EUROKEEKS

hi, psychopaths.  

If you were enchanted by the shenanigans, photographs and general self-unawareness of this *blog journey*, enjoy the keeks minus the euro at the second evolution of this blog.  HERE IT IS.  www.diarychild.tumblr.com.  I’m living in NYC and documenting it so that when the inevitable Law and Order episode is made about me (RIP), this blog will be a resource to achieve maximum accuracy. 

Dear followers, there are not many of you, and you are all related to me, but join part 2 of the psychobabble journey if you wish.  

Love and light,

Beloved followers - 

You know when you're home from college and you see someone that you definitely knew well enough to feel obligated to acknowledge, but that you didn't really like and/or care about, so you feel generally uncomfortable and bitter about it?

I hope and expect that that is the visceral reaction that you all have upon noticing the return of this "blog"!   

I am back in Vienna, international city of sin (?).  This time plus parents and minus Kendall and Hannah (RIP (what? (just kidding))).  It is christmastime here in this fancy Catholic place and despite the really unusually warm weather, everyone is in the ~spirit~.  As of the most recent census info, christmas markets currently outnumber citizens.  

In order to continue to prove that *Vienna IS classical music* somebody spent part of their life hanging fifty cellos in a tree.  Tumblr said the file of my picture is too big so you're just going to have to believe me.  There are also veeeery opulent silvery lights everywhere that I have been photographing with varying success but constant determination because it is my personal greatest ambition* to prove that a simple jew can be christmas-y AF. 

*potentially why I am the only unemployed resident of my house

The Viennese specialty aside from, obviously, wienerschnitzel is fancy coffee and, apparently, witchcraft, because my alcoholic coffee ~platter~ came with what looked like a small bottle of love potion.  Idk - I get the vast majority of my identification references from when ABC Family runs all of the Harry Potter movies back-to-back so that's what we're going with here.  Not telling who, but the next time one of you (dir. @ Facebook community) sets eyes on me prepare 2 b smitten.  (Also, figured out that it was chocolate liquer but that is neither here nor there).

Finally, the return of a beloved tradition: Hayden's Art Round-Up from the Belvedere Museum

"Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Fog & Boats" by Casper David Friedrich

"#notallmen" by Degas

"Alien Nightmare Fuel" by Schiele 

"Leaked Nudes 2k15" by Klimt

"Benedict Cumberbatch" by Fangirl at San Diego Comic Con

That's all 4 now.  Hope you guys have a bangin' Christmas tomorrow and if you made it to here I literally cannot believe it that anyone still reads anything that I write on the internet!

I know I forgot to do one of these for month two, and in my defense I was too busy deliriously zombie-walking through Moscow on a 2-day no sleep bender to really notice when November 1 rolled around.  I got tagged in a couple of pictures from that day and just...you can imagine.  It was a hard time. 

But now it is December, and now there is snow (it came late, because my bright, warm personality and general sunshine-ness kept it at bay), and I only have three more weeks in this weird and interesting place.

1. Sunlight

Russia considers Daylight Savings to be an evil thing that the West uses to mind-control other countries.  Okay, whatever, but the sun rises here at around 11am here now (not an exaggeration) and I think it's time for everyone to take a deep breath and maybe reconsider.  One the one hand, I get to see the sun rise basically every day.

On the other hand, it feels like it is never daytime, because, generally, during all five light hours, I'm in class.  It is just so, so dark.  All the time.  And this is an issue for me because I biologically feel like its okay to sleep for 19 hours out of the day.  In the words (again) of R. Kelly - "my mind's telling me no, but my body's telling me yes".  My mind usually loses.  

2. Travels

In November I was traveling every weekend.  I went to some cool places and it was awesome and I am #blessed. 

^^Oh Anne, how you capture each moment with such whimsy. 

I like to travel (<-----SINCERITY ALERT!!!) but all the time on planes and airports and essentially getting no sleep ever left me with the plague this past week.

3. Being sick in Russia

The Russians have very specific ideas about illness and those are that it is your fault because you walked around barefoot and you never eat raw garlic.  Thus far, being afraid of home remedies, I was successfully able to conceal every time I fell ill from my host mother.  This time, my coughing gave me away and I was catapulted into a week of witch medicine.  I enjoyed sleeping with a garlic necklace, which is a real thing that is supposed to open up your sinuses, but instead causes you to wake up at 3am choking on garlic fumes and wondering why WHY WHY WHY people do this instead of just taking dangerous amounts of NyQuil like I usually do.  Unfortunately I got checked on a lot (by my sweet and caring host mother yeah yeah yeah) and the garlic necklace was mandatory.  I enjoyed having hot, wet towels put in my socks. That was a weird thing.  And I enjoyed eating garlic toast twice a day, which is just bread with a whole clove of raw garlic chopped up onto it and is the spiciest thing that any live creature has ever ingested.  When I mentioned how spicy it is, Larisa told me that Russian children have to eat it every day in the winter and, thus, I am a weak excuse for a human. 

4. The Frankfurt Airport

You know that movie where Tom Hanks lives in an airport?  I have not seen this movie, as with most movies that did not air on the Lifetime Network.  However, I feel that there are definitely some employees at FRA that think I live there.  

It's fine because I found a new restaurant in B Concourse called Deli Bros that had one of the top three capreses I've ever eaten.

I also got questioned twice trying to go through passport control at German airports this month, welcoming me to a new chapter of my life in which I carry a passport that makes me look like someone smuggling drugs between Germany and Russia.  I probably shouldn't book any tight international connections until my passport is reissued in 2022.  

5. Public Transportation

OMG guys public transportation is so useful and great for the environment and like so much easier than driving.

Guess what I'm not going to set foot on a metro car for as long as humanly possible when I get back to the states.

I have trouble comparing the metro game in Russia to anything aside from the Hunger Games, which I know is my go-to comparison but it is just the most crowded and stressful and public thing ever and if people started killing each other it wouldn't surprise me at all.  And then there are marshrutkas, which are mini-buses/communal taxis where no information is ever conveyed in any manner aside from yelling and shaking money.  It's all surprisingly efficient but everything about all of is also terrible.  I can't believe I've made it to December without setting one of the couples making out on the escalators on fire. 

6. Never wearing color ever.

It's Europe.  We wear black. 

~~***ST PETERSBURG***~~

Oh Copenhagen, I did not think that we would be reunited so soon.  Here I am in the Danish capital just 15 months ago:

Look how much I've matured since then!

Copenhagen is never ready to handle me. 

Anyway, the general differences between this trip to CPH and my last jaunt in August 2012 were a) it was sub-arctic tundra freezing cold and b) I was there with my favorite humans from Georgetown who all flew in from the exotic locations of either Dublin or DC to have a ~GiRlZ wEeKeNd~ (plus Mitch as per usual) and ease our separation anxiety.

It is generally difficult for us to survive alone, due to the fact that our decision making skills fall out of balance when we are apart and this leads to massive hemorrhaging of dignity and social standing.  We figured that in a city as classy as Copenhagen (it really is - good on you, Danes), we couldn't possibly be as embarrassing as we usually are.

