Pskov and Poka's

Today was my last day of actual class (excluding finals) in Russia, and while in America this would normally be an exciting day, today I'm admittedly a little sad. After studying here for 6 months, I've gotten pretty attached to our little, slightly run-down school building. And it's not just the teachers or the classes, but all its little quirks and idiosyncrasies. I'll miss the 20 ruble amaretto cappuccinos from the automatic coffee machine, Masha, the university cat who "really loves men" (according to my teachers), the creepy German who walks past our classroom and stares awkwardly several times per para... Sure, it'd be nice if they'd install some AC, but it's even kind of cute to see the teachers fight over the 2 fans for use in the building. Sigh. Saying goodbye is the greatest woe of a traveler.

Anyhow, now that I've mourned a bit, I'll report a little on this weekend's trip to Pskov! I dragged myself to the metro at 7:30 am so we could board our cozy little bus to Pskov. To be honest, I hadn't actually slept the night before, so the four hour trip went by pretty quickly! When we got to the hotel and had cleaned up a bit, we followed our excursion leader, Olga, around the city for a little while. We went into some really beautiful old churches and saw a super old fortress, on which one student decided would be a good idea to climb (unfortunately he hadn't planned how he was going to get down - not to worry, though, he survived). Then later on we were walking along the river and noticed some men drinking and jumping into the river from the top of a hill. I remember thinking they were nuts until all of a sudden Nathan, our RD, takes off his shirt and dives in after them! It was basically all down hill from there, and I also soon found myself shamelessly stripping down into my underwear to jump into the water, which had been designated as "dangerous for life" by a sign that I had noticed earlier. But boy, did it feel nice. Heat makes you do some crazy things. :)

Later on, we took advantage of the absurdly low priced ice cream and went to a park, where I proceeded to catch up on my ever-increasing sleep deficit. In the evening we went to dinner and observed the craziness going on in the center for Pskov Day. It basically reminded me of our state fairs - there was a concert, rides, cotton candy, face painting, and a bunch of happy, sloppy Pskovian citizens. Best of all, there was a firework show, which we watched from the side of the river and later on from our hotel room windows. The next day we visited an old monastery from the 12th century which had a nice display of old frescos on the inside. At 3 pm we had to say goodbye to Pskov and head back home on the bus, which was a bit less pleasant this time around due to the traffic from all the families coming home from their dachas. But we all made it home in one piece, in spite of a few cases of the grumpy-grumps.

And now it's already Tuesday, and time to take our test to see our summer progress tomorrow. It's gonna be a long one, but at least, I can look forward to a 20 ruble amaretto cappuccino during the break. :)

Peter gets even hotter???

So last time I blogged, I thought that Peter couldn't get any hotter - but this week I was proven very, very wrong. Just today, I read on BBC that this has been one of the most treacherously hot summers in Russian history - not exaggerating even in the slightest - over 200 Russians have apparently already died this year from drowning. Its suspected that they've all been drinking vodka and then going for a dip to cool off. And it wouldn't even be so bad, if they just had AC here. I lived through Peter's coldest winter and its hottest summer - it's been a year of extremes.

Anyhow, besides dealing with the face melting Russian heat, it's been a splendid week. Last Friday I ended up having an unexpectedly fun-filled night. In the beginning, it seemed that no one was in the mood to do anything, but at 10:15 I finally found one other soldier to meet up and join with me on this Friday night of debauchery. We decided to go to Fidel's, the bar/dancing pit that always saves the night when all our options have run out. For about an hour my friend and I just had beers and talked as we waited for our other friend to join us. Just before she arrived, I got acquainted with a Russian who began talking with me by questioning me about the typical demographics of the bar on Friday nights. After about a sentence of my chaotic russian response, he realized that I was a foreigner and asked where I was from. We then continued to talk for another hour until my friends, along with my friend's Russian tutor & Russian friends, decided to move to another new club down the street. My new Russian friend came along with us and there taught me how to take a vodka shot like a proper Russian (apparently you have to exhale before you imbibe...). After the others had danced to their satisfaction, our group, led by the Russians, migrated over to the 24 hour produkti (oh how i will miss you.) to purchase 2 bottles of champagne, rum, coke and plastic cups for our canal party. We then sat along the canal until morning until one of my friends started feeling a little less than healthy. My Russian friend and I got her home in a cab and everything turned out alright. I ended up returning to my apartment at 5:30, but when I got to my door, I found out that my host parents had accidentally locked me out from the inside (I had left so late the night the before, I don't even think they realized that I had been out). I rang the doorbell at 6 o clock and still noone answered. Thus, I walked to the grocery store, bought a bubliki (kind of similar to a Russian bagel), walked around the park and then returned to my apartment around 6:30. I slept on the windowsill in the stairwell until 7:30 and then rang the doorbell again. This time however, my host mother came to the door, obviously surprised that I had been out. I then slept until 11 or so, then got up and met my friend Grace at Krestovskiy Ostrov, where my tutor had taken me earlier in the week. We rented bikes there and enjoyed the scenery - the bikes were a little expensive, but I'm totally glad that we did it - I had forgotten how nice it felt. The next day a small group of us went back to the Gulf of Finland to tan and swim for the day. And thus passed yet another unforgettable weekend in Peter.

The rest of the week was pretty normal. On Wednesday we had our excursion to the Baltika Brewery, in which we get to attend a taste testing of all their beers at the end of the tour. A small group had planned to go to the banya afterwards, but I decided not to go because I had a presentation due the next day (today) that I hadn't started yet. Instead a small group of us bought beer and Jaguars and drank under a tree in the Field of Mars for an hour or so. Today after class I went and walked around Aleksandrovskiy Sad for a little while before going home and saw three wedding parties all in the same area. After I got home and had talked with my mom on skype, I sat with my host father for probably a good couple of hours just talking about languages, education, and life. He made me salami and cheese roll and I swear the cheese tasted exactly like the string cheese that I used to eat everyday in elementary school - soo good :) I also finally found out that he is an engineer that makes ships and he actually manages about 100 workers. But right now he is on vacation until the end of the month (which I also didn't know. ). Lastly I found out that my littlest host sister is going to come back home soon! Looks like my days of candyland playing shall return once again!

Peter is hot.

Whew! Who knew Petersburg summers could be so hot??? This past week has probably been the hottest week that I've experienced since I've been in Russia. Though I'm pretty sure it's even hotter in America right now, I'm also fairly certain that more places have air conditioning than here. Nevertheless, I appreciate it after having to endure the freezing winter here and have been trying to take advantage of the sunny days we've been gifted with.

Last weekend was pretty busy. On Friday, our moped-riding friend from Amsterdam that we met in Warsaw arrived in St. Pete's so we met up with him and took out with us to the bar, SPB, where we celebrated one of the student's birthdays. It ended up being a pretty late night, but I still managed to get myself up at 9:30 the next morning to go with my host parents to visit my host sisters at their summer camp. The summer camp was amazing! It was maybe in hour or so away by car, so it was far enough away from the city that you could actually breathe comfortably. The camp had a pool, basketball court, playground, movie theater, dorms, cafeteria, and discoteka. My host father said it was pretty expensive to send your children there, but his company got him a discount. It was great to see the girls again - I missed them a lot this month! We took them with us to a river near the camp and grilled shashlik and tanned there for the afternoon. Before we went back home, we watched Alina have a swimming lesson and I took some pictures.

