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!!!!