It started out great, with scenery and brunch and Christmas spirit.

Danes are beautiful humans.  The women wear all black outfits with sneakers and their hair looks terrible but somehow that just contributes to them looking effortless and amazing.  I am kind of similar because I wear all black outfits with sneakers and my hair looks terrible (end of list of similarities).  

Pancakes and massive brunch plates at The Laundromat fueled us for a day of taking pictures and complaining about the cold:

Our Ethiopian royal looked airbrushed as usual on the Danish streets (don't let this make you feel bad about yourself - she fell off of a hill approximately 2 hours later, but I'll spare you the picture because I don't want to get stabbed):

Meg got subversive with street art that really spoke to her soul:

We ate our way through the Glass Market to the point where Becca was pretty sure that she was going to make a play for the guy working at the kale risotto booth.  Sometimes you dream about marrying a prince, sometimes you have a loftier fantasy.

MAKING DANISH FRIENDS

We went to Tivoli and experienced the famous carnival swings after dark in November, which is an experience that tests your will to live given the gale force winds that make every human cry involuntarily.  

I was feeling homesick for Russia, but luckily this transported me right back to Moscow, except that there were more places selling hot chocolate and I hadn't been awake for 36 hours!

Here's the shot for Court, Annie and Meg's Christmas Card (sorry - Secular Holiday Greetings Card).  Just three girls ~live.laugh.love~ing their way through Europe!!!!!

A photo of me when I found out that I'm going to have 7 hours of class on Tuesdays next semester:

(just kidding - it's the Ice Queen from Tivoli's best ride, the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale ride! It's like It's A Small World but with significantly fewer racial stereotypes!) 

In general, we were succeeding in being functional humans just enjoying a sophisticated weekend in a great European capital:

And then, we rolled up to a club in this:

It doesn't make it significantly better to explain that this was borne out of necessity (no 5-person cabs, no cabs in general near our apartment, in a rush, etc.), given that we suffered an extreme loss of dignity arriving at a place called "Night Fever" on this seven-person spider bike and then, oh yeah, we also took it home at 2 in the morning.  

But, like, come on.

I guess some people are meant to have crazy, glamorous, out-of-control abroad experiences, and some people are meant to ride party bikes and scream along to Hollaback Girl in the middle of a major city as though they never made it out of eighth grade.  It's a cross we have to bear, and not that surprising given that we have all made excuses to get out of partying so that we could Zip Car 20 minutes to a diner in Northern Virginia that has brinner all day.  Multiple times.  

Ugh, maybe we'll settle down one day but for now we are just so *young* and *wild* and *free*.

Some of you may be wondering if I'm still living in Russia since my posts lately have brought you to such wondrous and exotic locales, since anyone who is actually following this blog is probably only doing so for regular updates on the weird stuff that happens in the Motherland.  

The answer is yes, during the week.  This weekend will wrap up my international travels and then I'll be back to 4 hours of daylight and flaming trashcans (yeah) full time.  

But like I just really want to share with you, 10 followers, my experiences so you're going to scroll really quickly and with barely stifled boredom through my pictures of England and just deal.  

So, yes, I was in London with these people:

Seriously, tell me this isn't one of the more successful mirror selfies you've ever seen.

We went to Oxford, which is a quaint university town that has a better retail scene than most major American cities somehow.

There's like multiple Topshops and then also cows:

I'm pretty sure that these are just decorative cows.  I find it hard to believe that Oxford supports a large agricultural sector.

Here's what I know about Downton Abbey: Lady Crowley, one girl is named Sybil, the house is called Downton Abbey.  I still sort of secretly pretended I was in Downton Abbey the whole time. Also do yourself a fave and watch SNL's Downton Abbey Spike TV skit.  

So, yes, I appreciated Oxford.  

The last time I was in London I ran the entire gambit of obligatory tourist activities, so this time around I was free to do some more important things such as:

COIN PARTY:

CHRISTMAS STREETS:

M&M WORLD

BLUE CHICKEN:

COIN PARTY II: INTERNATIONAL:

ART EXPERIENCE:

"Handsome" Queen Elizabeth

Confusing tiny-armed king:

This painting which I assume to be an artist's interpretation of me dislocating my jaw senior year of high school:

Another thing that exists in England is this horrible and unnecessary instance of a really pale Shakespeare hanging out of a second story window and generally creating an atmosphere of nightmare and horror for all of the good people trying to enjoy their day in SoHo:

Really like who approved this design? "For the tourists, let's make a Shakespeare sculpture looking out the window.  But let's make him so pale that he is either a corpse or terminally ill.  And let's give him the most murder-y expression possible."

Hyde Park is gorgeous this time of year, but it is overrun with swans and geese that look ready to go on killing sprees.

Don't they look disconcertingly well organized, like a militaristic fleet ready to just tear into the flesh of some poor human?  And notice how the white swan is leading the whole battalion, which is frankly racist and I would like to add racism to the litany of character flaws that can be ascribed to this branch of the avian family.  

All in all, I appreciated being in a country where English was spoken on the reg and my American Starbucks card was accepted, since Christmas Blend is out and that means it's time to party.  

I also showed incredible restraint and said "ello, guv'nah" ZERO times which is a big personal accomplishment and one that went completely unrecognized by my "friends".

Copenhagen tomorrow, and then we're back to all Russia all the time, okay?

The trash cans aren't going to stop catching on fire so there will be plenty of madness in my last 4 weeks.  Don't worry.

I was recently in the country of Slovenia, which is a tiny place between Italy, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and some body of water.  It is a place where it sounded like people were speaking Russian with an Italian accent (in reality: Slovenian) and it does good for my personal cause of convincing people that it is actually not so bad here behind the Iron Curtain.  Why? Because the entire country of Slovenia looks like it's behind the X-Pro II filter on Instagram.  

So beautiful that my body tried to produce emotions but I fought them off after this singular moment of revelry:

We were posted up in Ljubljana at Hotel Cubo, which I am linking because oh my god, you guys, you have to stay there.  It was like they had planned out the holy trinity of hotel amenities - plush white comforters, breakfast with pancakes to order and not one but several types of muesli, and E!.  So after a whole-grain fueled day of culture (read: taking pictures of castles) you can collapse into a voluntary coma on the bed and watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians.  Kylie Jenner's bitch-fits create a pretty elegant foil for a city with several thousand years of Roman, Slavic and European culture.  

Ljubljana is a small city that has a lot of old domed buildings and is also hip and modern (I age fifty years every time that I say the word "hip" non-ironically, so be grateful that I make that sacrifice for you).  

There's a big castle overlooking it that contains, most notably, a fifteen minute video about Slovenian history narrated by a dragon that is like pretty unnecessarily sassy and also has a pseudo-American accent. 5/5 stars highly recommend. 

It was nice to be surrounded by mountains again, since I'm such an Outdoorsy Idahoan (aka I own a North Face thermal headband, so I qualify).  Living in DC most of the time, though - a place with only one hill, which I had to run up during the Rock N' Roll half marathon and then subsequently injured myself because of it (not bitter or anything) - I miss the mountains all around.  Also, these are prettier mountains than in Idaho, sorry not sorry. 

