After the stories I heard of the "stern, unfriendly" Russians (until you get to know them), I was surprised to note that just about everyone we met was friendly and amazingly patient with our lack of Russian, not only in our hotels, but in stores, cafes, and sometimes on the street. I even had my door held open for me once by a stranger. (My first impulse, unfortunately, was to bow in response, no doubt due to too much time in Japan.) Also, a man let me have his seat on the subway as well.

The most important thing for me when visiting a country? How clean are your toilets! In Russia's case, I found all hotel and restaurant bathrooms to be completely acceptable. Very clean. Toilets in museums and such were tolerable. The few public toilets we visited were marginal, sometimes squat-style only, providing little or no toilet paper or soap and often had an entrance fee. I usually did not use those, but they were not horrible. Either way, having to put your toilet paper in a waste-paper basket next to the toilet taints the experience a bit. It's always hard to tell when this is really necessary, but with the exception of our very first hotel, there was always the telltale Large Wastepaper Basket and my guidebooks informed me that the plumbing is not built to withstand it. Speaking of plumbing, Russia has public hot water, which is a nice idea, except that they turn it off for a couple weeks in summer to clean out the system, so every place we stayed had their own hot water anyway.

My guidebooks also informed me that Saint Petersburg tap water may have giardia. I was massively paranoid and did not even brush my teeth using the tap water. (Our hotel kindly provided an endless supply of drinking water.) Then I wondered if ice in drinks mattered. Surely, restaurants would not take this chance (?) It seemed baffling to me that such a large, modern city would have this problem.

...had not been our intention. Guidebooks (and our real-life guide) had told us which bus numbers to look for at the bus depot (presided over by Lenin) at Moskovskaya metro station. And "Catherine's Palase [sic]" was written in English on the side of the 545, one of the choices, so it was not really too hard to find. The driver called it "Pushkin." So we were set. Well, we thought we were... but there is no stop called Pushkin. No stop called Catherine's Palace. No obvious palace out the window, even. I did see a sign go by that had "Pushkin" on it, but it was crossed out. What did that mean? The bus went on and we watched the Soviet apartment blocks, wooden country houses, a cemetery, and one impressive ruin go by out the window. At least we had seats. Our bus driver blushed like the Dickens when, about a full fifteen minutes past our destination, deep into farmland, we went to the front to ask him if we had passed Pushkin yet. Whoops! So we crossed the street and hopped on the 545 going the opposite direction and proceeded to check in with the driver every 30 seconds until he let us off at the proper location. (There did not seem to be other tourists on either of these small and not-super-clean buses, but there were seats available on both.) Rachel discovered the meaning of the crossed-out signs. It meant we were passing out of that area.

We finally entered the grounds, then the building (navigating the confusing array of fees and hours then finally passing the turnstile and donning mesh booties over our shoes.) We went up the stairs and entered a room whose every surface was full of detail - golden sculptured decorations on the walls, painstaking woodwork on the floor, and a Michaelangelo-worthy ceiling. Astounding. Then we proceeded to walk through a *dozen more* such rooms. Toward the end, we walked in the famous and recently restored Amber Room (where they were very strict about the no-photo-taking.) The amount and designs of the not-as-translucent-as-we-expected amber (repeating, but never identical) were lovely.

This was one of The Russia Experience's listed "excursions" in Saint Petersburg. And one of our best times in Russia! The young woman who had led our walking tour a couple days previous met us and we walked a bit out of the center of town, down a smaller street, through a locked door, then under a tunnel into a courtyard (which was a little run down), then up the steps to the door of a woman's apartment. We took off our shoes at the entrance and were shown inside.

The small apartment had a hallway-long floor-to-ceiling bookcase completely full and her place in general was overflowing with trinkets, very neatly arranged and dusted. The woman, I'm guessing early 60s, was extremely talkative and knew not one single word of English. The guide translated rapidly as we sat at the kitchen table. The afternoon began more like, "tea with a Russian lady and our guide" but soon an equally talkative older lady who worked at the same tour company appeared. We were served some serious (and seriously delicious) borscht, this stuff thick and filled with meat and potatoes. Then a young, blond Swedish exchange student that was staying with our hostess popped in as well. We all ate dumplings and toasted each other with shots of brandy (not vodka!) The Swedish exchange student was very friendly and knew a lot of English, but the best part was when he got out his guitar. Soon, he was playing and Rachel was singing. Then Rachel took the guitar and we all were singing. "Fast Car", "Under the Bridge", "Scarborough Fair", "We Are The Champions." Suddenly, our hostess' daughter shows up and is like, "No singing Queen without me!" Her English was the best of all, though did not want to be put upon, and it turned out she was a fan of South Park (we discussed the racist flag episode, even) and loved Pulp Fiction. The evening was a total blast. We only left because we had to catch our overnight train. As we were walking down the stairs outside her door, our hostess said that she liked us the best out of all her guests.

Although this train is not technically part of the "Trans-Siberian Railway", it is the same style and was our first official train experience. We learned that the four-berth cabin is still tight quarters, but we also learned etiquette. We watched the two Russian men who shared our compartment (but did not know each other), both step out into the hall in turn to let the other make their bed (which they did *so* efficiently with the provided two sheets and pillowcase) and then we stepped out of the cabin into the hall and the door closed behind us. The older man was getting into sleep clothes. He then stepped out into the hall so that we could get into ours. It was like a dance. No words were exchanged between any of us (beyond greetings) but we all got the space we needed. It was fascinating, actually.