Stories from the North of the East (part 1)

For a long time I wanted to go to Russia. "Why Russia?" people ask me when I tell them this. "Why skiing?/Greece?/France" I ask them in return, because, why not Russia? But I know the answer, ever since I saw a picture of the Vassily Church in a children's book, I wanted to see it in real life. Twenty-seven years down the line, I made it happen.
My journey started with a bonus-trip to Riga, since AirBaltic postponed my flight to Minsk with one day. Hotel, taxi-transfer and complimentary coffee at the airport were all paid for. Me being a sucker for freebees, was gratefull for the opportunity. Riga is Baltic for beginners; the capital of Latvia can be seen in a couple of days. The city centre is so compact, that I was able to cross of the complete map with places worth seen according to the sightseeing map I picked up from the taxi. So that's your basic churches, museums, (war)monuments, fountains, a bridge with locks, a sparkly Christmas-statue, parks, flowermarket, ghosthouses and a TGI Friday's. I know, but when this girl craves a burger, there's no way she's having a salad. The funniest thing was hearing the Latvian version of Marco Borsato's 'de meeste dromen zijn bedrog' on the radio before taking a half-empty Fokker 50 to Minsk.

Minsk was alright. My friend Ana lives there and we stayed in an appartment in an area called Shabany. That's not in the Lonely Planet. Minsk doesn't have many tourists visiting, the amount of red tape and paperwork might have something to do with that. The political situation isn't very attractive either; Belarus is known as the last dictatorship of Europe. Artists are called on to cancel concerts and boycot Belarus to avoid enriching the president. Also, the recent subway-bombing just adds sadness instead of security. Ana showed me the main sights worth seeing; the revolution-square, a lot of Communistic memorabilia, KGB building, state-run shops and fountains. The city is clean, wide and tidy. Minsk surprisingly had a good 'going out'-atmosphere, and it was in the Stravinski bar that I discovered the joy of 'hot cocktails'. We went to two supercute bars called 'Old Minsk' and 'London'. The funniest part about 'London' was the postcards from Milan on the wall and the lack of English translations on the menu. But if I have to choose one thing that was the most special of Minsk, it was attending the Chinese tea party.
Picture this. Me and my guide for one day, Alec, meet up with one of Alec's friends. A tall guy with a ponytail who doesn't speak English and eats his icecreams two at a time. We enter a post-war flat without lighting in the stairway, so I have to hold on to the wooden rail to feel where I'm going. The door is unlocked, maybe because the appartment looks out on the former KGB-building. But maybe not. Our shoes stay in the hall and I'm given a pair of mens slippers. The three of us sit down in a tiny, Sixties style kitchen where our teamaster puts the kettle on. An oldschool kettle and a brandnew MacBook Air in the same kitchen. I'm signalled to follow the two men to the living/bedroom where I see the sweetest thing I ever witnessed in a male house. It's a small table covered with everything one could possibly need for a Chinese tea-ceremony; small porcelain cups, small teapots, a bonsai-tree, Lu Yu (the Saint of tea), and pillows on the floor to sit on. For the next two hours we drink tea and watch our host pour water on leaves, turn cups upside down (to release the flavour), brush the pot (no reason, just to get our attention) and display more tealeaves than I have seen in an average Chines supermarket. It was awesome, but needless to say, I had to pee a lot in the nighttrain to Moskow...


source: http://www.data.minsk.by/belarusnews/032011/344.html
I plan on writing more about the situation in Belarus in my criminological blog www.therighttrace.nl.

Stories from the North of the East (part 3)