The next day was the fourth of July which our group decided to spend on the Gulf of Finland. We were going to set up base at one of the student's dachas, but he ended up getting bit by a dog (like me! but he wasn't wearing pants, so it was a bit more serious) and had to go get a rabies shot. Nevertheless, we took a train there in the morning anyway. I can't imagine a better way to have spent the fourth in Russia. We just tanned, swam, ate, and drank together all day long and then took the train back in the evening.

On Monday we had our weekly meeting and found out for certain that we are going to the north for our big trip! Apparently we will be taking several forms of transportation including boat, bus, and probably train, but we'll spend less time traveling than we did to Sochi. We are going to solovetskiy islands on the White Sea and petrozavodsk in the region of Karelia. Apparently, summer is one of the only times during the year that is even possible to visit there, so lots of Russians haven't even been there. He also said we'd probably get to do some nature-y things like rafting and rowing there, so I'm really excited!

On Tuesday, we went to a bar that we've been going to the past couple of weeks because it gives out free champagne to girls during certain times on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We think they've begun to notice that we come every week though and thus are a little bugged. Free champagne was supposed to start at 10, however, we had to wait an hour for our free bubbly. Nonetheless, we had a good time and we'll probably still go back - free is free.

Wednesday started out great because we finally got our hot water back and I had my first warm shower in two weeks! I don't think that I realized how lovely it was until I had to do without it. Then we had our excursion to the political history museum to which Grace and I had both already been, but had been looking forward to since we had had such a good experience the first time around. This time, however, we had to endure an hour-long "tour" about censuses (censi??), which took us on an expansive journey around a single tiny room (well, perhaps there were two at most). On top of this, I had made the poor decision to take painkillers that next morning, thinking that they would help numb my sore throat. I later found out that they were only muscle relaxers and while one was sufficient to numb the most powerful of headaches and muscle cramps, they wouldn't do a thing to help my throat. This I found out only after having taken three doses that morning. Needless to say, I had some difficulties listening to an hour-long Russian oration on historical censuses. There was, however, a film crew there making a commercial for the exhibition, so maybe we'll at least come away from the situations as Z-list celebrities. After the census tour(ture), we took a brief quick tour of the ACTUAL museum, which is actually pretty awesome. It just would have been better had we not all been exhausted from the previous hour of censuses.

After that, we went to a really great pelmeni restaurant which offered a wide assortment of different types of pelmeni, including mexican pelmeni! I went with one of the lunch specials because it came with beet salad, which I've grown really accustomed to. In the evening I met up with my tutor, Sasha and Anya at Krestovsky Island where the Russian mini-Disney world is located along with a gorgeous park. They arrived on bikes and traded off letting me ride around the park - I didn't realize how much I missed riding my bike! We first went and sat by a lake for a while, then went to a mini-zoo, which had ostriches and reindeer and rabbits. After that, Sasha and I rode up to see the Gulf of Finland and where a new stadium was going to be built. All in all, it was a great evening! We also made plans to get together this weekend to go to a club together, since I told them that I hadn't been to very many since I'd been here.

As I'm finishing up this entry, we are finally getting some much need rain here = hopefully it'll cool down the city a little bit! :)

Just another "average" weekend in St. Pete's

It's hard to believe that June is almost over and in a month I'll already be getting ready to go back to America. After 5 months here, it feels strange to imagine being surrounded by English again. Even now, when I skype with my friends and family it can be challenging to locate the English word that I'm searching for since I've gotten so used to incorporating certain word and phrases into my every day vernacular. I imagine I will still be saying "спасибо", "извини!", and "ой!" for a couple of weeks after I get back to the states.

But enough about that. For now I am still in Russia and trying to enjoy it to the maximum in the short time that I have left. This Sunday the sun came back so since I had no plans, I decided to spend the day strolling around the city. In the morning when I went for a run, I was pleasantly surprised to see other runners on the street for once. Turned out there was a marathon going on in the city, which I had actually heard about briefly from a German that we met in Latvia who said would be participating. We had planned to try and meet up, but up to that point, we hadn't heard anything from him, so we assumed he had decided not to come. Later on, however, after I had been walking around for about 5 hours, I was trying to find my way back to Nevskiy Prospekt and, low and behold, there on the bridge in front of me was Hans, the German marathoner! Apparently his facebook had shut down so he couldn't get his message to us in time to arrange a meeting point. Apparently his marathon had gone well though and he had really enjoyed the city. Unfortunately, he and his friend were rushing to catch their bus home back to Tallinn when I met them, and I was on my way to church, so we didn't get to talk for very long. Nonetheless, I was overjoyed to run into them - had to have been судьба!

Earlier in the day on my walk, I stumbled upon a jazz festival, so I stayed and watched for an hour or so. I ran into a bar tender from our favorite German bar there as well - they say St. Petersburg is a big city, but EVERYONE comes together in the center, and I actually run into people that I know all the time. On average, I would say that I usually see at least 2 faces that I recognize every time that I take a walk down Nevskiy. After the festival, I found a beautiful spot next to the Engineer's Castle to sit on a bench and read for a while. After church, I was pretty exhausted, so I headed home, satisfied with my relaxing, yet fulfilling day.

Yesterday we went on an excursion to an orchestra concert in the Mariinskiy Theatre's newish concert hall. We saw a performance of a piece by Franz Liszt and another by a new composer, which had an incredible violin soloist, who apparently was only 25 years old! By the time I got back to my apartment though, it was already 11 and I still had to finish my homework and study for a grammar test. It all got done though and everything worked out fine like always.

Now we have a completely free day tomorrow, since our excursion was early this week, so I think we are going to go to a fortress somewhere (but different for Peter and Paul's). I don't know exactly what we're doing, but I heard there may be a speed boat involved, which never fails to brighten my day.

Алые Паруса and other news...

So the day after I blogged about my russian doctor's scheme to cleanse my digestive system, I decided that I knew my body better than he did, stashing the pills away and continuing to indulge бутрброд's and veggie quiche. Unfortunately, I then realized that I had used up my stash of ibuprofen and tylenol, so all my sore throat and headache symptoms came back full force on Wednesday, causing me to go home during third para to attempt to find something at the аптека here for my misery. Nothing on the shelves really looked familiar, but I read the labels and eventually decided on 2 medicines that sounded promising. After taking a supernap when I got home, I asked my hostparents if they knew what I should to ease my symptoms. My host father first proposed vodka with honey, then watching tv with him, then finally pulled out a packet of something that he poured in hot water and had me drink. After that, I was starting to feel a little better so I learned how to play the board game нарди with my host father before bedtime. Then miraculously, the next morning my symptoms were gone!

