You Can't Win Them All

So, Sunday was the day that changed the course of my summer.  It was so traumatic, it's taken me nearly a week to be able to write about it.  But here it is, at last, in all of its raw detail.  (I'm only being slightly dramatic - you'll see why...)

• In the morning, I went to church as usual.  The sermon was on the last two chapters of Revelation - next week I assume that they will begin again in Matthew, since Sundays we always study the New Testament.  The pastor is leaving for a 3-week car trip with his family, however, so for the next few Sundays one of the elders will be teaching.
• After church, I stopped by MacDonald's to grab an ice-cream cone, as the heat was still quite unbearable.  I had been invited back to Kavgalava with some of my friends, but I had also made plans with my new Russian friend, Zarina, and I figured that that should take precedence.  So I traipsed over to Nevsky Prospect, and, as she texted me that she was running a bit late, I sat down to wait on a bench outside Kazansky Cathedral.  After about fifteen minutes, a slim, dark-haired girl in a white tank top and shorts walked up to me and inquired, "Erin?"  I could tell already that I was going to enjoy her company more than that of my previous Russian friend; she had a friendly, energetic aspect to her that reminded me suspiciously of someone else I know (here's a hint: she fairly bounced and was always smiling).  As we had agreed to meet for lunch, she began inquiring as to where I wanted to go.  And as I had no specific preferences, we decided to opt for the quickest and most convenient option - McDonalds.  This turned out to be our fateful decision.
• At McDonalds we ran into my roommate, Latalia, and her friend Salina, they having just come from the Hermitage.  The restaurant was unbelievably crowded (think about it - it is the biggest tourist restaurant on the biggest tourist street in one of the biggest tourist cities in Russia in the summertime on a weekend.) so they offered to give us their seats, since they were about to leave.  We decided that this would be a good idea - Zarina went up to order for us and I saved the seat.  I wanted to tell her to save the receipts, so that we could be reimbursed for our purchase through the Russian Friend program, so I pulled out my dictionary (which I had fortuitously thought to bring with me) to look up the word.  Having finished that, and not wanting my bulky and somewhat grungy purse on the table or in my lap, I placed it beneath the stool on which I sat, between my feet.  Soon Zarina returned with our food and we fell to eating and conversing.  I had ordered a Ceasar roll (but, unlike in America, this was an actual meal instead of merely a snack) but no drink, since I had a water bottle in my purse.  I took a few bites of my food, then was thirsty, so I reached down for my water - and felt nothing.  Thinking that strange, I looked down - at the dirty linoleum floor.  My purse wasn't where I had left it.  I got down from the stool (which was too high for my feet to touch the floor while I sat on it) and looked around, sure that it had gotten moved or kicked by someone.  But no; the tattered black bag was nowhere to be seen.  
• Seeing my consternation, Zarina asked, "What's the matter?"  I muttered, "My purse - it was right here - I don't know where it's got to" (as usual, in much simplified Russian).  At this she looked a bit alarmed, and we both peered under the counter, hoping that we had somehow missed it, although there was no place for it to be hiding.  Then the awful realization hit me: my purse had been stolen.I was so shocked I could hardly think coherently - I kept looking around, desperately trying to find it tucked away in some corner.  We stopped a few employees, asking them if they'd seen a black purse - but they were all in a hurry, and quickly answered in the negative, and asked why I hadn't kept it on my shoulder as I should have.  When it became clear that there was nothing we could do, no one we could ask who could miraculously produce the object in question, I began the long, difficult process of resigning myself to the fact that nearly everything that I had with me had suddenly been taken away, and that I would never see it again.  I choked down the rest of my lunch - even in such a time, I couldn't bear to waste food.  Then, stunned and feeling naked without any of my belongings, we left the restaurant, me craning my neck this way and that, searching the arms of everyone we passed as well as every bit of the floor and all of the corners in the desperate hope that I might still recover something - anything!
• I didn't have pockets in my dress, so literally everything was in my purse.  In addition to the expensive things - my camera, iPod, cell phone, wallet - I also had in there my dictionary, Bible, city map, swimsuit and towel (I was planning to swim later), copies of all of my documents (passport, visa, registration), student discount card, apartment keys, Institute ID card, driver's license, health insurance card, water bottle, pens, hand lotion, sunscreen, chapstick... everything. :[
•  Shell-shocked and morose, I walked numbly down Nevsky Prospect behind Zarina.  When she suggested that we go into a museum, I agreed, but without any conviction - my mind was still several blocks away, back at the McDonalds.  The museum turned out to be Строгановский дворец or Stroganoff's palace - the home of one of the largest and richest families in St. Petersburg.  The rooms were, as usual, splendorous (my official new favorite English word :]), especially the hall where one wall consisted entirely of mirrors.  There were half-chandeliers and half-pillars attached to the mirrors, so that it appeared that they were completely round, and the effect was that although the entrance to the hall was in this wall, it appeared that you had walked into a room twice the size.  Very interesting.  The rooms were definitely the most interesting thing in this palace - the artifacts on display were mediocre at best, especially as compared to the Hermitage and the other museums I have thus far visited.  But I could not look at the splendor of the furnishings without wishing that I had my camera to take pictures, which would remind me that I had had it until a few minutes ago, which would once again set me to brooding.  I did my best to keep a cheerful countenance, however, especially as I could see that Zarina was trying extra-hard to cheer me up and I didn't wish to make a bad impression by moping the entirety of our first meeting.
