A letter home from study abroad
On friday, we had a birthday party for Alicia between classes. Nothing
special, really...just a cake. After classes, I headed off to buy train
tickets to Petersburg for me and my mom. (She's visiting next month)
Since we wanted to get "first class" tickets, I figured I'd have to go to
intourist's main office. Intourist is the former "official" soviet travel
service for foriegners. When I arrived at Intourist, I was told that I
could only buy tickets to Petersburg at the train station.
I hopped off the Metro at Komsomolskaya and started to scout
around for Leningradsky Vokzal ("Leningrad Train Station") I had no
problem finding Yaroslavsky Vokzal and Kazansky Vokzal..but Leningradsky
Vokzal was nowhere to be found. I asked several people who all pointed me
in vastly different directions. After walking up and down the same
stretch of road several times, I looked at the facade of a huge builing
that was covered in scaffolding and green netting. There was a single
sign no bigger than 1x2 feet reading "Entrance to the train station is
around the corner to the right." Well, I went around the corner to the
right and found an unmarked door that luckily opened onto the concourse of
a train station that I could only assume to be Leningradsky.
Well, I was in luck...there was a huge sign reading "Intourist
Office" at the top of a staircase....Upon opening the only door at the
top of the staircase, I was informed that I was in the wrong room and that
there was nothing I could possibly want there. It wasn't the intourist
office. I closed the door and walked down the stairs and realized that I
hadn't said a word to the woman who told me I was in the wrong place.
Wandering through the train station, I finally found another door marked
"Intourist." This one actually opened into a small intourist office.
In the office was a man who actually said that he could sell me tickets to
St. Petersburg. Then he said, "Not for today? You can't get tickets for
today. Besides, today's trains are bad." I reassured him. It turned
out that I couldn't get tickets without both my and my mother's passport
numbers. Tickets also have to be purchased in cash..in roubles....So, I
get to bring 1.7 Million roubles to a train station sometime next week.
Oh, joy.
After that, I bought a hot dog on the street. Some guy was
looking at the drinks being sold by the hotdog vendor. "Do you have any
vodka?" he asked. "No, they're all juices." The man went away. I ran in
to him again several minutes later asking the same question at another
hotdog vendor. He then turned to me and asked the same question. I told
him that I thought he might be able to purchase some vodka "over there."
He went happily on his way to find the vodka and I went happily on my way
to the metro.