The other exciting thing that took place since I last blogged was Алые Паруса, which is basically a giant celebration for all of the highschool graduates in St. Petersburg. There's a huge concert in Palace Square, a big ship that sails through the canals, and a giant firework show just for the graduates. Somehow, one of ACTR tutors also works for the government and was able to get us all free tickets to the concert, so we got to see all the chaos firsthand. The concert was cool, all of the performers were really famous in Russia, but I still didn't know most of the acts. Cirque du Soleil also performed. I think we left the concert some time after two and then hung out in a bar until the metros opened - at least that was the plan. When we actually got to the metro, they were all still closed and there were crowds of people everywhere. I've never seen the streets here so packed with drunk people, not even on Night of the Museums. I ended up walking home since I live pretty close to the center, but others who lived further just had to wait it out.

Today we had our excursion to Peterhof, which was lovely because we had fabulous weather for once. I'd been there once before at the end of last semester, but this time was cool too because we had an actual tour guide (who was only 17!) and got to go into the grotto, which I hadn't been in the first time I was there. Plus, it's always fun to play in all the trick fountains that are all over the park - it's wild imagining people playing in them in the 19th century though!

Anyhow, now I'm pretty worn out. I think some people were going to meet up to watch the America - Algeria soccer match today, but I just don' t have the energy to go out again tonight. Tomorrow there's a place that gives out free champagne to girls from 6-8 though, so I should be revived and ready by that time :) .

Last piece of interesting news: yesterday my host mom came into my room to chat and told me that we wouldn't have hot water for the next 2 weeks. Apparently, they do this every summer. She was like, "we'll all just going to be dirty together! or go to the banya!" haha. Oh my. Thus, cold showers it is.

Birthdays and the Doctor

As promised, I am checking in to report on my Russian 21st birthday adventures. Since my bday fell on a Monday this year, I went to Dacha Sundays (where my tutor djs) so that I could spend my first moments as a 21 year old at a bar, as any true American should. I was unfortunately feeling a little sickly so I just stayed until 12 with a few of my friends and Sasha and then shivered my way home.

There was apparently another holiday besides my birthday in Russia this weekend, день России (Russia Day), so I didn't have class and slept in until around 11. When I brought myself to my breakfast spot, my host mom had already placed a pink flower gift bag next to my breakfast saying, "Jaime! Happy birthday! - Russian family." Inside was a beautiful silver ring with a pink stone, since I had been talking to my host mom about how I liked rings just the other day. Then when my host father came home, he brought me a huge bouquet of beautiful flowers to put in my room.

I had to go to a meeting at school, but before I left I had fried squash and it was one of the most delicious dishes I've had in Russia, and surprisingly simple to prepare! At the meeting, Nathan had everyone sing the Russian birthday song (which is NOT "Happy Birthday to You" fyi), which I took a video of and will try to load up here if I can.

After the meeting, a group of us decided to go get dinner at a place called Zoom Cafe, which is kind of literature themed - there are books and stuffed animals everywhere, and the food is always delicious. But before that we had to stop at the dorm so that some of the people in the group could go to Nathan and Marina's office hours. When we got over to Zoom, there was a half hour wait, so we went across the street to the German bar for a beer while we waited. We didn't end up leaving Zoom until about 10:15 or so and then headed to the American restaurant, The Other Side, where we had said that we would meet up with other students for a drink. It was fun except that when I was saying goodbye to one student I spilled half of my overpriced gin & tonic on the floor. But such is life. I probably shouldn't have been drinking much in any case since I was sick.

Today was our first day of classes, which was interesting since most of them are just going to be made up of Grace and I. All of my teachers today were great today though, two of which I had last semester and the third, I had heard about from other students (she's probably like 23 years old, but seems to have a good handle on what she's doing now). Then after class, I finally gave in and decided to go to the doctor. So he checked everything out and eventually gave me some medicine - but only for my bowels. He didn't seemed to think I needed anything for the sore throat or the temperature, which I thought were the more serious issues. So now I have to take about 4 pills with 2 of my meals every day and avoid dairy products, fats, and vegetables for the next week. Looks like I'll be having a lot of soup and каша for the next week! Oh and no alcohol either, so I'll have to save the major partying for next weekend, I suppose. But I have to go back on Monday after school, so if I don't come back healthier, he'll punish me with more pills and restrictions probably. Ah well, at least I'll have a clean system, I hope.

Summer days...

It's hard to believe that the last time I blogged was to write about our "big trip" to Sochi. So much has happened since then I hardly know where to begin! Let me start by saying that the spring semester in Russia ended successfully for us all - finals were comparably less stressful than back home at Notre Dame and we went out with a bang at our final dinner where my group performed a medley of songs from the Russian movie musical, Stilyagi. Goodbyes were sad as they always are, but immediately following the group's departure back to America, my friend Grace and I set off on our ambitious Eastern Eurotrip - 18 days, 5 countries, and 7 cities! Thus, I will attempt to record a brief summary of the main events that I remember from each city below...

Tallinn, Estonia
Our first stop, which we arrived to by bus, was to the adorable capital of Estonia, Tallinn. It was there that we met up with the other half of our unstoppable group of travelers, Jeff, who studied in Vladimir, and Misha (or Michael), who had studied in Moscow. There, we had our first experience with the world of hostels at Tallinn Backpackers. When I entered the hostel, I immediately felt that I had walked into a frat house, the morning after a massive party - several people laid passed out on the couches while others simply sat around in snuggies goofing off with their laptops. It seemed to be entirely run by Australians, who we seemed to have created their own mini-Australia within Tallinn. I met a ton of really terrific people from all over the world, however, and it was a great first taste of the hostel experience for me. While we mostly just strolled around the old town in Tallinn on the first day, climbing the castle and eating enormous Estonian pancakes, the second day we opted to take a tour of the natural sights around Tallinn. We saw a lot of cool things, such as the largest waterfall in the Baltics (which wasn't very large at all, but pretty nevertheless), a lot of old ruins, and finally, the infamous bog walk, where we were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes, and suffered for several days after. All in all, it was a nice couple of days, and great way to start off the trip.

Riga, Latvia
Our next stop was in the gorgeous, up-and-coming tourist spot in the capital of Latvia, Riga. Interestingly enough, when we arrived there, we found that there was set to be a marathon held there on Sunday, which brought runners from all over to the city. Two of which, we had the pleasure of meeting in our hostel and hanging out with for most of our time in Riga. One was a character from England, who had decided to run the half-marathon on Sunday. He was probably one of the most insane people I've ever met - his preparation for the race the night before consisted of drinking about 10 beers and snorting magnesium. And the funny thing is he actually did fairly well in the race, even including his stop on the final leg for a beer and a cigarette. The other runner that we met was a guy from Germany, who had been living in Tallinn for an internship and was studying to become beer brewer! He basically encompassed every stereotype that you can have for a German, but in a good way! He apparently travelled around all the time to do marathons in different parts of the world and he's going to come to run one in St. Petersburg this summer! While he was supposed to take a bus back to Tallinn on Sunday night, we convinced him to stay for one more night, so that we could take him out to party with us in the city. I am eternally grateful for him for saving me from some drunk Belgians in the final bar that we went to.