• After the museum, Zarina asked whether I would like to go to a park.  My answer was the same as I gave for nearly everything that day, a slightly bitter, "Почему нет?" (Why not?)  And so we rode the metro to the south end of the city and wandered the park there for a while, sitting on the grassy bank of some pond or other and chatting in Russian.  We worked on getting acquainted, and I surprised myself at how easily I was still able to produce Russian, though my thoughts were mostly elsewhere.  We sat there for a couple of hours, and when we decided that we had baked enough in the sun, Zarina offered to take me back to her place.  It had come up in conversation that I didn't have any other sort of bag that would be appropriate for carrying my schoolbooks, which was a legitimate problem.  Zarina (bless her!) quickly piped up and explained that she had an old, extra purse that she would be more than willing to let me have.  Thus we decided to travel to her apartment so that she could give it to me and so that I could access the Internet and let the most important people know of my situation.  It turned out that she lived a good 15-minute walk past the last metro station on the blue line - which meant that she was several miles from the city center.  Her neighborhood consisted mostly of tall apartment complexes that had presumably been built since the fall of the Soviet Union, and her apartment was on the 10th floor of one of these buildings.  There we collectively consumed nearly an entire watermelon, we were both so hot and thirsty.  Then I emailed my mother and Anna B-, the program assistant, to let them know what had transpired, and particularly that my phone had been stolen, so they might save themselves the trouble of trying to call.  When I opened my email, I saw that I had a message from the OA Freshman Camping Trip coordinator, informing me that for the area in which I would be leading a trip, they needed to have my driver's license number.  I laughed aloud at the irony of this - my driver's license had been in my wallet, too.  By the time I finished, it was already nearly 7:00, and I was a good hour's travel from my apartment with no way to let anyone know where I was (who memorizes phone numbers anymore?  They had all been in my phone), so I decided that I had better head back as soon as possible.  So, with some parting words of encouragement and caution, Zarina handed me my new purse and pressed a hundred-ruble note into my hand, despite my protests.  "Anything could happen," she insisted, although I was thinking with a wry smile that if this purse was stolen, too, the 100 rubles really wouldn't help me that much.  
• And so I returned home, in much lower spirits than I had left that morning.  I first tried the McDonalds again, in a vain hope that perhaps the thief had returned the bag after removing all of the valuable items (what I would have given even to recover my dictionary, or towel, or city map at that moment - or even my pen or sunscreen!).  But it was to no avail - I stopped an employee and inquired whether anything had been found, or whether there was anyone I could ask, but she only replied that they had cameras, but they probably hadn't caught anything, and that if my passport was stolen I would need to go to the police.  Thus I walked home with heavy steps, still struggling to accept the fact which my mind had repeatedly rejected - it just couldn't be!
• Now, I've lost things before, but I can't remember the last time that something was actually stolen from me.  (Unless you count my bike during the first week of classes at Princeton - but it was found three weeks later by Public Safety, and it really isn't worth more than $30, so I guess it doesn't really count.)  Growing up in small-town Maine, it's just not something we ever worry about.  In fact, I'm notoriously lax about security - I often forget to lock my vehicle, even leaving the keys in it more often than not when I go into a store or theater.  Even after my bike was stolen last year, I rarely locked it up - usually only at night.  Whether that displays a naive trust in people or is just laziness, I'll let you decide.  I call it "calculated risk." :] So when I had to accept the fact that my purse was stolen - stolen, my entire purse - it was something that I had never had to deal with before.  Poor Zarina - I was exceptionally distracted for the rest of the afternoon, as every few minutes I would remember another thing that had been in my purse, and begin to lament my stupidity all over again.  But I really hadn't been all that stupid, and that's what bothered me most.  I hadn't left my purse in the bathroom, or walked away from it, or even left it on the next chair over, or hanging behind - it had been under my very feet!  While Zarina and I were still in the restaurant, discussing what we could do next, we witnessed a young couple sit down directly across from us and immediately place her purse and his backpack on the floor between them, before they commenced gazing star-struck into each others' eyes.  Seeing them do exactly as I had done - place their bags on the floor and not pay attention to them - was the hardest blow.  Why did I deserve to have everything stolen from me, and not them?  They were making the same mistake, and only a few minutes separated our fates - why me, and not them?  
• But, to quote the poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, "ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die."  I don't know why my purse was stolen that day, when God could easily have protected me from all of the fear and uncertainty and heartache and inconvenience.  I'm sure I don't even know how many times He has rescued me before from even worse things.  The only thing I can be certain of is that He has a good plan - that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28).  There was a reason that that happened to me, and that it happened there, and then, though I can't see it, and may never be able to.  I can only look for reasons to praise Him in and through the situation, and trust that it will, in the end, work for good, as He promised. 
• And it isn't as difficult as I first thought to find the good in the situation: my passport and ATM card were not in my purse that day.  In the big picture, nothing that I lost is irreplaceable, and those two items would have given the most hassle, had I lost them.  It was a simple matter to make another copy of my passport, visa and such; and although I had had 1100 rubles in my wallet, that still only amounts to about $30.  I still have access to the rest of my money, which I would not have had, had I been forced to cancel my bank card because it had been stolen.  I didn't have a credit card, either - all that the thief got is the collective value of the items in my purse, nothing more.  My iPod? - not something I absolutely need, and it was already 2 years old and beginning to lose its battery capacity, anyway.  At least now I can't procrastinate from my homework by playing Solitaire on it (although if I get really desperate, I have a pack of cards in my desk... ;])  My camera? - a much dearer loss, but it had been just that morning that I had changed the SD card because the first was full, so I still have nearly 600 pictures from the trip thus far, 600 irreplaceable memories of friends made and adventures had.  And all in all, it had been a $100 camera that was already a year old, together with a 3-year-old $20 SD card and a $5 pair of rechargeable batteries.  Nothing I can't work for a week or two and replace.  All of the other items were mere trifles - my ugly 2-piece swimsuit, my well-worn city map, a $20 cell phone, $15 dictionary (there's also another English-Russian dictionary in my room, courtesy of a previous student), $6 Russian Bible - who knows, maybe he'll read it?  That would make the entire escapade worth it, in the long run.  There were a few things I would miss - the loss of my apartment keys, although there was nothing in my purse that would expressly link me with my St. Petersburg address, necessitated a changing of the locks that I would have to pay for :P.  I would need a new Nevsky ID card in order to gain access to the building, a new Student Discount card in order to get into the museums for a cheaper price, etc.  But all told, as Anna B- remarked to me later, "This really went as well as it could have, all things considered."  And now, I have a new purse, courtesy of my wonderful Russian friend Zarina, one which isn't likely to give out before the end of the program, and which has leather handles that won't blacken every article of clothing I own, as my other did, to my constant irritation.

