Travel tales

Young Chang

For one night, Thomas and Sharon Jackson lived as the tsars did. They

dined in an extravagant ballroom where the gold of the utensils matched

the gold of the seat backs, which also matched the gold of the castle

walls and chandeliers.

Hosts in Russian period costumes with a whole lot of lace, white

makeup and, of course, Amadeus-esque hair greeted the Newport Beach

couple at the Tsar’s New Year’s Ball just outside St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Mariinsky (also known as the Kirov) Opera, Ballet and Symphony

entertained the revelers. Caviar from the Caspian Sea tickled their taste

buds.

“The draw for us is that it was something unique,” Thomas Jackson

said. “We had been to St. Petersburg twice before on a Baltic cruise.”

He learned about the Tsar’s New Year’s Ball as president of World

Travel, a travel agency in Santa Ana, and asked his wife, “You wouldn’t

want to do this would you?”

“In an eyelash,” she remembers saying.

The couple had stayed mellow for the dawn of 2000 but decided to be

fun and extravagant for the arrival of 2001.

Their 16-day vacation included visits to London, Scotland and Russia.

In London, they attended theater shows, including “The Witches of

Eastwick,” and took a ride on the London Eye, an elaborate, Ferris

wheel-shaped tram that gave them an aerial view of Parliament, Big Ben

and the rest of the city.

The couple said a favorite spot was the Carnegie Club at Skibo Castle

in Scotland, once owned by Andrew Carnegie. It’s near where pop icon

Madonna had her wedding. The hosts wore kilts and bagpipers awoke the

couple each morning and ushered them to dinner with their tunes.

At Skibo, a man known as “The Falconer” rested owls, hawks and falcons

on his hands. The wooden toilet in the couple’s room was 100 years old

and built by toilet inventor Tom Crapper, said Sharon Jackson, who works

with her husband as a sales associate.

In Russia, snow carpeted the streets and sidewalks. Lakes were frozen

solid. The couple wore their fur and cashmere coats -- Thomas Jackson

even bought a Russian-style head-muff with ear flaps -- while riding the

troika and visiting the State Hermitage Museum, which houses more than 3

million pieces of art.

The couple, who had been to Russia twice before, also got to know the

natives. Russians act differently now than they did a decade ago, Sharon

Jackson said.

“They make eye contact now,” she said. “They’re friendly. They used to

be so withdrawn, but now they’re very open.”

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