Vilnius, Lithuania
The people in our hostel weren't quite as interesting as the last (minus perhaps one of the workers from america who was in vilnius to set up a jewish library), but I still had a really wonderful time exploring the city. The Old Town was cool because you had to enter through an arch and walk downhill through the streets. My group of travelers tend to consider Vilnius one of their least favorites, but I thought we actually saw some of our coolest sights there. We found a museum of energy there with lots of interactive exhibitions, the museum of genocide, and a totally bizarre room in the university of Vilnius whose walls were covered in these kind of creepy fresco illustrations. They also had monument to Frank Zappa, which I couldn't get over.

Warsaw, Poland
We took a night bus to Warsaw and found ourselves at this large, white, pillared government building, which apparently was our hostel. When we walked in, we were surprised to find that the door man didn't speak a word of English (or Russian for that matter), but at least he was nice and we managed to communicate the main things that we needed to him. It kind of felt like we were the only guests there the entire time we were staying, so it was a little odd. When we got to exploring the city, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Warsaw was actually pretty, despite the descriptions in our guidebook. The first night, Jeff, Grace, and I walked around for about 3 hours just trying to find an internet cafe and supermarket, which wouldn't have been so hard if we had been able to speak Polish. We all had some special Polish ice cream (it's super tall and it has a soft-serve, but with a hardened exterior) on the way to keep our spirits up. We eventually did find a grocery store, however, and bought some celebratory Polish vodka for our troubles. We saw some pretty cool stuff around the city, most memorably the Warsaw Uprising museum and the church where you could see Chopin's heart. The second night in Warsaw we had to switch hostels since we had apparently only booked one night, but it worked out for the best, because the new hostel was probably one of the coolest ones that we stayed at. It had its own bar, common room, and kitchen! When we were making dinner in the kitchen we met a guy from Amsterdam who had decided to travel around Europe by moped, but was stuck in Warsaw because his moped had broken down and he had to get it fixed. It turns out that he's going to be in Petersburg as well in the beginning of July, so we will have another visitor to take around the town. We talked with him for a while and ended up inviting him to go out with us that night. We had a very elegant vodka tea party and then went clubbing until the wee hours in the morning, despite the fact that our bus to Krakow left at 7 the next morning. Somehow we all managed to get up, however, and our adventures in Poland continued...

Krakow, Poland
When we first got to Krakow, we were all still feeling a bit under the weather, so we were a pretty unhappy when our cab driver dropped us off at the wrong hostel. We called our original hostel to find out how to get there and the girl who worked there ended up coming to meet us personally on the street to lead us to the hostel! We ended up getting to know her and the rest of the staff really well, making meals together and going out with them several times in Krakow. We also met a pair of French Canadian twins from Montreal, who were planning on going hiking in the mountains after leaving Krakow. The hostel was small, but very home-y, we all felt like we were a family there :). The city of Krakow, in general, was gorgeous. I had been there once before in 2008, but had really only explored the churches there. My favorite event that we stumbled upon when we were there was a citywide pillow fight in the main square - it was absolutely nuts - there were feathers everywhere! We also took a day trip to Auschwitz, where it appropriately rained on us for most of the time we were walking around. It was pretty jarring, but definitely a worthwhile experience. The crazy thing was when we were leaving Birkenau, we ran into none other than moped guy from Amsterdam! And the first thing he said, "Aw yeah, I thought I might see you guys here." His moped had been fixed and he was apparently just taking a pit stop there. Small world though. We also had to say goodbye to Jeff in Krakow, but we ended his trip with a bang, by partying all night with the Poles working at our hostel and eventually staying awake with Jeff until 6 in the morning when he had to leave to catch his train.

Lviv, Ukraine
Then came the bus to Ukraine where we had a pleasant 4-hour wait at the border at from around 3 to 7 in the morning. But we managed to take a nice long nap at our hostel when we arrived, so all was well. It was totally surreal being back in Lviv, in which I already had so many memories from 2008. We met up with my friend from ESS, Oksana, and my friend, from Notre Dame who had come to Lviv to teach English. Apparently, they both share an apartment together now! It was wonderful to see them again - it makes the world feel a lot smaller. They took us around a bit to a huge cemetery and a jewish café, where apparently, if you want to, you may haggle to get a lower price, haha. Unfortunately, the next couple of days it rained a lot, and Misha and I started coming down with a bit of a cold. Nonetheless we still managed to have a good time, seeing a museum of an old, restored pharmacy and going to an underground Ukrainian restaurant, in which entrance is only allowed for people who say, "Slava Ukrainye!" (Glory to Ukraine!) When you enter they immediately give you a free shot of vodka and welcome you into a kitschy room of Ukrainian folk singers and drunk Ukrainians. For some reason, at the end of the night, the power went off though, so we ducked out after that happened. I also randomly ran into about 5 of my favorite students from ESS just on the main streets - they were so surprised, it was so precious! I want to go back again :)

Kiev, Ukraine
Our final destination was to Ukraine's main city, Kiev. We took a night train there and, for the first time, experienced what it was like to travel in a kupet! Kupets are 4 to a room with 4 beds, and you can actually close the doors, so it's nice. I think the beds were much more comfortable as well. We also had some awesome kupet mates - one was a kindly grandfather and the other was a young businessman. We spoke Russian with them and even had an interesting debate about the attractiveness of various Eastern European men! The only slight discomfort was that the young businessman watched Star Wars on his laptop all night and fell asleep before he turned off the DVD menu - I had my headphones in, but the light of the computer still kept me up for a while. When we got to Kiev, we were happy to find that the weather there was much better than it had been in Lviv. Super warm and not a cloud in the sky :) The young guy that worked in the hostel was another one of my favorite characters that we met along the way. When we first got to the hostel, I asked if they had a bathroom and chuckled, and said, "Noo, sorry we don't." That's how I knew he would be cool. He gave us a lot of cool suggestions for things to do including where to eat (Puzata Hata, our old friend from Lviv), where to sight see (panorama boat cruise on the river) and where to party (Independence square, where he actually drove us on Sunday when he was heading in the same direction himself). During our days in Kiev, we went to the underground crypt at a huge old monastery (which apparently used to be where the monks lived), took a trippy tour of the Bulgakov house museum, did some shopping in the markets on our way to see the giant Andrievsky Church and stumbled upon a Ukrainian talent show in the main square. On our last night in Kiev, we went to a karaoke bar where I respectively sang "Can't Fight the Moonlight" twice and then lost my voice. Luckily, the next morning hostel guy, who had already been through a 6-year medical program, brought me some kind of potion that he said would make me feel a lot better. Then Grace and I had to gear up to take a train to Moscow (so that we wouldn't pass through Belarus, where you need a visa) and say goodbye to Misha, who was going back to America from Kiev.

Grace and I then spent a night in Moscow at the cutest hostel called the Chocolate Hostel, where they served up freshly brewed hot chocolate with breakfast every morning. The weird thing was the other guests at the hostel were basically all in their 50s and 60s, except for the Russians, who seemed to be living there, and a cool Australian girl from Melbourne, who will hopefully be visiting us when she comes to Petersburg for the White Nights. While in Moscow, we tried again to go and see Lenin's body, but once again the exhibition was closed for the upcoming holiday (Russia Day, June 12). We did go to one history museum though and met up with Grace's old tutor from Wisconsin, who had been doing flagship in Moscow. We spent one evening playing a Russian card game, Durak, with the other Russians in the hostel, which was really fun, and great language practice! I had played the game a lot with my host sisters, but they could never explain the rules as well as they did at the hostel.

