When I was little and took dance classes, I couldn’t WAIT until I was in the big kid class and get to wear fishnets for my tap recital! Fishnets were even cooler than the tap shoes with the heels! I finally got to wear them in 5th grade (I think), it was the routine to RAGTIME. We did the number on stools with long, metallic gold fringe “flapper-ish” dresses. I LOVED IT!!!! Gimme 10 minutes, I can probably remember the routine… ANYWAY…that was when my love of fishnets started. Fast forward a bit and there was Rocky Horror! A fishnet lovers fantasy!!!! And not 4 but SIX GARTERS!!! OMG! But, in my 800+ year Rocky career there’s been punk, grunge, and goth that has kinda made fishnets tawdry at the very least and most often trashy. Yes, I am aware of Chanel’s “new” thing of insetting fishnet into their outrageously expensive outfits…kind of the extreme opposite.  So…this fabulous Russian fishnet!  EVERYBODY is wearing them!  With every style!  I’ve seen them with a variety of skirt/dress types from dressy to super-cas, pants, peep-toe pumps, flats, boots EVERYWHERE!!!  I love it!!  I’m not entirely sure what is different about THESE fishnets.  They aren’t very expensive…about $6 American for stockings or tights, there is lycra in them so they hold the shape nicely.  The only real difference I can find is the gauge is slightly smaller.  American is usually on the larger side of 1/4″ where as these are…crap…where’s my metric ruler…grrrrr…4mm instead?  It makes a difference…an AWESOME difference!  I will wear Russian fishnets always from now on!!!

This is the recurring theme song of the Vampire Count Graf von Krolock in Tanz der Vampire…also known as, Dance of the Vampire the most expensive flop on Broadway…until Turn Off the Dark.  Some of us went to see it last night and I PHUQING LOVED IT!!!!!  It was ridiculously cheezy-campy-awesome!!!!  The sets were…grandiose!  The costumes were GORGEOUS (designs by Kentaur…not Sue 😦 ).  There were some great dance numbers…the nightmare number with scary things crawling out from under the bed and then the Krolock double entered…shirtless (lighting GENIUS for this man!!!!) and there was this seductive 3-way vampire porn dance!  Jim Steinman did the music so EVERYTHING sounded Andrew Llloyd Webber/Meat Loaf/ Celine Dion-ish…with Total Eclipse of the Heart ALMOST verbatim every 3rd song.  But in Russian, of course.

Saturday was a 1/2 walk through of the Russian Museum with Danila.  Icons and murals and porcelin, OH MY!

Sunday we went to Peterhof.  “Peterhof was born, as it were, from sea foam, as if summoned into existence by a mighty king of the sea…” ~Alexander Benois.  It was Peter I main crib back in the day and has been called the “world’s capital of fountains.”  It is the Disneyland of Russia.  There was even a band playing as we walked up the Grand Cascade.  Sadly, it was raining and the computers were down so our tour reservation was MIA…which then made us late for our scheduled time and they weren’t going to let us in, but Tatiana kicked some butt and got us in…but she wasn’t supposed to give our tour in English.  Such craziness.  OH!  And NO pictures inside.  DAMMIT!!!  I’m certain I’ll go back to the gardens on a nice day!!!

EVERYTHING in the palace is gilded!  It’s totally surreal.  You would think there would be a point that the tacky kicks in and yet…no.  Every room had carvings over the doors and on the walls and every carving was covered with gold leaf.  It was SMOOTH!  NO seams, no cracks.  Absolutely beautiful.  When *I* rule the galaxy…MY palace will be gilded!

AND…I am experiencing my very first REAL Fall.  It’s pretty amazing.

