pizza and wine for lunch! At this point I was not tired of pizza yet.
• Seeing Michelangelo's David and actually understanding why its so important! That guy has really big hands, completely out of proportion with his...you know.
• The leather school, where monks have made leather products for a reallly long time, and we got to see one of them at work embossing gold leaf onto a leather-covered box type thing.
• Walking through the narrow twisty streets at night, watching all the people, seeing everything lit up and decorated for Christmas, looking at all the medieval architecture.
• Nutella on fresh hot waffles!! Who knew it could be so good?
• Sitting down on the bench in the Uffizi Gallery (where all those paintings are, including Botticelli's) after walking through the whole thing.

SO, it was totally worth it, but I am really glad that KK is doing her study abroad there this summer, because I would really have liked a little more time to shop and wander on my own. So my plan is to meet her there before her program ends and we go on our big adventure!

First Day in Roma!

The Hoeys are on a family vacation to Rome!!

Our apartment is fabulous. The guy who met us there that owns it was a little overly enthusiastic in pointing out places on the map he gave us. We now know where 2 wine shops, 3 grocery stores, all the churches, a pastry place, 3 restaurants, and the Colosseum are. Apparently that's all that matters. Everything else, meh, not so much. :)

We have a kitchen that is stocked with milk, juice, coffee, pastries, and everything else a kitchen needs. The shower is a little intimidating - it has 2 different heads, and then jacuzzi jets going down the side, should be interesting in the morning! Took a few minutes to figure out how to flush the toilet, forgot about the big button camoflaged in the wall. We have a dining room too, and a bookcase stocked with every Rick Steves' Rome version that has been printed. And there is a Christmas tree!! Its such a cute place, I love it. Its up on the fourth floor, and I'm the only one in the family who will walk up all the stairs at the end of the day.

Today we had tickets to ride one of those Hop-On Hop-Off neon green double-decker tourist buses, so there's no mistaking that anyone seen on this bus is a tourist. As soon as we board, Dad promptly nodded off. KK and I went up to the top level, and even though we could see everything, we froze  so we went back down to the bottom, and were lulled to sleep by the elevatorish music playing in the background. How bad is that? Passing out while actively being a tourist on our first day in a place we were so excited to finally be in. Oh well.

Photo: Eskimo KK freezing on the top level of uber-conspicuous tourist bus

We got off at the Colosseum and since I had the guidebook, I ended up being the tour guide for the family.

Photo: KK's schtick this trip is to hug the columns...one down, 999 to go!

The Colosseum was pretty incredible. So incredibly old, and yet still standing. I mean, not many groups of people can say that they've built something that has lasted anywhere near that long. The Greeks. The Egyptians. The Inca. The Celts in Britain. And that's about it. Makes you wonder, 2,000 years from now, will there be any evidence of our civilization? Will there even be a viable planet for people to live on? Or will it all be lost and people will be living on Mars.

So back to the Colosseum. Nice place, what with all the brutal gladiator fights, getting killed by big scary aminals and other gladiators, who were all slaves by the way, pretty much fighting for their lives. Yeah, nice. And free entertainment too - it was the emperors' method of mob control. Keep the people happy by letting them watch other people get killed in bloody sporting matches and they won't revolt against you. Really nice. Good people those emperors, really compassionate.

A lot of the marble was pulled off the facade of the Colosseum to be used in the Renaissance by popes and the rich people for their summer homes and big massive churces and necessary things like that. I guess not much changed in those 1500 years of civilization.

Photo: Dad, the tired tourist, fell asleep standing up at the Colosseum

We wandered around for the rest of the day, enjoying the sunshine and just basically getting to know the city. Stopped at the Castel St. Angelo, which is only a few blocks away from our apartment. If that name doesn't ring a bell, go back and read Angels and Demons. Tomorrow we're actually going on a walking tour that comes straight out of that book, nerd alert! We all totally re-read the book before the trip. Dinner ended up being soup from a pouch (Mom thought ahead and brought soup mix, what genius) and whatever was stocked in the fridge for us, pastries probably. So sleepy!

Photo: Seesters in front of the Castel St. Angelo

Better Ballet

Last night we went to see "Swan Lake" ballet, and it was so much better than "the Nutcracker".

Photo: Mike, Nadia, rock star Imane, Mark, Hesook, and Jakob in the nose-bleed balcony at the ballet

I guess from color guard I'm a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to things that are supposed to be done in complete unison, and the Nutcracker really wasn't. Swan Lake however, was ridiculous - everything was perfect. I was looking for mistakes! And the guys can jump so high, its amazing, they make it look so easy! Makes me wonder what their feet look like at the end of the night after dancing in toe shoes all night.