And now I'm all back settled in Petersburg for the summer! My host sisters are away at summer camp, but my host father said that he would take me to go visit them for a weekend at some point if I wished. We also met with the new kiddies for the first time last night and they all seem pretty cool - there are 3 other ND kids! One of which I actually sang with in Russian ensemble. I definitely feel like I'm a part of the cool kids club now though. As soon as we got to the dorm to meet up with everyone, we met up with Nathan and Marina in their office and Marina started pouring us celebratory coffee&cognac. Then after we went to dinner we had a mini-dance party together up in the office and we found out that our big trip at the end of the summer is going to be 10 days in the north north parts of Russia! Sounded pretty exciting :) Now I've unfortunately come down with something and I've been taking pills all night and day to try and keep my fever down. I didn't go to help with orientation today so that I could rest up, but now I feel a bit stronger, so I will try to meet up with them all sometime tonight.

Stay tuned for my Russian 21st Bday adventures!

the big trip

While I should probably be doing some packing right now (going to Moscow - finally! - tonight!), I feel that it is important for me to catch up on my blogging a little bit since so much has happened since I last checked in!

We set off for Sochi two Sundays ago on the longest train ride of my life - 46 full hours of togetherness with my lovely Petersburg group members. It was an experience unlike anything I've ever come across in my life - no showers, only the food you brought with you, and 2 toilets per wagon with no guarantees of tp. Despite all that, we had a lot of fun just talking, playing cards, eating russian ramen noodles (called lawpshah) and fighting off drunk circus performers (yeah, that really happened). But by the time we got to Sochi on Tuesday night, we were fully ready to explore the city.

And did we ever. The excursions ended up seriously tending towards a focus on outdoorsy/hiking activities - two days were all hiking on mountains, the tea plantation was also on a mountain, and the site of the 2014 olympics also took us to the top of a mountain. But we had beautiful weather every day (not one day of rain), so I'm glad that we took advantage of the environment while we were there.

Beautiful does not even begin to describe the natural scenery in Sochi - our hotel was right on the Black Sea, there are mountains and palm trees everywhere, and the sun was always shining. I think my favorite part of the trip was the day we went hiking and went swimming under the waterfalls in the mountains. It was FREEZING - as soon as I jumped in, I started getting short of breath and my heart sped up, but it was totally worth it! The view from the top of the mountain where the Olympics would be held was also unbelievable - we had ride the ski lift for about an hour to get to the snow-tipped mountain top, but when we did, it was surprisingly still warm and a bunch of the guys (and even a few of the women) took their shirts off for pictures!

We also got a taste of Georgian food while we were there - lots of cheesy bread (hah-gee-pore-ee), shaw-shleek (like kebab meat), and Georgian wine :). It's so delicious that even Medvedev was eating at one of the restaurants on our beach (I didn't go to see him, but a couple of my friends did). We even went to a honey farm where they let us try honey wine, which was probably the most delicious beverage I have ever sampled - it was like a liquid sour starburst. I would have bought some, but the director of the Moscow group told us that it goes bad really quickly.

Speaking of the Moscow group, it was interesting to get to know all of the kiddies from the other cities on the trip. We noticed that each group had its own appropriate characteristics. The Vladimir group seemed to be pretty close - they were all super nice and liked having a good time, but were probably a little tamer than some of students from other groups. The Moscow kids, on the other hand, were a wild bunch, partying every night in the hotel or on the streets, but always looking for a fun time. Our Petersburg group seemed to be kind of in between - people liked to go out at night, but, generally, everyone's pretty into just chilling and talking about literature or culture or something along those kinds of intellectual lines... We were also definitely the most on top of the "only-Russian-on-excursions" policy - mainly due to Nathan, our resident director's short leash.

Though we had an amazing time in Sochi, it was nice to get home and see my host family again - my host mother asked me seriously while I was eating lunch after I'd gotten home, if I missed soup when I was in Sochi. I thought it was funny that THAT was what she considered the most difficult thing to do without on the trip.

And now I'm heading off for another mini-adventure in Moscow tonight. We'll be taking the night train, so when we wake up tomorrow morning we can go ahead and start exploring the city. Grace and I have already accepted the fact that we probably will not be getting a lot of sleep this weekend. Sunday is день победы in Russia, which is like our 4th of July, so it's probably going to be pretty nuts - supposedly there's a big parade in Red Square, which we may or may not be allowed to attend.

And after that, we have just one week left of classes and then Finals! And THEN Eastern Europe trip 2010. AND THEN a whole new Summer semester in St. Pete. Therefore, stay tuned.

Бени, Форест, беги!!

Oh what a night. I went into the day yesterday thinking that I was going to have nothing to do last night and then didn't end up coming home until around 5 in the morning... I had work after school at Lenfilm, but it was kind of just a joke, because he basically just gave each of us a simple task and then left the room, without giving us anything to do when we were finished. So we ended up just getting to know the German girl that is also interning there - she is from Leipzig and also studying in St. Petersburg for the semester.

Then later as I was going home I got a text from my tutor asking if I wanted to come and hang out at Anna's apartment to watch a Soviet film. We'd been planning to do that at some point and I had no plans, so I said sure! Then when I met up with them we went to the store and she bought a bunch of "supplies" for the evening. When we got to the apartment, I saw my first chihuahua in Russia - Sasha was not impressed haha - I'm pretty sure she asked its owner how he could stand its high-pitched voice, and he was like awww, but she so pretty! At the apartment, Sasha made us these insanely delicious and massive portiongs of spaghetti with cheese and mushrooms. She also made a 3-layer chocolate cake, but we were unfortunately way too full to eat it. For most of the time we were just sitting in the kitchen talking, but when we eventually tried to watch the movie, we found out that it didn't have english subtitles and the language was too advanced for my meager "group 6" level russian :) so we agreed to find a different version with subtitles later and just hung out. Then Sasha got a call from a friend that wanted them to check out a new bar/club that had just opened, so they picked us up and drove us. I'm pretty sure that they told me the place was called "Alleluia," but I'm not sure, because when I asked one of their friends (also named Sasha, surprise surprise) what the name was, I couldn't understand what he said, but it was pretty loud in there, so that's forgivable. Had a bit of a headache when I woke up the next morning, but it was a fun night - never seems to be a dull moment with Sasha ;)

SO, it seems that yet again, another week has passed since I began writing this and I need to play catch up a little bit. On Wednesday, we went to Gatchina, a city about an hour away that at one time was named the greatest city in Russia during one of the World Fairs, apparently.. We mostly just explored the castle and surrounding park when we were there, but I really enjoyed it. The weather was nice for park weather and we got to walk through into this neat underground tunnel underneath the castle. I think my favorite part of the castle were the rooms that still hadn't been restored, so they were basically still in ruins, all stone and crumbly.. but you could still see where old paintings had hung and envision how it used it be.

