Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Trip to St.Petersburg

All God’s children need traveling shoes…

© Tanita Tikaram

I was going to write the post a week ago. But I managed only today, because I had no time at all since that. So, to the news.

I’ve got my transcripts all nice – translated and notarized so they look very impressive now. I did 4 copies of transcript and diploma and it cost me about $100 at Hors (http://www.horos.ru/, I can recommend this notary firm). Not cheap in my opinion, but I haven’t searched, so I can’t compare.

I’ve also prepared documents for my visa. That was not such a short process as it sounds. And tomorrow, Aeroflot airlines begin to hand out cheap tickets to London and will continue till 24th of September. I’m not sure whether it is wise to buy the ticket while not having visa yet, but… Well, I still have some time to think about opportunities of getting the ticket now and paying $150 or getting it after getting visa and paying $400+.

I’ve started drafting essays for INSEAD (describe-your-whole-life-in-no-more-than-250-words) and having problems with word limit. I guess everyone has, so I’ll think about it later, because first I need to brainstorm the framework.

Talking about life not connected to business school: I’ve gone to St.Petersburg (or as we call it: ‘Peter’) on weekend with my friends. And that was a trip!

Walked along Nevsky (5 times)… check

Been to the fountains of Peterhof and seen the greatest firework I’ve ever seen (Peterhof was celebrating its 300th birthday)… check

Gone to tour around the channels on the boat (well, that was freezing!)… check

Been inside the Spas-na-Krovi church (fantastic mosaic!)… check

Drank coffee and eaten the famous Peter’s apple ‘shtrudel’ (sorry, ‘apple pie’ is not the exact translation, and the dictionary cannot help)… check

Taken lots of photos… check

That were the most interesting points of my check-list. I checked them all!

And we were very lucky the weather was wonderful.

I strongly believe that Peter is the second ‘must see’ city in Russia. The first one is, of course, Moscow. I’ve been to it three times and I really enjoy going there. Architecture, museums and cuisine – three foundations of the city. It has also been considered as the most ‘polite’ city of Russia, but I don’t know whether it still upholds the reputation.

Maybe I’ll post some photos as soon as I get them from my friends :)

Ah! As for shoes – my new blue Sketchers turned out to be great: my feet didn’t ache at all in spite of all those long walks around the city!

And I’ll have to finish a project till the end of the week, so I’ll be really-really busy.

Good luck to everyone who is preparing for exams and gathering documents! The road is long, but interesting, and you meet a lot of great people along :)) Nd find yourself good travelling shoes first (even a towel is not that important!)