Out & About

Today I got to see a good chunk of the city. Some on purpose, some not. But exciting all around.

The day started out slowly- sleeping in late (since I still wake up at 4:00 AM, argh), watched some AFN, played viola for a while. Then “Helen” called and asked if I would be interested in going to a concert tonight. A coworker from the office, “Ray,” had a spare ticket to a recital. Since Jonathan had to work late, I thought it sounded like a great idea. She said to just meet Ray there by 7:00.

Jonathan called and I told him about the concert. He said that he got a break before his evening shift and wondered if I’d like to have dinner with him before I met Ray. I said that sounded marvelous. We decided to meet at the office at 5:30.

I left home at 5:00, and made my first mistake- wearing the dreaded blister-causing shoes again. I brought reinforcements this time, though. Extra band-aids. Ha! Take that, shoes!

About a block later, the band-aids started coming off. Crap. I stopped briefly to change them.

After going through this routine twice, and trying to rush in between, I suddenly found myself off my usual route to work. Oops. And then I realized I didn’t have a map. Or a cell phone. Hmm.

I thought about turning and going back home, but then I saw a park several blocks ahead of me. I thought it was the park, “Anderson Park,” let’s say, that adjoins the street I was going to, ummm, “Smith Street,” yeah, that’s it. Anyway, I saw this park and I said, oh, I’ll just keep going. I’ll take the long way around.

Eight blocks and no band-aids later, I discovered it was the wrong park. Uh-oh. It was now 5:30. There was no way I was making it either back home or to the office in time to stop Jonathan from worrying. Oddly enough, however, I wasn’t worried. If nothing else, I knew I could find my way home. So I decided to press on.

I began using what little Russian I have to ask directions. Most people weren’t familiar with Smith Street, but some knew where Anderson Park was. But I wasn’t understanding their directions too well. Basically, I know how to say “go straight,” “turn left” and “turn right.” People were telling me things like “Go through this park, then south, look for the big horse statue…” Essentially, I had no idea. They’d rattle off a whole series of what sounded like gibberish to me, and I’d look at them with desperation and say, “Umm, naleva? (left?)” Eventually I was able to make out one person’s directions- “Go straight to that restaurant, then turn left,” and I found Anderson park. Yay! At the very least, I figured I’d just circle the park until I found Smith Street. I decided to ask one last person, just for clarification, and they turned out to know English. Double yay! They assured me I was (finally) going in the right direction.

I still had about 20 minutes to walk, but at least I wasn’t lost anymore. I had, however, begun bleeding in my shoe.

I finally approached the office, and no Jonathan. Apparently he’d started to panic (I was about 45 minutes late, after all) and had gone out looking for me. I bumped into Helen and she called him. He was immensely relieved to hear that I was found and alive. I was immensely relieved to go in the office and get some band-aids and a glass of water. All in all, it was fun, though. I got to try out some Russian, no one laughed at me, I saw some beautiful parks along the way.

In the end, Jonathan and I didn’t have time to get dinner together, but when I met Ray, we stopped for a pastry on the way to the concert.

The concert was fabulous. There’s a series of concerts going on right now that take place in palaces around the city. So you get the double experience of seeing beautiful architecture and hearing beautiful music. The recital we attended was of an Armenian bass, at Menchikov Palace. Menchikov Palace was originally built by a Russian ruler who feared being assassinated. In his paranoia, he carefully chose a spot for his palace between two rivers, and blocked off the other sides with a moat. Ironically, once it was built, he lived there for about a month before being killed by one of his own guards.

The palace is now owned by the Hermitage, and thus displays some incredible artwork, as well as being an incredible work of art on its own.

The palace…



Inside the courtyard...



The room where the recital was performed...



Another room inside...



One of the rivers around the palace.



The recital itself was great, the singer had a big, fat, properly Slavic voice, and did some dark Schubert and Rachmaninov pieces that suited him well. Then at the end he did a spiritual in “Old Man River” style, followed by something sort of Broadway-esque. Hearing him sing in English was so weird, I kept thinking, this must be what it’s like for a French person to hear me sing in French. He finished with an encore that had some evil laughing in it, and I wondered briefly if he was part vampire.

Afterwards, I had a pleasant walk home in which I did not get lost, and Jonathan and I shared a herring sandwich back home. All is right with the world.