Sunday, July 14, 2002 08:40
Location: Hotel Pulkovskaya
Weather: Hot & sunny

We had a long and quite tiring day yesterday. Our bus tour continued with stops on the north side of the Neva across from the Hermitage, a drive past the Peter & Paul Fortress and the Cruiser "Aurora" at berth, and a visit to a touristy souvenir centre called "Red October", which offered free coffee, tea, schnapps, and washrooms, in an attempt to entice us to buy without looking too closely at the prices.

We had lunch in a wonderfully bizarre restaurant called "The Pregnant Spy's Travelling Handbag", which had rooms with different themes, all over the top: a spy theme, a dungeon, and a cave. A bunch of us ended up in the room whose theme seemed the most popular: blatant sex, with a hint of violence. A very strange place, but we all agreed it had a lot of "character" and the food was good.

After lunch I walked back to the Field of Mars and through the Summer Gardens, with Brian, Lanny, Ngaio, Michael and a couple of others. At the entrance to the Summer Gardens I bought some lovely blakc and white photos of the city and some good postcards.

Then we worked our way back along a canal to Nevsky Prospekt, and after a quick stop to buy some booze, home to the hotel on the metro. I didn't think I needed a nap before the rehearsal, but apparently I did: I fell asleep in the room reading my book.

At 6 we loaded up on buses to go to a rehearsal hall to the east side of the city, a sweltering room under bright spotlights where we met our orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra of Saint Petersburg. They were pretty disappointing: they clearly hadn't looked at the music before, and were missing a couple of key members of the brass section. Howard kept his cool admirably, but was clearly and understandingly irritated at their seeming inability to play quietly, and their frequent lack of ensemble. Hopefully they'll improve with a couple more rehearsals.

After the rehearsal we trucked back to the hotel and had a light dinner in the "steak house", which was fairly expensive but very tasty. I had blinis stuffed with mushrooms and chicken, which came with a small array of fresh salad vegetables, and a small mug of beer. To close the evening we went to Ngaio and Mary Jo's room for a martini nightcap. We were all too tired to be witty and turned in soon after.
posted by Tom at 8:56 AM | link |