We had a really great time, aside from having our knees jammed up against the wall in front of us as we were craning to see the whole stage, since we were on the far right side of the balcony. We went out to a really nice Chinese restaurant afterwards, and before you say, "Chinese?! But you're in Russia!" I have an answer for that. (1) I was told that Chinese food is really good here, and it was; (2) We eat Russian food every day here at the Academy for breakfast and lunch; (3) we were pretty much all in the mood for something that was not pizza. So Chinese was nice, and then we went home, the girls came up to my flat for a drink, which is becoming a bit of a nightly ritual

Photo: Nadia, Mike, and Imane up at my flat for a drink one night.

Whirlwind Weekend in St. Petersburg

I'm completely wrecked right now after only getting about 7 hours total of sleep this weekend, my calves are so covered in bug bites that I have to keep applying my Itch Eraser every 5 minutes, I have a bruise the size of Mongolia on my back, and I think I somehow ingested some bacteria-infected st.p's water, but other than that, this weekend was pretty great.

We took the night train up, in sleeper cars, and basically started drinking while we were in the train station waiting to board. I'm not sure if anyone was sober that night, I sure wasn't. That's how I got my bruise, alcohol + trying to stand up in a swaying train cabin + not much foot room = C falling backwards onto the table and sustaining a brilliant purple softball-sized bruise. 

Aside from that we had a great night, played cards and basically kept drinking through til about 3 am, and the people coming through with buckets of beer for sale didn't improve our state much. I think I passed out in my bunk before the sun came up, but I can't be completely sure. And then at 6:15 am, they turned the radio on in the train, and god help the person who decided that Russian pop was a good thing to subject 25 hung over wannabe diplomats at the crack of dawn, because everyone was cursing his existence. Somehow we managed to stumble out of the train and find our guide.

Went to a nearby cafe to sober up before our whirlwind St. Petersburg tour by bus (thank god for the bus, otherwise I think we would have lost half our group).  Got to the Hermitage (right) and followed our obligatory guide while she explained some of the highlights of this massive museum-in-a-former-palace. It was so huge, it would take weeks to get through it, and they have so much art that they only display a fifth of the collection - the rest of it they store off site somewhere.

After the Hermitage we saw a church that is prettier than St. Basil's in Moscow, but not nearly as famous, called the Church on Spilled Blood (left), and I like it a lot better because it has blues and greens and yellows on its domes.

That night we walked so damn far...it seems like its all we do sometimes. I'm pretty sure we walked the distance of a triathlon or something. Finally found our way to an outdoor sushi cafe (the site on which the bugs commenced to gnaw on my legs for fun and leave it looking like I have the chicken pox). Pretty much sat there for 3 hours, drinking and playing games and eating sushi,and then went down to the river to see the drawbridges open.

St. Petersburg is like Amsterdam - its on a river and has 43 islands which the city is built on and therefore a million canals, and the bridges over the main ones open up at 1am ish to allow bigger ships to pass through so they can carry all things shipped into the city, and its a spectacle. It was nice because there were so many people out that late at night, we didn't feel like we were out late at all.

Sunday we went to the Peterhof - a ginormous palace (a la Versailles) built by Peter the Great, the guy who had St. Petersburg built in 50 years to his exact ideas. This place was massive, with some gorgeous fountains, but it was swarming with people, just a sea of humanity, so we didn't go inside, just stayed out and wandered through the gardens. Back in the city we had a nice dinner at Pushkin Restaurant, with really good Russian food. I had borsht and pelmeny, basically meat-filled pasta. It was sooooo good, and the place was air-conditioned, so we spent a good 2 hours there. Plus the service was snail-slow, as per usual in this country, good thing we weren't in a hurry. We eventually made it back to our hotel before we had to get on the night train back to Moscow, and some of us (me included) almost missed it b/c we were waiting for one girl who decided at the last second to go buy some snacks for the train.

Rainy Moscow

Its been raining on and off here in Moscow for the past week, and the puddles here don't drain because they are close to the water table, so they just keep getting bigger. Now the puddles are to the point where you can't jump over them, and so you have to tiptoe through them very delicately. And you have to watch out for cars on the street, not because you'll get hit, which you most definitely will, but because if you're anywhere near the street you'll get drenched. So, lesson number 78: bring an umbrella and carry it always.

Then, as a result of so much standing water, you have these lovely vicious mosquitoes that come out around 7, so that you must find shelter or will most certainly be deprived of your blood within a little while, or at the very least you'll walk around scratching yourself like a crack addict/crazy person for the next few days. I've also rubbed about 10 holes in my feet with my shoes, which I had thought were pretty comfortable. But when you walk quickly for long periods of time, a paper bag would start to rub you the wrong way, and I have managed to accomplish this several times. Thank god for bandaids and sneakers.

