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.