FF remains here!

The Podjama Caves are also very close to Ljubljana, and the Slovenians are obsessed with this disgusting fish-newt-salamander nightmare creature called a proteus or a human-fish.  Actually, they don't like it when you call them human-fish because they are technically proteus, as though these horrifying cave things that don't even have eyes are going to be offended because they aren't being referred to by their Latin name.  Tour guide, you openly admitted to feeding the proteus in the aquarium less than once a month, but you snapped at me when I called it the wrong name.  Feed your horrorshow lizard-worm and then we'll talk nomenclature. 

Of course, in Slovenia, the award for Most Photogenic obviously goes to Lake Bled, a place that I sometimes Google Image Search when I'm stressed out - only now I can just look back at my own professional level pics.  

To be fair, Bled makes literally anyone with a photographic device look like Ansel Adams.  

By this time my beloved creature Meg had joined the crew and she was so happy to see me that she broke down and cried for several hours upon arrival in Ljubljana!  God she's so embarrassing.

But like, pretty cute couple, no?

Meg and Alice showed intrepid bravery getting close to these water birds, which I have condemned as bloodthirsty monsters following the Goose Attack of 2012 that left me with permanent scarring both on my leg and in my soul.  Swans are just geese that someone wrote a ballet about and now people think they're like ethereal or something.  You tell me how pretty that swan is when it is clawing out your flesh, Meghan.

I'm honestly trying to think of bratty things to say but it's hard because you can't ruin paradise.

OH JUST KIDDING YOU CAN:

Considering teaching a masterclass in how to destroy the aesthetic value of almost any image. 

The light at Bled is crazy and it changes every 20 minutes.  

This looks adorable, but bear in mind that my father refused to carry me on piggyback around the entire lake.  Basically I am living in abuse.

Like WHY DOESN'T EVERYWHERE LOOK LIKE THIS??

I bet if I overlayed a vague and depressing quote onto this picture of Meg contemplating Slovenia it would get re-pinned about seven million times on Pinterest.

Oh wait, I forgot to include the author of these soulful words.  It definitely elevates the meaning:

And before you tell me that I have too much time on my hands, don't.  Because this was obviously worthwhile.  

And yes, R. Kelly actually said that.

It wasn't windy in Venice but that was a pun.

It's been a hot sec since I was last in Italy, and as I was fondly looking back at my photographs from that whirlwind of horror and fun with the irreplaceable Kennii and Schwailz, I wondered to myself if I was in anaphylactic shock and unable to function the entire time that we were in Venice, because this is what the pictures that I took my first time in Venice look like:

Really Hayden? 

My mother is a professional photographer.  Ponder that for a sec as you gaze up at that magnificent image that I captured.  It's Venice and I took a poorly lit photo of a lion with half of a head and called it a day.

Venice in November is even better than Venice in June, when you can't see two feet in front of you on their baby-sized "streets" (read: crawl spaces).  And since I am now in possession of a real camera that has settings and everything I'm going to let these images show you why Venice should be at the top of everyone's off-season travel list.  

(I didn't Instagram the pizza and it took most of the self control that I have)

Alice's first taste of Italian gelato.  

Anne was born to strut mysteriously through the streets of Venezia, don't you think?

If you want your salami to look like the animal it was made of, Venice is the place where you can achieve that goal. 

I feel uncomfortable knowing that whoever proposed this idea is probably out in the world because I feel that there is a strong chance that they are a serial killer, or at least headed down that path. 

"Paint me like one of your French girls" - Rob 2013

I didn't fall into one single canal.  

Even seagulls look less awful and disgusting when they are in Venice!

Really, though, this city is one of the weirdest and most excellent places on Earth.  And although I loved Venice in round one, which focused largely around the Charlie Chaplin impersonator who hangs out creepily at the St. Mark's Vaporetto stop, I have to say that it being there in November was a better experience of the city (Kennii and Schwailz - your company is unmatched).  

If you wish to use any of my auction-worthy photographs as your computer background I like totally get it and it's totally cool, just be aware that I will then automatically own a small piece of your soul and reserve the right to make a Horcrux with it. 

A peak at Slovenia is coming soon, but I'm flying to London in a few hours to celebrate my BIRTHDAY the big 2-0.  Watch out, Iceland, Japan, and Paraguay - I'm about to become legal.  Maybe I'll go back and rip shots in Keflavik, the Ibiza of Iceland, with my horse friends and my cab driver.  

I'll keep it short and sweet on the capital of the Federation because my camera died approximately 5 seconds into my arrival in Moscow.  I would apologize for not having my shit together except that I won't, because the fact that I was able to even walk around and be a functional human being after the night train is a victory in and of itself.  Here is just a quick snapshot of what the conditions were like for our 14-hour rail journey:

It was kind of like every stress-dream I have ever had about speeding into the Russian wilderness in a very hot and crowded enclosed space that was periodically inspected by officials (KGB? we'll never know) coming true.  Oh wait - that is just the exact description of the experience.  I also fell off of my "bed" in the middle of the night (there were no guard rails - I refuse to accept responsibility for rolling off of my sleep-shelf) and it made the loudest noise of all time, so now I am widely known as the person who almost fell to their death in the Kiev-Moscow train.

We watched Miracle on my iPad as we rolled towards the border to remember the better life that we left behind in America.  The Russians may have almost killed me with their unsafe train beds, but we still beat them in the 1980 Olympics. 

So despite my general state of delirium upon arrival in Moscow, I can safely and accurately (I'm always right) make the statement that Moscow is a devastatingly underrated city.

Everyone says that Moscow is crowded and dirty and ugly and yet this is not the impression that I got at all.  Sure, there are some deep-cut places that you prob want to avoid, but, as someone who learned to drive in the parking lot of an abandoned K-Mart, I can tell you that that is true of everywhere.

Sidenote: it looks really cold and desolate in these photos, but it was not very cold or very desolate.  Maybe my photographic eye was just reflecting the fact that I had acquired about 5 hours of sleep the night before, interrupted by some passport-check-humans at 1am in the beautiful city if Br'ansk, Russia, and in fact it was me who was cold and desolate and just really needed a hairbrush and a less hazardous bed. 

We saw Putin's place of work, but were not graced by an appearance from Vova.  SO SAD - I guess our unlikely romance will have to be put on hold.  I've already mostly planned out the romantic comedy that will be made about our love story, probably entitled "From Russia, With Love" and starring Penelope Cruz and Sir Ian McKellan as the leads. 

The best part of Moscow was this meta-selfie.  This man is literally taking a photograph of himself where he is staring off into the distance, as though he is not in fact the wielder of the camera.  He has single-handedly restored the good name of the Asian tourist and become one of my personal heroes:

Moscow also has a killer art museum called the Tretyakovskaya Gallery, which is, like the Russian Museum, home to a billion important icons, Repins, Vrubels - literally breathtaking as in I was literally taking breaths the entire time.  Mostly to keep my body alive but also because of the ***art***.

