Like a Zombie in the Hermitage

I don't think there were any artistic works of zombies in the Hermitage collection, but I was certainly a good rendition.

Last night, I hopped on the "Red Arrow" to St. Petersburg. There are faster, newer, modern trains, but I've heard that this was the one to take for an authentic Russian experience. Fancy in a deep red & gold curtains and rugs kind of way. Don't know why, but I have no photos from this ride. Darn it.
I had 2 cabin mates to accompany me during the 8 hour ride. Not that either of them spoke English… An old Russian grandpa who constantly smiled at me had the lower bunk beneath me. A young Russian military guy (tall, blond, and cute) had the other lower bunk.

At first, I was a bit flustered at being stuck in the small compartment with 2 Russian dudes. Me, the lonely female. But it turned out all right. They were both friendly and quiet, each of us basically keeping to ourselves with our reading materials and spending the rest of the time sleeping. The train left Moscow around midnight, so falling asleep was a cinch.
I don't think I really had a conversation with them (however much conversation is possible with my non existent Russian and their similarly non existent English) until the morning, when the attendants woke us up about 30 minutes before arriving in St. P. The military dude bought me a cup of morning tea. How sweet : )

Parting ways at the station, I walked towards the hostel I'd pre-booked. Streets so empty and quiet due to the early morning hour of 8am-ish.
Check-in wasn't until the afternoon, but I prayed that the place would be empty and the hostel managers kind enough to let me catch up on some sleep and kill time before anything opened in the city. No such luck. The place was packed with some youth group staying until today. Which meant that I could leave my bags there, but had no place to chill.

Tired, tired, tired…but I had to head out somewhere. I hadn't done much research on St. P beforehand, so the only place I could think of was the Hermitage Museum. Took over 30 minutes to get there, but still closed.

Spent the next hour or so at a nice cafe (St. P has a bunch of them!) with coffee and breakfast - a mushy cereal dish, not exactly oatmeal, but I liked anyways. Skimmed through my LP guidebook to plan my activities for the next few days.

I went back to the Hermitage a few minutes before its opening at 10:30am, whereupon I found a pretty long line. Wow. No choice but to wait in line without a reservation in hand. Wait for some time, I did. Never can understand why these highly popular tourist attractions have only 2 counters open, and can be soooooo inefficient.
Anyways, the Hermitage, as you can imagine from this long building, is humungous:Room after room of endless masterpieces. Not everything interested me, but since I was there, I wanted to at least pass through all of the open exhibits to get a feel for what's inside. I won't give you all the details since there's wiki and the official website for that! But my overall impression - there's just waaaay too much stuff in there!!! Seriously, halfway through the exhibits, I think I somewhat lost my interest in the artwork. And with my overnight train ride contributing to my tiredness, I was walking thru the museum completely absentmindedly. Seeing, but not seeing. Like a zombie!!!
Nevertheless, there were some captivating highlights. Matisse paintings for one. And a lot of other modern artists, including Kandinsky. More than the masterpieces, I think some of the internal design of some of the rooms in the building were wonderful: