As I write this I have two chunk of onion wedged up my nostrils.
According to my babushka, this is a surefire way to get rid of a cold. According to me, this is a surefire way to make soup in my nose. Either way, everything in St. Petersburg is going to smell like raw onion for the next several days which may or may not be a nice change of pace from damp fur coat stench.
This past weekend I took a trip to Moscow. I would say it was “chill” but at this point cold weather jokes just make me kind of sad, it’s better not to go there. I left Petersburg on the midnight train with my friend Abra and arrived at Leningrad Station around 7 AM Wednesday. Cold and disoriented, we made a beeline to Red Square (pro: deserted and saw the sunrise. con: awake 7 am).
We spent the day wandering around the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and Church of Christ the Savior. Fun fact: the aforementioned church was destroyed in the 1812 war with Napoleon and was made into a swimming pool under Stalin. The church was reconstructed in its original form and place in the late 90′s. My babushka told me that she swam in said pool in the 60′s. Reason #264 why my babushka is the shit.
Thursday we went to the RUSSIAN SPACE MUSEUM. I was incredibly excited because a) I have a huge not-creepy-okay-kinda-creepy crush on young astronaut Yuri Gagarin [first man in space! c'mon, sexy!] b) I clearly love all things nerdy and Russian. The nerdier and the Russianer, the better. c) I am fascinated by space and would be on my way to becoming an astronaut if not for b.
[floating fruits, jumpsuits, Soviet hugs-this is everything I like.]
While in Moscow, Abra and I made a pact to spend as little money as possible and only indulge in necessary items (beer). We ended up eating grechka (buckwheat groats) for dinner all three nights. A 900 gram bag (2 lbs) costs 50 rubles ($1.60) and when cooked makes a huge ass pot filled to the brim. We had an eating contest which I promptly won then resolved never to eat grechka again. Until the next day.
Friday we went to the Tretyakov Gallery and the Park of Fallen Heroes. The Park is this nuts sculpture garden where they deposited a bunch of old and suddenly unwanted Soviet statues after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Basically there are a million statues/busts of Lenin, Stalin and ol’ man Gorbachev. I obviously took the opportunity to go around and pick each of their stony noses.
Obviously.
As for me, I’m off bed so this sniffle doesn’t turn into something worse. Or so it’ll turn into something better. That is, if onion soup is your thing.