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…go cra-cra!!  All I want is peanut butter!!!  (Well, and good coffee but there is at least options).  There is really no peanut butter in the country.  I have been told that The Amazing Olga has found some in the past, but it took some deep digging.  Why didn’t I bring it?  Because the jar on my shelf at home had been there for a while and I thought…I’m not eating that very fast…I’ll be fine without it for 3 months.  I even bought a new jar to bring but do to suitcase rearrangements it just didn’t fit.  NOW every morning I want toast with PB…PB sandwiches for lunch…PB and apples for dinner.  It’s mutiny…

Our gang is about to be assimilated into The Summer Folk production.  The “children” in the show will be away for 3 shows so they will be replaced by the 9 of us.  We will be reciting a couple of Gorky poems and doing a scene from The Seagull.  I suppose it just takes 1, “what’s HAPPENING here?” to make this my 4th country of performance?  (OMG!  I am AMAZING!!!!  Lou should be proud!)

Briefly about the St. Petersburg subway.  Holy shitballs it’s beautiful!!!  Every station I have been to is clean, large and gorgeously decorated.  It is soooooo far underground it’s scary!  It may be the longest escalator I’ve ever been on and I think the grade is steeper than most American escalators.  Photography is not allowed in the Metro so I have swiped some pics off the internet.

Brittney, Sojin and I walked around the outside of the Hermitage.  We only had about an hour and figured that was NOT enough time for our 1st visit.  Yes, we could probably go everyday for the entire time we are here and STILL not see everything and for THAT reason…1 hour, the 1st time going in is NOT enough time!

Aside from rehearsals and class, we’ve seen a few shows.  Robert, Brittany, Sojin and I went to a puppet theater the other night to see ECCLESIASTIC.  There were no puppets…there were also no words.  It was a dance/movement piece on sand!  It was REALLY spectacular!  The music was lovely the lighting was brilliant and it was completely understandable!  It was STOMPish in the sense that there were several rhythmic sections to the piece…just with sand, 2×4’s and light bulbs instead of trashcan lids.  WHY is there no MATRIX????!  I wanna d/l my head and show this show to EVERYONE!  On our way home we were all a little hungry and we passed the ELVIS CAFE so of COURSE we had to stop!  It was a-hunka, hunka burning AWESOME!

Last night it was back to the Alexandrinsky for a $4 show of…Izotov.  NO idea what this show was about!  The set was impressive.  There was some nice projection stuff and a LOT of book throwing!  There was a nice moment when the woman’s clothing was falling from the sky.  It was really quite beautiful watching various pieces of fabric fall from 30′ above the stage except that from what *I* could tell, the woman had kicked the man out of the house so I don’t know why HER clothes were falling out of the sky.  However, there were magic tricks in the show.  Magic ALWAYS makes things better!

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I like my internet!  I like it regular and fast.  Kind of like…but so… it has been neither so far.  Yes, I am happy to have internet included in my rental of the PR Palace.  I am EXTREMELY appreciative!!!!!!  However…the palace is more expansive than the range of the wi-fi router and this has been a bummer.  I don’t like to be teased with things I know I can have!  SO…today, Brittany and I FIXED that problem.  Basically, we just got signal boosters that work like a phuqing charm!!!!  Weeeee!  We can sit in our ROOM and do web-y things!  Talk to friends and family without borrowing someone else’s room or hoping no one walks in on us in the livingroom.  YAY!!!  Today was a GLORIOUS day!!!

AND it seems that once I return to the land mass I call home…I will be an official Grad-U-ate!!!  As long as I can email the paperwork to the people it needs to get to and things beyond my control are in order.  It’ll only cost me $55!  With that piece of papyrus and $4.50…I can get a Mocha (peppermint…it’ll be the holidays) at Starbucks!!!!

Yesterday afternoon, we went to see THE FORTUNE at the Alexandrinsky Theater.  Maybe it was called Happiness…or The Blue Bird.  I’ve tried to google it and come up with all those names.  It’s a children’s show unlike what WE would think of as a children’s show because it was kinda dark and a little scary but as a nerdy adult, it was AWESOME!  Because we were sitting in the last row in the center section it was easy for me to take some pics.  They might be a little blurry but I was trying to be a little bit covert.

