It took a while for me to actually start writing my blog, mainly because I've been busy traveling around Petersburg and hanging out with my fellow classmates. If you want to see where we're going to be taking classes, look at this picture:
It's a beautiful looking building, especially up close. It's known as the "Smolny Cathedral" and it's got a beautiful mixture of light blue and white. Out of the cathedrals I've seen, Smolny, St. Isaac's, Kazan, and the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (alternatively known as "Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood"), Smolny is the nicest looking one. It also helps that most of Petersburg's architecture is fascinating and outstanding. By tradition, in the historical center of Petersburg, no building is allowed to be taller than Peter and Paul's Fortress (this is the landmark where all the Tsars from Peter I [also known as "Peter the Great"] to Nicholas II [last of the Tsars] are buried).
But today was our first time working in Smolny because we needed to take placement tests to be assigned the appropriate group. Because we met our host families last night, we needed to navigate St. Petersburg by metro, bus, or on foot in order to arrive at Smolny. Due to a series of unfortunate events, what was supposed to be a 30-40 minute trip turned into a 3 hour tour of Saint Petersburg.
Normally, our host mothers take us to Smolny on the first day so that we know how to get to Smolny for classes. However, I misunderstood what my host mother was saying. I thought she said that she had work and would be unable to take me and that I needed to go on my own (it turned out that she was planning on taking me. I just couldn't comprehend every word she said).
Making it to the metro station was the easy part. I knew that I needed to arrive at "Chernishevskaya" so that I could take a shuttle to Smolny. There was just one small problem.
For those of you who don't know, I'm color-blind. I have what is called deuteranopia, which means that my green cones in my eyes are deficient (the eyes have rods and cones, and the cones help distinguish colors. Ask an optometrist or wikipedia for a much more accurate explanation).
According to Google Images, this is what I see:
Anyways, I was riding on the Blue line and I needed to switch to the Red line. To transfer onto the Red line, I needed to switch trains at Mayakovskaya. However, the station after Mayakovskaya was Alexander Nevskij Square, which was the transfer station for the Orange line. I failed to correctly distinguish the Red and the Orange lines (the red looked orange and the orange looked red) and I ended up at the wrong location.
As time passed, I started to get mildly confused, so I decided to leave the metro at Nevskij Square. However, I didn't have a map or an active cell phone so I was forced to set out in a direction that felt right, so I chose Nevskij Prospekt in the hopes of finding a business that's open so that I could ask for directions in English, except every business that I tried didn't have english speakers, nor did they know Smolny Institute's location (bad luck on my part).
Ninety minutes and several kilometers later (including 2-3 kilometers followed by a Russian policeman, which was horrifying because I didn't have my passport since I needed to give it to Smolny so that they could make my student documents), I found the "Rassilon Royal Hotel" where the receptionists speak English and gave me a map and showed me the direction I needed to head. If you google map Saint Petersburg, you'll notice that I chose a wrong direction from Alexander Nevskij Square, but at least it didn't take me in the completely opposite direction away from Smolny.
After I received the map and directions, I had the world's easiest time finding the Smolny Institute, where I met up with all my classmates, took my placement test, activated my cell phone, had lunch, and walked around Petersburg and down Nevskij Prospekt (again) with my classmates Rory, Grant, and Alice. In all, it turned out to be a very good afternoon.
I learned three lessons from this accidental excusion:
1) I've got a decent understanding of the Russian public transportation system, as well as vital experience navigating St. Petersburg.
2) I had a chance to observe various cultural differences and similarities between Russians and Americans, something I'll probably post about at the summer progresses.
3) I have a tendency to get lost in cities when I'm alone for the first time in them for some reason (i.e. Washington DC two years ago).
On a side note, if you're ever in Saint Petersburg, I recommend the Rassilon Royal Hotel because it looks super nice and clean and has an amazing staff.
On another side note, I'm going to sign off as "Apollo", which is my Phi Tau house name, based off the character Lee "Apollo" Adama from Battlestar Galactica.
