Russia. I've always thought about it as this mysterious, cold country with people in fur and drinking vodka. Or as the delightful snowy place in Disney's Anastasia. There was also the unit in grade school history on the Soviet Union and the cold war and the times that it came up in the discussions on WWII before that, but I never really gave it much thought until recently. 
When you get married, you not only get a husband, you get a whole new family! I am lucky in that my new family liked me enough to ask me on their big family trip this year to St. Petersburg even though my lovely hubby could not go! What makes this even more of a big gesture is that they reside in Belgium and Luxembourg where their everyday, native language is French. My insanely cultured, American self only speaks English and in all honesty (I found out) not that well! But more on that later.For those unfamiliar with the process of visiting Russia as a non-Russian citizen, you have to obtain a visa. This procedure is not as simple as you may think because I started at the beginning of August for this September 2nd departure date and three trips to the Application office and two days before the trip is when I finally secured mine!
4:00 AM came VERY quickly after 2 hours of sleep Wednesday night. I was so worried about oversleeping that I couldn't sleep at all! My flight was at 6 AM so I had to hire a car to pick me up since the tube wasn't even running that early! It was amazing to see just how close we actually live to Heathrow Airport because it takes 40+ minutes by the Piccadilly line but only 15 minutes door to door in the car! Granted there was also no traffic on the road but still, who knew! 
My connecting flight was in Zurich and I was worried I would not make it since I saw it was boarding when I looked for the Gate number immediately after de-plaining leg one. Luckily, after I passed through security Andrew's aunt Ann was waiting right there for me! All the Belgian family was going to be on this flight and I knew Ann from my wedding. I was the final piece of the 19 person group! 
I was a little nervous landing in St. Petersburg since Andrew's uncle had me worried that I was going to meet some resistance when entering Russia having an American passport! But the woman at Passport control did not say a word, checked out all my forms and visa, and I was stamped and on my way! This is the first time we all met Olga. Oh Olga. She was the French speaking Russian guide hired to narrate the trip and she was everything I pictured a Russian lady to be - short, round, blonde, and had the stocking/old lady boot combo down! And then we boarded a giant coach bus solely for our group and we were driven by the oh so friendly (try to read the sarcasm here) Serge. Off we went!
Olga wasted no time jumping right in and pumping everyone full of information. I, unfortunately, did not benefit from this as she only spoke in French. We were taken to a WWII museum built underground in the middle of a traffic signal which commemorated the Russians' ability to keep Hitler and the Germans from taking over the city for 900 days when Hitler anticipated 2 weeks maximum! And that first night, we ate at the Restaurant at the Astoria hotel where apparently Hilter wanted to have his celebration banquet when he did take St. Petersburg. Oops!
Dinner that night was my first experience of Russian food. We arrived to plates of cured meats, raw fish, and some white meat. Our place settings included a wine glass and then a mini shot-sized wine glass. The waitresses walked around and put cranberry juice in the large wine glass and vodka in the small one - like it was water! And the vodka glasses were kept full all night. Everyone immediately raised their vodka to cheers the beginning of the trip. WHEW was that hard to drink! I only took a sip and had to dump the rest into my cranberry juice. This was the only drink I had all night. The rest of the first dinner wasn't too memorable. Everything was really heavy and the side of the main was plain white rice. 
Everyone was pretty exhausted after that so it was early to bed that night because the rest of the trip that Ann planned had an 8 AM - 5/6PM itinerary every day! I woke up that next morning with THE worst headache ever. Thank goodness my roomie for the trip, Sophie, had something for me to take because I don't know how I would've survived otherwise.
In 4 days , we saw the Hermitage (the largest art museum in the world - according to Olga), Catherine the Great's summer palace, the palace she gave her son, the Palace where Rasputin was murdered, the church with the Graves of the Romanov family and Alexander the Great, some of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen, a Russian Orthodox service, and took a boat ride! We had three course meals every lunch and dinner, and despite that, I came home 5 lbs lighter!
It's probably easiest to bullet my experiences from this point on to help me organize my thoughts, so here we go!
HIGHLIGHTS & Take-Aways from the Trip:
- The Hermitage with beautiful paintings from Rembrandt, Matisse, Van Gough, Picasso... I really enjoyed it! Especially since my mom and I didn't get to do the Louvre while we were in Paris. I like that the palace got the name "Hermitage" because Catherine the Great would spend a lot of time by herself in there - like a hermit.
- The Jacobs van Merlen family taking pity on me and translating. Olga would take us on 2 hour+ tours of the museums and palaces where she literally spoke the whole time. Ann would sit next to me on the bus and translate what everything was we were seeing but it got to the point where even family members who were not so comfortable in English would translate for me since there was just so so so much French! Towards the end of the trip I kind of hung to myself because I didn't want people to miss out of information trying to translate for me!
- Catherine the Great's Summer Palace was insanely huge and the decorations were beyond anything I could ever imagine. The details were fantastic, complete with an entire Amber room. Everything had to be restored because the Germans occupied the palace during the war and embraced Hitler's philosophy "to destroy a country you must destroy its culture." It was terrible to see the pictures of the destruction. I took a video of the ballroom in the palace because you can't comprehend for a picture the size and fabulous-ness of it!