For the final part of this trilogy I'm going back to St. Petersburg. On paper, not live. We did so much, it's hard to pick a few highlights. Celebrating Victory day on the 9th of may, when people dress up their cars as tanks, carry tank-balloons and real tanks are parked next to mobile toilets. Shopping for Converse, having a drink at the Spy-cafe (picture swings on chains instead of barstools), discovering Spaceinvader street art at Lennon street, visiting Peterhof's fountains and St Catherine's palace. Ana found the palace extremely dissapointing: "I thought it was much bigger, when I was smaller". The golden ballroom with mirrors, wooden floors and decorative ceilings did impress me, even at 32. Breakfast for 150 Rubl (3,70) at the Nevsky Grand Hotel, which to us included secretive giggles and an (illegal) lunch package. Watching 'Russia's next Top Model', from out bunkbed. Being surroundede and questioned by a bunch of schoolchildren who seem to have never seen an English speaking foreigner before.
Of course I also went to the Hermitage. It was beautifull, artsy, jadajadajada. I loved the ceilings and the floors, which are gorgeously decorated. But at one point, I was just done. Only 5% is on display, wich means that 95% is in storage somewhere, and a negligible percentage of the collection is abroad, hanging in other museums. The paintings, sculptures, murals, vases were bought in a time of war when the people of Russia were either starving or fighting for their tsars. People who would hardly see any food in real life, and not even on a painting by Jan Fyt (room 245) To me, it all just seemed wrong. The funniest part about the Hermitage were the old ladies sitting on the chairs, who were guarding the halls. Whilst praying, yawning, phone-checking and nodding off they were boring themselves to an early death.

Another unforgettable experience was grocery shopping, Sovjet Style. The first supermarket near our hostel had empty shelves. The only place I had seen so many empty shelves before, was in Ikea. The fridges didn't cool the goods, they seemed to be heating the 2 bottles of Coke that were left in them. Trying to buy anything was impossible, because even if you would find an item, the cashiers didn't have any change. This meant that the other supermarket in the street, had queues one can only find in Russia. The third supermarket had stocked shelves and no queues; so far, so good. I picked up a carton of orange juice, when Ana forced me to put it down. What went wrong?
- you choose the goods, which all have their own number,
- supermarketman tells you the number and you have to memorize it,
- you tell the numbers to the supermarketlady at the till,
- you pay,
- with your receipt you go to all the cashiers again, who give you the goods; one by one.
Cumbersome, right? But apparently it's good for your memory.

The trainjourney to Peterhof fountains was also eerie. It was delayed for obscure reasons and the last time I sat on wooden benches, I was in Thailand. But the craziest part was the men and women who kept walking by, offering us all kinds of stuff, in a variaty of combinations. Trainshedules (5x), ice-cream and water (4x), toiletrefresher, mini-footballs, pastry, tights, crisps, waterbottles, pens. A total of 12 people came by carrying, combining and selling these vendibles. Actually, the craziest part was the lunatic who kept warning fellow-travelers for Armageddon on the 21st of may, when all drunks and junks would be killed. To him this was enough reason to hoist up the lowcut jeans of a young girl leaving the train, who in his eyes was probably doomed with this public display of inappropriate behaviour.
Of course, the 21st of may came and went without any problems and I was already home, glueing holiday-pictures in an album of this marvelous journey to the North of the East.

A Roman mini-break

Two days in Rome might not be enough to give a proper review and blog filled with tips, but I'm gonna try it anyway, because the other travelblogs I wrote on Russia, Thailand and Barcelona are well-ridden.

The good thing about Rome is that, even though on the map it looks quite big, two days is plenty to cross of most things on my to-do list.

Vatican.
I promised my mother to visit the Vatican, so I did. Having booked a ticket in advance online, I had a timeslot in which I had to show up. I had to hurry, but in the end, nobody checked my time, in fact, the lady at the booth didn't even look at me, period. This kind of behaviour was exemplory for how tourists are treated in the Vatican, when I asked a lady where to show my ticket, she told me to go back downstairs, because "how should I know? I just work here". After explaining that I just came from downstairs, and they told me to go upstairs, she yelled at me "I'm just trying to help you."
What I found hilarious at the Vatican, or more specific the Sixtene Chappel, were the guards. In a poor attempt to keep the peace, it's them who are the noisiest, screaming "Silencio!!", "No photo!!" and "Get down the stairs!!" every other minute at the admiring, quiet crowd. The other guards filled their time playing with their smartphones.

Market.
I found the Campa del Fiori highly disappointing (just sayin'), so do yourself a favour and go towards the indoor market of Testaccio. It's covered, there's some locals doing their groceryshops and they sell more than travelsize bottles of olive-oil and fun multi-coloured pasta. There should be a market at 'Porta Portese', but only on sunday, and my 48 hours did not cover that day.