This woman just looks like a boss bitch and that hat is an item that I will be searching for for the rest of my earthly life.

Romance.  Wolves.

Sorry again about the lack of visual aids but just trust me on Moscow - it's worth seeing if you're in Russia and don't listen to the haters who say it's the worst.  I think everything is the worst and even I don't think Moscow is the worst so hit it up.

Pictures will soon abound from Venice and Slovenia so prepare your eyes for brilliance. 

Hi I apologize for my absence, I have been busy trotting the globe and being generally a jetsetter with a heart of gold or whatever the saying is.  

Last week I enjoyed the city of Kiev, Ukraine, after being given my multiple entry visa aka the most important piece of documentation I seem to have ever been entrusted with.  Apparently if I lose it I get drawn and quartered or something at the Russian border and then they will put the mangled pieces of my body back into my 65 gallon backpack and send it back to the United States in economy class with no chance of upgrade to economy plus.  

I was surprised to find myself alive upon landing in Kiev since, after approximately 20 minutes of sleep the night before, we were treated to a 45 minute ride in an unmarked cab that was blasting club music at 6am, which I'm pretty sure is the sign of a servant of the devil.  That was followed by the experience of Pulkovo's domestic terminal, which resembles a giant garage with 10,000 confused Russians and a duty free shop filled with nervous-looking employees who look afraid that the terminal is about to erupt into a coup d'etat at any moment and they will be responsible for protecting the Moët and giant Toblerones.

Luckily, we were immediately woken right up by our Kievan spirit guide, the irrepressible Nila, an angel sent down from heaven to explain churches and list the ingredients of Ukrainian borsch.

Kiev is the first city of the ancient Russian empire and, as such, has the first Russian orthodox cathedral, the Sofia Cathedral! Honestly, though, I had a pretty hard time appreciating it at first because this woman was living out my pigeon-fueled nightmares.  I was both terrified and strangely honored to be in the presence of this Ukrainian pigeon-lord.  

In general, I will let the churches speak for themselves photographically.  It's just important that you see how respectfully I was dressed to, like, honor religion and show-off how pretty and demure I look in a head scarf.

I've heard that the ancient Russians also loosely wrapped J. Crew winter scarves around their (Jewish) hair to honor God so I'm on point.   

It was like 60 degrees and lovely in Kiev, which kind of just made me feel depressive because you know you're in for a long November/December when you're running to Ukraine to chase warmer temperatures.  As they say in my favorite whimsical Russian proverb - "it's cold".  

If you're wondering how different Ukrainian is from Russian, I don't really know because I just dazedly talked in Russian during my time in Kiev and received responses that were equally as sort-of-understandable to me as they are in Russia.  I literally never knew the difference unless I saw a word that used a special Ukrainian letter.  ~LaNgUaGe GeNiUs~.

Bathed in celestial light just as I generally am. 

We ended our stay in Kiev with a visit to the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, which is highly impressive and highly highly depressing and created the opportunity for a lot of people to pose inappropriately with repurposed WW2 tanks.  Classy forever.  

Kiev is a pretty place - Keeks approved.  Hit up Nila if you're ever in the U of Kraine and she will squawk at you for hours and just generally be awesome and a badass and when she's done you will legitimately have forgotten what silence sounds like.  

Stay tuned for some more international adventures that happened after I successfully survived the all night train between Kiev and Moscow.  

A whole week without hearing from me? Did you survive? Sorry comrades, I've been just really busy with my glamorous life and also a touch of food poisoning which I would have described at length but I lacked the proper descriptive language.  Here are three things that happened this week before I dive into my pic-filled Tsarskoe Selo extravaganza:

1. I went to an Iyengar Yoga class, and while I have, admittedly, never taken a formal Iyengar class, I'm pretty sure that in the United States it would involve fewer wooden blocks and less yelling.  It was no Down Dog but it was fairly worth it for the guy in the bangin' lavender singlet rocking out his vinyasas next to me.  You do you.

2. I was offered a Russian Starbucks account sans activation fee, and I like to think it's because I just give off the aura of a really serious Starbucks devotee.  Oh yeah I forgot I definitely do because I definitely am.

3. I did my oral midterm in Phonetics and it consisted of me basically screaming at my class in a Piglet voice for ~5 minutes and then reciting this poem by Anna Ahmatova.  The verses are just so lyrical and can't be properly translated to you non-Russian speaking plebeians because language.  Just kidding here is my translation because poetry is a joke:

Stanza 1: Standard poetry blows

Stanza 2: Dandelions

Stanza 3: Despite my apartment being dirty, I still write poems.

So there you go.

So anyway on Friday, Grandad and Grammasue rolled up and yesterday we trekked out to Tsarskoe Selo, the great palace of Catherine the Great and the Romanovs.  We had a driver take us out there through the beautiful industrial heart of St. Petersburg, where decaying warehouses mingle artfully with breathtaking rotting industrial equipment.  Like, it is a vision.  

Tsarskoe Selo is in this town called Pushkin and it is nice to look at because of, like, the palaces and the nature.

It was over cast but not raining slava bogu, so we got to do the walk around the grounds.  

First there was this flute man whose hair and general demeanor of coolness is an inspiration to us all:

I waited a few minutes to see if he was going to play Concerning Hobbits but was forced to walk away a little heartbroken.

I'm almost getting desensitized to gold domes and blue baroque buildings #studyabroadproblems #lol #classic.

Grandad capturing an Anthony Bourdain-like essence with his carelessly askew backpack and strut.  Nonchalant tourism.

I wasn't entirely sure what these girls were doing but I respected their winter-wear choices too much not to take a stalker photograph of them through the trees.  Stay fab, toddlerskis.

(But like what are you trying to do? There aren't any more leaves to catch and WHAT IF A PIGEON LANDS IN YOUR HAND HUH?!)

*The FF is sadly withering away like the dreams of the pre-Decembrist Imperialist Regime.*  

Ugh that simile coming from the Romanov's summer palace - so meta.  

Why is this here? Illuminati?

I know I went through a phase where I tweeted @ the Illuminati, like, a lot, but I swear I'm not really an Illuminati.

Yet.

Being rebellious outside of the "Danger Zone" sign because I will take any opportunity to look like a sassy hunchback.

When I finally fulfill my career goal of starting a coven of witches, we will have sacrifices here:

It looks like the set of Disney's Haunted Mansion: The Movie, but minus Eddie Murphy so 100 times better.

After walking around the grounds we proceeded into the palace itself, which was notable for it's goldness and some Romanov things.  Oh, sorry, was that a really vague and lazy description? 

Please witness this amazing picture I took of a couple getting their wedding pics done inside of the palace.  The bride is throwing me so much shade I am going to have to use a vitamin-D lamp for the rest of my life to recover, and the groom is just looking confusedly at his shoe covers as though he has never seen such a phenomenon in his life.  This country is ~~*amazing*~~:

Hello from those Krazy Romanov Kidz:

The bangs on Anastasia - yes.

Aleksei so cute and nautical - are you in DG? 

Rob and Anne arrive tomorrow to kick off a whirlwind month of travels and adventures that are really going to change me as a person and alter my perspective of the world.

