Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russian FederationHotel Tchaikovsky - Kaliningrad
Ah, it is after 6 pm and I am waiting for my 7:30 pm dinner reservation.
I am hoping for inside today. When I got back from my day's outing, there were reserved signs everywhere and it looked as if some party had taken over the restaurant. The restaurant person was nice and said she would see what she could do to get me inside. I had just paid my bill and the reception person was more abrupt. She would not let me pay 2000 roubles in cash and the rest on my credit card. I had to pay for at least one full day in cash and I did not quite have enough to do that and still pay for my transport to the airport and a tip for the maid. Although I am not sure the maid deserves a big tip - she forgot to leave me a bottle of water today. One other day she forgot soap and coffee. Another day, she had not gotten around to cleaning the room and it was after 3 pm. Oh, well...most of the people here have been nice to me.
I didn't wake up until 6ish this morning. I got things ready to go out before going down to breakfast. I got my favorite table in the corner by the window. The young woman in the black swishy chiffon skirt and black tights offered me some fried eggs so I had those along with some herring, 3 beautiful dill pickles, black bread and butter, tomato slice, OJ and latte - oh, plus some cheese to take away and an apple for breakfast tomorrow.
Then when I asked about time o go to the airport, they offered to make up a box for me. That was nice!! So now my paean to pickles - these pickles were so crunchy, they crackled. A tiny bit too salty but I am not complaining. I so loved them!
My first stop was the post office where I bought an extra stamp to mail Kara and John's postcard because I thought I had an extra and sent myself a card only to find out I was one stamp short. I was going to hand deliver the card but, since the post office was open, I could buy the stamp when I dropped the post cards off. They have a sweet young lady to guide people through the process and help out foreign visitors.
Because the post office is on a street that leads to the city center too, I decided to take that street instead of backtracking and taking Tchaikovsky. I hadn't realized it didn't go exactly where I thought it would so I had to keep looking at my map to find the Baltika Stadium. There was nothing open at the entrance so I started heading around the side past a playground. There the gate was open and some men stood talking. I sort of interrupted their conversation to ask about getting some Baltika football jerseys. They told me to go to Europa and gave me directions. I find that I am almost able to meet my needs with my "conversational" Russian now. I can catch enough most of the time - people tend to repeat themselves and rephrase when you give them that dazed and confused look. So I headed off in the direction they told me and I heard the tap, tap of one of the men's walking sticks.
He caught up to me and said he would show me the turn to take and before he left me, he gave further instructions. As I marched off and crossed the bridge, I was feeling confident, until I realized I had forgotten the name of the building. And I hadn't written it down either. This would definiely make it harder to find. As I was bemoaning that I hadn't written it down, it came to mind, jostled by the appeaance of the name on a building. Wonderful!! It took me a while and asking several more people until I located the Baltika operation along a wall. The young man there apologized because his inventory was very low because a new space was being prepared and wouldn't open until august 23rd. He used his google translate to ask if I would be around until then. I managed to select some stuff and he gave me a 10% discount and some free gifts - decals maybe - they got awfully wrinkled during the day.
Mission accomplished! Now I was in search of the Brandenburg Gate. It is a little difficult negotiating Kaliningrad because of the river and train tracks separating areas.
You cannot always go straight, but have to cross where you can and this is sometimes a fair bit out of the way. Such it was to get to the Brandenburg Gate from where I was. One wonderful thing about Kaliningrad is that you have merely to stand looking over your map and someone usually comes to your rescue. A nice man asked me where I wanted to go and I showed him. He offered to walk with me because he was going in that direction and he told me that I was quite admirable for traveling around by myself. He also asked where I was from - he guessed Poland. Today I had 2 or 3 people ask if I were Polish. Poland is right across the western border so they are familiar with Polish faces I guess. Anyway, the nice man led me through some apartment complexes and then pointed the way straight to the riverside. I had landed on the riverfront occupied by the Museum of the World Ocean and they had lots of boats - big and small - and some signage that was accessible to the public walking around without paying an entrance fee.
