home!
the kitchen/bath
at dacha
Well, I did not join a gym. The level of my indecisiveness this past month has been off the charts.... Despite wearing my tennis shoes to school and packing my purse with a sports bra and shorts, I nevertheless decided to buy a yoga mat on Friday at lunch instead of going to buy a gym membership. I actually ran stairs on Saturday morning when the family was out at Leilah's judo competition, but when I officially asked Nadia yesterday morning if I could run stairs, she said it wouldn't be a good idea because the neighbors would think it was strange. So I guess it's yoga, pilates, and Billy Blanks until the snow melts!
This weekend is super long because of the holiday on Tuesday (it's kind of like a Men's Day/Veterans Day mash up), so we were going to travel to Pskov as a group, but we kind of ran out of planning time, so we all just decided to stay here and relax and take in the city. On Friday night we all went to this place called Zoom Cafe for dinner and I had tongue salad - and it was actually quite tasty! I also had some tea with a flower in it.
After that we went to a pretty big bar called СПБ where you could get pretty cheap beer and had a fun time just hanging out together. The next day we went to the Hermitage and saw what we could see for about 3 or 4 hours - which was probably only a miniscule fraction of everything that is actually on display there - it's HUGE! But so cool - I can't believe that people actually used to live there - I would get so lost!
After that I stopped home for a quick minute and then headed back out to go to a blues club where a Russian band played and sang American blues songs - they played "Can't Buy Me Love"! A bunch of also made a pact that starting Wednesday we would give up speaking English until 6 pm for Lent - which if you think about it isn't so bad - most of that time we're in class speaking Russian anyway so it just cuts out lunch and a couple hours after class. Totally doable, but still challenging.
Then yesterday, I somehow ended up playing games with Alina, my host sister for the entire day while the rest of the family went grocery shopping. So I guess essentially I was babysitting and just didn't realize it.. We played Candyland, Guess Who?, hangman, MASH, hide-n-seek, tag, and then she taught me a handful of her own games, which involved traversing the room without touching the floor, naming colors and finding them before you get tagged, and a card game that I somehow won at, without ever fully grasping the rules. I finally got a break to finish putting on my makeup (we started playing games RIGHT after my shower) when she became entranced with the puzzle games on my iPhone. I'm not going to lie - I was a little exhausted.
Right after dinner I met some of the girls to go see Valentine's Day (in Russian) at a movie theater in the center. I felt like I understood the main idea of the plot pretty well and I really liked listening for the slang/idioms that the Russian voices used to say some of the things that we don't learn in class. Then after that we went to the club, Dacha, to see my tutor, Sasha, deejay. She was sooo amazing!! She has really great taste in music, so I'm really excited to get together with her so we can swap...
We ended up taking cabs home last night because the metro closes at 12:15 or so, and we had gotten kind of a late start because of the movie. But I got home fine with no problems, so it was fine. It's been SOOO cold this weekend though - I think I heard somewhere that the wind the past couple of days has made it feel like -15 degrees Fahrenheit! People's boogers and hair are freezing all over the place, and you have to concentrate really hard on every step you take so that you don't slip and fall on some ice or get impaled with a gigant-icle. But today it was a little warmer, and it wasn't so bad :-).
Today I slept in late and met with some friends to do homework at the cafe in the museum near school where I saw the exhibit on mirrors. It has a pretty chill, hipster-y atmosphere and really enormous tables, so it was a nice place to study. It's also looks right out onto this balcony-outdoor spot where it seems like they're always doing fashion photo shoots. I swear, it's like 15 degrees outside and there will still be some gorgeous Russian girl out there in a sleeveless mini-dress.
Now I'm back home and I think I'm going to have a chill night because I told my host family that I would go with them tomorrow to watch Leilah's judo competition and we're leaving around 7:30, I think. I'm excited to see what it will be like! Apparently, she's pretty good - she was the only girl at the competition on Saturday and she got 3rd place!
On Wednesday we get to go the Бания, which is like this very Russian spa-type place, where apparently they hit us with birch branches and we jump into extremely hot and cold water for the health benefits. Should be very interesting..... I'll keep you updated.
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