To the creepy shack in the middle of the motocross field!

And no, I'm not referring to Paul I's palace at Pavlovsk, although we did go there on Saturday too. Pavlovsk Palace is about 45 minutes outside of Petersburg by train (very old train. and it only cost about $1.30). The palace was gorgeous and the acres of surrounding gardens were even more beautiful. It was a "modest" palace - whatever that means, right? -given by Catherine the Great in 1777 to her son Paul. In Russia they tend to charge you to take pictures inside museums and palaces, so I don't have any pictures of the inside. Just think gilded furniture and zillions of rich oil paintings and deco. Very neat.

 A quick word on a Russian wedding tradition that has partly defined my Petersburg experience:


On their wedding day, brides and grooms and their wedding party travel to the most beautiful places in the area, usually with glasses of champagne, and take photos. I have not walked to or from school without seeing at LEAST three wedding parties. (Always at least one on a tree-lined street, one or two in the garden/park I cut through, and one or two in front of our beautiful Smolny cathedral.) Last week there were days that were freezing and pouring rain, but amazingly the wedding parties still arrive and take photos. What can I say, Russians are tough.


Anyway, we saw probably our 85th bride on these beautiful steps on the grounds of Pavlovsk, and I took a picture because it was so picturesque and neat. Note to self - get married near Pavlovsk.


Saturday night a bunch of us decided to go to the club where one of our CIEE directors (Jarlath) was DJing. The metro stop (Удельная) was pretty far away from the city center, in this very strange suburb with lots of Soviet block housing and wide prospekts. We went the wrong way immediately and eventually asked two Russians for directions. They sent us down this very dark and shady street of old warehouses (I'm telling you, very Soviet-feeling), to another prospekt. We walked for something like two hours, which was fine because it was a beautiful night and I was enjoying getting to know the ten or so people I was walking with. Anyway, we eventually started down another sketch road (with several protests from our end of things), cut through an impound car lot that was straight out of a Russian KGB spy film (I expected militsiya to pop out and open fire), cut across some go-kart tire-lined track, and stopped in front of this wooden shack that was clearly marked "Paintball Extreme". It was lit up, though, and it turned out to be the club. Success! The army-clad men were going to make us pay 200р though, even when we protested that we knew Jarlath, and it was already 11:15p and the metro closes at midnight. So we booked it to the metro station (pretty darn far) and entered at 23:56. The trains stop running at 0:30, but I'm close enough that I made it to my stop before they kicked me off. Others weren't so lucky.
Anyway that's my story about traversing through a very different and intriguing part of Petersburg to the creepy shack in the middle of the motocross field! What an adventure.

Happy Labor Day to all you Americans out there. In case you were wondering, Russia does in fact have a Labour Day (surprise!). It's just in May, so I had to go to class today. And now I have to go to bed. So goodnight all!

Пока!
Emily