Now, you must understand that such a positive outlook on the situation is only the result of a long, hard week of thinking and crying and struggling to understand, why such an awful thing would happen when I was finally beginning to enjoy myself here.   I'm not super-human; just a naive and sensitive little country-girl who is justifiably proud of herself when she manages to take the right bus all on her own.  What's made this experience especially difficult is that it happened in a foreign country - in America all of these things would be simple to replace, but over here the prospect of trying to buy a new camera or phone is positively daunting.  There's a silver lining, even in that, however - the thief has a great deal of my personal information (whatever he could glean from a copy of my passport, visa, registration, and driver's license) and, in the States, there would be a legitimate concern about identity theft.  However, my American permanent address and driver's license number aren't likely to help him much over here, and there is probably little that he can realistically do with a photocopy of a 19-year-old woman's American passport.  Still, it was a frightening experience, all told, and my view of humanity is a bit more jaded now.  But I've learned my lesson, and I'm determined not to let it ruin my summer!  So there!

*In case you think I'm being stereotypical by referring to the thief always as "he", let me just explain that when I sat down at the stool, there was a youngish man sitting beside me - I didn't pay much attention to him, because I had no reason to.  But he was the only one close enough to me to have taken my purse without my noticing - the back of the stool was a few feet from a wall and the kitchen door, and I would have seen someone passing by who bent down to grab it.  Thus, I'm not being sexist by assuming that it was a man - just realistic, unfortunately.  :P

The Fatalist

If you want an apt, albeit exaggerated and symbolic, description of my weekend, you can go read this short story by M. Lermontov: The Fatalist.  I'll tell you why it's so appropriate.