I didn't have that much time today so I opted not to visit the museum interior or chech out the submarine or any of the other boats. It did look like an interesting museum - but boats are only part of ocean life. I guess the inside of the museum might have had more on ocean life beyong boats.
Now I had to walk around to get on the bridge to take me across the river. I had seen that the Fredrichburg Tower was off to the west so I decided to make a big loop around the outside of this area and visit this Tower too. There was an actual open museum here so I paid the entrance and went into the tower where I saw a film in English that was almost impossible to understand with the heavy accent. Here it seems that Kaliningrad history began with Peter the Great's visit on his way to Holland to learn how to build boats and start a major naval power. I stumbled around the dimly lit tower. There were doors on both sides to get to more museum rooms and thresholds and steps up and down. The museum attendant must have thought I was strange because I hesitated with each step in the gloomy lit museum. I am a little, I guess.
After this stop, I headed on around and over the RR lines to the Brandenburg Tower. This one was different in that the street goes through it and cars and trucks were roaring through as I tried to take a few photos. I noticed a sign saying Marzipan Museum, but I didn't feel the urge to check it out. Probably fascinating and shouldn't have been missed.
Oh, well. With all this extra walking , my plan was to walk to the nearby Kaliningrad - South - Train Station and take the train from South to North Stations.
I asked a lady where the train station was - stammering and hesitating over the words - when I was standing virtually in front of it. That was easy... I put my daypack and purse through the x-ray scanner and went in. It took me ages to find the right ticket window - not the long distance destinations but the local one(s). It was 2:45 pm. The ticket window was closed and wouldn't open until 3pm. The next train was 3:55 pm. I rummaged for a snack while waiting for the ticket window to open. I opened a pack of Kara's gift snacks and found some pretzels. Pretzels are definitely my least favorite snack. I hate it when they are the airline snack. And these were stale. I ate some of the least pretzel-like pieces and binned the rest. Sorry, Kara. At this point, I decided to walk rather than wait for the train. I set off - this would be a fairly straight path to the bridge over the river. It came quite fast. Then I continued on Leninsky Prospeckt until I reached Victory Square. I was on the opposite side of the street from the one I usually take and didn't recognzie places....I thought I had passed my turn somehow. Only, in actuality, it was much longer than I remembered. I finally got to Sovetsky Prospeckt, then turned onto Tchaikovsky Street.
I had been thinking how nice it would be to stop at a cafe but there didn't seem to be any.
Then I saw a little building set in a wooded space - like a Hansel and Gretel witch house - and lo and behold, they had cappuccino so I got one and sat on a bench next to a bunch of teenagers. They were working on their smoking techniques and puffing away. I smelled butane or something very petroleum-like product. I went through my phone photos and wanted to sneak a photo of them smoking but they stopped before I was brave enough to try. I then walked the rest of the way back to the hotel.
First thing, I paid my bill - with the results noted above - and set a time for dinner. Then I packed some, uploaded my camera photos, packed some more, then started on today's blog. Now I am done with time to spare before dinner. What to do??
After two glasses of pinot grigio at dinner, I do not remember what I did. So a table was reserved for me in the middle room - which I had to myself. There was a birthday party in the far room with my corner table pulled into one long table for the celebrants. The nice young waiter served me again. I had looked at the current menu placed in my room just minutes before coming downstairs and had decided on the potato and mushroom dumplings (English), pelmeny in Russian, but forgotten the Russian, forgotten my reading glasses and could not find it on the menu. The nice young woman who reserved the table came to the rescue and all was fine. The pelmeny were perfect - you could taste the mushrooms and the dough was so soft. Great last meal at Hotel Tchaikovsky. I had my second glass of wine after finishing the pelmeny. I managed to get to my 4th floor attic room without incident and with a bottle of water. All is well. Now all I need to do is set my alarm for 5 am and go to bed. It must be nearly 9 pm by now.
2025-05-22