I also started running this week, which has been an adventure unto itself. I've only seen one other person out running ever here, so I get a lot of funny looks from people on the streets and in the park.. one guy grabbed his girlfriend and "protected" her from me as I ran past and this morning, and a guy actually blocked me from passing him and asked me if I ran every morning and if he could run with me, but when I told him that I usually started at 7 in the morning, he reconsidered. I'm usually chased by an average of 2 or 3 stray dogs on my route as well, but I haven't been bitten yet (knock on wood)!

I've been getting really excited about travel as well! We are leaving for Sochi next Sunday and a small group of us also just bought our train tickets to go to Moscow for the weekend after we come back from Sochi (we have Monday off that weekend) :) Plus Grace and I have been planning our Eastern Europe trip for in between the Summer and Spring semesters - right now we are thinking Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine! We'll be roughin' it with mostly all bus rides and hostels, but it will be an adventure! All soooo exciting!!

Today we are going to the Museum of Politics and Religion and tonight I'm going to hang out with Sasha again, but other than that, no major plans this weekend. Next week is my host sister's bday (she'll be 8!) so I need to find a gift for her and I have to decide what to bring to Sochi as well- I've never packed for a 46 hour train ride before - wish me luck ;)

update - long overdue

At the Baltika Brewery
Find me in da club... (that's Lena...)
Deformed fetuses (feti???)
Church of Spilled Blood - worm's eye view
My host sisters discovered my photo booth

Oh dear - I've been quite a slacker blogger, but I've had so little time that it's been difficult to find moment to blog.. and suddenly 2 weekends have passed! so here's an update, best as I can remember...

Last week, Thursday night

I went with my friend, Lena, that I met at The Other Side (a meeting with Russians students going to work in the US this summer) to a Russian dance club. In a strange way, it reminded me a little bit of an American prom! Not in the way people were dressed (it was very casual), but in that her university had rented the club for the night and there was a mini-competition between a bunch of girls to be Miss (Name of Lena's University goes here), like our competitions for prom queen! The club was really nice though - 2 floors, with a rap and r&b as well as a rock & electronic music floor. But we ended up staying out until the metro opened at 6 am, so needless to say, I was very tired the next day...

Friday

After class we met up with some newly arrived students from England that are studying Russian at Herzen and hung out with them for a while.. They are actually living in an apartment with other Russians, which sounds like will be a lot of fun for them! Later in the evening they led us to this hidden underground that has no sign or name, it's basically just this discreet door in an alley, but when you open it, there's this secret, happenin' party inside - very Russian :-)

Saturday

On Saturday, I met up with a different Russian friend named Lena, and we went to Kunstkamera - a famous anthropology museum, and also the first museum in Russia! It's famous for its exhibit on deformed fetuses and monsters, but it's also got a bunch of models of people from different cultures from around the world and various artifacts and such - very cool! Then she invited me to a Turkish dance class! It was at this Turkish cultural center where they also taught Turkish cooking, art, language, and music. Something I never would have thought of learning myself, but turned out to be really fun! All the people that worked there were really enthusiastic and gave us a tour of the center and such. I might go again to day, if I have time - classes are free!

Saturday night, a group of us went to the German bar near the dorm. While Kaitlin and I were hanging out at the bar, one of the Russian guys at the table near us heard us speaking English and awkwardly turned around and just started watching us. When we asked him why, he said that he just wanted to hear the "English lexicon," because it'd be good practice for him.. We told him that if he wanted to practice, he should join in the conversation, rather than just listen to it, but then we ended up just talking with him in Russian. Despite his initial creeper-ness, he ended up being pretty cool and I ended up interviewing him about Stalin for my politics class. When we were talking his friend came up behind him and said to us in English, "Be careful! He is a very hairy man!" And it made my night. We exchanged kontakt (Russian facebook) info when we were leaving. Hooray new friends! After that we went back to the Irish bar and played darts for most of the night - I surprised myself and ended up playing pretty impressively - even got a bulls eye!

Sunday

Can't for the life of me recall what I did during the day, but in the evening I went to Palm Sunday mass in Russian and I was going to meet with my tutor, but my phone was being screwy so I couldn't get in touch with her after. I did buy a cheap book of Boris Pasternak poems in Russian though, so the night wasn't a total waste.

Tuesday (skipping Monday, because I don't remember anything significant)

Not too much interesting, except when we were crossing the street going back to school from lunch, we ran into our friend, Slava, from the German bar. I found out later that he works just a couple of buildings down from where we study - small world!

In the evening I met my tutor and Anna at a sushi bar and when I got there, they were having a contest to see who had the the most tear shed after eating wasabi - looked pretty painful, but funny. Later on I had a Jaime-moment and spilled my beer all over everything so we had to switch tables. But I still had a really fun time hanging out with them, as always.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, I met Nathan at the dorm so I could go and pick up my package. It was really easy to do, but it ended up not being the package that I had expected. I thought that it was going to be the package with the gifts for my family and such, but it turned out to just be my computer battery and some melted chocolate - which was also useful, but not what I was expecting, nonetheless...

Then we had our weekly excursion to Cpas na Krovi (Church of Spilled Blood) which was gorgeous, but our tour guide was just kind of so-so. She spoke very softly and just looked kind of bored the whole time. But oh well, it was nice to look around and see the inside of it anyway. Afterwards we went to lunch at Dve Polachki (2 sticks - as in chopsticks) and my friend Max got 6 scoops of ice cream - I never seen this kid more stoked than when he eats dve polachki's ice cream - he could do a commercial for them.

Thursday

After class, we had a - aww pause for second - my host mom just brought me ice cream!!! <333

OKay - i'm back from my euphoria. So after class, we had a mini-celebration of Spring - all the groups (minus the Chinese students) presented either skits or songs or poetry for each other and in between we played little games, kind of so we could get to know some of the other people at Herzen. My group sang three Russian songs that we learned in our phonetics class - I even learned a little of the harmony part for one of the songs, so I think it turned out pretty nice. We could hear our phonetics teacher singing along the harmony when we sang Vecherniy Zvon :). She is so adorable. I also represented my group that I had been split up into for one one of the games and had to race the other students to eat an entire paper plate of the most foul, sour berries that I've ever tasted. Thanks to my less than refined sense of taste, I won. All in all it turned out to be pretty fun and it was nice to meet some of the other foreign students studying Russian there. Then as we were leaving school I had another random run-in with Slava again while we were on the streets. Must be fate :-P

Friday

In the morning I did a presentation on Russian rock music for my conversation class, which I felt slightly unprepared for, but it ended up going alright anyway. My teacher knew enough about the topic already to fill in the blanks for me, when I wasn't sure how to explain something about it, so it worked.

For our third class on Fridays we usually have phonetics, but this particular day our teacher took us to an Russian orthodox church service for Good Friday. It was soooo beautiful! It reminded me so much of mass in Ukraine - people stand the whole time, and the entire mass is sung/chanted. By the end of it, I'm usually a little tired, but I feel somewhat cleansed as well. Kind of like the same way I feel after I do yoga.

