I suppose people are probably curious as to how I spent my last two weeks. I'll keep this brief (brief by my own standards, haha) because I'm kind of tired right now.

On Monday, August 27th, I left for Palomar College in the morning and met up with all the other people in Civic Youth Orchestra who were going on this trip. Most of the next 24 hours was spent commuting to the airport, waiting, flying, connecting flights, sitting, etc. Somewhere in between these events, I remembered how much I hate the traveling aspect of, well, traveling.

The next couple of days were devoted to exploring the gorgeous capital city of Sweden: Stockholm. Our hotel was in the heart of it. Picture a city thats packed with people on the streets 24 hours a day, that has both modern skyscrapers and old, narrow, English style cobble stone alleys lined with shops at the same time. The whole city is practically one huge shopping mall (there was literally an H&M every few blocks). Now consider that the whole damn thing is immaculately clean, and basically everyone walking down the street is supermodel-esque. Add in a bunch of parks every few blocks (somewhere in Sweden's history, one of their kings made it a law that no matter how much the country developed, 1/3 would always be parks, and 1/3 would always be water... and by the way, European parks are nothing like American ones) and now you sort of have an idea of what Stockholm is like. There was never a boring moment while we were there because there's so damn much to do. We played our concert in the Cathedral of Stockholm, the oldest cathedral in the city, and it was freaking PACKED. There were people spilling into the streets outside of the cathedral listening to us. We spent our last day in Sweden in a quiet, cozy little country lakeside town called Sigtuna.

From Stockholm, we took a cruise ship to get to Helsinki, Finland. The bedrooms of the ship were cramped as hell, but luckily you don't spend much time in there aside from when you're sleeping. Thats cause the rest of the ship is pretty much a city unto itself. There's a lot to do, especially at night when the clubs and bars start warming up. That night, I created a kiddie pool in our bathroom by flooding it while showering. I even remember thinking, "I hope this flimsy shower curtain can keep out the water..." Then when I pulled the curtain back after I was done, the first thing I said was "SHIT" after I saw that the entire bathroom was flooded with about 3 inches of water. Apparently, the drain in the shower wasn't working. My roomates and I spent the next half an hour empyting buckets of water into the toilet with trash cans and flushing it down. Luckily, they were a bit too tipsy to be pissed, and instead seemed to have a great time splashing in the "kiddie pool" that I had created.

Helsinki is a boring city compared to Stockholm. Pretty much everything was closed by 6 PM... and that was on a Saturday night, too. Atleast the hotel was really nice. Their modern art museum is really interesting, though. A lot of their exhibits border on the creepy side (imagine a decapitated horse torso lying limp on a white table in the middle of a white room). I, along with a few others, walked about 2 miles trying to find a place that served reindeer meat. When we found the place that our bus driver had recommended, it was freaking closed. It was Sunday. Basically everything was closed -_-. Our concert at the Rock Church was alright. The place is gorgeous because its built into a rock (you really have to see it to understand). Audience turnout was decent. From Helsinki, we took a five hour train ride into St. Peterburg, Russia.

St. Petersburg, is pretty much like Stockholm, except less clean. It was there that I learned that Russians are very no-nonsense when it comes to dealing with tourists, and a lot of them just plain terrified me with their pissy-ness towards us. While there, we basically saw the tomb or palace of every Tsar in Russian history. Each one was mindblowingly magnificent. We also visited the Hermitage Museum, which someone calculated that if one person were to spend one minute at each exhibit, it would take them 7 years to get through the whole museum. Here's a picture of the Hermitage from across the Neva River:

Needless to say, that place is huge and packed with art exhibits. I realized how cool the place was when I saw Apoxymenos (aka the Scraper) in the foyer and did a double take. The whole time, basically me and Julia were like giddy little 5 years olds cause there were so many pieces from AP Art History that we finally got to see in person. Our concert was at a nearby theater, also called the Hermitage. That was one hell of a concert. It was an amazing hall d
epsite the stuffy-ness, and it was once again packed. The audience reaction when we were done was the best that I have ever seen. Russians may be pissy when dealing with you on the streets, but apparently not after you give them a great performace. My time in St. Petersburg was great for the most part, but was slightly dampened by the fact that our hotel sucked major ass. Apparently, they had changed our hotel at the last minute because the one we were originally supposed to stay at (which was a lot nicer and not as secluded) had a bar nearby where hookers were known to gather at. Not like the hotel change stopped us from encountering any hookers anyway.

The traveling from St. Petersburg to Moscow was done by overnight train. In the words of one of the chapertones, "This train is shit." It was cramped, stuffy, hot as hell, and I got yelled at by a huge, intimidating Russian train officer for a reason I don't even know... cause he was yelling in Russian. Its a wonder how I even fell asleep. Oh, right, I didn't. Or atleast, I didn't get enough of it. Our first day in Moscow, we had a concert, and every was waaaaaay out of it. I've never spaced out as much during a concert than I did at the Moscow one. I think it was the same for everyone else. To complement that, the concert hall sucked and the audience turnout was quite crappy. However, Gilson said that it was the best that we'd played the last 2 movements of Tchaik 4 ever. The next day in Moscow was dedicated to sightseeing. After all that sightseeing, basically all I have to say is that Moscow is a beautiful city. (All I have to say because I'm getting bored of writing this, lol)

We spent our last night eating at a very fancy restaurant, watching the World Cup final, and not getting any sleep because our wakeup call was 3:15 AM the next morning so that we'd make it to the airport in time. While on the bus to the airport, I calculated the time in San Diego to be 7 PM. After another day of just communiting (my favorite part?!), we got back to Palomar college at about 8 PM last night. 25 fucking hours of commuting. If I have to get on another plane any time soon, I think I'm going to shoot myself.

It was fun and all, but I'm glad to be back home.