Wow. Hard to believe that I've already been in St. Petersburg for a week, yet it didn't take very long to fall into a routine. Latalia and I get up between 7 and 7:30 in order to have breakfast at 8, which is always the same: cornflakes, orange juice, yogurt, and bread (sometimes with jam, sometimes with cheese) and I always drink a cup of tea, too, because it is still rather chilly in the mornings. We leave for the Nevsky Institute at 8:30 because classes start at 9 and it's a 20-minute walk to the institute (we could take the metro, but it's only one stop, so it's really not worth the crowds and hassle). We've also fallen into a schedule with our classes: we have grammar every morning Monday thru Thursday and conversation every afternoon except Wednesdays. Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings we have reading class. Every class is actually two 50-minute periods (which is normal for Russian education. Each class is called a para because it consists of the two sessions). We have lunch between morning and afternoon classes, for which we are given an hour. I like the food in the Nevsky cafeteria, because it's better than even the dining halls at Princeton (which is really, saying something) as well as being convenient and cheap. If I buy just rice and potatoes, it only costs 32 rubles, which is just about exactly $1. Lunch for $1? Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself. Classes end at 2, and every day this week we've stayed after so that I can catch up on my blog, which has definitely taken more time than I thought it would (although I should have known that I rarely do anything concisely). However, in the coming weeks we should be able to go right home after class on most days. When we do stay after, we get home between 5:30 and 6:30, and supper is usually ready around 6:30. Fortunately, our dinner fare is a bit more varied than breakfast: so far we've had a couple different kinds of soups, the pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings), and macaroni. Over meals are really the only times when Latalia and I interact with Tatyana Trofimovna, and I can actually see my improvement every day. At this point, the conversation still centers around Latalia's amazingly tiny appetite and our schedule at school (and T.T. also always asks how our friends are doing, and how they live compared to us, which questions we usually have to answer with Я не знаю "Ya ne znayu" - I don't know) but every day we are learning more vocabulary words, and T.T. is always willing to help us with our grammar and pronunciation. She's also very good at speaking slowly and clearly and repeating herself whenever she can see that we don't understand. Both before and after supper Latalia and I busy ourselves with our homework, which takes up an alarming amount of time. Last night I wasn't able to go to bed until midnight because I was so busy studying, although it usually isn't quite that bad. But they weren't lying when they told us that this would be an intensive course. I'm able to sleep better and better every night - I must be getting used to the light. I also notice a definite difference in the amount of natural light starting at about 10pm; I even have to turn the light on in my room to work comfortably after that time. It still gets light very early, however, and I'm trying to train myself not to start waking up until my alarm goes off in the morning (to avoid getting myself up only to find that it is only 4:30 or 5 in the morning, which happened the first few days :P).
At this point Latalia and I haven't done a great deal of exploring; mostly we walk to and from the institute and spend the rest of our free time studying. However, after we get into a better routine (and we aren't staying after in the computer lab for 4 hours after school) we will probably find that we have more free time and we may start to explore the neighborhood, as T.T. keeps encouraging us to do. I'm especially interested in visiting the zoo that is just down the street :] but I also plan to go see the many museums and parks that dot St. Petersburg at some point. Today, in fact, we have a bus tour of the city, so after that I will have much more to tell about the city in general. But, as I am trying to get myself into the habit of writing fewer and shorter blog entries, I will leave you for now. I'll try hard to have some good adventures this weekend so that I'll have a lot to tell when I return on Monday ;]. As we say in Russia, До свидания!!! (Until I see you again!)
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