Also the Olympic Torch just passed by my house and they were blasting the Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling and a) I found it ironic that Will.I.Am was yelling "Mazel Tov" as the Russian Olympic Torch was being handed off and b) if that is any indication of how Sochi is going to pan out, I think we need to raise our concern level.

I'll leave you with this nightmare fuel:

I am still languishing in a warm fall glow after a meal yesterday that consisted of pumpkin soup, fried pumpkin, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin-corn cake and beets (obviously).  It put the Henle 74 Harvest Fest 2012 to shame and that's coming from the person who made all of the food at the Henle 74 Harvest Fest 2012.  In light of that, allow me to share the remaining FF glory shots that Tumblr disallowed me from posting last time:

This is the park that we walk through to get to school and I'm 90% sure that there was a Reaping here the other day.  It may have just been a children's fitness day, but if there's any country that seems like it would take the Hunger Games as a serious idea and run with it, let's be honest, it's Russia (love you Russia but you know you agree #district14).

Alice looking so moody walking through campus.

Listen to Campus and have a moment.  I am always listening to Vampire Weekend while in transit and pretending it applies even though there is probably nowhere that African-and-Indian-influenced preppy indie pop applies less than in Northwestern Russia.  Still, if I had a dollar for every time I've gotten weepy alone on public transportation because Hannah Hunt makes me feel like the main character in a sad movie, I would have like 3 or 4 dollars.  We all have our issues, guys.  

Also, in a moment of triumph for America and our obsession with fall-themed baked goods, I accidentally challenged my host mother to a pumpkin cake bake-off.  I was trying to say that American pumpkin bread is "good" but I unwittingly said it is "better" so she was like "we'll see".  Yikes.  This was, however, a favorable situation for me because it meant consuming multiple pumpkin cakes. 

Russian pumpkin cake is not so much cake as a custardy/pie-y situation that relies on a ton a pumpkin puree.  It's really good and I think like 60-70% actual pumpkin which makes it a lot healthier than our version.

That fact may contribute to my sugar-bomb pumpkin bread being deemed the better of the two in the end.  Granted, sans a loaf pan and the familiar ingredients, mine was a slight variation on the holy confection that we purchase at our coffee shops.  If you want to know how to make a bangin' pumpkin bread with the weird baking stuff you find in a typical Russian kitchen (spoiler alert: a confusingly overwhelming amount of sunflower seed oil), hit me up.

I have never made this before with actual, fresh pumpkin puree that doesn't come from a festive orange can.  Look how pretty:

I literally felt like I was communing with nature.  That is a good indication of how much time I spend in nature. 

Fall in Russia - so pretty, so colorful, so short.  While in Washington the weather is probably still supporting dreams of finding a way to evoke "Slutty Government Shutdown" with some sort of crop top for Halloween (I make fun of you because I love you, Georgetown), we are already in calf-length coats here in Petersburg.  

Friday night was the first snow, at about 2am, and I know this because I am a total party animal and I stayed out all night after going to Swan Lake at the Mikhailovsky.  The bridge connecting my insular neighborhood with the centralny region goes up every night at 1:15am to allow barges through on the Neva.  That means that seriously going out requires an amount of commitment that I, a person who requires 10-16 hours of sleep per night/day, find it difficult to find within myself.  But on Friday, in one of the most Russian moments that I have yet to experience thus far, somebody in the Dumskaya bar we were in started screaming perviy sneg! perviy sneg! and we ran out onto the street past the thoroughly unimpressed bouncers to experience the first snow of the Russian winter (qualification: it was pretty weak snow and none of it stuck but whatever PERVIY SNEG PERVIY SNEG). Some guys popped champagne and this girl rocking micro-bangs in a way that would make Rooney Mara-circa-awards-season-2011 proud was dancing around.  Vodka was toasted za pervovo snega.  I guess it was worth missing out on falling asleep at 10:30 to Friends.  

Last night we went to one of our administrator's indie-rock shows at this unbelievably hole-in-the-wall punk club on Tchaikovskaya.  Everything about it was confusing.  There was a lot of cubist art on the walls, but also like black and white photos of people with mohawks and really really nice bathrooms.  The entrance was blocked by a huge pile of garbage that may have been decorative but was probably just a huge pile of garbage.  It felt like a club that Stefan would recommend on Weekend Update and I'm not even going to link that here because if you don't get that reference you need to reevaluate your life.  Maybe I was just out of my league since I think I'm being totally edgy when I put on liquid eyeliner correctly.  Is this what growing up feels like?

The band that was playing when we got there was doing this song where the main refrain was "rock'n'roll is not a wisdom".  Just like so deep.  Don't be surprised if I come back with a tat of that somewhere - and since it's Russia, the tat will probably come with complimentary hepatitis.  

Miss you guys. 

So the other day I was running and I caught sight of something incredible: this incarnation of the legendary Li'l Sebastian marching proudly along Universitetskaya, despite the fact that it was surrounded by oncoming traffic and the cold air of a Russian morning:

I was appropriately overjoyed at this sight, but it also caused me some measure of immediate sadness.  If you are a worthwhile person, you understand that Li'l Sebastian is a symbol of the Pawnee Harvest Festival. This brought to my heart the dagger of knowing that I am missing an October in the mid-atlantic, where pumpkin patches and harvest celebrations abound.  If I can't get a pumpkin cupcake at Baked and Wired and then head up to Shenandoah to see the foliage and the Halloween decorations, is it even worth getting out of bed in the morning?

Surprisingly, however, this bout of sadness didn't play out the way that it usually does.  Instead of misery-watching a season of Parks & Rec to vicariously live my harvest fantasies while reflecting on how terrible my life as one of the few people lucky enough to study abroad is, I actually experienced a weekend that proved to me the Russians actually do have a worthy autumn.  This led to me happiness-watching a season of Parks & Rec while drinking a PSL!

So grab some kind of fall-themed beverage (PSL, Trader Joe's pumpkin spice tea, spiced cider - take your pick but just remember that if you don't drink fall-themed drinks you're not a real American), maybe listen to this 8tracks (ignore the Panic! at the Disco unless you're Kat Stidham) and settle in for a gratuitous amount of foliage and fuuuunnnnnn.  

Russians don't celebrate fall the same way that Americans do.  We have three major holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday) and they just have the impending knowledge that another Russian winter is coming, so it's hard to blame them.  However, nature and Starbucks band together to force the harvest spirit upon the Federation.

The Russian Museum has a huge park behind it, on Sadovaya Ulitsa.  You don't need a ticket to the exhibitions - you can just walk along the left side...

(there was a guy in the backseat of that car and the jury is still out on what was going on in this scenario. He gave me a kind of pleading look through the window as I passed by.  I did not stop.  You should have thought this one through, bro.)

This park is called the Summer Gardens but it should be called the Holy Bastian of FF.

It is a place where Russian people just wear coats and act adorable.

Mystical treetops:

I got some cinnamon almonds but they were cold, which I understood to be a cruel and personal joke played on me by God or The Secret or who/whatever is responsible for these things.

