One thing I’ll miss: the metro

While I haven’t become attached to public transportation per se, there is a special place in my heart reserved for the metro. St. Petersburg metro stations aren’t quite as intricate and beautiful as those in Moscow, but every stop has a certain character to it, be it the hideous walls of Площадь Мушества or the red tiles of Маяковская. Moreover, the metro is the ideal locale for people watching. I've had some truly horrible experiences on the crowded avtobusi (the first time I rode it, when I watched a small boy have a seizure, comes to mind), but not so for the metro, which provides unlimited opportunities for amusement. There is, for instance, the game I play when the metro is not too crowded and a cute boy happens to be sitting in the same car. I try to stick with him as long as is convenient for me and imagine that he is doing the same. I sneak glances at his reflection in the window and notice when he looks back. In the end, it's a game with very little disappointment and short bursts of excitement ("he's going to Chernishevskaya too!"). In retrospect, this game sounds pretty creepy.

Cute boys aside, the metro never fails to disappoint. For instance, yesterday I witnessed a drunk guy playing the banjo as he rode the escalator down…while everyone around him, including those who were clearly not with him, sang along. On that same escalator ride was a couple fighting: he held her wrists while she tried to hit him and push him away so she could run down the steps. This evening, a woman hopped on our car at Академическая and serenaded us with opera all the way to Озерки. I don't normally give money to beggars — there are simply too many of htem, but I couldn't let this woman go without my 50 rubles.

I think the next step is to get some kind of entertainment on the Tcats.