• On Friday I was still feeling a bit down, but when some of the girls in my group announced that they were going to a movie after school and anyone who wanted to come was welcome, I jumped at the chance to hang out with my friends.  And so we went and saw Twilight: Eclipse.  I don't think I've ever seen a more pointless movie, in any language.  I am very sorry for those of you who love Twilight: I just don't think that it was a good movie.  The upside is that it was a good movie to watch in Russian, because the plot line wasn't complicated at all and I was able to understand almost all of what was going on.  I do intend to watch all three of the movies, eventually, when I get back to the States: however, I don't hold out much hope that they will be much better in English than in Russian.
• After the movie, I hurried back home to wolf down some supper before heading out again, this time to meet some other members of the group for a concert.  This was a performance of the Men's Choir of St. Petersburg in the Peter and Paul's fortress.  Anna B- had thought that the performance was in the actual cathedral, and indeed it used to be, but when we went it was in another, much less impressive building.  Nonetheless, the choir was as good as Anna promised.  Russia is famous for its exceptionally low bass singers, and they were out in all of their glory at the concert.  Some of the notes they sang were so low that they literally shook the walls of the room wherein we sat!!  I thought of my friend from Princeton, Griffin Telljohann - he's a bass too, though slightly less impressive in his range (but only slightly ^.^)  The performance strongly reminded me of Princeton A Capella; all we needed was a stone arch (and those weren't in short supply in the fortress ;]).  It also made me think of the hours of choir practice I sat through in Belgrade (and those memories aren't quite as pleasant as the former :P)  The first half of the concert consisted of traditional religious songs, and the second was all folk music.  The religious music was all very somber and slow, but the folk songs were lively and made me want to get up and dance - I could just imagine such a group dressed in furs, sitting around a fire and singing these songs on a cold winter's evening, many centuries ago.  
• On Saturday, we went to Pushkin, a suburb of St. Petersburg, to tour Catherine's Palace at Czarskoe Selo.  It was absolutely gorgeous, as have been all of the palaces we have visited.  Fortunately, we didn't have to meet quite as early as we had for our trip to Novgorod: our rendezvous was at 10:20 at one of the most southernly metro stations.  From there we took a marshrutka to Pushkin - once again, I forgot my motion-sickness candy, but I didn't end up needing it - and I even read on the way there!!  I started The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - I have never read a more depressing novel.  It's like A Series of Unfortunate Events, except not in the least amusing.  I only recommend that this book be read under duress (for example, as summer reading for an AP English course) or if one feels it necessary to be in an exceptionally dour mood for the next week.  I honestly don't know if I can finish it without falling into a serious bout of depression.  Fortunately, the marshrutka ride was only about 20 minutes long, so I was spared from too much dwelling on the misery of the human condition.  We arrived at the palace complex before 11, but it was another hour before our tour guide showed up and she had to fill out some forms before we could actually begin.  Once we finally entered the palace, those of us with larger bags (which definitely included me) were required to check them.  I considered taking my camera out, but I wouldn't have had anywhere else to put it, and I was under the impression that photography within the palace was only allowed upon purchase of a ticket, as it is in many other museums we have visited.  Unfortunately, I was wrong, so I didn't get the chance to capture any of the splendor of the interiors.  Perhaps I can convince some of the other people in my group to let me get a copy of their photos.  
• The most splendorous (wow, that's actually a word) room in the palace was undoubtedly the world-renowned Amber Room.  In this room nearly every inch of wall space is covered with a mosaic of the fossilized resin; even picture frames and bas-reliefs are made of it!  It is absolutely incredible (as well as being the one room in the palace where photographs are forbidden).  
• After our tour of the palace, we explored the park a bit and learned more than any of us ever wanted to know about its history.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful to Anna's friend who took time out of her day to come lead the tour for us, but her English was slow and laborious, and by the time we reached the park it was already past 1, and we were all hot and tired and hungry.  We were more than glad when we reached the end of the park and it was finally time for lunch (by which time it was nearly 2:30, and Latalia and I had eaten breakfast at 8!!)  Lunch was a picnic, courtesy of Princeton University - ham and cheese sandwiches on various types of bread, cucumbers, and cherries.  It was one of the best picnics I have had in a long while - probably because we were so hungry by the time we began.  
• After the picnic, our excursion was officially over, so our group split and went their separate ways.  I ended up wandering with Mykola, Andrew, Hayk, Ian, and the Russian friends of Mykola and Andrew (later I realized that I was the only American girl there, but I couldn't leave the poor Russians to fend for themselves with those crazy boys!! :])  We explored the carriage trails that criss-crossed the park, wandering with no ultimate goal in mind - and very nearly got ourselves thoroughly lost.  I was very jealous of the mountain-bikers that I saw (I haven't had any exercise besides walking all summer :P).  We found some really cool old abandoned brick buildings, as well as a high stone bridge which we climbed and explored.  It was good just to hang out with some friends, and I felt that (besides the lake the week before) this was the first time I had done so since arriving.  
• Then it was back home to finish my weekend homework.  T.T. called to say that she would be back the next morning (as usual) and that we should make ourselves supper, which we did of blini.  I had heard that the girls in the group might be planning to hang out in the evening, but either the plans never materialized or no one thought to call me.  Not to be faced with another long evening of studying, however, I decided to stay up until the bridges rose (which happens between 1:30 and 2am, depending on the bridge) and take pictures of this most characteristic St. Petersburg phenomenon.  Not wanting to do homework until that time, I also decided that I would wander around my island until it was closer to the time for them to be raised.  So at about 9:30 I left my apartment and struck out northward, planning to explore the three less-inhabited northern islands for a while.  En route, I ran into Qaiocu (pronouned "Chao-Choo"- I don't know if I spelled it correctly, but it looks much cooler in Cyrillic - as do so many other things...) and she decided to accompany me for a while.  Since she lives on the more northernly part of my island, she has wandered this area quite a bit, and she could tell me what I would find there and where to go.  We wandered across the first of the northern islands, which consists of mostly well-to-do newer neighborhoods and apartment complexes, some of them gated communities, as well as St. Petersburg's amusement parks.  Then we crossed to the smallest of the three islands, Yelagin Ostrov, which consists entirely of a park (Central Park of Culture and Rest).  We stayed there for a while, exploring the wooded trails of the park, then Qaiocu set off for home - she wanted to be back by 11:30 and it was already 10:50 by this point.  I sat on a bench and read for a while, but had to leave before midnight because that's when the park gates close.  The White Nights are basically over, but it's still quite something that I can sit on a bench at 11:30 pm and have enough light to read a book!  
• So, it was after this, when I was wandering slowly across Petrogradsky Island towards the bridges which would open at 1:30, that I realized just how dangerous was the situation in which I found myself.  I was: 1) a 19-year-old 2) female 3) walking alone 4) past midnight 5) on a weekend night 6) in a large city 7) in a foreign country 8) where I didn't speak the language very well 9) in a part of town that I had never been before.  However, by the time I realized this, I was already equidistant from both my apartment and the bridges; it made just as much sense to continue as it would have to return home and wait until the bridges rose.  So I continued, stopping into a 24-hour produkti for a candy bar to bolster my energy. 
• Fortunately, the night progressed without incident, and the bridges were truly something to see - it was definitely worth it.  At least I conclusively discovered that it gets dark at night - but all of the bridges are bedecked with plenty of lights.  I got some great pictures before returning to my apartment and crawling into bed at 2:45.

And now, since I haven't even gotten to the most exciting part of my weekend and already another is upon us, I shall sign off for the present, hoping to complete my tale soon, in another post.

What's up with this Weather?

Last week was definitely a regression.  But, every cloud has a silver lining, so I can't say that it was all bad.

