The St. Petersburg Metro for Dummies-- Russia Part 1

Sooo last week I went to Russia.

It was an optional school trip, and somehow DIS managed to convince 36 students and 4 teachers that it would be a good idea to haul out to the outskirts of Siberia in the middle of winter (by the way-- did anyone else know that Siberia was a real place??).

We started in St. Petersburg. The first night of our trip, people had the option to pay to go to the ballet or to go to a bar. Considering I am bored easily and bordering on bankruptcy, I chose the latter. My friend C. and I tried 3 different places before we finally found a Hookah bar that agreed to seat and serve Americans. We ended up sitting with three boys from our program who we had never laid eyes on. We felt super awkward, so we got drunk.

Welcome to my nightmare.

By the time we met up with the rest of the group to go to dinner, we were hammered. We walked into the restaurant and were welcomed with plates covered in multi-colored combinations of fish and mayonaise... our two least favorite foods. And vodka shots. At this point, C. decided to start finger painting with the mayonaise and flinging baby shrimp at me from across the table. We were really making good progress with our new boy friends. Luckily, the boy next to me (with whom I had been going shot for shot with ...) took this opportunity to buy three rounds for our chaperones. They were blacked out within the next 8 minutes.

After two hours, six shots and ZERO food, we stumbled out of the restaurant to embark on our first ride on the St. Petersburg metro. Our chaperones wanted to give us a tour of the metro as a group in the hopes that we would figure it out and be able to use it on our own during the few days we were in the city. Our behavior during that first night shattered those dreams pretty quickly. Before being abroad, I had never taken public transportation in my life. Now, I can proudly say that I have mastered public transport in 7 different cities. I do not consider St. Petersburg to be one of these cities.

Somehow, C. and I got "distracted" and ended up at the back of the group with two of the boys. Apparently we were supposed to switch trains, but none of the four of us ever really got the memo. We ended up riding around for 45 minutes until by some stroke of miracle, I figured out how to get us home. That's right. Me. I take full credit.

When we finally made it out of the metro, the boys were so excited that they tackled me to the ground to say thank you. Like -- actually tackled. I have bruises. I spent the rest of the night bitching about a "concussion" for attention, which didn't really work. Especially when I tried to tell my teacher it was the brain damage, not the alcohol, that caused us to get lost.

Russia- 1  Zo- 0

Milan LOL

Everyone has a travel horror story. Until this month, mine was the time when my boyfriend broke up with me 45 minutes before I boarded a 15 hour flight to Egypt. I was so hysterically upset that my mom force fed me 3 ambien and a bottle of Pinot to shut me up. This backfired when I started hallucinating while I was watching Wild Hogs in Japanese for the third time in a row. I thought the flight attendants were trying to traffic me, which was awkward. And super embarrassing for my family and everyone else seated in first class. Sorry mom! (but thanks for the drugs.)

As bad as that was, it does not begin to compare to my trip to Florence last month. At the beginning of November, 4 of my friends who are studying at the Georgetown villa in Fiesole came to visit me in Copenhagen for Sensation White. The concert was an adventure, and the next morning we all woke up feeling like hell. That morning also marked the beginning of DIS's two week break, so I had planned to fly back to Florence with the Villa girls before I went on to Barcelona and finally Russia. The cheapest flight we could find actually went into Milan, which is only a 45 minute train ride from Florence. What we didn't realize, though, is that the last train left from MILAN/MARIPOSA (a name I will never forget) at 8:15, and our flight landed at 7:45. We knew it was going to be a crunch, but none of us were very concerned-- we had gotten a little too used to the study abroad mantra of "we'll figure it out."

When the flight landed, we ran down to what we thought was the train (with 10 minutes to spare!), and realized that it was only an airport shuttle -- the actual train station was 35 minutes away. We hopped on and headed to the train station, still maintaining that we would "figure it out," and got to the station at 8:23. There were no trains until the morning -- we were officially shit out of luck.

At this point, the girls from the Villa began to realize the gravity of the situation and started to freak out. They HAD to be back for classes the next morning. It was time to get creative.

Someone jokingly suggested that we rent a car and drive to Florence, which somehow went from "viable option" to "best idea ever." Everyone was on board, except for my best friend who may or may not have been in tears over the fact that she would have to be in a car for 4 hours with me behind the wheel. While she went to go call her family and tell them how evil we all were, we devised a plan to drug her and throw her in the trunk-- we legitimately considered crushing Ambien into her Diet Coke. She may have actually been onto something about us being bullies.

Finally, after MUCH discussion, everyone had agreed to drive. The train station was (of course) out of rental cars, so three of the girls took a taxi back to the airport to try and get one there. The person in front of them in line took the last Automatic car, and like most 20 year olds from the North East none of us know how to drive a stick. My friend Casey, God bless her, actually attempted to learn in the parking lot, but that obviously didn't work out.

By the time they got back to the train station, without a car, it was 1:30am. We were all miserable and exhausted, and had resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not be getting back to Florence until the morning. We walked into the first hotel we could find and asked for a room. The man at the front desk told us that we could give him 15 Euro each for a room, as long as we promised to be out by 6am (our train was at 6:15). Because none of us are very familiar with illegal activities in the European hotel industry, we thought this guy was doing us a real solid. It wasn't until we (happily) forked over the cash and he told us that we had to go up one by one to avoid the security cameras, did we realize something was sketchy.

I was the first to enter the room, and the image I was met with is one that will stick with me for the rest of my adult life. The bed had not only been slept in, it was absolutely filthy and covered in stains. The bathroom was soaking wet, and had blood spatter and towels all over the floor. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. Three of the girls (one of them who has a severe irrational fear of bed bugs) took one look at the place and decided to sleep in the train station among the hobos. Seriously -- they almost got arrested for loitering. The rest of us slept on the floor, on top of our suitcases, in full winter jackets.

It was far and away one of the worst nights of my life, but somehow we survived and made it back to Florence the next morning-- with an amazing story and a good excuse for a mimosa.

If you are asleep on the floor of a train station, people
will probably assume you are homeless. Especially
if you look like this.