This is where it pays to read all that miscellaneous info in the guidebooks, because I knew this stuff before I came and am well equipped, now that I have my suitcase. So, be warned of these things in summer if you ever venture over here.

Photo: Nadia, Mike and Jakob on the dreaded Moscow Metro

Getting around by myself has been fine here, even though I was told not to go anywhere by myself, I've kind of had to, and haven't had any problems. Just put on my "metro face" and walked fast! And I still have all my money.

Photo: Nadia, C, and Marijana at the ballet

Since we're students, we can get the cheap seats for only about $6! And I've learned enough Russian at this point that I think I can manage saying "four student tickets please".  Last night I went with 3 of my girlfriends, the ones that rescued me from being stinky and unshowered when my suitcase was MIA, to see The Nutcracker ballet. Verrry interesting. The first act was very kidsy, with a lot of hokey dancing around with presents and simple dances. Not the best stuff, and everyone seemed to agree about this. However the second act was a lot better, I guess they saved their better dancers because they were really good, doing all kinds of crazy jumps consecutively and turns. So there was a definite improvement between the two acts.

But overall it was nice, and we went out for drinks and small plates afterward at this nice Italian restaurant. Now, don't get on me for not going to a Russian restaurant, its hard to find places here just based on addresses, so you kind of have to know where you're going! And there aren't necessarily real Russian restaurants everywhere either. 

First Weekend Living in Moscow

This weekend was great, did some sightseeing in and around Red Square on Saturday. Randomly ran into one of the American guys (1 of only 2) in the Diplomatic Academy program. He was meeting a friend of his to do some sightseeing, so we invited them to come along with us. His friend turned out to be a girl who was a former student of my Aunt Val (a Russian professor at Georgetown University), and Val was her thesis adviser, so they had a closer relationship than just that of student-professor.  Apparently its a small world here if you've ever studied or worked in Russia, since not that many Americans do, so you usually know someone here, which is great because then you have someone to meet up with once you get here.

After sightseeing, we met up with 3 guys from the program and all went to an outdoor cafe and watched the outrageous Russians go by. It seems like there is no color off limits that can be applied to hair, and I mean none - I've seen bright orange hair, purple hair, fire engine red hair...and its everywhere! These women love to dye their hair crazy colors, never mind looking natural!

We saw a guy in this suit that had neon yellow and navy blue vertical stripes, but the pants cut off around the shins like capris - it was verrry interesting. And the Russians are a lot freer with their bodies than Americans. In the metro underground tunnels there are these really small shops with glass walls so you can see what they're selling, and one day we walked by one that happened to be selling bras, and lo and behold there were women in the shop TRYING THEM ON!! No shame whatsoever! Not that its a bad thing, just realllly different and a little shocking to my American sensibilities! 

Sunday we (me and some lovely girls from the program) went on a boat cruise on the Moskva River, it was the perfect beautiful day for it. Saw a bunch of churches from the river, the Kremlin walls, a music hall that looked like a space ship, lots of park land that I'm surprised hasn't been developed into apartments yet. Then we found some lunch at...T.G.I. Fridays. Not a typo, don't laugh, we were desperate. Too much walking + restaurants that the guidebook recommends that end up being closed for summer holiday + no one wanted to eat McDonalds = first decent place we came to we ate at, and it happened to be Fridays. Service was typical Russian, i.e. slow and not customer-oriented.

Then we went our separate ways - I had a "date" with the Bozek's, friends of my aunt and uncle who work and live at the American Embassy. After some confusion and a little adventure on the metro, I found them waiting for me, and they took me back to their house at the compound for dinner. You never know how great simple lasagna and salad and garlic bread is until you've eaten a week's worth of Russian food covered in cream, dill, oil, and cheese (though not necessarily all those at once). Which is what we get for breakfast and lunch at the academy, and we're usually worn out by dinner time that we just eat frozen pizzas (and cut them with my scissors!) or bread and jam or this fantastic sweet bread for dinner.

Anyway, dinner at the Bozek's was great, nice people...they're the ones that really got my suitcase back. Lesson #1 in traveling to a very foreign country: know people at your embassy, they can get you stuff. Like a cell phone! I'm renting one from the embassy! Its ridiculous to try and use the public phones here, the guidebooks make it sound easy, maybe if you actually speak and understand the language and the need for 3 different cards in order to place one call to the US! So being at the Bozeks' was a nice break from the Moscow craziness.