• The weather all week was absolutely horrendous.  I don't think there was a single day below 27 (80 degrees Farenheit) and the beginning of the week got up to 32 or 33 (low 90s).  We finally got some thunderstorms on Thursday, though not nearly as intense as two weeks ago, and they didn't cool the air as much as I might have hoped.  I cannot stand being hot - I've begun taking ice-cold showers at night just so that I can sleep.  Being used to a cool climate, I overheat much more easily than I get cold.  Not to mention, St. Petersburg isn't very clean by any standards, and after a couple of days of such heat, the city begins to fester and the stench is oppressive.  I've heard that St. Petersburg hasn't had such heat as this for more than 40 years.  Interestingly enough, we are reading Crime and Punishment in Russian now, and the book is set in the summer of 1865, which year experienced weather very similar to this now.  June was cold and rainy, but July was unbearably hot.  Fortunately, the city is in much better condition now than it was in 1865, and the neighborhood where my apartment is on the nicer side, and I'm not a dirt-poor student with crazy ideas about "extraordinary people" to whom the law doesn't apply, so I'm not likely to go out and kill an old pawn-broker to test whether some crimes are useful to humanity :]  (In case you're confused, that's the basic plot of Crime and Punishment.  If you want more: Crime and Punishment: Wikipedia)  But, at least my wardrobe is appropriate now!  I no longer have anything to complain about concerning my clothing, and our apartment (which was so uncomfortably cold during cool, rainy June) is finally just right (although it gets kind of hot and stuffy sometimes, even so).  And, all of this sun means I'm getting a killer tan!! :]
• Speaking of tans, I shouldn't have tried my luck twice in a row.  As usual, I didn't wear sunscreen when I was outside last weekend; Saturday turned out all right, but I got burned pretty badly at the lake on Sunday.  As a result, my shoulders were especially tender at the beginning of this week, which is also when we had the hottest weather, so of course I was wearing tank tops.  Thus, when the strap of my 30-pound backpack-purse rubbed against my shoulder, it irritated it something awful. :P  This made for some pretty uncomfortable walks to and from the Institute, and I was often pretty grumpy by the time I got home after walking for 20 minutes in the oppressive heat with that heavy load.
• On Monday, we (Aryeh, Emily, and I) tried to make our hostel bookings for Moscow, knowing that they were best done sooner rather than later (for a weekend in the summer in Moscow, it isn't hard to imagine that all of the best hotel and hostel rooms fill quickly).  Unfortunately, this gets slightly complicated since our party consists of two females and one male.  We eventually found a reputable hostel in a good location that wasn't too expensive and Emily and I were able to get places all right, but when Aryeh went to book for himself he discovered that there were no more beds.  Of course, I would rather cancel the reservation and swallow the cost of the deposit than have us be in separate hostels; so, that's what we did.  We tried again on Tuesday and found beds in another hostel for only $16 per person per night, and the place seemed quite reputable and safe, all things considered.  Nonetheless, it will be an adventure, but then again, isn't that what I'm here for?  And after all, the opportunity to travel to a major European city for only $215 (when I add up the cost of travel and lodging) is really something that won't happen very often in my life, so in the end it will be worth it, I believe.  :]
• On Monday we had the opportunity to tour the Alexandrinsky theater, which was the first public theater in Russia.  It was very interesting to hear the history of the theater, and see where the tsar and his family would sit to watch the performances, and the secret passage that he would use when he wanted to visit the theater surreptitiously, and the museum that contains all sorts of costumes from different performances of the 19th century.  The theater itself resembled a mini Mariinsky theater; that is, it was designed and built in the same style, although with much less grandeur.  As usual, I took lots of pictures. :]
• So, I have finally given up on my Russian friend.  Her communication has been sporadic all summer, and the only thing we have done together is the outing to Petergoff - and you can read about how well that went. :P  I messaged her with all of the things that I had discovered that I wanted to, very excited and asking which she would prefer.  Her answer was indifferent, but at least indicated what she would like to do; however, when I asked her when she would be free, she told me that she works and so she usually isn't (It's summertime.  How much can you possibly work that you aren't free at all, even in the evenings or weekends?)  After sending her two texts on Wednesday, regarding activities planned for Friday and Saturday and would she like to come? and receiving no answer, I had reached the end of my patience.  I told Anna B- of my troubles on Friday, and she talked to the woman who organizes the program, and by Friday evening I had two new Russian friends, who seemed very eager to hang out with me!!  If I had known that it was that simple, I would have asked weeks ago.  It seems that I'm not the only one who hasn't had luck with the program, though: aside from Mykola, who hangs out with his Russian friend Masha and all of her friends nearly every day, most of the Princeton kids are having a hard time arranging activities with their assigned friends.  It makes me curious as to the criteria for the Russian students, since obviously not very many of them are enthusiastic about hanging out with the Americans (even if everything is paid for...).
• All of these things - the heat, my physical discomfort, and the unfriendliness of my Russian friend - combined to bring back the sense of loneliness that I felt so strongly in my first couple of weeks here.  However, I have good friends here that won't let me wallow in self-pity for long, and Mykola (whom Latalia and I have agreed is the nicest guy in the group) has promised to invite me along when he and Masha are hanging out sometime.  I'm still studying a lot of the time, but not so much to drive me crazy anymore.  All in all, I don't think I really have any reason to complain; it must just be that I miss my friends (I'm not particularly close to any of the other Princeton students, and since I don't live in the city center, we rarely see each other outside of school). But I'm only here for another three weeks, so I should really focus on all of the opportunities I have rather than the things that I'm missing.  :] 
• The other big thing that I struggled with last week was money.  I withdrew money again on Monday - 10000 rubles this time.  I don't think I had really thought through how much money I was going to use this summer, and I certainly hadn't prepared myself to spend so much.  I worked very hard during the school year at a job that paid very well and was careful enough with my money that I didn't have many expenses, so I had built up quite a nest egg in my checking account.  Even after paying for my $1900 plane ticket (albeit $1000 of that came as a gift from my grandparents' estate) I had $1700 to my name at the beginning of the summer.  It was exciting, having a significant sum of money for the first time in my life.  But, probably because of my wonderfully frugal mother, I have a great fear of spending money.  After I made the withdrawal on Monday, it really hit me that this was my very own money that I was spending, and that I only had so much of it.  It didn't help matters that this was also the week that I received my new Financial Aid award for the next school year and saw that, since I hadn't had time to apply for any outside scholarships in the spring, I would be expected to contribute several thousand dollars more to my education than I had the previous school year.  Part of this contribution is $2500 labeled "Summer Savings" - and as I realized with a sinking heart, not only did I not begin the summer with $2500, I was only decreasing the sum available to me as the summer wore on.  This news, combined with my natural instincts, put me into a very frenzy of saving money.  I had already made several purchases that, in hindsight, seemed to me so frivolous.  For instance, the 2400 rubles I had spent on my Swan Lake ticket seemed to haunt me, and since my Russian friend has been so uncooperative, I have had to pay for all "Russian friend" outings out of my own pocket.  As a result, even the money I was spending on lunch every day seemed to grow more and more significant, and I resolved to stop buying food in the cafeteria, as I could feed myself more cheaply from the store.  Thus, I bought a half-loaf of bread and a package of cheesesticks (the individually wrapped mozzerella kind you eat for lunch in elementary school) and a bag of apples for 10 rubles each and made that my lunch every day.  Never mind that it was plain, and not very satisfying, and that by Thursday the bread had gone moldy and the apples soft - it was cheap.  
• Fortunately, I have now been able to snap myself out of this horribly destructive way of thinking, by counting my blessings instead of my expenses.  I go to a wonderful school, on a wonderful financial aid package (I even got a scholarship to pay the tuition for this program).  I had a fantastic job last year that allowed me to save up money for this summer.  I will have an even higher-paying job in the fall, and I will also be taking on a second one that has a lower pay rate but requires less attention (i.e. I can do my homework while on the job).  The very fact that I'm here in Russia is a wonderful opportunity that would have cost me much more money had I not done it through Princeton.  The experiences I am having - from seeing Swan Lake (the classic Russian ballet) in the most famous theater in the city to the life-skills I am learning by fending for myself in a foreign city - are nearly priceless.  I should be enjoying myself, not worrying about the money that I am spending to the detriment of my health, or nutrition, or enjoyment of this wonderful opportunity.  And above all, do I not serve a great God?  Does he not own "the cattle on a thousand hills"?  Has He not already provided for me "over and above anything I could ever ask or imagine"?  Can He not continue to provide for me, regardless of my expenses?  And so I refuse to worship at the altar of economy.  I refuse to squander this opportunity that I have been given because I am worrying about the price of my lunch.  I will have many years in the workforce to worry about budgets and bills and stewardship.  Now is my time to enjoy what I have been given.  And I shall.