MY take on it is that it was a story of 2 kids (boy & girl) who’s mother was about to have a baby, the kids got freaked out when mom was taken away in an ambulance.  Their babysitter was a dream fairy-type and they had nightmares about what would happen if their mother died.  There was comic relief by 2 guys dressed as dogs and a girl dressed as a cat.  The girl did some wire work cuz…cats are crazy and jump and pounce and crawl out super high windows…  And the LAST scene is the kids understanding what was going on and picking the baby out.  Mom comes home and everyone lives happily ever after!

There are only about 22 ballets and 46 operas we’d like to see in the next 3 months…we’ll see how many we can cram in.

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I don’t know what it was about it, the intimate space…the friendly connection with the performers…the high physicality of the performance but I *GOT* this show better than any of the shows I saw in Berlin!  I *KNEW* what was happening and the language is more different than German.  It was great!!!!  There were some moments that the lack of language was not as impactful than if I spoke Russian but it was REALLY good!!!!  It was derived from improv and has had almost a full turn over in cast since it’s creation 3ish years ago.

Tonight we will see HAPPINESS.

It’s been a lazy Sunday.  Everyone slept late and are slow to start.  It’s ok.

I succumbed to the iTunes and purchased the whole season.  I can NOT live without my WHO fix.  I’ve only watched Asylum of the Daleks so far.  It seems…campier this season?  I don’t like when they write Amy and Rory NOT together!!

I do believe I have figured out how to publish photos onto my blog!!!  Now if I could figure out how to change my IP so I can watch the Dexter…Project Runway…etc, OR if I can get the wi-fi boosted just another 15′ into my bedroom, I’d be a GEEEEEEE-nyus!

Today, instead of going to rehearsal, I’m sorting out graduation and NYU application stuff.  Need to figure out a resume, an essay, file for graduation and DRAW!  Seems odd to me that in the 21st century, my submission to graduate has to be HAND carried into the office with a check??  Which is  a bit difficult to do from half way around the world BUT maybe they will accept 45 rubles as payment.  It could happen!

We haven’t done a whole lot of deep exploring of the city.  There are still some general things to contend with.  We registered our Visas, got phones with local numbers (the last 3 weeks we’ve been communicating with email HOPING that people check it to know what’s going on!  What did we do before the internet???) and meeting Danila’s theater group.  There are some very talented performers in the group.  Tonight we will see a show at D’s Theater.  I believe it’s an original piece called The Table.

I’m adding photos of the apartment today.  We got EXTREMELY lucky with our place.  It’s inexpensive for what we get, it’s HUUUUUUUUUGE and it’s very nice.

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My magnetic draw is on high lately and messing with all my computer-y gadgets.  For some reason, MY computer only gets 2 bars of internet, my iPad keeps falling off the internet and then “unable to connect” and that’s when only *I* am online!  Clearly Zeus does NOT want me to spend my free time surfing the web and checking in with my friends.  Bastard…

We went for a boat ride yesterday along the canals of St. Petersburg.  It’s really beautiful.  It was a lovely overcast day and the sky was just incredible.

We found the supermarket last night (YAY!) and there is an advertisement that plays every 2 minutes with Everyday and now it’s stuck in my head.  It’s actually rather humorous because the voice over is more the breathy, sexy Spanish v.o. than the “Sunday!  Sunday!  Someday!!!” v.o.  If I could JUST download to The Matrix, you all could hear it.

I’m in effing Russia!!!!  I’ve spent the last 2 days just kinda unloading, trying to get organized and just relaxing.  We are EXCEPTIONALLY fortunate to be in this apartment!!!!!!!!!!  We are paying a lot but NOT for what we are getting.  The smallest room is the single which is about 10′ x 17′.  Brittney and I are sharing a room and it’s the largest one but we currently have to share a bed.  It’s basically what we were doing in Berlin so no big.  Olga is going to help us get an air mattress soon.  There will STILL be enough space to have dance parties and possibly a bounce house!  The curtains are a beautiful plum and gold satin brocade.  (right???!) and there is a cute kitty cuddling painting over the bed that made us both miss our furry beasts.