Then back to reality to study. Classes are getting harder, but its still basically stuff I just have to relearn from my semester of Russian two years ago. I'm hoping we actually advance past that point, otherwise this will just turn out to be a refresher. I feel bad for the people in the beginner classes that are completely new to Russian, since it is a completely different script from English. It's not exactly the easiest language to learn, it's not like you can learn it just by hearing it for 3 hours a day and automatically pick it up.

Tomorrow we have tickets to see "The Nutcracker" ballet. Not something I would normally do, but when you're in a place that is famous for ballet, its almost a requirement! Tomorrow we're also going on an excursion to Kuskovo, an estate outside of the city that was built by one of the noble ruling families back in the day, kind of like a Russian Versailles, so it should be cool to see how the high-and-mighties lived Russian-style. Then this weekend we head up to St. Petersburg, night train up, hotel one night, night train back, so I'm sure when we get back we'll be absolutely smashed. Not to mention the fact that vodka is available for like $2 a bottle, and the plan is to take full advantage of this fact on the night train up. :) Give us an excuse and we'll drink the store dry... I kid. We're all very responsible adults. Studying to be diplomats.

Got my luggage, now an update on Moscow

Ok now that I'm in clean clothes and am not frantic about potentially having to buy all new stuff here in Moscow, I can really update.

When I started my trip, it went really well, b/c i got upgraded from a coach seat in between a lady with a baby and a older woman to business class, since they brought a seat for the baby and it would basically trap me in my seat. Business class was niiiiiiiiice. :)

And then the travel gods decided to hate me after that. So to make the long story short, I missed my connection in London, apparently the worst airport to be connecting through, wish I would have known that when I was making the flight reservations. I would say live and learn, but that was a big pain-in-the-ass thing to learn from!

So the missed flight and subsequent lost baggage are a result of the construction they're doing at Heathrow, and in order to get to your next flight, you have to wait in a long line for a bus that will take you to another terminal, at which you wait in another long like for security (the downfall of my connection) and then walk forever to get to your gate. In other words, transportation hell.

I got it even worse when I missed the flight, I had to actually leave the arrivals part of the airport, go through customs, set foot on English soil, then go to another terminal in order to get a new ticket. Then had to stand in line to check in, and go upstairs for security, where I waited forever, and was just about to walk through the screener when they stopped me because I had two carry-ons, which you can have if you're connecting from the US, but not if you are originating in Europe.

SO I had to take all my crap downstairs again, pay to check an extra bag because I was over the individual weight limit, check that damn backpack, and go back up to security, where some tears persuaded them to let me skip the line to get to my gate. Oh yes, I used the tears, and ladies and gentlemen, they were not fake.

When I finally got to Moscow, I did get my backpack, but not my suitcase, shocker there. Stood at the lost-and-found counter for 2.5 hours before I was able to get all the correct forms filled out, declare my bag at customs and get all the stuff filed so there would be an actual record of my lost bad. FINALLY got out of that horrible place and my driver (the one bright spot) took me to the student house.

And then found days later, with the help of friends at the embassy, my luggage was delivered to me here at the academy and I lugged it home through the metro with the help of some lovely friends.  I had had to wash my clothes in my sink with dishsoap for four days. Luckily I met a girl in my program in the passport control line at the airport, so she was there and helped me through this whole thing, and her roommates have all let me borrow stuff so I'm not completely disgusting. They've really been great, so now I'm like the fourth part of their room.

Losing your luggage really makes you appreciate that question "if you were lost on a desert island, what one item would you want to have with you?" Umm, how about your entire bathroom? Or a noseplug.

I have my own flat in the building that the Academy is housing us all in and on Monday, my bedroom door had to be broken off the hinges with a prybar because the lock stopped functioning and wouldn't let me in. My flat is one of the nicest in the building, clean, fridge and oven, balcony, big windows. Not a bad place to live for a month.

Correction: a verrrry nice place to live for a month, after seeing the state of the flats other students were living in!  Crumbling wall paper, old appliances, peeling linoleum, windows that won't shut all the way - this is the true Soviet lifestyle.

This morning a pigeon flew in through my window at 6 a.m., an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off, and flapped around making all kinds of cooing noises that I was roused from my bed, and chased the damn thing back through the kitchen and out the window. Cooo!

Classes are good, I'm kicking ass in Russian, but really only because I already knew the alphabet. Today it started to get harder, so I suppose I will have to actually study now. :) That's about it for now, my friends are calling me off to go explore a little, but more is soon to come!!

I'm in Moscow and I'm alive...

...but there's not much else to report.