So, for those of you who are so inclined, I would ask that you pray for my emotional health as I am here.  Pray that I will stop feeling so lonely and overwhelmed and uptight about money; that I will let these things go and trust God and take full advantage of the wonderful and unique opportunities that I have this summer.  I am making fantastic memories that are worth more than all of the money that I could be saving by staying at home for these two months.  I want to be able to keep things in perspective, and to glorify God in everything, whether it seems good or bad at the time.  And if any of you have any prayer requests, or especially any encouraging words, please send them along to me via Facebook or email.  I will take all of the encouragement that I can get, and I would love to hear anything from all of you for whom I am writing this chronicle.  Most twewthfully (thank you, David Leyva, for pointing out this pun to me), I love and miss you all.  God Bless!

Independence Day Abroad

There was one more exciting thing that happened to me on Saturday: since Sunday was the 4th, we were all discussing how we would celebrate Independence Day.  Most people seemed in favor of celebrating in a very Russian way (i.e. going to a bar and getting drunk) which I, naturally, opposed.  However, I was studying Saturday night when I received a phone call from one of the other members of my group, Anna P-, who said that she had been discussing this with her host mother when her host mom offered to have us all over to her dacha!!  Now, the opportunity to see a real Russian summer house, especially as a way to celebrate our most American holiday, seemed just too ironic to pass up, so of course I agreed. :]  Unfortunately, the outing was an all-day affair, so I wasn't able to go to church, but there are some things you only get one chance to do (and it is looking less and less like we will be invited to Tatyana's dacha, so I figured I should take the chance when I am offered it :P).  We met at 11 am at one of the most northernly metro stations in the city, from which we took an электричка (train) out into the country.  It took an entire hour just to get to the train station from the metro stop near my apartment - St. Petersburg is a big city!!  The train ticket cost 60 rubles, round trip.

Leave it to me not to be able to even get around the city without having an adventure :]  About two stops from the end of the metro line, there was an announcement that everyone had to get off the train and wait for the next one.  I just barely heard it - it was a long metro ride and I was going to the end of the line, so I was listening to my iPod.  I still don't know why we had to vacate the train, but I got on the next one and finished my journey without any problems.  

The group consisted of Anna, Molly, Kelly, Emily, me, Mykola, Andrew, and Hayk.  It was a good group and just the right size - big enough so that no one felt left out but small enough to all fit around the dining room table.  :]  It was good to be in a group of friends again: when we go places with the entire PiP group (17 people) it feels more like a school field trip, it's too impersonal.  This felt more like a holiday.  As we were waiting for the train we were approached by a Russian girl our age who pegged us as Americans and tried out her English on us (she spoke very well).  Then the train arrived, and the real adventures began.  It was so crowded!!! I honestly don't know how we fit into the train: we were all standing, pressed up against one another in the foyer of the train car.  I couldn't move in any more because there were mothers with small children directly in front of me, and I didn't want to crush them.  And kids weren't the only fragile beings in the train car: a lady near me was trying to hold onto a tabby kitten that couldn't have been more than three weeks old and kept mewing silently and trying to explore during the entire train ride, and another woman beside me held a cat carrier in which was a fully-grown and very frightened orange cat.  I didn't see any dogs, but I'm sure they must have been around; I would think it more likely for people to take their dogs to the dacha than their cats (and I'm assuming that's where they were all going, heading out of the city on a Sunday morning).  It was so crowded that not all of us could get into the same train car and we were forced to separate: Emily, Mykola and Hayk weren't with the rest of the group, but we maintained phone contact during the ride.  It was absolute chaos: no one knew where we were going or how many stops to wait.  But somehow we all managed to detrain (again, if you can deplane, you can detrain.  I am going to make up an entire new family of verbs based on this stupid idea ^.^) at the correct stop and set off for the dacha, following Anna's host mom like ducks in a row.