Until next time,
Apollo
"So Say We All"
It's a beautiful looking building, especially up close. It's known as the "Smolny Cathedral" and it's got a beautiful mixture of light blue and white. Out of the cathedrals I've seen, Smolny, St. Isaac's, Kazan, and the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (alternatively known as "Church of the Savior on Spilt Blood"), Smolny is the nicest looking one. It also helps that most of Petersburg's architecture is fascinating and outstanding. By tradition, in the historical center of Petersburg, no building is allowed to be taller than Peter and Paul's Fortress (this is the landmark where all the Tsars from Peter I [also known as "Peter the Great"] to Nicholas II [last of the Tsars] are buried).
But today was our first time working in Smolny because we needed to take placement tests to be assigned the appropriate group. Because we met our host families last night, we needed to navigate St. Petersburg by metro, bus, or on foot in order to arrive at Smolny. Due to a series of unfortunate events, what was supposed to be a 30-40 minute trip turned into a 3 hour tour of Saint Petersburg.
Normally, our host mothers take us to Smolny on the first day so that we know how to get to Smolny for classes. However, I misunderstood what my host mother was saying. I thought she said that she had work and would be unable to take me and that I needed to go on my own (it turned out that she was planning on taking me. I just couldn't comprehend every word she said).
Making it to the metro station was the easy part. I knew that I needed to arrive at "Chernishevskaya" so that I could take a shuttle to Smolny. There was just one small problem.
For those of you who don't know, I'm color-blind. I have what is called deuteranopia, which means that my green cones in my eyes are deficient (the eyes have rods and cones, and the cones help distinguish colors. Ask an optometrist or wikipedia for a much more accurate explanation).
According to Google Images, this is what I see:
Anyways, I was riding on the Blue line and I needed to switch to the Red line. To transfer onto the Red line, I needed to switch trains at Mayakovskaya. However, the station after Mayakovskaya was Alexander Nevskij Square, which was the transfer station for the Orange line. I failed to correctly distinguish the Red and the Orange lines (the red looked orange and the orange looked red) and I ended up at the wrong location.
As time passed, I started to get mildly confused, so I decided to leave the metro at Nevskij Square. However, I didn't have a map or an active cell phone so I was forced to set out in a direction that felt right, so I chose Nevskij Prospekt in the hopes of finding a business that's open so that I could ask for directions in English, except every business that I tried didn't have english speakers, nor did they know Smolny Institute's location (bad luck on my part).
Ninety minutes and several kilometers later (including 2-3 kilometers followed by a Russian policeman, which was horrifying because I didn't have my passport since I needed to give it to Smolny so that they could make my student documents), I found the "Rassilon Royal Hotel" where the receptionists speak English and gave me a map and showed me the direction I needed to head. If you google map Saint Petersburg, you'll notice that I chose a wrong direction from Alexander Nevskij Square, but at least it didn't take me in the completely opposite direction away from Smolny.
After I received the map and directions, I had the world's easiest time finding the Smolny Institute, where I met up with all my classmates, took my placement test, activated my cell phone, had lunch, and walked around Petersburg and down Nevskij Prospekt (again) with my classmates Rory, Grant, and Alice. In all, it turned out to be a very good afternoon.
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I learned three lessons from this accidental excusion:
1) I've got a decent understanding of the Russian public transportation system, as well as vital experience navigating St. Petersburg.
2) I had a chance to observe various cultural differences and similarities between Russians and Americans, something I'll probably post about at the summer progresses.
3) I have a tendency to get lost in cities when I'm alone for the first time in them for some reason (i.e. Washington DC two years ago).
On a side note, if you're ever in Saint Petersburg, I recommend the Rassilon Royal Hotel because it looks super nice and clean and has an amazing staff.
On another side note, I'm going to sign off as "Apollo", which is my Phi Tau house name, based off the character Lee "Apollo" Adama from Battlestar Galactica.
Until next time,
Apollo
"So Say We All"
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