Two weeks isn't enough. For a city that's really starting to get under my skin I can already tell I've only managed to scratch the surface of what there is on offer to see and experience.
Tonight I went to my first Opera. Purchasing tickets from one of a number of offices along Nevsky Prospect, I was amazed at the at the value on offer. Our choice of the Mikhailovsky Theatre, for its performance of Tchaikovsky's adaptation of the Pushkin work 'Eugene Onegin', was taken as classical novices. However for little more than twice the price of your average visit to the cinema in the UK - 800 roubles each plus 10% service charge - my two fellow students and I found ourselves sat in a balcony enclosure, overlooking proceedings in quiet awe.
There is little to be gained in me trying to explain in any great detail my response to the performance other than to say that considering I knew none of the story and little more of the language before hand, it was a moving and powerful spectacle. An experience worth having in a setting worth seeing.
Afterwards we decided to see the Winter Palace at night. This on a day when the first signs of spring were a welcome sight and the city seemed geared to cleaning up its act. Over the past couple of days I've spotted numerous examples of workers and cleaners sweeping roads, washing down shop fronts and tidying the few green areas of the city in what appears to be anticipation of the coming tourist season. There may be more to it than such things, but as we entered the palace square though a chill had appeared in the evening, the air seemed just a little cleaner and the light that little brighter.
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