Anna's host mom is a hoot.  She can't be younger than 50, but she's the kind of person you would love to have as your grandmother.  She's really fun and she has a huge personality.  She knows a bit of English (a few words here and there) which she uses generously, although at this point we all have MUCH better listening comprehension :]  On the way to the dacha (about a 10-minute walk from the train station) she pointed out the various plants along the road, including Russian bird-ox which she insisted on throwing at us so that the burrs stuck to our clothes :]  And she is SO hospitable - the picture of a Russian babushka.  We had a great time at her dacha.

Finally we arrived.  The dacha definitely resembles an American summer camp in the woods or on the beach.  It is a smallish wooden house with 8 or so rooms and an attic, as well as a large garage/storage shed and what used to be a sizeable in-ground pool but is now just a small inflatable above-ground one (Anna's host mom explained that the other got a hole in it, unfortunately :P).  It was already 12:30 by the time we arrived, so we all sat down to eat the lunches we had brought with us.  Anna had told us to do so because she was unsure about the food situation.  As I have probably already ranted enough, the food in Russia is unbelievably cheap.  I was able to buy a loaf of bread, cheese, a juice box and a булочка for only 74 rubles, and I was quite proud of myself for this.  However, we were soon to be surprised; Anna's host mom started bringing out food for us!  It is no small feat to feed 8 college students a substantial lunch, but she managed it:  we started out with a giant loaf of bread and some cheese, from which we all made sandwiches; then she brought out a heaping plate of sliced cucumbers, which were quickly consumed; she then followed this with some delicious meat-and-noodle soup (the meat was very tender, either pork or lamb).  When she served us the soup (it was pretty funny: she fed the boys from large bowls, while the girls' dishes were much smaller) she also brought out six large and very silvery spoons and announced "These spoons were in the Gulag.  Who wants one?"  Of course, we all did.  I'm pretty sure they were made of aluminum, and we definitely could have bent them with very little trouble.  (The Gulag, for those of you who don't know, is an abbreviation that has now come to stand in for the entire system of Soviet forced-labor camps which existed from the 1930s-1950s; while not nearly as atrocious as the Nazi concentration camps, they worked on essentially the same basis, with poor conditions and hard labor characterizing the lives of the criminals and political prisoners sent there.  Thank you, Wikipedia.)

After our scrumptious lunch, Anna's host mom went over to a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of champagne, placing it on the table and declaring, "To America!"  She then repeated the process with a second bottle of champagne, a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola, and a bottle of some suspiciously dark homemade wine.  Now, all of you who know me know I don't drink, but I would be lying if I said that I'm not the least bit curious about why so many people do.  As it was a holiday, and as I was in a group of my friends, and as I am in Russia where the drinking age is 18, and as drinking alcohol in general is actually not against any of my beliefs, I decided to try it.  So there; Erin Mills has now had alcohol.  Please don't be too shocked.  :D  It was so gross!!!!!!!!!!!  The champagne taste was not so bad: I've had sparkling cider before, and the champagne tasted similar to that.  But the alcohol: the sharp bite and the prickling all the way down my throat - it was so gross and weird!!  Therefore, I can now say that I have tried alcohol and I don't like it.  It may be true that another kind of alcohol - beer, wine, vodka, etc. would taste very different and I would like it: I don't know.  But I don't need to know, because now I can say that I don't drink because I'm still underage (in America), I'm scared of alcohol and particularly of how I would be drunk, and because I've tried it and I don't like it.  (Not to mention that alcohol tends to lead to drunkenness, which is expressly and repeatedly warned against in the Bible, as well as to other illicit behaviors which I have no desire to take part in or be witness to.)  And that is that.

So, back to our adventurous day.  As it turns out, there is a lake not far from Anna's host mom's dacha, so we decided to go there and swim on account of the day being so hot.  So we walked back to the train station and took it one stop further (fortunately this time, at 1:30, it was much less crowded).  The train tracks literally ran along the edge of the lake, so it was about 50 feet to the beach.  We weren't the only ones who had the idea to go to the beach this day: it was so crowded we could hardly find a place to put our stuff!  However, we finally succeeded and proceeded to enjoy the perfect day.  Although we were so extremely far north, the water in the lake wasn't much colder than in a lake in Maine (which, if you ask a normal person, is probably pretty cold, but at least I'm used to it), so it felt wonderful on such a hot day.  The lake bottom was soft sand and the gradient so gradual that you could go out 200 feet and still not be in water over your head.  There we spent an extremely pleasant afternoon alternately sunbathing and playing in the lake.  Hayk had brought his soccer ball, so we played pass for a while, but we quickly tired of that and moved on to chicken fights.  This game requires four people at a time: two people stand on the lake bottom and one person sits on the shoulders of each of the "bases," from which standpoint the person on top tries to knock their opponent into the water.  It is one of the most fun water games I have ever played, although we usually don't get much of an opportunity in pools and such (too much adult supervision :P).  The last time I played this, in fact, was one year ago at Jasmin Burfeind end-of-year foreign exchange student party, with Nikola, Alicia Lane, and the Meehans (shortly before mud-wrestling Nikola and losing badly :P).  The conditions at the lake were perfect: the bottom was soft, so it wouldn't hurt the bases' feet to hold someone on their shoulders and move around, and since the lake was so shallow we could move quite a ways off from shore so that we wouldn't bother as many people while we were being loud, obnoxious Americans.  Naturally, the boys were the bases (although one of them, Andrew, has a runner's build and thus weighs less than I do) and the girls fought it out on top.  I think I won more than I lost, although I can't properly remember.  It doesn't matter, anyway; it was all in fun.  I do remember that Hayk was the champion base: whoever was on his shoulders always won.  Probably because he's 6 feet and 180 pounds, with nice broad shoulders and good balance.  I personally want to make another excursion to the lake some weekend with the rest of the group: I think Phil the gymnast could give Hayk a run for his money ^.^ :P