- Lunch at Bellini on the river. It was a restaurant in a converted building where the Russian army kept their horses I believe? I could be making that up but I think that's what someone told me. Again, everything was in French! But the restaurant opened only for our group and we all sat at one giant table! It was clean and modern and simple and elegant. This was the first time I tasted beetroot soup which is a specialty of Russia. I REALLY enjoyed it here - I say "here" because we tried quite a few beetroot soups throughout the trip. The other really memorable thing about this restaurant was the apple tart for dessert... fabulous.
- Lunch at the Podvorye Restaurant. This was in between the the out-of-town summer palaces trip. It was kind of by itself and looked like a playplace for adults almost. All the buildings and structures were made of dark wood and there was a chicken coup in the front "yard" next to a merry go round. The main building was a log cabin and there were authentically costumed Russian singers that sang for the room. The room had 3 sets of long tables for groups. We were at the table in the back, furthest from the entrance. There was a group of Japanese men at the middle table and some Italians on the opposite wall. Each of the other groups had 20-30 people I would think. We were probably the smallest. Well, we're all talking (this meal I am seated with Andrew's dad, Steve - Jill's fiance, and Olga the guide) and then we here the Italians start shouting then clinking their shot-wine glasses of vodka and down the hatch it went. They did this a few times and then the Japanese started mimicking the shouting and shot taking and then the two tables started going back and forth - shouting and standing on the chairs and taking shots! Only about halfway through this, our table sees that the Italians have switched to putting water in their glasses while the Japanese are still shooting vodka... This is when Hubert tells the table that the Japanese (he knows a lot about the culture because he does a lot of business in Japan) love to drink, but are NOT good drinkers. After the shooting, each of these other two tables take turn singing songs of their country, or at least are native to their language. I got a little of this on tape because this whole experience was just amazing! None of us spoke the same language yet it was like one big party in this room! Dea, Andrew's step-mom, eventually found out that the Italians were a group a pediatricians and the Japanese, well, we found out the Japanese were spending their very intoxicated afternoon at the Hermitage!! I don't think they were going to get much out of this fantastic museum in their current state... This place was also my first time eating BEAR! I had know idea it was bear until later that night!
- My inability to speak proper English. I didn't realize how much I rely on sarcasm and slang in my everyday vocabulary. For those in the group that attempted to speak English with me, I really had to think about what I was going to say and simplify as much as possible. It was a really good experience for me because it was really tough to do!! I've decided I should always embrace this way of speaking, it's more adult like and strengthens my vocabulary!
- Russians don't believe in leaving any wall blank! Every palace/church/restaurant had floor to ceiling decorations. The attention to detail was incredible! Catherine the Great's summer palace was probably the most grand with the gold detailing EVERYWHERE and the Amber room, but even the ceilings were painted everywhere you went. Another really impressive place for detail was the Church pictured above with the bobbles on top of each steeple-like structure because in was floor to ceiling mosaics! I can't imagine the time that went into that...
- Spending the last afternoon with Loic. It was the first time we had free time and were able to walk around the city. We saw the old Singer factory which is now a multifloor bookstore, the Hermitage plaza again, the Nevah river, a baby bear on a leash, monkeys dressed like babies, St. Peter's Church... I love walking friendly cities :)
- Some of the Jacobs van Merlen boys getting furious with Olga because of how long winded she was about EVERYTHING.
- Dinner the final night at Russian Empire. I think Andrew's family probably thought I was a such a snob after this meal, because it was the only time I cleaned every single plate! But how could you not when the restaurant was located in the "oldest and most luxurious" palace in the city, the Stroganov Palace, and is renowned as the most "exquisite" restaurant in Russia! The food was served on Gianni Versace plates and the wine was fabulous. The first course was a seafood plate with a scallop, prawn, salmon, and caviar. There was cranberry sorbet in between to cleanse the palette and then an green olive served in a mushroom-like broth came next. The main way a white fish on a light and fluffy potato bed with a hollowed out zucchini filled with tiny mushrooms in a cream sauce. Delish! Dessert part one was a saffron infused sorbet with a whipped cream on top and then to go with the tea/coffee service, the wait staff brought plates of homemade ganache truffles covered in nuts (it took all my will power to only eat one!) and these warm-right-out-of-the-oven thin almond cookies. It was absolutely fabulous, but the best part of the evening was sitting with Laurent and Max and Coralie! Max and Laurent had me in stitches telling me stories from when they were younger - it was just a really nice end to the trip :)
- Everyone telling me that I was brave for coming on my own. I think it was brave, but I felt very comfortable with everyone almost immediately although I don't think I would go again without Andrew UNLESS I could at least understand French.I just really feel like I missed out on a lot of the stories and trivia since I didn't understand...
Olga showed us pictures of what St. Petersburg looks like in the snow and that inspired Dea to perhaps want to try a long weekend there again in February. We shall see!
I made it back in one piece to London on Monday, and thank goodness I made a friend on the plane because there was a Tube strike going on so we were able to share a cab. It felt good to be back with my own food and in my own bed!
Thank you Jacob van Merlens for an incredible experience :)
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