Visa Envy

OK, I explained about the Russian Visa option in a recent blog, but there is a phenomenon know as "trip envy" when someone describes a trip that they have been on and make it sound so good that you wish you had been on that trip.  So far, I haven't experienced trip envy, but I am envious of those people with a visa who have been able to just walk around, sit in a park, buy a cup of good coffee when they run across it, or just come and go at their own schedule.

I'm explaining this day ashore from end to front, so pay attention. We got a little taste of the good life at the end of our trip today when we had some extra time and our tour guide stopped in downtown to give us about 30 min of free time to just shop on our own. Nobody wants to leave Russia with 1000 unspent rubles. So, spend we did--right down to the last ruble. Fortunately, we found a splendid Patisserie nearby that was happy to help us and even gave us a "buy two, get the third free" offer.  Any food brought on the ship must be in an unopened package. So, packaged cookies, you are my friend. The young woman who helped us blushed and smiled when I complimented her on her English.  English speaking store clerks are not common as we learned in our next shop.  Neither are smiles.

We ended up there after a day of visiting Cathedrals, the latest of which was the St. Vladimir Cathedral.  This cathedral probably won't make any of the guide books. It is a working cathedral, and lacks much of the "glitter" of the museum type cathedrals.  It seems that Lenin didn't like religion, so he seized all the cathedrals for the state.  After Lenin was toppled from power, some of the cathedrals became museums and others were returned to the Russian Orthodox Church which has recovered pretty well.  Almost 90% of Russians identify as Russian Orthodox while fewer than half actually practice that religion.

Our trip to St. Vladimir was by Metro, including one of the longest elevators in the world.  You can ride the Metro for about 75 cents, no matter how long the trip.  The students took to it very easily, and the lucky ones with visas used it as a primary mode of transportation.  I got these two students to pretend they were hitch hiking.

We had boarded the Metro after our trip to St. Isaacs Cathedral which only holds services two days of the year and serves as a museum the rest of the time.  At St. Isaacs, we had the option of visiting the interior of the cathedral or climbing the 262 steps of the colonnade to view the city from high atop the cathedral.  Most of us chose the steps and were rewarded by stunning views.

Our trip had included a sit down lunch at a restaurant and featured courses of soup, rice and salmon, and ICE CREAM with a pastry.  I was able to meet several new students--one of whom, it turns out, had gotten help from me at UVa for a paper.  I said this back in 2010 after our earlier voyage, "I've got to start learning student names back home."  It worked for a while then, but the interactions on ship and on land are a little different.

It didn't take students long to learn that the restaurant had free wi-fi, and it didn't take them long to figure out the password. (hint: the name of the restaurant was Galleria). You might say that the main course was internet access.

Prior to St. Vladimir, we visited The Resurrection Church, or "Church of Spilled Blood", so named because Alexander II was killed at this spot. We had seen the exterior of  The Resurrection Church previously on a photo stop, but got to go inside on this trip.The church is now strictly a museum and has been under restoration for the last 30 years. All of the interior is mosaic.  It is incredible to see the detail and the different minerals that were used to create this interior.

Now, we are back to our initial church of the morning, the Trinity Cathedral  at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. This is an active church, and we were met by the deep tolling gong of the church bell. Before we entered the cathedral, we took a walk around a couple of the ancient cemeteries that surround the cathedral.  The monuments were impressive as were the names of some of the deceased.

I've tried to upload more pictures, but the internet on the ship seems to be stuck.  I will  load more overnight.

The other news is that we did learn in a meeting back at the ship that we have two new ports to replace Ghana and Senegal which we had to cancel because of the Ebola concerns.  We will now visit the port city of Citavecchia, Italy, near Rome and Barcelona.  Then we will have a long voyage across the Atlantic to Brazil.  Stay tuned

The ship was able to leave port at about 6:45.  It was a great visit.