There is a weird thing that happens with total submersion.  There is a moment of panic…oh phuq!  I have NO idea what ANYTHING says.  I can’t read a street sign, I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know how to ask for help if I need it and couldn’t find the place that could help me even if I tried!!  And then you realize, you ARE a reasonable adult-type, with a brain and logic and your other senses kick in and you figure out where you are.  It’s bizarre.  AND then my nerd brain jumps to light speed and tries to make sense of the words.  Kagaroo Donuts is what it says at Carl’s Jr.  There is the TM star, so I know it’s Carl’s but my head reads Kangaroo Donuts every time I see it.  How can B-pi-H-dbl atari-3-space invader-space invader-U be a REAL word?

We’re going on a boat ride today!!!!

I’m in St. Petersburg, Russia and it is Sept. 11.  It will never be forgotten and I may be even more affected by a date after visiting the remains of one of the world’s OTHER most notorious big bad.

But I am here in this city, where I can look out the window of one of the bedrooms and see the statue Dostoyevsky describes in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.  (…dammit…guess I’ll have to re-read it now…fuuuuuuuuuuuuudge).  We were fortunate enough to get an IMMENSE apartment for a reasonable rate.  There is a real kitchen, *2* bathrooms and a giant common room.  OH, and a washing machine!!!!  There’s a milk, meat, & fruit store across the street, a couple 24hr markets 2 blocks away and McDonald’s near by.  There is NOT a Starbucks on the corner like I requested but…

We went to dinner last night with the group.  (Minus 2 who arrive tomorrow).  It was a Russian fusion restaurant.  We all tried pickled herring with Vodka (as it is SUPPOSED to be enjoyed).  I wouldn’t choose to eat the herring everyday, but with a little potato and a little onion, it was a very tasty appetizer.  Beef stroganoff for dinner.  Delish!!!

We have embarked on an interesting adventure.

The unfortunate part of no internet at “home”…I am a slave to Starbuck’s.  I am at the mercy of  THEIR bandwidth traffic no matter how much coffee I buy…they will still sell to other people who will sit online too!  When *I* rule the galaxy, things will be different!!

Last couple days, photos have been easier to upload to FB.  Sorry.

Rewind…The neue Nationalgalerie…the most brightly lit painting was of a shark!  Then into the next room I was drawn to a gorgeous blue painting.  THAT blue that makes my eyes go mwrAWr!  As I go into the room, I hear All You Need Is Love to my right…I look and there’s a giant Double Elvis on the wall.  A few rooms latter is an exquisite 3D painting that I set off the alarm to while taking pictures.  Miss Julie was that evening.  WITH English subtitles!  It was staged as a movie set and choreographed such that actors that were not on camera were helping to set up the next scene or filming from another angle.  There were REAL foley artists and a sound booth for the performers to do their voice overs.  It was projected in real time above the set.  Really interesting!

The next day was the Jewish museum.  One of the buildings was designed by Daniel Libeskind.  SOOOOOO many awkward angles and corners!!  The museum was interesting…a little scary but the space was just neat!  LULU was that night at the Berliner Ensemble…directed by Robert Wilson with music by Lou Reed.  There were a few songs that were VERY Lou Reed!  It was more entertaining than I expected.

Saturday was wandering the neighborhoods of East Berlin with Stefan and Jeremy.  In the rain then I had to go grab my costumes to do a show in the woods…at 7:30p!  SUPER fun…and rather unusual.  Jeb from the San Francisco cast (…who lives in SC) was my Brad AAaaand we kicked it!  But because it was outside and had rained, the stage was SUPER slippery…Floorshow in Converse!!  LOVE!!!

It’s our last day in Berlin…I have a bag full of dirty clothes and no place to wash them, for less than 4Euro/load…I ought to pack but I’m meeting Todd, possibly Stefan & Jeremy and hopefully the new international member of my Enchanted Entourage at the East Side Gallery for photos!!!

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