A FEW VODKA’S WITH SOME SHAMPANSKOE

WEATHER:  WARMER TODAY TOPS 9C– LOWS 0C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY :  Seeing original artwork by Monet, Van Gough, Piccasso - AMAZING

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Last day of the trip and saying good-bye’s

BUYS OF THE DAY:  Vodka Museum ticket

WORD OF THE DAY: - always written phonetically – Sookar ( the only naughty word we know - meaning bitch )

BIG day planned today.  We headed off to the Hermitage this morning, which is walking distance from our hotel.  There is still a bit of a nip in the air, but we are nearly going to be into double digits temperature wise, so hopefully it will warm up.  We get to the palace at 10 and it doesn’t open till 10.30, so we joined the growing que that was waiting at the front entrance and nearly turned into an iceblock at the same time, but by the time doors opened the lib=ne was quite a ways back, so it was good that we got there early in hindsight. 

I have been to plenty of museums in my life.  I had heard that the Hermitage was one not to miss, but really what could be so different about this place.  Okay it is one of the largest and oldest museums of the world, which was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and open to the public since 1852. Okay, so now you have my attention.. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprises of nearly 3 million items, ears are now pricked,  including the largest collection of paintings in the world. Okay, so maybe this museum will be a little different to the others.  Once we got through the line up, checked in your jackets, bought a photographer ticket, security check and ticket check, the first thing that you see is the main staircase that is literally fit for a Queen.  It was an amazing introduction to the palace / museum. We were initially given 4.5 hours here, and we all said that we wouldn’t need that long, so we were to meet 3.5 hours out the front of the palace.  Well in hind sight I can see why people want to come back, need to come back – as it is massive, and we probably could have benefited with the extra hour.  But like anything else, sometimes enough is enough and we got to see quite a bit in the 3 hours we had, and if you ever get a chance to come to St Petersburg, DO NOT miss the Hermitage.  The opulence of the rooms, the chandeliers, the portraits and I am not much of an art buff, but we spent a lot of the time looking at the Impressionist and non impressionist painters and the Gallery of Modern Art where we saw original paintings my Piccasso, Matisse, Van Gough, Monet, Renoir and Gaughin.  It was surreal I was looking at these paintings hanging on the walls and even more surprising you were aloowed to go crazy taking photos of the paintings aswell.  Actually the whole palace was allowed to be photographed, as long as you paid the additional $200R you could knock yourself out.  There were only a few exhibits that couldn’t be photographed, but there are signs telling you and also women are stationed all through the palace keeping their beady eyes on every move you make.

Walking around looking at all that history makes for thirsty people, so we decided to head to the Vodka Museum.  There is also one in Moscow, but apprarently the St Petersburg one is better.  We paid an additional $5 and got a guided tour of the small museum that they had thethere, before heading to the ODKA bar and taste testing 3 different vodka’s.  Woo hoo now we are talking!!!  According to the legend monks of Moscow monastery were the first who started producing Russian vodka. During their visit to Constantinople they tasted grape spirit . The drink had such a strong impact on the Russians that as soon as they got back home they started to make the first hooch still. As there were no grapes growing in the homeland the spirit was made of grain.

WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THE VODKA MUSEUM?

Do not “freeze” the vodka!  The vodka pours out all weird, (thick and slow ) This is all wrong.  The correct temperature for quality vodka is about 55ºF.  There are four ways to drink vodka:

1. Mixed (such as a Screwdriver),
2. Sipping (as you would Scotch),
3. Shots (about an ounce every 15-20 minutes), and
4. The correct, Russian style: a BIG shot (about 3.5 ounces) every hour or so.

It was their suggestion to leave mixed drinks to the ladies and reserve sipping for Scotch.  Method 3 (shots) is acceptable, although a few big gulps at greater intervals (Method 4) will produce by far the most pleasurable, controlled, consequence-free intoxication results.

