Where Has Spring Gone?

I woke up this morning and had a look outside. This is what I saw:

Then I had a look at my calendar. It's 11 March. The news said the sky dropped over 19cm (7.4in) of snow as I slept. Ok, I have to admit, being a California girl, the snow was a novelty. I had my share of snowmen and snowball fights. But I was ready for the sun, the flowers and the hayfever... everything that encompassed spring. Oh well, I still need to practice my biking on ice skills. 

5 Things I Love about St Petersburg

1. The beautiful Hermitage Museum.

They say if you look at every piece of art in this museum, you'll need 8 years. Unfortunately, the Russian government only gave me a 10 day visa, so I had to make do with the day I had there. It was massive and over-the-top, as should any "winter palace" which housed the monarchy. 

2. Pyshkis (aka Soviet doughnuts)

These little, greasy gems were a whooping 12 RUB (0.30 €) per doughnut thanks to the Russian government wanting to preserve a little bit of Soviet history. N said she could easily down 6 of these things to which I quickly matched. We were both regretting that challenge afterwards. 

3. Karaoking at Dumskaya

I love to karaoke because for some reason, singing off-key while drunk makes for fun bonding moments with perfect strangers. We ended up heading to the dark side of SP on Dumskaya. While the first bar was ok (Hamburg flag waving inside) and the second bar being for kids, we decided to head to Poison, a karaoke bar. Good fun! All the classic, karaoke songs and no need for any Russian translations! :)

4. Coffee

For some reason, every day I was in SP, I had coffee. And the coffee was good. :)

5. My hosts!

I will be forever grateful for N and A for allowing me to stay with them for my 10 days in Rossiya. And thank you for all the food I had to try! :P

Moskou! Moskou!

Whenever I hear the word "Moscow," the only thing that pops into my mind is this song:

(If you really need to know, this is Dschinghis Khan, a German pop group circa 1979 with this only hit, "Moskau." This video still cracks me up to this day!)

N, the roomie and I hopped on Russia's high-speed train and plowed our way into Moscow early at 6am. When we arrived 4 hours later into the chaos that was the train station, I found myself being welcome with the blaring sounds of "Hymn to the Great City" as I got off. It was all a bit overwhelming. With our bags, we traversed through the metro stations, all written in Russian Cyrillic. 

The longer we were in Moscow, the more I realized how mad and chaotic the city really was and now much more I appreciated Saint Petersburg more. We saw the Kremlin, the Red Square but failed on our attempt to see Lenin. Apparently, an ice skating rink was more important than displaying the guy who came up with communist theory in which the USSR was based on. But I digress... I was happy to see Moscow, but I couldn't wait to get out. 

TAK!!!!

You don't really hear much about Copenhagen. Sure, it has the Little Mermaid (which we didn't see) and it's known for its Danish pastries (which we didn't eat). Copenhagen offers a little taste of Scandinavia: blonde hair, blue-eyed, fair-skinned people who are very friendly in a very clean and beautiful city. Sadly, the only thing missing from this trip was my Puppy. I realized I left him sitting underneath the TV once we got to the train station.

Den eneste måten er Oslo!

In the midst of frantically finishing our dissertation, S asked me if I had any plans in the coming month after we were done. I said no, and he said, "Why don't you come to Norway?!" Half an hour later, I bought my ticket to Oslo and still manged to finish writing a conclusion that night!

Three weeks later and I was on my way to what S calls "the greatest country in the world!" (Slightly biased opinion, but I digress.) I got lucky with the weather because the whole time I was there, I had sunshine and clear skies. So, we took advantage of it and walked the city.

Oslo is still developing. S told me to come back in 10 years when all the construction is (hopefully) done. It has a mix of old and new, undecided as to what it really wants to be. I quite liked the old part... well, I'm counting the Nobel Peace Center as old. The new has its perks too. S, C and I sat on the top of the Radisson watching the sun set for the longest time. Thank you high-rise hotels!

The trip was short but sweet. A little taste of a vast area of land that is Scandinavia. Next time, I hope to see the Northern Lights and visit C's 500 person village. I can't even image living there! Tak, Oslo!