It's fine because I was still cooling off from my museum jaunt.  Has anyone ever been to a museum in the winter and not gotten just like so hot walking around? Like trying to enjoy Aivazovsky but also wondering if everyone else is 300000 degrees Fahrenheit 166648.889 degrees Celsius in their weather-appropriate clothing?!

I know that if any of you come to Russia, it probably won't be during the fall.  You will be a total tourist (so lame I'm basically a local aside from still almost breaking the metro turn-style every day and refusing to eat all the food and having a heavy American accent), so you'll come in the summer.  But fall in Russia is a total dime.

The park next to our school also boasts some FF to rival the Great DC-to-Philadelphia Regionals Drive of 2012.  

The thing to do in Russia is to pose with FF bouquets with sultry facial expressions (there is no smiling in pictures here and it makes all mixed Russian-American photos just so awkward).  Alice and I tried our best to assimilate.

Aggressive.

My Russian-style photo kind of turned out to look like a Pinterest-worthy senior pic - note the asymmetry, trendy sun-spot and uncomfortable pose:

If only I had cowboy boots and tragic highlights. Also, this picture forces me to agree with the mean Italian gypsy who cursed me in Rome and concede that I do indeed have dead eyes.

I can't stay mad at you, FF!

Tumblr is at this point in time literally trying to ruin my life and apparently I have exhausted its magnificence capabilities with too much visual FF, so I will have to hitchu with a Part 2 later this week (recipes! more foliage!).

Until then, let these images of autumnal perfection cleanse your mind of the Tuesday blues.  I was just at the gym, which in Russia is pretty much a bra- and pants-optional environment, and after gazing upon this splendor I have already started to notice my nausea dissipating!  

Today was an important day because instead of laying in bed re-watching an entire season of The O.C. I emerged into the outside world and did a solo cultural outing.  This can be ascribed to the fact that A) last weekend I almost didn't move my legs at all, and B) the famed Russian Museum is on my metro line and thus didn't require too much mental or physical effort to get to.  

I brought my camera along, obviously, and took some mirror selfies on the shiny door across from my apartment before heading into the metro.

This one says: "I'm artsy, cool and a free spirit.":

This one says: "I hunt humans for sport.":

Classic!

The Russian Museum is at the Gostiniy Dvor metro stop, just about a block back off of Nevsky on Sadovaya Ulitsa.  

Every important building in Russia has a statue of an important famous Russian in front of it making a vague, grandiose gesture.  That's how you know you should go in.

Pushkin and his friends:

Not so fancy when you basically function as a pigeon bench, huh, Sasha?

I talked some trash on modern art last weekend in my blog post about Erarta - yeah, I went to museums two Sundays in a row, so you could say I am a cultural behemoth - so the hyper-classical Russian Museum was a welcome change for me.  My taste in art falls somewhere between the Medici family and your rich friend's dad who has like a thousand paintings of old ships in his home office.  This museum has a lot of pieces that fall on that spectrum, and although it features only Russian art, the collections that I saw today were surprisingly diverse.  

You start at this museum by descending into an underground cave that is both very dark and very hot to check your coat and get your tickets.  There were several children's school field trips revving up down there, so you could say that it was a pretty salient iteration of my personal hell.  But don't worry, things got better from there.

The first gallery is the Gallery of Ancient Art, read: icons.  I am obsessed with Russian icons and this is obviously the best collection that I've seen.  

St. George Slaying the Dragon is one of my favorite motifs in pre-modern religious art.  

I say that for reals, but also I dare you to try to come up with a more pretentious sentence than that. 

Look how beautiful and autumnal the galleries are! It's like a saintly Harvest Festival where instead of butternut squash there is gilding everywhere.  Upgrade.

This was my favorite detail that I saw all day:

If anyone has learned Old Church Slavonic and can tell me what that says, I will give you 100 rubles and then sit down and have a talk with you about how you are wasting your life.

After the icon gallery, I tagged along with one of the school groups for a while because their teacher was talking in the ultra-clear, dumbed down kind of Russian that I wish my teachers would talk to me in.  It didn't even really bother me to be in such unpleasantly close proximity to multiple loud schoolchildren.

Also, that girl in the plaid skirt was rocking a dope braid that went all the way around her head.

One room seemed to be just portraits of sassy, homely ladies.

Yikes.

I was constantly being distracted by the blindingly glorious FF in the Summer Gardens out back, but that deserves a full post that will be coming to you live later this week.

Soon, you come to some of the more famous Russian pieces.  There's this one by Ilya Repin that I remember discussing in a class, but I honestly cannot remember if it was my high school AP Euro, or the Gateway English class I took freshman spring where we over-analyzed "sublime" paintings to the point where I no longer know what that word means.  Either way, it is famous and I know Rilez will appreciate the Les Mis connection. 

Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1873:

There is another far better Repin called Sadko that I had never heard of before.  It is, simply put, an extravagant collage of scary looking mermaids.  It is breathtaking.

Just merz for dayz, and a goldfish:

The real money shots in this Museum, though, in my opinion, are the Aivazovskys.  The Ninth Wave is one of my all-time favorite paintings, and it is truly very impressive in person.

It's hard to get the full effect of the scale from a photo - it's huge - but my camera did a pretty good job of capturing the color.  I have a bonafide obsession with sunsets and, yeah - 

Some more Aivozovsky:

This gallery was essentially populated by me and a bunch of middle-aged-to-old men grumbling and going "now this is art".  My people. 

A pleasant surprise for me was seeing a few pastorals by Arkhip Kuindzhi, who I've heard of but never had a lot of interest in until I saw these two paintings and was seized with joy (hyperbole but yes, I liked them) - The Crimea  and Moonlit Night on the Dnieper (I couldn't get a glare-free pic, but apparently no one on Google Images has been able to either...go see it in person).

There are also some other paintings in this museum, such as Me Walking to School When it Rains:

Gimli Seeing The Names of the Dwarves on a Gravestone Outside of Moria and Being Sad:

Horrifying Puppet Interaction:

(Seriously what is going on here)

And FF:

I didn't nearly see the entirety of the Russian Museum's collection, but I will be back to do so for sure.  

You guys are cool, don't ever change.  HAGS (Have A Good Sunday).

I would first like to say that a lot of the time, when words on my blog are in bold, they are links.  I realize that this is confusing so from now on ALL BOLD WORDS ARE LINKS.  Just FYI I’m tech savvy get over it. 

I knew that, when I went to Russia, food was going to be an interesting issue.  However, according to my resume, I am “adaptable and demonstrate ingenuity in challenging situations” so I figured - you know, I’ll survive.  

You are a human of the internet, so you probably read this Buzzfeed article and wondered how I am keeping myself alive. If you know me well, you know what a total hellish bitch I can be about food.  I’m a fake vegetarian who eats fish (I shudder at the word pescatarian but whatever).  One time I almost choked on coconut water with chia seeds in it, and so if I would have died my obituary would have had to read “yuppie nightmare dies in world’s most pretentious choking incident”.  I read labels like they are religious scripture.  It’s not pretty.

