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Russian Adventure --- Part 3

© Diane Goldberg under the original topic name

By day two, Ms Budget Travel was actually able to read toddler level Russian. She was absurdly proud of herself and absurdly ashamed at the same time that she felt such inordinate pride in conquering three word sentences.

After all the Russian winter zapped Napoleon . . .

But both Linden & Denz Language School and the home stay apartment were warm, sweltering fact. Ms Budget Travel once more made mistakes so you don't have to make there. She'd assumed that Russian interiors were chill gloomy places where one clutched one's coat again a mean draft.

Error

Indoors Russians favor a toasty temperature a tad too hot for conservation-minded Westerners who zealously keep the thermostat set to virtuous and uncomfortable.

Ms Budget Travel simmered in her silk long underwear, heavy knit whatsis and multiple layers of stuff while others indoors walked around in jeans and cotton shirts. Inside the apartment, Paullina did her homework garbed in shorts and t-shirts.

Outside is another matter

The streets are slushy and while babushkas skitter across ice at warp speed, those of us from more moderate zones inch along like geriatric frailties just post-hip-replacement. Ms Budget Travel recommends that travelers into the Russian winter do the standard multi-layer routine but make certain that you wear clothing that can be easily shed indoors --- doubling up on sweaters might make a tad more sense than woolies under wool.

How else can you stay safe?

Linden & Denz provide an information package for students that explains the ins-and-outs of St. Petersburg safety. They give you the phone numbers of safe cab companies and the closing time of the bridges. Closing time of bridges?

That's right. Take notes just like language class. St. Petersburg is built on a series of islands. From May to November, all the bridges are raised during the night to allow the passage of large ocean going vessels. Around 3 AM until 3:15 the Palace Bridge is lowered briefly for foot and car traffic to cross --- if you don't make it across then, you're stuck until dawn.

On her second day, Ms Budget Travel was in no danger of being stuck anywhere . . . she'd learned enough to ask directions and had absorbed enough Cyrillic to read the metro signs. In desperate need of Diet Coat she ventured out on her own and found out something that Walter Denz explained later in the week, There's no point to a Rough Guide to St. Petersburg. By the time the ink in a guidebook dries, it's out-of-date. Things here change too fast. Restaurants open and close before the book can get to press. The entire city is in a state of constant change.

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