After that I went to work at my internship for a while. This time there was also a german girl working there that we got to meet and she was super friendly. After work, we went and met up with a couple of people to visit a park, but I didn't stay very long, because I was still carrying around my laptop and wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be carrying it around the whole night. But then when I got home I discovered that my modem had run out of money, so I had to go back out to the store in order to get internet. I had a pretty cool moment when I got there though, because there was an African man trying to speak to the cashier girl in English, but the girl couldn't understand, so I translated for them, and actually solved the problem! It's nice to feel useful sometimes ;-)

Welp.. more has happened, but I am tired, and I think I will have to finish out the rest of the update tomorrow.. But I will post this one as is, because I don't want to delay it any longer - gotta be more disciplined about this!

Happy Paskha to all!!!!

weekend adventures

our friend, Cornelia aka Corn, and her host brother/love interest, Anton
Catherine Palace - up close

Park in Pushkin
at the Shamrock Bar

woowaah monday again! and it's been a pretty wild weekend indeed, so this should be a pretty interesting entry....

Friday night I was supposed to go to a concert with my tutor, but she got sick (told me she had a pretty crazy fever and such - I think she even described her sickness as попитерский, meaning typical of St. Petersburg, though I might be remembering the word wrong..) so I suddenly had a free night. So I checked to see what everyone in the group was doing and it turned out that some of my friends were going to go back to the Irish bar, Shamrock, that I had tried to go to on St. Patty's Day, but couldn't find - so I jumped on the opportunity to check it out.

It was a pretty cool bar, despite being a little overpriced. It was just a small group of us of about 5 so we were just drinking cider and talking for a while. Then a couple of Russians heard us speaking English and asked us if we wanted to come and have a drink with them at their table - so we did.. They ended up being pretty cool - I'm pretty sure they were all grad students studying engineering or law, and they bought us drinks, so that's always a plus :-). But then, Cheryl noticed that the American goalie from the Russian hockey team СКА (whose game we went to on an excursion) was at the bar. Background info: On St. Patty's Day, Cheryl had actually met Ash, the aforementioned goalie at Shamrock, and he had apparently taken a liking to her and paid the bill for their entire group! So when she saw him on Friday, she introduced us all to him, another Canadian hockey player (although I'm not sure if he was actually apart of CKA) and another guy that maybe was the bodyguard (?). They were nice enough - basically, your standard athletes. They kind of stole us away from our Russian friends though, and I felt bad, so when the Russians were leaving I exchanged contact info with them, so that we could keep in touch with them. We ended up being the last ones at Shamrock with the hockey players and, yet again, they paid for everyone's drinks. And somehow, don't ask me how, we ended up going with them to their apartment afterwards, attempting to make macaroni and cheese for them, and passing out on their couch. We all woke up at 7 the next morning and snuck out while the hockey players were still asleep in awe of the craziness of the evening.

I ended up getting home when my family was leaving for Leila's judo competition - Nadia kind of chuckled and shook her finger at me, but that was it. So I slept for about about an hour and then got back up and got ready to go to Pushkin. A group of us had planned during the week to go to the city, Pushkin, on a mini-excursion during the day on Saturday, and even though I wasn't feeling in the best of health, there was no way that I was going to miss it. So with a mild headache and some pretty massive bags under my eyes, I made my way to the metro stop at Moskovskaya.

From the metro, we took a 40 minute marshrootka to Pushkin, and by the time we got there I was feeling a lot better. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't wonderful - it was pretty cold and snowy - but we visited the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo and it was beautiful! I unfortunately forgot my camera in my coat check, so I can only describe to you how magnificent the inside of it was. Pretty much all of the walls were lined with gold and mirrors, and in the great hall, there was a huge ceiling mural! They also had a bunch of tables set up with fake feasts that looked really appetizing :-9. But I think my favorite part of our exploration of the palace was in the exhibition hall downstairs, where they had this crazy painting of the palace during WWII, when there was a lot of destruction. It was pretty shocking because on the opposite wall was a painting of the palace during a summer day before the war.

After we had had a sufficient stroll around town, we got some borshch at a cafe and headed for home. When I got home, my exhaustion hit me all of a sudden and I ended up passing out at 7:30 pm! But it was a good thing because I had agreed to go to mass with two of the girls from the group at the English service at 9:30 (I usually go to the Russian one at 12). The mass was fine, but I definitely prefer the Russian mass - the singing is MUCH better and somehow I feel less like a foreigner with all the Russians surrounding me. We did meet a graduate student from an African country who was studying Russian in St. Petersburg after mass though. Then we had breakfast together at a cafe and headed back home to do some hw.

On Sunday night, my tutor had finally healed up and we arranged to meet at 8 pm at Dacha, before she had work at 10. When I got there, I was happy to see that Anna and Sasha (her friends whom we'd hung out with last weekend) had come too. Anna ended up having to leave pretty early because her father needed computer help, but she said that she wanted to invite me to her apartment this weekend to eat Armenian food! We'll see if it actually happens, but I hope it does! I talked with Sasha (my tutor) until she had to work and told my stories from the weekend and found out a little bit more about how she got her job as a DJ. For the rest of the night, Sasha (aka Alexander) stayed and talked with me while Sasha (my tutor) dj-ed. It was kind of sad because he is going back to his home city up north for a month on Tuesday to earn some money before he returns back to Petersburg, so this is the last time we'll get to hang out with him for a while. But he was really sweet and kept me amused for the entire night, talking about Russian politics, Russian drinks, music, snowboarding, and he even taught me some Russian slang - my favorite was the word for "sick!" = "жесть!" I didn't end up leaving until 12 am, but I had finished all my homework, so I was ok for class this morning.

Today was a pretty regular class day. My grammar teacher laughed and called me a hooliganka when I made up a silly sentence about recommending a student coming to Petersburg not to wear a bathing suit on the street. She also went on a mini-rampage about how capitalism is a system "not for the man" and how during soviet times, life was safer. ooh Tatyana...

Other than that, we just had our regular Monday meeting and we found out that the excursion this week to the Baltika beer brewery is meeting at 9:40 - so it seems we're going to be having pivo for breakfast, hmmm...

Just played another marathon game of simultaneous candyland/russian-card-game-that-i-still-don't-understand and now i'm pretty tired.. the girls have spring break now, so I'm pretty jealous - I think I'll try to get a good start on my cochinyenya for baltika tonight since we're meeting with some russian students at a bar tomorrow evening

пузыркьи and mini-пятницу's

Animal cruelty
a very large cannon
inside peter & paul's
Peter & Paul's Fortress
When I came home Monday night, there was this huge hole in front of the apartment - it's still there and noone knows why (my host mother said they were "doing something")...

hooray for tuesday! it's always like a mini-friday for us since we only have excursions on wednesdays (we go to the Russian museum tomorrow). So I figured I'd take the free time to share with the world all this weekend's excitement in Petersburg.

On Saturday I had a pretty lazy day - I played legos with Alina (she is a pro car designer!) and just hung around for most of the day until I met with my tutor, Sasha. We met at the metro around 7:30 and then met up with her other friends that she had introduced me to at Dacha - Sasha (male version) and Anna (the Armenian) to go to Anna's apartment. It was an awesome night!

