Fucked up stories of a crazy girl

American spirit in St.Petersburg

May! I love May because of the Victory day! Happy Victory Day, Mother Russia !=)

Anyway, I am working on my diploma every day! Now I don’t have time to go out a lot=( 

But today I decided to get some coffee and do some diploma work at Brooklyn Local cafe. 

The place is nice, cozy and makes me think a lot=) About America of course. I miss you, AMERICA! Fuck yeah….

You can get some bagels here, salads, good coffee and get closer to Brooklyn culture =) I should also tell you, that it’s not that easy to find cream-cheese bagels in Russia. So if you are an American and miss “your” food - Welcome! 

People never work on Labor Day. Weird?

In Soviet Russia people don’t work BEFORE, on Labor day and after it=)

The weather was awesome so me and Max decided to have some fun in the city! We went to Krestovsky Island. We wanted to rent the bikes and to spend the whole day riding them. But, unfortunately, it was kinda pricey so the only thing left was just walking around. But let me introduce you to Krestovsky Island in Saint-Petersburg.

First of all it’s a park where you can walk around, feed the birds, lie on the grass, listen to the music and just enjoy your day.

Second, there is a local amusement park there. It doesn’t look like Disney amusement park or 6 Flags, but it’s pretty nice. We decided to go for a roller coaster. Seriously, I was a bit scared=) I was never scared of anything like that before. But Max was next to me so we went through it together=)

Happy, kinda tired, we took a bus to the downtown of the city (I had some business to do there). I actually love to take the bus when the weather is good: you can look at the people walking on the streets, at the buildings that are different in every corner of Saint Petersburg.. I saw Porto through the window (check out my previous post) so we decided to get a dinner there.

After the delicious meal I left Max for an hour. My poor boy got really cold while waiting for me, so we had to find a cozy place to get something warm to drink. 

WELCOME to another cool place called King Pong 

It’s a nice place with Mediterranean Food.

I had Spring Rolls ( I would say they have the best Spring Rolls in the city). Also, their coffee mugs are HUGE. So you can actually have your coffee for the whole night=) The atmosphere of the place is calm, the colors are bright and the music is chilling. 

I decided to draw.. I do it sometimes, but I never show my work to anybody, because I don’t think I have a talent for it:/ But I just feel good when I draw. GET EXCITED. I’ll share the picture I draw today with you. Don’t blame me if it’s bad.

The day was awesome. 

Another day, another happiness

Yesterday me and Max went to the restaurant Porto for a dinner. I’ve heard and read about the place a lot and really wanted to visit it. I loved it!

The waitress was really nice! I was hungry for paella with the seafood but she told me they didn’t have it. I got very dissapointed and sad. So we’ve spent another 15 minutes trying to find something similar but didn’t find anything like that on the menu. The waitress saw me sad, talked to the cook and they made my day with the words “Paella will be ready in 20 minutes if you still want it” In a meantime we were drinking the ginger tea and were talking a lot about us. We’ve been together for more than half a year and I am very happy with Max. He is my sunshine! 

Alright.The design of the place is amazing. It can look kinda cheap (the wallpapers,   the lamps are from Ikea, etc.) But the chairs are too cosy not to love the place=) Also the second floor makes the view from the place even better. 

The second floor looks like that=) VERY BRIGHT!

And welcome to the first floor!

It is situated near Petrogradskaya subway station, so it’s almost the downtown.

P.S. Paella was amazing! =)

Easter!

Happy Easter!

I am not Orthodox so Easter for me is not like a religious holiday, but I love the way people celebrate it here! So yesterday, me and Max colored the eggs. My roommates (who are Catholics) really wanted to see the tradition of beating each other eggs=)

Max’s eggs were the strongest and he won!

billiamsjefferson asked: my names natasha and im a russian girl who's blog is in complete english.. ya turd

yeah, cuz it’s useless to have a blog in Russian on Tumblr =)

Welcome to my favorite cafes/restaurants!

Hey kids!

Like a said, I want to introduce you to my favorite food places in St.Petersburg! Actually, I was gonna make another post about the bars a while ago, but didn’t have enough time to do it. It’s always better to hang out at the bars than to write about them=) Well, almost always..

Anyway! I will begin from a very cozy place Teplichnie Ysloviya. The place has green/white walls, nice chairs, if you are lucky you can even sit on a couch=) St.Petersburg is such a depressing city,  sometimes we need a place with the summer atmosphere. I remember the 1st of January (try to remember the morning after Christmas, New Year or any other big party):a horrible hangover, it was cold outside and thank to the winter it was DARK most of the time. I was lying in my bed trying to remember any nice place to get rid of my bad condition. And me and Max went to Teplichnie Ysloviya. WARNING! I am VERY picky with food. I do eat only healthy things and I don’t eat meat/chicken/sweets, etc. So sometimes it gets difficult to find the right menu. Guys, they have all kind of healthy and VERY tasty stuff there. I give this place 5 points (or, my dear americans, A=)

So the the next place, where I usually go after work (it’s right next to my office) is Chymadan. It’s kinda like a bar, but they also have some good food there. At Chymadan you can see a manager, waitresses, some policeman (what is he doing there??), a security guy and a bartender standing next to a bar station and having some serious (I dont really think so) conversation=) At the same time, the staff works pretty fast, the price is cheap, vodka is good=) What else do you need after a tough day at work?=)

The next place is kinda pricey but SO good! Are you interested in Russian literature? Do you want at least to feel it’s atmosphere?=) Idiot! It’s the name of the Restaurant called after Dostoevsky novel “Idiot” I don’t really know what to tell you about the place. It just feels cool to be there. We celebrated our 1 month Anniversary there=) 

Zoom… Oh, stop looking for a “zoom” button, there is none=) But there is a VERY nice place called Zoom. You guys have no idea how difficult it is to get a sit there! And you can’t really reserve a table, only if you are a member of their “zoom club”. To get a membership you must visit the place A LOT. Anyway, their menu is one of the best! They have almost everything for everybody. Even if you are on a diet, you will find something! (like a baked apple) People read books there, play board games, talk with friends.. You feel like home there.

