"crazy beaches"

We got to wear these lovely accessories on our feet in the palace...
Church of Spilled Blood
A taste of home..
Sushi with Nina and Jessica
My Bento Box

My host father is listening to "Du hast" by Rammstein in the next room. Lol.

Other than that, not much to report... Today was an excursion day to get our metro passes (yay! no more buying zhetony!!) and to Yusupov Palace (Юсуповский дворец) and it was really cool. These people were apparently loaded - just about every room had a different theme. One was all made of oak, one was all dark blue, one was in the style of the Romans, etc. And there were different floors for men, women, and children. I think my favorite part was the stairs. I really like stairs. And they would just pop up in the most random places in this palace, sometimes curvy, sometimes diverging into two, sometimes with a carpet down the center...

And the chairs all looked pretty comfy too, but you weren't allowed to sit on them, which was a bummer because we walked A LOT today.

We also got to see where Rasputin was murdered and a life-like model of the actual Rasputin - very attractive...

After the excursion, I went to have coffee at the dorm and then stopped at the mall at Sennaya Ploshad to buy a new purse. My mom said she was sending one with a zipper, but from what I hear, it could be a very long time before that package makes its way to St. Pete. And this one was a reasonable price. And it's big and red.

The other big news is that we have a 4-day weekend coming up - we get Monday and Tuesday off for what I THINK is like "Men's Day"? Or something? There seems to be some confusion about what this holiday is actually celebrating, but I'll get back to you when I figure that one out... Anyways since we have such a long weekend, we are going to try to take a little mini-trip. The peeps were talking about a place called Pskov, but plans are still uncertain. More to come about that soon, I hope...

Tomorrow my goal is to go and buy a gym membership. It's kinda pricey, but I think it will be worth it, since it doesn't sound like I'm allowed to use the treadmill... I kind of subtly brought up that I wanted to exercise because I used to run every day at home, but all Nadya said was, "Did you look for a fitness club with your friends?" SOO. I think that better be what I do.

I also had a pretty entertaining conversation with my host parents today about the importance of correct vowel pronunciation in the word "beach."

Here's some pics from today - I had sushi for the first time here nom nom nom...