Do you want to hear a story and some practical tips on how to get lost in a huge art gallery?
It happened seven years ago when I traveled to Saint Petersburg with several of my friends and a class teacher.

We went to various historical museums, in which there were a lot of fascinating things, but I, as a ‘Homo-heedless’, listened to a little and I was rather bored.

Almost at the end of our trip to St. Petersburg, we decided to go to the Hermitage. Frankly speaking, I went on this trip just because of it. Unbelievable but true, I like galleries; I would live there directly day in and day out.

So, we, like decent boys and girls, followed the woman in a violet and purple dress with a microphone (we had headphones so that we could clearly hear what she was saying).

Everything was perfect, including golden rooms, grand paintings in huge frames, ancient statues… (I even tried to be attentive and still remember what this purple and violet woman was saying).

It would probably have continued in the same way if I hadn’t seen a huge clock with moving mechanical animals and a big golden peacock.

I stood next to them for a couple of minutes and tried to photograph how they worked (Spoiler: not a single normal photo came out).

I don’t know how long I actually stood there, but when I turned around, instead of my group, I saw only a huge, no, giant group of Chinese tourists.

For a couple of minutes, I was still trying to understand who I was and where I was. Then I came to my senses and went to the nearest corridor, hoping to catch up with my group. So I ran along the corridors for about 30 minutes, from time to time asking the guards if a group with a purple and violet woman had passed here. I even tried to find them by the sound in the headphones. There was a chance that if I were next to my group, the sound would appear in the headphones.

In the end, I gave up, and since I was still lost, I decided not to lose more time.

I walked through huge rooms with famous paintings, near some I stopped and scrutinized them for a long time in silence.

I was even able to get into rooms where, as it turned out later, my group did not enter.

When I got tired of walking, I sat on a bench in a room of Ancient Egypt. My phone was unconnected, but I connected to the local Wi-Fi and chatted with my mother about how I spend my day. And when I absolutely calmly said that it had already been two hours since I got lost in the Hermitage, she told me to sit still and put down the phone, and after 15 minutes a class teacher found me.

Though I hate losing, that day I lost a lot of my weight…Fanny story…

We laughed at this for a long time, and I found out that my friends did not see even half of what I managed to see.

So, sometimes getting a little lost is not so bad.