So, naturally, my clash with Russian cuisine has been interesting. While I am generally pretty good at chilling out about my diet while abroad, in the first couple of weeks I ate almost only cabbage and cereal.  Now my diet is evening out a little bit and I am actually consuming a normal amount of food.

There are some things that I love, like, literally cannot get enough of.  Blini, obviously.  Blini, blini, blini.  If I didn’t have a visceral hatred of iambic pentameter, I would write a sonnet about blini.

Blini are pancakes and thus everything.  My host mom knows that they are the #1 thing that I eat, so she makes them all the time. She likes to tell me that I only eat peasant food - oatmeal, blini, beets.  If that is the diet of Russian peasants, then sign me up!

Just kidding.

Weirdly enough, one of my fave dishes is this thing where Larisa stuffs blini with a carrot-onion mixture and puts smetana on it:

I have really come full circle on sour cream.  I was very ambivalent concerning this condiment, which is consumed in Russia in greater volume than water.  Now I’ll pretty much eat smetana on anything.  SmEtAnAaAaAaAa! And carrot-onion blini are so good.

Next up: I grew up in a household that was permeated with discrimination and bigotry - against beets.  Anne has this ridiculous phobia of the beet that is totally ridiculous and totally not justified like my cilantro aversion which is proved by science.  

Why the hatred? Beets are delicious and an awesome color and if you don’t eat them you would die in Russia after a short amount of time.  

Yeah - borsch is peasant food but it’s also an edible food, which in Russia, for me, translates into BEST FOOD EVER.

I would talk about oatmeal but if you knew me freshman year and were aware that I was about to go on an oatmeal rant you have probably already killed yourself (even though my would-be oatmeal restaurant Who Let The Dogs Oat?! was a great idea and you are all haters).

Oatmeal. I might have this bookmarked.  I don’t wanna talk about it.

Of course, with all of the good comes some very, very - interesting culinary experimentation.  I have taken the liberty of documenting some of the most troubling dishes that I have come into contact with in the motherland.  

Ring-Around-The-Carrot: I was served this for breakfast.  It was a plate of shredded carrots with a copious - copious - amount of sugar on top, with banana slices around the outside.  This sounds innocuous enough, but I came face-to-face with this at 8am and was just so puzzled, and there was so much sugar.  And it was shredded carrots. 

Rice Omelette: This is exactly what it sounds like.  Rice omelette.

Pasta Egg Tragedy: Alfredo sauce, mayonnaise, what I think might have been dried fruit, sort-of cooked pasta and eggs all cooked in a skillet over the raging fires of Hell and then served with a side of emotional trauma.

Preserved Herring: Have you ever wished that your fish had the texture of gummy worms with bones and was served in a cold slime that looks and feels like mucus but also tastes like mucus? One time Robbie coerced me into tasting Gefiltefish and this was somehow a worse experience.

Salad Olivier: No. 

Beet-Mayo-Herring Salad: NO and once again this is not what a salad is.

Kholodets: NO NO NO NO why is this allowed to be a thing that humans feed to other humans?!!!!!! I was presented with this ‘food’ and literally suffered an instantaneous brain aneurism (because I am a cultured and composed young woman).  Do you remember in American Horror Story season one when they were discussing how an abomination like a half-human-half-demon baby would threaten human life and could create a tear in the universe? Kholodets is kind of like that except that it is worse  I promise you.  It is traditionally used as a chaser to kill the taste of vodka.  I would be willing to drink enough vodka to kill my brain function so as to forget the memory of when I tasted a bite of this “food”. 

I guess that the silver lining in this is that for every piece of bread-and-meat-jelly there is an apple pirozhok:

Or you can just give up and go to Shastya. 

I promised in my blog post on Friday that I would do something cultural this weekend, and I always keep my blog promises.  So despite the fact that I was like sooo tired from my awesome weekend of partying and being a Fun Party Girl (reality: I set a personal sleeping record and was never awake for more than six hours consecutively all weekend get at me) I got in a museum excursion under the buzzer today at like 5pm.  

The museum in question is Erarta, which is on my island at B.O. 29th Line.  It is a modern art museum, meaning a place filled with conceptual things that I hate. 

At least that's what I thought.  

I was so so wrong.

I mean, in general I was right.  Mostly the museum was things like this:

Oh, so you found some tree trunks and you cut them to the same height and put them on a white board? So it's like a worse version of what naturally occurs in nature but somebody paid you for it and put it in a museum? Oh wait sorry I didn't see the detail that makes it ~~ART~~:

Really? That is somehow both disgusting and something I could do in five seconds with a gluestick and a color photo of muscle tissue.  SO EVOCATIVE.

There was this thing that I liked:

Idk I have sophisticated taste.

No one even knows.

But by far the highlight of this museum is a work of art that so deeply touches the soul and catches the viewer so breathtakingly off-guard that words cannot fully describe it.  I'll try.

It's a tapestry. 

It is amazing.

Sorry, what? Is that an unidentifiable 18th century nobleman (guesses included: Marquis de Lafayette, Louis XVIII, George Washington) stuntin' with Snoop on tapestry? I suddenly understood why Erarta is actually considered a Fine Arts institution.

From every angle, it just forces the viewer to really think.  Is it a commentary on how timeless Snoop's rhymes are? 

The great "Lion" (whatever) himself once said, "so don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little, I've got a living room full of fine dime brizzles, waiting on the pizzle, the dizzle and the chizzle".  I really think that that would have resonated with the figure to the left, who, based on his clothing, was probably alive during the French Revolution.  Like, the aristocracy was essentially just an out of touch 'living room full of brizzles' and it was in the people's hands to not just wait on the 'pizzle', the 'dizzle' and the 'chizzle' but to rise up and take it for themselves! Snoop Dogg is the Oath of Tennis Court. 

I mean, that's just one interpretation.

Also Snoop literally said that he engages in time travel, so there are layers to this: 

"You've got to always go back in time if you want to move forward." - The venerable Snoop Lion (I have a lot of Snoop Dogg quotes stockpiled so obviously this blog post is a big moment for me)

Oh in case you were waffling between whether that was Snoop or Fonzworth Bentley like I was (based on the hair, obv):

"I like going to areas where the murder rate is high and dropping it." - Snoop Dogg.

Come to Russia, Snoop.  We need you at Primurderskaya.

Even being in the same vicinity as this pinnacle of human achievement just makes you look more classy as demonstrated by Sagatomschka:

I may start a petition to have that tire throne destroyed because it blocks part of the World's Greatest Art Piece.

In my shock and awe I 100% forgot to observe any of the artist information but I will be back to find out who crafted this magnum opus and what the steps are for nominating someone for a Nobel Prize. 

I hope you discovered something of equal magnitude this weekend but I highly doubt it. 

Keep stunnin'.

Sorry it’s been a few secs since I got a post up. I’ve been so super involved in politics and closely following the government shut down in DC that I just haven’t had time for anything else.

Just kidding, I saw a few inflammatory statuses about it at Facebook and then forgot that it happened. Mostly I’ve been at school and trying to catch up on season two of Homeland.