Pay special attention to chasers, those foods that immediately follow the shot.  Salty and spicy ones are the best, both in terms of taste and alcohol absorption.  Sour pickles or pickled tomatoes neatly sliced and arranged on a plate is an easy, highly popular, and effective vodka chaser.  Try not to drink more than one kind of alcoholic beverage in one day.  Combining drinks of different proof is a recipe for disaster.  If you absolutely cannot avoid doing this,

1. Do not make any plans for tomorrow, and
2. At the very least, drink in ascending proof order (i.e., beer before wine, before port, before liqueur, before vodka/rum/gin/tequila).
3. NEVER, EVER, EVER go down in the proof of your drinks.  Just a few sips of beer after a night of drinking vodka, and you won’t see that redhead neighbor of yours for a very long time.
   Do not chase vodka with a carbonated beverage of any sort – the CO2 in such drinks provides for faster, less pleasant intoxication.
4. Drink a lot of water (at least two cups) or sweet tea with lemon before going to bed. Take some vitamin C, too (eat a grapefruit?).  Then drink some more water.

Hmmm some handy tips there, and I will need to keep them in mind next time I am going to a bar and ordering my vodka black in a bottle, which breaks about 3 of the avove rules!  I knew I was doing something wrong!!!

For Russians vodka is not a trifle matter. It’s a drink close to human’s soul used both in joy and in sorrow. We drink it to celebrate an unexpected gain and to ease the pain, to welcome back a long-absent  friends and bid them good buy, to overcome stress and to cure depression. Vodka in Russia is irreplaceable all-purpose drink, the subject of novels and poems, songs and legends.

Needless to say after 3 vodka tasters and 2 shots ( larger in size and paid for ) of the no. 1 vodka of the museum / site restaurant, which was Beluga Vodka, we were flying a little high, as we consumed them all in about 40 minutes, and pretty much broke every one of the rules below.  But it was a great visit and would also recommend this to any vodka drinker if in St Petersburg.

Well we managed to walk home from the museum with the plan of getting a bit of a nana nap in, but alas we were out of time, as we had to get ready for the Russian Floklore show we had booked earlier in the day. 

The show was awesome.  It is located at the Nikolaevsky Palace, which was constructed in 1853-1861 for Emperor Nikolay I's son Grand Duke Nikolay. The palace is in the top-100 list of the most valuable and preserved buildings by state monuments such as Kremlin and the Hermitage. They had singers, dancers, a live band and audience participation, which one of our crew Jesse, got picked to go up and strut his Dutch stuff on stage.  It was hilarious, but he did very well and better  than the other 2 guys that were also conned.  The best thing I think was they added in some humor to the show, so it wasn’t all stuffy and long in that regard.  We got ‘special’ tickets that got us into a small hall for champagne and vodka shots during intermission with some nibble foods, before heading back to second session of the show.  It was something good to do – and to see the fella’s do the Russian sits, leg flicks and jumps was worth the $60 we paid for the show.

From the show we headed to our final dinner.  It has been a massive 3 weeks, and I know I have said it before, but my group were awesome and know I have made some friends.  I only miss Julia in London by 5 days, but Christy and Eric – I will be coming to visit you in LA – mark my words, and I want that ‘special’ t-shirt worn and I also hope to catch up with Lulu as well – don’t you guys dare ditch her!

It is a shame that the day was so busy as it is now hard to tell what the highlight of the day was.  A very tough call – but I do know one thing and that is that I LOVED the Hermitage.  I also got a Bernstar jump in one of the main ball rooms just to top off my visit there and also a full group jump at the front ) we were missing Bill the other day )

In summary – The Trans Mongolian was AWESOME

The people were AWESOME

The countries were AWESOME

Gap Adventures were AWESOME

And last but not least our tour leader or CEO Julia was SUPER AWESOME

London here I come for 2 days R and R and 2 days of tours booked before heading to Rome and catching up with Chelsey and starting my European section of my trip.