A “post” card, get it?
Eli and I are doing some traveling this week before we head home to Cambridge. We landed in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, and I thought I’d stop by to tell you what we’ve been up to. In no particular order, here are some of the highlights of our trip so far:
1. Onion domes
That’s what those swirling cupolas up there are called, but I don’t know. My first thought was butter cream. And that I’d like to eat them.
2. Crosswalks
With built-in pedestrian traffic flow maps! Brilliant.
3. Pickled vegetables
Especially that tomato hiding behind the cabbage. It was the single best thing I ate in all of St. Petersburg. I dream of that tomato. I am not even kidding.
Stuffed with mushrooms and creamy potatoes, slicked with butter, and showered in dill.
5. Late-night light
It’s light until forever in St. Petersburg. In the last few hours before dark, everything – the sky, the buildings, the water – turns rosy blue. I took this shot at 10:30pm. 10:30!!
Okay, so this wasn’t exactly a highlight. Though it wasn’t bad enough to be a lowlight, either. It was more like a weird-light. Eli and I had just sat down at a sweet-smelling bakery, when a well-dressed, unsmiling man approached us from behind, shoved his head between the two of us, leaned into my ear, and whispered something in Russian that sounded either passionate, or angry, or both. He waited a beat to see if we might respond, and when we didn’t – we were pretty shocked – he pinched me on the arm, turned on his heels, and shot out the door. This pastry, a brioche-like specimen lined with ribbons of jam, was nothing to write home about (and yet here I am, writing home about it; go figure), but after a few bites, my heart had returned to its normal rhythm, so I guess it did the trick.
Straight from the comb at the Kuznechny market.
Lurpak. In diner butter packets. And why the heck not?
I love making a new place feel like home, but being a tourist is fun, too.
[Note: I’m no longer in St. Petersburg. Due to spotty, slow, and sometimes nonexistent internet access during our travels, I’m publishing this post quite a few days after I wrote it. Though if this were an actual postcard sent by mail across the ocean, you’d all probably be receiving it right about now. So hopefully, it works!]
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Update 8.24.2010: For more stories from St. Petersburg, including details about where we stayed and what we ate , click here.