I cannot believe that we’re now embarking on our second month of adventure and excitement in the Motherland. As a person who reads a lot of really materialistic social media outlets (I follow Panera on Instagram and Facebook. Just let that sink in.) I figured that the best way to sum up my first month in Russia would be a “Musts List” for the month of September since there was just soooooo much 2 luv.

1. Views

I keep expecting to see Joy Behar around every corner here because honestly St. Petersburg could be known as The View.

Ohhhhhhhh, yes. Yes I just did.

Really, though, this city was built for panorama, and my morning view from the 6th floor of Dom 15 is killer. Look at you, St. Isaac’s, you’re looking good.

I know that soon I will wake up in the dark and spend the only few daylight hours in a classroom that resembles the one-room schoolhouses of Puritan New England - so goes life in the high north - but for now I am enjoying view of the domes from our balcony.

2. Hairless Dogs

My host mom’s granddog stays with us on the reg, and it is a giant Chinese crested dog named Fabik. The first time it came to hang out with us, I received no warning and opened the door to this thing jumping all over me and I was just like…privyet, creature. Since then, though, I have grown to love little (not little - weirdly large) Fabik, with his wrinkly, gray skin, soulful eyes and shock of Anderson Cooper-white hair.

I just don’t really like to touch him because it is what I imagine a naked mole rat would feel like.

3. The Hermitage

Ahhhhhhhhhh (angel choir).

More on this later.

4. Pancakes

There will be a full-fledged post on pancake culture in Russia later, but I can happily assure you that the trend of pancakes for all meals including dinner and second breakfast that I so cherished in Germany is alive and well in the Russian Federation.

There have been three separate days in the past month during which I have eaten only pancakes and no other foods. Never have I experienced such boundless energy and optimism and also some degree of sugar paralysis.

5. Starbucks

(Look at the chalkboard - PSL has arrived in SPB!)

Sometimes, when you’re living thousands of miles from home in a strange and unusual setting, you need some things to remind you of home and calm you down. This is pretty easy when your “home culture” happens to be American consumer culture and you are living in a city that is obsessed with American consumer culture. So if I need to drink a $7 pumpkin spice latte sometimes instead of assimilating I just need to okay. Calm down. But I will say that I am now going by “Maria” at Starbuckily, after I almost broke the barista’s brain with this one:

Yeah sorry my actual given name seems to be the some kind of sick joke for all non-English speakers. Thanks for the foresight, Anne and Rob.

6. Nevsky Prospect

There is so much to love about Nevsky. Namely, beautiful buildings; well-dressed, grim looking people; really weirdly dressed, grim looking people; a wax statue of Harry Potter, tea-and-pancake fast food restaurants; a Zara that looks like a high-end art museum; souvenir stands where you can buy snapbacks with Stalin embroidered onto them and these Sochi countdown modules that are actually for the Paralympics, which is awkward because Russian humor has not quite reached the sensitivity level of not making fun of handicapped people with alarming frequency.

But it’s a nice countdown thing, right?

I swear I’m going to go to a museum or something this weekend. Also, if anyone knows where to obtain Dr. Scholl’s blister pads in Russia, be a bro.

For my main girls in the District and I, brunch is essentially a religion.  While many of our classmates at our good old Catholic university are in Dahlgren on Sundays, trying to catch a mass with Joe Biden or John Kerry or, you know, God....we are generally at our own center of spiritual growth and observation, one of the many hallowed brunch spots in DC.  We worship at various temples - meditating on bread pudding french toast at Blue Duck Tavern, taking corn bread communion at Founding Farmers....sometimes even just giving up on life and eating so much free coffee cake at the Tombs that the wait staff start to get visibly upset.  It is a necessary ritual and one that causes me physical and emotional pain to be absent from.

But in St. Petersburg, there is hope.  Right on Nevsky Prospekt, taking a left out of the Mayakovskaya metro station, is a beacon of goodness and light in the barren, brunchless wasteland that some refer to as "Europe".  Счастье does not strictly serve the Holy Meal, but as a deeply religious bruncher, I know that if you go somewhere that serves the appropriate dishes at the appropriate time on a weekend morning/afternoon, you can make it brunch.  

Upon entering, you are greeted by what seems to be the physical realization of a 16 year old girl's "Home Sweet Home" Pinterest board.  

And, as with all trendy European things, the restaurant is full of confusing and dramatic English sentences that seem a liiiitttle heavy-handed for a place that serves pancakes until midnight.

Like, I will take that into consideration, Счастьe, but in the meantime chill out because the only English words I am interested are on the menu, which was handed to me in my native language without pause.  I guess my accent is not "so good" as my host mother always duplicitously assures me.  Are you trying to sabotage me, Larisa?!

First, artsy coffee picture:

(the placemat is a connect-the-dots that was extremely advanced and I got too intimidated to attempt it)

Here's the beverage situation at Счастье though - you can get cocktails for two served in a teapot with a side of tiny cookies.

The "Native New Yorker" - lemon, green tea and a little bit of rum. And apparently it is only okay to have ice in cocktails, because otherwise Russians think that really cold drinks will make you sick.  Russia may have some of the worst AIDS, Hepatitis and TB problems in the world, but at least they're safe from the cold drink sickness.

Native New Yorker with her teapot full of Native New Yorker:

And then there's the food.

If you've never tried sirniki, go eat some right now.  They are traditional Russian cheesecakes (but don't think of them like American cheesecake - they're way lighter) and you just really can't not.  As something that falls loosely into the pancake family, they were obligatorily ordered as an appetizer:

Speaking of pancakes....

These aren't blini but rather oladi, a thicker pancake that more closely resembles American versions.  They were served with condensed milk and fruit and happiness.

"Love lifts us up where we belong." - The Lizzie McGuire Movie

Other highlights - this open-faced kiwi and lox sandwich served with kickass rosemary fries (and clothespins, in case I needed to hang up some laundry or something):

And a poached egg/goat cheese/hotcake/baby spinach situation that you get to eat out of the pan like a starving animal:

And Счастье is also a full patisserie, so if somehow you don't order and eat the entire menu and still have room and/or no sense of self-control, there's a pastry selection that will make you feel reborn:

And a macaron tree because, obviously:

The fact that we were at Счастье at 1pm on a Sunday and it was almost empty makes me feel sad for the country of Russia (even though it was nice not to have to deal with the traditional 45 minute wait for a table).  What are they even doing at that time if not eating 48 hours worth of carbohydrates in a single meal?! How do they function for the rest of the week? 

I guess we can take the positive side, which is that Счастье has this level of breakfast mastery every day:

So even if it's 9pm on a Tuesday, you can sit here and engage in brinner and gaze out melancholically onto Nevsky:

~~~**IN MEMORIAM**~~~

(Just kidding - nobody is dead and I'm literally trying to prepare my body for Denmark in 1.5 months. But a brunch post without a Fab Five/Brunchdrunk reference feels wrong/feels like something that would cause me to get a hateful Viber message from Meghan.)

PS I almost went to a museum this weekend, but instead I watched an insane amount of new fall TV and went to a restaurant with R. Kelly lyrics in the entry.  You win this round, America.