Coloseum-area.
As soon as you walk out the subwaystation, you bump into the ruins of the Coloseum. I didn't go inside (I saw a Turkish style Coloseum last april and no offence, when you've seen one, you've seem them all), but the area is really nice to walk around in. Next to the
Colosseum is Palatine hill with the foro Romano; if you walk up the exit you see a lot as well. If you walk towards Via dei Fori Imperiali, you will notice some awesome historic grounds and buildings (red arrows).

Spanish steps.
If you have ever climed the stairs in front of the Sacre Couer in Paris, the Spanish steps should be a piece of cake. Now, I unfortunately missed it, but my friend suggested to go to Via Margutta, near the Spanish steps, in the Spagna area.




Hostel.
I stayed in the Zen House B&B, cheap, small and a personal touch. The host / owner is a former traveller himself and he basically started the hostel that he would have loved to stay in. This makes it like you're staying in the guestroom of a friends house. He cooks breakfast personally, gives you tips when you want to, or leaves you alone.

Cinema.
For those of you who are anything like me and always forget how tiresome it is to walk, walk, and then walk some more, while at one point desperately longing for the cool and quiet of a cinema; there is one at Metrostation Barberini, called... Multisala Barberini. And yes, they do original language as well. I will not comment on the movie I saw. Let's just say this: I find Brad Pitt combating zombies at fifty as sexy as when he cheated on either Thelma or Louise when I was 14.

Museum.
Missed the Vatican, Palatine Hill or the Pantheon? Don't worry. The whole city is one big open air museum, with plenty of historical buildings / ruins / statues / parks to look at. You might even get the accidental history lesson, like I did. I overheard an American fellow explain some good old Gods to his holiday-party:
"So he went out and hooked up with Venus. Cause that's what you did when you were really cool in those days. You bagged yourself a godess."

Other than young Americans on their gapyear 'doing Europe', be prepared for:
Sigarettes: everybody smokes in Italy, from police-officers, to students, from people preparing your food to the homeless beggars. Electronic cigarettes are up-and-coming in Italy.
Police-sirenes: every hour or so I was shaken by sirens, whether they came from undercover vehicles, firetrucks or proper police motorcycles: Rome was siren-galore. The undercover vehicles were the best, with one guy behind the wheel and the other one hanging out of the passenger-window, holding the blazing siren, the whole thing looked kindof cute.
Guns: every guy in uniform apparently is allowed to carry a gun. From the actual police officers, to museum-guards, to the trainstation personel. Very odd.
Religion: I realized Italy is pretty catholic, with the pope living there and all. But I didn't realize how big religion was, till I noticed all the nuns and priests in the wild, chains with crosses, people reading the bible on the train, making me feel kindof embarrased for my copy of 'Als ik auto had kunnen rijden...', but ah well. 
Transportation: Italians travel by scooter, Smart car or Fiat. This is great, but if you're depending on public transportation: the subway is fine and affordable, but the trains suck.
Dealing with Italians: so, this might come across pretty pityfull, but I found it highly gratifying to start talking Dutch when my English would just trigger angry stares, wild handgestures and a stream of uncomprehensible Italian jibberish. Just to return the mutual feeling of despair when dealing with ignorant Vatican-personal, train-conductors or other locals.

Additional tips:

Another friend suggested 'Il ritrovo del Gusto' for dinner. Unfortunately by the time I got this message I had already worked my way through a quatro fromagio pizza. Which, by the way comes out of the oven looking like a 'cheese fondue pizza', because non of the original cheeses are retrievable, but, who cares.
Same friend suggested a cornershop place at Piazza della Pace for coffee.

Put unused napkins from fast-food in your bag or pockets. This tip isn't limited to Rome, obviously. You never know when you gotta go and all you have at your disposal is a dirty Dixie at the side of the road without any toiletpaper. Or something.

You can find a proper tour-guide to Rome here, it's a pdf, and it will work on your e-reader as well.

