July 25- Russian Culture: The Hermitage And Ballet

Today was another day well spent in Russia! It was also another hot day in Russia.

So I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I could tell it was starting to feel funny last night before bed, but I didn’t really think anything of it. But now my voice is completely shot, and I really hope it doesn’t turn into a cold. I drank some tea and honey with breakfast, used my Neti-pot (thanks Mom for making me bring it), gargled with salt water (shh, I stole some salt packets from the dining hall), drank a ton of water, and bought some cough drops from the medical center. I’m hoping that if I treat it early it will go away by tomorrow.

At 9:30, I met a few friends to go out to the Hermitage. I went with Reggie from my architecture class (she’s the girl I tried Ginja with in Spain), Gisselle (one of my extended family sisters), Ryan (the dude who's always hanging out with us), and a girl named Sarah (whom I previously met on the Trolltunga hike). We had the perfect little group. We left the ship and hopped on a bus towards the city center. According to one of our pre-port speakers, the Hermitage is the world’s fourth largest museum following the Louvre, the Met, and another one I can’t remember. It is housed in this truly enormous building called the Winter Palace. I could go on all day about this building's architecture, but I’ll try not to. Long story short, it’s a truly magnificent and impressive building both inside and out.

Founded by Catherine the Great in the 1760’s, the Hermitage holds over 3 million items. One of our pre-ports lecturers also told us that if we were to spend one minute at every exhibit, it would take 11 years to go throughout the Hermitage. It is seriously ginormous. We got a museum layout of the place and tried to plan out the places we wanted to see the most. Reggie and Giselle went one way and Sarah, Ryan and I went another. I can’t even explain to you everything that we saw because everything was so mixed up and random that I can’t keep it straight myself. The architecture of the palace itself was enough to spend hours looking at. The Grand Staircase was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Supposedly, it’s the second most beautiful staircase in the world next only to one in the Vatican Museums in Italy. Everything, the ceilings, the walls, the wooden floor were simply gorgeous. I can’t believe that people actually used to live here!

Like I said, we saw a lot of exhibits, but the highlights for me were the Monet’s, Van Gogh’s and Picasso’s. I’ve been to several National Art Galleries now (England, Ireland, Norway) and NONE of them had collections of these three artists like the Hermitage. There was literally an entire room (two for Picasso) dedicated to their artwork. As I mentioned a long time ago in England, Van Gogh is my favorite artist, but Monet is now a close second. We also got to see a da Vinci in the Italian section, and we saw a lot of cool artifacts and artwork in the Asia area. We also walked through the Greek/Roman and Egyptian area as well.  Honestly, we saw everything except the main European and Russian exhibitions. Most of the museum was the European and Russian items, but they were also the most crowded (and most boring in my opinion) areas. Instead, we stuck to the smaller Ground and Second floor and saw the cool, more worldly sections.

The Hermitage Museum

Palace Square

We spent about four hours in the museum. We got in for free with our student ID’s, but it was so hot and stuffy inside that we felt like we couldn’t look around for much longer than that. We stopped at a café so Reggie could get a piece of cake (I forgot to mention it’s her birthday). We then went and chilled at a park for a little while before heading back to the bus stop. Then we inadvertently went on a little adventure. We ended up getting on a bus headed in the wrong direction and didn’t realize it until about 10 minutes later. So then we had to figure out where we were, where we were headed, and how in the hell to get where we wanted to be headed. It took us a while, but we figured it out. Transportation is insanely cheap in St. Petersburg, so I only lost about $2.00, but it was so freakin’ hot and sweaty on those buses that I thought I was going to die.

Sarah looking pensive

Street preformers

Ryan was pretty pleased with his cotton candy

All in all, we got to the ship about 45 minutes late (not too bad). We had to rush to dinner though because most of us were going to the Russian Ballet on an SAS Field Program. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to get ready so I didn’t look my best. I just throughly washed my face, threw on my dress, slapped on some makeup, and headed back out to the bus. The ballet was one of SAS’s most popular Field Programs so we had five entire buses headed to the show. The theater seats 250 people, and 210 of those seats were filled up with SAS’ers.

The performance was magical to say the least. The theater we went to was one of the oldest in the city, and it used to be Catherin the Great’s private showroom. Can you imagine that? Catherine the Great, the Queen of Russia herself sitting in the same theater that I sat in tonight? And to top it off, we got to watch the most famous Russian ballet, Swan Lake. The enormity of it all was pretty overwhelming. And it was so fun to see everyone dressed up! I loved seeing all of the girls’ dresses and hair and whatnot. It was kind of like a mini Prom.

The performance was very beautiful. The dancers were incredible, and Princess Odette was spectacular. She was the epitome of grace and beauty. I couldn’t of expected anything more from the night. I sat with my friends Lindsey and Katie, and Arshia even bought me some way overpriced chocolate. My only complaint was that there was no air conditioning. After spending all day in the heat, I was dying for a breath of cold, fresh air. But no such luck. Oh well, the show was worth it. The plot was easy to follow and the dancers were just amazing. Looking back, I never wanted to be a ballerina as a little girl. But tonight, I’ll admit that I romanticized the thought just a little.

I took a lot of pictures with a lot of people, but sadly I didn’t get any of my own. The camera on my iPhone 4 (Which is just ancient by today’s standards. I’ve had it for three years.) doesn’t take very good pictures as you can see from the few fuzzy pictures I got of the performance.

Yasmeen and Arshia

Swan Lake at the Russian Ballet

Claire and I all dressed up

I should also mention that I had to wear tights with my dress because of the ridiculous tan line I got from my sunburn on the Trolltunga hike. Black tights and 90 degree weather don’t really mix, but I would have felt pretty silly wearing a pretty dress and high heels with my embarrassingly white feet, bright red shins and white thighs. I actually had an elderly lady tell me that she thought I was wearing some sort of funny socks this morning when we were standing in line to leave the terminal. I wore a sundress to the Hermitage, and her comment made me feel like a fool. That’s what I get for not remembering to wear sunscreen on my shins!

Anyways, after the show, we all loaded back onto the buses and headed to the ship. I was in desperate need of a shower and my throat was killing me, so I went straight to the room and got ready for bed. Now here I am, clean, cool, and sleepy.