Masterpiece

Day 6

It started with a huge pile of eggs, seasoned, salted, slippery eggs. My other options were sticky barley mash or porridge that smelled suspiciously...natural, like what Heidi would drink on the mountain top with her grandfather. Given my options, I decided that stuffing myself with smelly eggs would be the wisest, if not the easiest way to start the day. And what a day it would turn out to be.

Jessy and I spent the morning at the Peter and Paul fortress which served as a political prison and cemetery. We visited the museum within the compound and I quickly located my favorite three museum artifacts: ornate clothing, a enormous doll house, and a first aid kit (complete with saw.)

Next we went to the Hermitage, one of the largest museums in the world. It's said that it would take a person four days view all the illustrious art housed with its resplendent walls. We had two hours. Jessy, Hannah and I made a beeline for Degas, Monet, and Renoir in the French art section. Next we powered our way through Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden age and then we flew threw the modern art, pausing to admire Picasso at his best: depressed. My absolute favorite painting was A Christian Martyr Drowned During the Reign of Diocletian.

Then it was time to go back and get ready for the ballet. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. I had only ever seen the Nutcracker on PBS and I had high hopes for the real deal. This is what I wrote that night after the show had ended.

Tonight we experienced Swan Lake. The only way to describe it is incomparably beautiful and devastatingly romantic. The dancers moved so fluidly that I could almost see rippling water beneath them. And at one point, when the prince and princess were expressing their love via lifts and pirouettes to the lyrical strains of the a harp and violin, I could barely breath.

I am so spoiled.