Intermezzo - review The Air We Breathe

If you are a loyal reader, you were probably expecting the final stories on my journey to Russia. Sorry, that's up next, sometimes life happens in between me and my blog-plans.
This week I was lucky enough to land a temporary paid job at the Operadays (Operadagen) in Rotterdam as box-office employee / informationpoint ("I'm so sorry, but for these tickets you have to go the REAL box-office on your left"). A paid job includes a well-needed routine and the added bonus is that I'm being fed (dinner at cafe Floor for a week). And off course, I get to see some performances.

Yesterday I went to 'The Air We Breathe'. It was a total guess, because a) opera is not my genre, b) the poster doesn't give much clues on what to expect and c) the review in the festival-paper wasn't much of a help either.
The plan to cycle to the Maassilo alone was interrupted when the organisation needed someone to go on the bus with a group of guests who travelled especially to Rotterdam for the Operadagen-festival. Sure, I'll do it. Someone whispers to me that they are important. I'll keep that in mind, but if you have a group of people on a bus, it doesn't matter if they are 10-year-olds going on a schooltrip or ITI-vips on their way to a theatre.

We arrived a bit too late due to traffic. Pleasantly unexpected, the performance starts as soon as you walk into the catacombic cellars of the Maassilo. It's damp and the concrete walls are dimly lit. All of us sit spread around an area that reminds me of children in a playground-sandbox; scattered yet together. To my surprise the audience is expected to sing along. This is fun. It reminds me of Ben Folds' Army, so I like the idea of a capella audience-involvement. (watch and wait for it, 2:32). The singing does distract me from listening to the real talents though.
The storyline escapes me, but that's not the point of opera anyway, it's the emotion that counts. Ninety minutes of praising sounds, tunes, singing and vocal chords was a bit too long, I think. I'm not the only one; at 20:55 the first guy gives up and leaves his platform. It's around this time that I'm getting confused on whether to sing 'hoo aa ooo' or 'hoe whaaa hoe'. Than a young, happy chap catches my eye, and I realise it's Merlijn Twaalfhoven. I just got conducted by Merlijn Twaalfhoven! The Air we Breathe is full of little surprises, mainly in the shape of fellow audience members who turn out to be a part of it, when they stand up from their clique and sing their socks of. All of a sudden the huge amount of people make sense, because I know how many persons we should have inside according to ticketsales.
The next 'aha' moment is when I spot the light-projection that's moving on the white curtains; they remind me of clouds passing by. Now take a look at that poster.
Being here is like lying in a field (gras, yellow flowers, sandbox), watching clouds and doing nothing more but breathing.
This is probably why I come out of the Maassilo incredibly mellow. I had had a tough day. Rotterdam can be extremely depressing on a rainy day in may. Especially when you've been looking for a job for two months and just catalogued your 19 rejections. Sometimes all you need is a tourbus full of foreigners and an enthousiastic busdriver with a microphone to sprinkle some Rotterdam=magic-dust in your eyes. Top this off with a beautifull performance (read: sound-experience) and you're good to go again.

Why should you go see this: The performance is really special and seeing Merlijn Twaalfhoven live in action is worth so much more than 16 euro. The Maassilo is awesome and 'the Air We Breathe' makes opera approachable. I left the show completely calm and Zen. The ITI-group was enthousiastic too, I also got them home safe and sound.
Why not: 90 minutes is a bit long, but we accidentally solved that problem by being a bit too late.
Go see and experience for yourself.

UEB: Unemployment Espresso Bar

Before reading this, I have an assignment for you; go get a cup of coffee. Or tea. And a spoon; no, it doesn't matter if you drink it without sugar. Just do it. Please.
Ready?
Monday was the first day of the rest of my unemployment life. Although I hope it has an expirydate, it was so special, it deserves it's own blog.
The world, or better yet, the office is divided on the matter, but words like 'brave' and 'gutsy' (the women) were more used than 'crazy' or 'stressfull'. Because it is something else, giving up a set contract with steady income for... well, nothing concrete yet. But the freedom I felt on monday was incredible.
I sat in the Urban Espresso Bar stirring in my glass of cafe Latte and it hit me:'this is all I'm doing; stirring honey. With a spoon. In some milky coffee'. You should try it (see, there was a point to the assignment, I'll give you a few moments).
It doesn't get more 'NOW' than that. No worries about self-imposed to-do lists, deadlines, dishes, the judicial system or even Japan. Just stirring coffee.

