Strange isn't it, how one can be halfway around the world and still feel at home? This giant colossus we tend to call Saint-Petersburg has harboured our bodies for the last 14 days and has harvested our hearts and souls! In return it fed our brains with its language, its history, its culture and its people. Memories we shan't forget! Not a thing we'll ever regret!
Viva Peterburgya! When our three heroes met on the linguistic battlefield, only a fortnight ago, we had no hope for allies. But when the dawn of battle broke, the Australian, Italian, Austrian and American trumpets called! And forth trod the foreign warriors, as strange to each other as they were to us and this seemingly godforgotten country! "Now we are here, give us beer!" it sounded from the back of the Dutch regiment and soon our fellow soldiers agreed. Alcohol unites what no flag or song can!
We started marching, into the great unknown! Into the mouth of Hell, into the belly of the smoldering colossus without knowing where we were actually going. Luckily we had Tessa to guide us, a qualified scout indeed! To Primorskaya we went, where we dug ourselves underground and continued to Njevskiy Prospekt! The city was ours to have, for our foes were weakened by our sudden attack and the unsuspected summer heat. Who would have guessed that it would be handy to fight a war during the hottest summer since 130 years? But then again; neither Napoleon nor the Nazis succeeded in succesfully attacking this necrofrostbitten country because it was well, necrofrostbittenish. Summer's a good thing when invading Russia. Suck it.
Tessa handed us over to Nastya-practice-coördinator who showed us around in, that is to say: give us Le Grande Tour of, our new Empire. Student and Imperator at the same time, we felt empowered and shy.
Novaya Gollandia is now simply known as home.
Now, to convince our new subjects of our Majesty and our willingness we had to learn the language, which mainly consists of noise and unpronouncable words. Luckily there rose a wonderful woman from the raging Russian crowd. Her name was Katya, and that's all we needed to know. Her reputation preceeded her, as did the driving skills of our chauffeur Alexander, like the smell of food precedes the Cornucopia.
With our enemies reduced to ash, and the buildings we didn't like completely ransacked, our heroes and their international following returned to their castle to enjoy their last dinner as free men, before fully accepting their duties as the new rulers of this godforsaken city (for what ruler is free?). Our jester and teacher-to-be Katya entertained us during our dinnner by imitating various birds, a shark, us and Lenin. Behind these great conquerors is a great woman, which goes to show something, although we're not quite sure what.
[Today it rained. The last time it rained we were with Nastya-practice-coördinator, having a beer at the Gulf of Finland. Today it rained. We were having a barbecue with Nastya-practice-coördinator, who from now on shall be know as Nastya-Rainbringer. Epic. She has impressive eyes too.
Anyway.]
Although this city appears to be quite ugly at first, tis not. Our eyes just had to adjust to either the macroscopic or the microscopic scale that beauty is to be seen in here. It is found in the smallest appartments (take for example the Kwartira of Miss Rainbringer), or on the outside of huge cathedrals, but not in what we could call the city-in-itself. Everything here seems to be covered in dust, but with eyelashes like ours we will brush that dust away. We are not only barbarians, we're archeologists too.
If beauty was something that we could measure, calculate and divide evenly among any number of objects, one could turn this city around and turn it into something average. For something average, this place is not, nor should it become so. The beauty of Peterburgya is its paradox. The beauty of the ugliness, and the real beauty of only a handful of places, that altogether make for an awkward whole. Like a body that's missing an arm, but has an extra hand where its third nipple should have been. Aye.
The mustard's quite good here. The Italians called it Senf, but that's German. Twas good with mashed potatoes.
Our heroes will have their final classes on the 30th of july, and are leaving this country on the first of august, to make room for a new batch of heroes that can hopefully outshine our glory!
Though our rule was shortlived, it was prosperous. And even though the people of this place taught us more than we could teach them, I'm still sure that we left a mark on these people: our fellow soldiers, our guides, our teachers!
Let's drink to the mark of Ruskiy yazik!,
The Trinity of Dutch Heroes
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