TourMentors
The last 12 days have been insane. Not only was the Pesach Project winding down, but our parents (minus Matt's dad) decided to descend on Petersburg for Pesach. The timing couldn't have been worse, but hell, what's living in Russia without a little extra confusion and logistical hurdles?! After all, they will be one of only 2 groups of visitors we are expecting, so we were pretty happy to receive them, despite the bad timing.
They arrived on Sunday of the Pesach Project, so we were able to skip out on the group's evening at the ballet -- after all, we went to see Carmen at the same theater just the week before -- to join our parents for dinner at a swanky St. Petersburg restaurant called Ryba, where we had never been before. We also managed to squeeze in lunch on Nevsky the next afternoon before Pesach started. We took them with us to first night seder with the group, which they loved, and then sent them to Rabbi Michael Farbman's expat seder at YESOD for second night seder. They also accompanied some of the small group home visits to the elderly Hesed clients which helped give them an "insider's" perspective. Then, during Hol Hamoed (the intermediate days), we lovingly shipped them off to a quick visit of Riga, which they enjoyed tremendously. They arrived back in St. Petersburg just before Shabbat, a full 24 hours after the Pesach Project had departed. Just enough time to do a little laundry, sleep, go grocery shopping and get ready for Shabbat.
We've really enjoyed playing tourist and showing them all of the sites of St. Petersburg. We even "saved up" a lot of things that we'd been wanting to see or do, so that we could share our "firsts" with our folks. For example, on "church day," we finally went inside 3 local churches that we pass fairly regularly but have never seen from the inside -- Church on the Spilled Blood, Kazansky Sabor and St. Isaac's Cathedral. Although, the highlight of the day, was by far, having high tea at the Hotel Astoria while a woman played the harp nearby. My mother aptly named the place "heaven."
On "palace day," we braved the snow and wind to see Catherine's Palace and the Holocaust memorial in Pushkin for the first time. We also managed to take them to Pavlovsk, and the Nikhailevsky Palace to see the cheesiest ever tourist-centric folk show called "Feel Yourself Russian." All we felt was drunk after the free-flowing champagne buffet at intermission! It sure did make the rest of the performance better!
From morning til night, we dragged them here and there -- to a bazillion tourist sites and museums (Hermitage, Palace Square, Peter and Paul Fortress, the Aurora, Russian Museum, the Kunstkammera, the Choral Synagogue, etc.), to a few off-the-beaten path kind of places (English Club at YESOD, our neighborhood Dixie, the local tea and blini shop, our favorite "rinak" or farmer's market, an amazing hole-in-the-wall Georgian restaurant, a few random metro stops, the Stolle pie shop, the not-so-extreme circus, etc.)
We joked that we should start a tour company called "TourMentors" with an emphasis on the tormenting part. At the end of their stay, I think we're all pretty exhausted, but we really enjoyed sharing the time together. In the end, it was a treat that it was Passover, which meant more meals at home than at restaurants, more quality time together (since we didn't have to work), and more of a focus on what's really important.
Just a few hours after they left, an eerie quiet looms over our apartment. No more lines for the toilet, no shower schedules, no odd-ball questions, and no one to do the dishes but us. It's back to business as usual, as the Fieldman Family Hotel closes its doors until our next guests arrive in late May.
They arrived on Sunday of the Pesach Project, so we were able to skip out on the group's evening at the ballet -- after all, we went to see Carmen at the same theater just the week before -- to join our parents for dinner at a swanky St. Petersburg restaurant called Ryba, where we had never been before. We also managed to squeeze in lunch on Nevsky the next afternoon before Pesach started. We took them with us to first night seder with the group, which they loved, and then sent them to Rabbi Michael Farbman's expat seder at YESOD for second night seder. They also accompanied some of the small group home visits to the elderly Hesed clients which helped give them an "insider's" perspective. Then, during Hol Hamoed (the intermediate days), we lovingly shipped them off to a quick visit of Riga, which they enjoyed tremendously. They arrived back in St. Petersburg just before Shabbat, a full 24 hours after the Pesach Project had departed. Just enough time to do a little laundry, sleep, go grocery shopping and get ready for Shabbat.
We've really enjoyed playing tourist and showing them all of the sites of St. Petersburg. We even "saved up" a lot of things that we'd been wanting to see or do, so that we could share our "firsts" with our folks. For example, on "church day," we finally went inside 3 local churches that we pass fairly regularly but have never seen from the inside -- Church on the Spilled Blood, Kazansky Sabor and St. Isaac's Cathedral. Although, the highlight of the day, was by far, having high tea at the Hotel Astoria while a woman played the harp nearby. My mother aptly named the place "heaven."
On "palace day," we braved the snow and wind to see Catherine's Palace and the Holocaust memorial in Pushkin for the first time. We also managed to take them to Pavlovsk, and the Nikhailevsky Palace to see the cheesiest ever tourist-centric folk show called "Feel Yourself Russian." All we felt was drunk after the free-flowing champagne buffet at intermission! It sure did make the rest of the performance better!
From morning til night, we dragged them here and there -- to a bazillion tourist sites and museums (Hermitage, Palace Square, Peter and Paul Fortress, the Aurora, Russian Museum, the Kunstkammera, the Choral Synagogue, etc.), to a few off-the-beaten path kind of places (English Club at YESOD, our neighborhood Dixie, the local tea and blini shop, our favorite "rinak" or farmer's market, an amazing hole-in-the-wall Georgian restaurant, a few random metro stops, the Stolle pie shop, the not-so-extreme circus, etc.)
We joked that we should start a tour company called "TourMentors" with an emphasis on the tormenting part. At the end of their stay, I think we're all pretty exhausted, but we really enjoyed sharing the time together. In the end, it was a treat that it was Passover, which meant more meals at home than at restaurants, more quality time together (since we didn't have to work), and more of a focus on what's really important.
Just a few hours after they left, an eerie quiet looms over our apartment. No more lines for the toilet, no shower schedules, no odd-ball questions, and no one to do the dishes but us. It's back to business as usual, as the Fieldman Family Hotel closes its doors until our next guests arrive in late May.
posted by Alyson Fieldman at 12:17 PM
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