Off course I don't plan on spending the next few weeks or months or God forbid, years doing nothing but meeting up for coffee and taking up space in the UEB. On second thought, I could live with 'weeks', though. But for now it's lovely; I feel relaxed, full of ideas, I'm getting my head round my future. For now.
Hook thinks it's hilarious. Apparently I said I wasn't going to do anything (no letters, no job agencies, nothing) for two weeks. Today is wednesday and I already worked my ass off on a large event in Ahoy, re-installed my Mac, attended my fabulous leaving-do, wrote two letters in addition to the dozen I wrote in the last few months. Unfortunately I received an equal amount of rejections. But in all fairness I'm not schooled as a communication expert, staffing employee or web-editor. And some of them are probably right when they turn me down 'because they are afraid I'll be bored shortly' and 'I'm overqualified'. In addition to that, I explained my disastrous meetings with temp-agencies in a previous blog (the NUT). I'm not worried yet, but ask me again in 3 months time.
Secretly I'm hoping for an experience like Renee Zellweger. Rumour has it that she worked in an office in order to prepare for her role as Bridget Jones. I would love to do the same, but than to get some inspiration (or should I say: dirty workplace secrets) for my Criminology freelance project; the Right Trace. But for now, I've got places to go (Prague and Russia), coffee-cups to stir and blogs to write.

Stories from the North of the East (part 2)

The second part of this blog is devoted to Moscow. Ana was more than willing to skip Moscow, but you cannot go to Russia and ignore it's capital. And, Ana will confirm this, it wasn't bad at all. She warned that the city would be coldhearted, unfriendly for tourists and just not nice to people in general. Nobody was more surprised than her when our first encounter on the subwaystation was a young girl asking us if we needed some help finding directions. That was after a more than pleasant trainjourney from Minsk; a train where the carpet in the hallway is covered with carpet (to protect the carpet, probably).
Funny story; Ana was buying the sleepertrain-tickets in Minsk and the railway personal wanted my middle name.
Ana: "She doesn't have one".
RWperson: "How come she doesn't have a middle name?"
Ana: "Because she's Dutch, she just doesn't have a middle name. It's not in her passport."
RWperson: "But we have to fill in something...?"
Needless to say, the section remained empty, but according to Bellarussian regulation my proper name would be Therese Jan-Jaap Klok.
She also had to fight to get us bottom-beds. They were there, they were available, they didn't cost anything else, but it was just uncommon to give a duo two bottombeds. Lucky for me Ana is very determined.
The best part of Moscow, was the 'Vassily' Basilic; saint Basil's Church. It was magic, you only see that fairytale building for the first time once. Laying my eyes on it, looking up from my tourist-guide, with it's gorgeous round domes ('raindrops' I said, 'onions' Ana calls them), small towers, colourfull decorations and religic icons to finish it off.
So, we got lucky with the journey, the people, the hostel (Fresh Hostel), the weather and the subway. As in: we didn't get lost in that spiderweb of 12 different lines and 185 stations.
We only stayed in Moscow for two days and one night, but I got to see a good part of the city; Red Square, Kremlin, 3 McDonalds, Arbat street, loads of subwaystations and their subsequent pieces of art, the changing of the guards and heaps of schoolchildren imitating those guards, kicking their legs up in the air. We went to VDNCh, I didn't put some consonants in random order here, the park is actually called VDNCh. Please skip this hellhole of a carnivalesque fair. I should have read the description in my travel guide better; I skimmed the text, picking up words like; glory, architecture, fountains and youths. If I read more closely I would have read: misplaced glory of the past, kitchy architecture, flashy fountains and masses of skateboarding youths whizzing by. Well, it was clear from the start that the people who wrote the travelguide, which describes both Moscow and St-Petersburg, clearly were more fond of the latter. We spent our last (and second) night in Moscow on the busy Leningradsky trainstation, amidst hundreds of other fellow-travellers. We waited there for several hours, entertaining ourselves with music, Keith Richards' Life, machine-coffee and Russian Sudoku, before boarding the sleepertrain to St-Petersburg.
Moscow was awesome, but I was in for more treats in St-Petersburg, coming up in part 3.