I have no suitcase, it got lost by the airline and hasn't been delivered yet. I spent two hours at the lost luggage desk, trying to get a form to fill out in English, and fighting with all the other irate Russians who had missing luggage, before I finally got the paperwork done and stamped. Still not convinced that I did everything I needed to.

I had to wash my jeans in the sink with dish soap last night! I am mooching shower stuff off these great girls I met in the program. At least we get lunch and breakfast here at the academy. 

Basically everything that could go wrong, has. But I'm still alive. The one bright spot - I was put in first class on the flight from DC to Heathrow, because I was traveling alone. But, on the flight from Heathrow to Moscow, when the plane touched down on the runway, all the passengers erupted in applause and cheers....makes me nervous when a normal plane landing is cause for celebration! Moscow is interesting, marketing people go over the top with their ads, giant billboards, and absolutely ridiculously huge building-covering signs, they must be paid really well.  Photo: my posh bathroom where I wash my jeans!

Diplomatic Academy of Moscow - Day One

Bam, we are right in the thick of it today. Day 3 in my traveling ensemble, hopefully the luggage arrives today, and also hopefully I don't smell...what a horrible first impression that would make! First I have to say that I might have had a panic attack if I had had to navigate the Metro this morning by myself. Luckily, the girl I met in the customs line last night, Nadia, and her roommates made sure to not leave without me, and we ventured out into the morning Muscovite commute en masse. These people walk fast, and you either get up to their speed or walk over in the grass because they do not mess. They will stare you down, and Russians have some ferocious stares, enough to make even Donald Trump's hair feel small.

Another good reason to be tagging along with my new friends: last night they ventured out to the store for provisions, and ended up finding the Metro station. Yeah, if I had been on my own, there's no way I would have found it, and no way I would have the courage to ask someone, and if I did, I probably wouldn't have been able to understand the directions. The station is up the walk, around the corner, around another corner, past the cart, etc etc. Then we had to buy tickets.

One of our girls actually spoke some Russian, so told us what to say in order to buy the 20 use pass. Bloody brilliant. Marijana, you're a saint! And then she figured out which way we needed to go, and how many stops until we needed to get off. So far, so good. Get on the train, grab a seat, and enjoy a nice, relaxing.... oh wait...what's going on....all these people... oh we passed a transfer station and suddenly the car is packed...all these people, holding on to the overhead railings....oh geez, they apparently don't believe in deodorant but do believe in too much perfume/cologne....aaaahhh I'm melting from the inside out, aaaaaahhhhh...... *puddle of choey goop on floor*

Ok, so ten stops and as few breaths as possible later, we get off. Fresh air! Now we have plenty of time to find the school, right? 15 minutes? So it's at 53/2 on whatever street this is, what the hell does that mean?! I don't understand this format of street address and apparently neither does anyone else in our group!  Twenty minutes of going up and down this street and around a corner, have passed some guys who are in our program going the other way, and we finally find the school. That has a big plaque of Lenin on the side.

They feed us breakfast! With coffee!! Gooood coffee too. And pastries filled with mystery substances...today, apples!

They had us come into the conference room, and I see that there are probably 25 or 30 of us in this program, its really quite intimidating. Then one of the professors says something in Russian, and then in English, "If you could understand what I just said, raise your hand." WHAT?! I wasn't even really paying attention because I knew it was in Russian and I had no hope of knowing what she said. And this is our "test"?! Yep, so it is. They separate us out into two groups: the understanders and the non-understanders. Clearly, this is the best way to do things in Russia.

The professors proceed to start us on learning the cyrillic alphabet. Hey, wait a minute, I already know this! I am assured that we will progress past it quite quickly, but I have my doubts, since the only letters we learned today are the ones that resemble Latin letters: T, M, K. Yep, we're flyin now.

After lunch, it is announced that we will have a sightseeing tour of the city by bus. Well, it would have been nice if we had known this, so, you know, we could have been prepared! Some people had on suits (uncomfortable at best in the Moscow high summer heat) and non-walking shoes, a lot of people didn't have their camera, and one person opted out because they were still too jet lagged. Lucky (if you can call it that) for me, my traveling ensemble is comfortable and I am wearing trainers, so no discomfort there with the walking. AND I had my big bag with me, filled with anything a girl could need, since I had no idea what today was going to be about and like to be prepared, so I had my camera all ready to go.

We load the bus and are off into Moscow city, driven by the slightly taciturn Sasha (a man), with narraration provided by our guide Olga, a native. She is the cutest little babushka (grandmother), all short and wrinkly! Just want to put her in my pocket, but I feel like that might be a bit awkward...