Surprise weekends are a good thing. Especially if you have a good place to go.
We have no standing rule that says we have to go anywhere, though. Although the “rules” (such as they are) suggest that staying at home is an option, we have yet to actually do that. This weekend was no different.
When the Lonely Planet books fall a little short…So here”s the description of the Academy of Geology Hotel here in Ekaterinburg, as provided in the Lonely Planet Trans-Siberian Railway book:
Bldg 6, prosp Lenina 54
Singles/doubles with breakfast $26/30. This is the best budget option with smart, spacious rooms in a quite complex tucked away off the main road.
Yeah. So let me tell you how we found the place. First of all, we found Lenina Prospekt — that wasn”t hard. We walked all the way down to #54 (buildings aren”t individually numbered here, they go in groups). When you get into cases where buildings are in groups, they”re numbered something like 54/6 — such as the building holding our hotel.
Admittedly, I don”t know what exactly Amy was looking for, but I guess I expected something a little more … less apartment-y, which is what the 54 block looked like. We found 54/5, but couldn”t find 54/6. So we started walking around. A kind gentleman, about early 40s, asked us a question. We replied, sheepishly:
ya neh gavaroo pa-rooskie
Yeah, you guessed it: “I don”t speak Russian.”
This didn”t stop him, or us, and we proceeded to point, speak slowly (in both languages) until he dug out a map. Turns out that a building in the “courtyard” was the one we wanted. The side we could see was partly boarded up and covered in grafitti. We walked around to the other side and found the “Academy of Geology” sign, which we could barely read thanks to a Russian trend to use words similar to those in English, but with different spelling. The woman inside was totally unintelligable, and suggested (though her thick, steel bar window) that we should walk around the building. To the graffiti side, it seemed.
Luckily, a boy about 15 years old spoke up — speaking just enough English to understand that we couldn”t find the place. Back to the old woman. Conversation, back around to the side (west side, to be specific) of the building to a very unmarked and handle-less door. Pressing a little black buzzer above the door called the attendant, upon which we found out, that yes, this was the place.
For the record, the hotel is fairly nice, but certainly nothing special. So a word of warning to those of you looking for the hotel — it”s not clearly marked in the Lonely Planet books, and may require some assistance.
We’ve wandered a lot through Moscow, and I never did get around to talking about it due to all the bitching I was doing. So… We took Train #1 to Moscow, did a walk around the Kremlin, saw the Armoury museum (snore), walked through GUM, and revelled in the “marvel” that is our hotel. When not being watched by the hundreds of security guards, that is…
Despite having the room to myself, I was really groggy when I got up this morning. I know it wasn’t a result of last night, though, as I didn’t feel any worse for wear. I showered, packed, and checked out (using the television interface — I don’t go to the front desk unless I have to). Running into Jamie on the way down, the two of us hiked directly over to the Tribune building. We didn’t get a chance to go to the office for email.
It’s been a while since our last surprise weekend (see [[Surprise Visit to Drumheller]]), but not for a lack of wanting. We’ve been that busy. Either Alex has had to work (the joys of working in the medical community) or we’ve both been traveling. This weekend was the first one we’d had to get away.
It was a bit of a special one, but for no other reason than we’d barely seen each other in almost three weeks. I was away in San Jose for a conference (see [[Search Engine Strategies Conference 2004 San Jose, Calgary to San Jose]]), followed immediately by the Calgary Dragon Boat Festival (see [[2004 Calgary Dragon Boat Festival]]), and then Alex was off in Ontario for a week and a half. So I had to plan this weekend’s getaway so we’d have some time to ourselves.
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