I think the last one for today will be a restaurant Ryba (eng. a Fish) The first impression of the price is kinda bad=) Everything seems TOO expensive! But then.. you look at the weight of one meal and realize that you can totally share=) So it’s not that pricey anymore. The best thing about Ryba is it’s location. It is located on the harbor, it’s on the 7th(or 8th) floor and it has glass walls. The sunsets are unbelievable there. Food is good for sure, staff is AMAZING (it’s kinda difficult to see REALLY smiley staff in Russia=)  Interesting fact about the place- my brother proposed his wife there=) 

I want to share more places with you guys. I will do it as soon as I have time=)

Come to St.Petersburg!

If April is like December, where are my Christmas presents?

Hello, people.

A post about my favorite food-places in St.Petersburg is coming soon, so get excited=)

But now I am studying for the Government exam. I still think it’s a waste of time though. I will forget everything the next day after the exam anyway, but I have to spend a week learning the stuff. It’s pretty sad=(

“Amazing” thing about April in this city. IT’s snowing. But I guess, I am used to it. And yes, I HATE SNOW. SNOW, do you hear me? I hate you!

Back to the studies.

P.S. There are a lot of foreigners in the apt now. Why do Norwegians SING most of the time, like they are in the Opera house?..

spring in the city

Hello everybody! How is it going?

Does anybody actually read my tumblr?=) Hopefully, yes=)

Anyway. Life is full of school bullshit. I kinda waste my time with the exam preparation (Do I lie to myself?..I haven’t even begun to do that) Anyway, the thought of the government exam is killing me.

I am taking part in a new project Sptnik. So now foreigners who visit St.Petersburg can explore the city with the locals. It’s a free tour now, but as soon as the web-site starts working, the excursion will be around 20$ It’s actually a pretty cool thing for the travelers, I would definitely do it If I were them. Since I love St.Petersburg, the foreigners and I do know some weird places, I decided to take part of the team=) 

http://sptnik.com is the web-site. They are working on a new web-site now, with cool texts, descriptions, pictures and the profiles of the locals.

I really do hope it will all work out!

And by the way, the TV channel shoot an episode about my tour=)Check it out(it’s in Russian, sorry)

http://www.ntv.ru/video/novosti/298126/

I am back

Hi people! I feel pretty bad for not posting anything for EVEEEEEEEER.  I didn’t even make a post about San Francisco,did I? :/

Anyway, life is pretty good (WOW) but so unpredictable, which is fine, I guess. Otherwise it would be boring,but not so stressful. 

I am in St.Petersburg now, the city of grey sky and crazy people. Do you guys know, that the locals here know more then 2000 shades of a grey color? Kidding, sometimes we get the sun =)

I traveled a lot in January. I can’t live without the trips so I am pretty happy that I didn’t spend my winter break in the city. 

On the second of January I went to Israel! It was my second time there and I can’t stop being amazed by views of the country. I do love Israel a lot,but not sure if I could live there. My favorite place there is still the Dead Sea. If your skin is dry, you have a depression, you live in Siberia or Canada and don’t ever get the heat or see the sun-WELCOME TO that awesome and sunny place.

Tel Aviv is a really modern place. Silicon Valley, bikes everywhere, free Wi-fi, tons of different cafes,bars and cool stuff on the streets make the city on of the best places for my generation. It’s sad that we didn’t hang out there a lot. Next time I am there I will definitely spend more time in Tel Aviv.

Jerusalem.. No doubt it’s the most sacred place on the Earth (I guess). But it was SO cold that I couldn’t even enjoy myself and listen to all the lectures about the history of the town. My favorite place there is the Western Wall, where everybody (even an agnostic person) can believe in something (God or just some weird power). I touched the Wall, put the papers with the wishes in it and stayed there as long as I needed to talk to some sacred power of the city.

I also visited some other small towns and historical places, but I got so much information that I can’t even remember most of it.

Oh,yeah, I should also mention the museum of Holocaust, which was too scary to stay there for 4 hours like we did. You walk around the museum, look at all the crying people and realize how horrible was the life of Jewish people during the WW2. I’m not saying that it was fine for others, but seriously..burning most of the population down? even the most dangerous animals would never do anything cruel like that.

I came back to Russia, spent a week here and went to Vitebsk, the hometown of Mark Shagal and some other artists.

It was my mom’s (and also my) birthday. Max went with me, so we had a great time in my small, but really nice town.

A week later we went to Cherepovets, the city of metal, tubes and cold. The biggest factory I’ve ever seen was waiting there for me with the fire from the tubes. Hello, Severstal! Cherepovets was sooo cold. Remember I was talking about Jerusalem? If people from Jerusalem have ever visited Cherepovets in the winter, they would definitely die! -20 C and the worst wind ever! 

The good thing I liked about the town was the amazing view of the sunset near the factory. Imagine the sun, the smoke from the tubes and the cold. Doesn’t really sound like fun, but it’s something you can’t see everyday anywhere else=)

Back in the city now. Hello Saint Petersburg…