We first stopped at a big grocery store where they bought beer, food, and Jagermeister for the evening. Then we hailed a cab and drove to her apartment, which they explained to me was in, what they call a спальный район, literally the sleeping region, because it's one of those areas where lots of people just go home to sleep and then spend the day in the city center. But the apartment was beautiful! Maybe it's just because I've gotten so used to my tiny apartment, but Anna's place seemed so spacious and humongous to me - there was a huge living room, nice bathroom and kitchen, and a balcony! There, I met Anna's roommate, Lera, who I also really liked and their super friendly and adorable gray cat named Мурзырка (because cats here say "мур мур").

Then we all just basically sat in the kitchen chatting and making toasts the whole night. I asked my questions that we were required to ask 2 Russians for my politics class and that ended up being pretty funny.. The questions were about who currently was in local office in Petersburg and the purpose was really to show that most Russians don't know (or bother to know) who is in local office usually. But when I asked them, they all got really excited (I guess because they didn't know) and calling their friends who were involved with politics to see if they knew. Then Sasha, the guy, took my notebook, left the room for about 20 minutes, and returned with names. lol. I tried to explain that they could just say, "I don't know," but apparently they were not satisfied with that. The funny thing is when I gave my teacher their answers on Tuesday in class, only one of their answers were correct! But it was better than the rest of the class, whose interviewees pretty much all answered that they didn't know..

Then Sasha and I looked through a culture and entertainment magazine about current stuff going in Petersburg to see if there was anything interesting coming up that we could go to together. Now we're planning on going to a concert together on Friday! Sasha also made us some delicious bacon, cheese and tomato sandwiches halfway through the night.. We didn't end up leaving until about 2 in the morning! But they accompanied my all the way home and Sasha wouldn't even let me pay for my cab ride.. It was so refreshing to just be able to hang out at someone's home, rather than at a bar or even the dorm, and all of them were so fun to spend time with!

On Sunday, I met up with Brittany and two Russian girls that we met at one of the English-Russian discussion groups, Lena and Veronika to go to Peter and Paul's Fortress. There we got to see the tombs where all of the old tsars and the Romanovs are buried - I've never seen Brittany so excited since we've been in Russia! She's obsessed with the Romanovs so seeing their tombs was like fulfilling a life goal for her - she said that she wanted to come back every day! It was pretty awesome though. We also walked around a little bit on the frozen Neva River (everyone was doing it, so I'm pretty sure it was sturdy :-/)..

Monday was a regular class day again, but after class we had our weekly meeting with Nathan and he took our passports away :-( so we can't travel to anywhere really far away until we get them back (which probably won't be for another month or so).. Oh well. But we also found out officially that we are going to Sochi for our big trip at the end of April and meeting up with the Moscow and Vladimir groups there - that means a 46 hour train ride (which, in turn, means no shower, no modern toilets, and lots of bonding time)!

After the meeting, Max and I had "work" for our internship at Lenfilm. But on this particular day they wanted us to help with this series of old American films that they are presenting at an indie theater every week with Russian subtitles. And we didn't actually end up doing any real work - they gave us a little tour of place, where we got to see where they project the films from and meet the lady that's in charge of the theater. But then they just had us watch the movie that was being shown that week. It was called, Wings, and it was about these American soldiers that go to war and their relationships with one another and such. It was one of those movies where the entire film soundtrack is instrumental music and you have to read all of the dialogue, even in the English version. I thought it was decent, even though it felt really long - my favorite part was when one of the soldiers gets really drunk off champagne and all he can talk about is the bubbles that he keeps having visions of. Thus I learned the important Russian word, "пузырьки

(bubbles).

Welp, even though I started writing this on Tuesday, it's actually now Wednesday and we already went on our excursion to Russian museum. It was cool - just a quick little tour to see some of the older Russian works in the museum and then we went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant. We ended up staying for a really long time, I feel like it was about 3 hours, and then going to the пышки (a Russian doughnut, kind of like funnel cake) place that has 19-rouble coffee! Then I had my mid-semester evaluation meeting with Nathan. We got little report cards with comments from all of our teachers, and I'm apparently doing well, so I was glad :-).. My phonetics teacher said that I was a "well-wishing" girl that sang well, haha. I got 5's (like an A) in all of my classes, except for my elective, lingvokulturologia, which I got a 4 in. I was kind of surprised, because I feel like I'm one of the better students in that class, but she might just be a harder grader - I might ask her about it, but it's no big deal either way...

Now I've got to do some hw unfortunately - 4 hours of grammar tomorrow, yikes! But at least I can look forward to discussion group - tomorrow we're discussing body language :-). Пока!

за пятницу - последний день !

Finally friday, or последний день ("last day") as I've been hearing from my native Russian companions all day. Overall, the weekend ended pleasantly.

On Wednesday, a small group of us (about 9 total) went to a different banya and had a much better experience this time! It seemed like this banya was attached to a hotel and it had a bigger pool area, which had a mirror on the ceiling! I think the sauna was also a lot bigger. However, after I went in the sauna this time, I had some kind of allergic reaction (we think there might have been some kind of herb in the water because it smelled really good!) and my arm busted out with all these red dots. But they didn't hurt and disappeared after a couple of hours so no worries. Towards the end, we watched part of the Russian movie musical, Стиляги, which is basically like a Russian hybrid of Hairspray and Moulin Rouge (apparently, all the songs they used were taken from songs that were already popular in Russia before the film was made). I had to leave an hour earlier than everyone else because I had to work at my internship, so I didn't get to watch the whole thing, but at some point, I'd really like to see how it ends!

I got a little lost when I was trying to get myself back to the metro that we had arrived on, so I ended up walking to a different station pretty far away, but I left earlier enough so that I made it on time to work. Work was very chill again - we had a little trouble getting past the guard at first, but our boss smoothed over the situation and I don't think we'll have a problem next time. We just edited some more letters for them this time, but next time we work will be on Monday and we'll get to help out with this event that they're holding every week, where they showcase an old Hollywood movie with Russian subtitles at an indie theater in the city center. Sounded really interesting!

Yesterday was a long day because we had to make up a class that our teacher had cancelled. So we had 4 пара's instead of 3. But we basically just watched fairytale cartoons (two versions of a story about a frog princess), so it wasn't difficult, but I was pretty tired afterwards. We got some coffee quick at a Japanese restaurant before we headed over to the the Russian-American discussion group. This week's theme was Russian and English cuss words - I took notes :-).

Today during our conversation class we went to the рынок, a Russian market (kind of similar to our farmer's market), to practice shopping vocabulary. My task was to buy some tomatoes. My teacher said that this particular рынок wasn't as good as other ones, because normally you can haggle the price down, but this time all of the men were trying to swindle us. My friend, Brittany, bought some dried prunes and when the guy weighed it, the scale wasn't working right and he said that it weighed more than it actually did. So then my teacher and this other random Russian lady started scolding him for trying to cheat us, and he was like, "Oh, you women from the Soviet times never believe anything!" I was highly amused.

It snowed again today. Just when we thought spring had come and the everything was starting to melt away, we get a mini-blizzard. But that's St. Petersburg weather for you. Now I'm just chilling at home, no plans as of yet. Brittany was talking about possibly going to Peter and Paul's Fortress tomorrow, but I think it depends on the weather. I still haven't met with my tutor this week yet either, so maybe that will happen too... as always мы посмотрим.