We arrived at the lake around 2:30; by 5:00 we were all ready to leave.  We packed up and returned to the dacha (as did everyone on the beach, it seemed - the train was once again extremely full) where Anna's host mom surprised us with even more food: this time, homemade blini.  We passed the time before dinner playing Mafia, and discovered that I shouldn't be Mafia because I make too much noise when I play.  I don't make a very good God either, because I have a hard time keeping silent during the discussions.  I bet you can't imagine that ;]  In any case, a grand time was had by all, and the blini were delicious.  We had both apple and raspberry preserves to put on them, which were both very sweet and flavorful.  We also had tea in the traditional Russian way: there was a small teapot of previously-brewed tea, extremely strong: you took as much as that as you wanted, according to how strong you wanted your tea, then filled the cup the rest of the way with scalding water.  Much more interesting and precise than using teabags, and less messy than tea leaves.  :]

So, sunburnt and with full stomachs, we returned to the city.  The train at 7:30 was again, much less crowded than it had been in the morning or at 5; it must be all about picking the right time.  I finally reached the apartment again at 8:45, where Latalia was waiting for me with some stories of her own.  Being tired from the day before, she had opted to revisit the Hermitage Museum in lieu of the lake, and even after hearing about all of my amazing adventures, was glad that she had done so.  She had also scoped out the souvenir stalls which are located near all of the main tourist attractions and could give me the specs on potential prices.  One thing I was especially glad to hear: bickering is acceptable and almost expected.  However, if they gather that you are an American tourist, you may find a great deal more resistance, so I'll have to be careful :P

Thinking about the zoo (which had been my original plan for Sunday, and which I have yet to visit), we decided to check out my guidebook and see whether we could find the price of admission.  Interestingly enough, neither of the guidebooks that Aunt Shirley gave me make any mention of the zoo (it is reputed to have atrocious conditions for the animals - apparently both National Geographic and Frommers, the companies my guidebooks are from, are animal-rights activists :P) but we did manage to find some other extremely interesting things: in particular, a Dolphinarium, a roller-blade rental company, and a wax museum.  Now those are my kinds of attractions!!!! XD :D  At least now I know of several things I want to do: hopefully I can get my Russian friend to do them too, and then Princeton will pay for them!!  Yay for free money!!!!  :D

Novgorod!

This was definitely the best weekend so far.  In fact, it was so good that it deserves two blog entries all to itself.  Things have really turned around and I'm starting to really enjoy my time here.  I trust that this will continue.  :]

Side note: this blog entry is going up much later than normal: on Monday we had an excursion directly after school and on Tuesday I got about halfway through writing the blog when the internet in the computer lab crashed.  Obviously I was not supposed to post this on time :P  Hopefully I can get it finished before it's time to write another one...

My weekend actually began on Friday evening, when we went out to dinner at the restaurand "The Idiot" with our beloved professor, Stas.  Because he is a Princeton professor (as he would probably say, "There is no rest for the weary") he actually has to work on professor-ish things during the summer, so he is only able to stay with us in St. Petersburg for one half of the program.  Which we are all incredibly sad about, because we all love Stas.  As much as I have already raved about him, not enough can be said about this professor.  He is so kind, and obviously actually cares about us: it's amazing.  The fact that we should all be so excited to go out to dinner with him on his last night in St. Petersburg should be proof.  In any case, the restaurant was very nice and we all enjoyed ourselves.  My only possible complaint was that it was a vegetarian restaurant, so I couldn't get any dishes with meat.  (I'm such a carnivore :])  However, I might not have gotten a meat dish anyway because it would have been fairly expensive, so I don't really mind.  I ended up ordering пирожки с картофелем (potato dumplings) with сметана, which is very similar to sour cream; and it was delicious.  It was a high-class restaurant: we were also given bread and several flavors of butter, as well as complimentary shots.  I gave mine to Anna P- and toasted Stas with my water bottle (which I had, of course, brought from my apartment.  Water isn't free in the restaurants here ;]).  It was, overall, a thoroughly enjoyable evening. :]]

The next day was our trip to Veliky Novgorod.  This is an ancient city in Russia, founded in 862 or so, and it is located about 167 km (103 miles) from St. Petersburg.  It is traditional in the Princeton-in-St-Petersburg program to take a day trip there between the two semesters of the program. Since it is a significant distance from the city and we only take a day trip, we had to get up pretty early: we met at 7:45 on the other side of the city.  Thank God for the metro :P  Regardless, we had to leave the apartment by 7:00 to get there on time, but I'm a morning person, so it wasn't a big deal.  In fact, I ended up doing what my mom always does: waking up ridiculously early the day of travel and not being able to go back to sleep.  The White Nights are still in full force here, although the sun gets closer to the horizon every day; so when I woke up I couldn't tell whether it was 3am or 7am.  As it turns out, it was 4:44.  :P  But, as I couldn't fall asleep again (and had to get up in an hour and 15 minutes anyway), I enjoyed a nice extended prayer time for all of my friends and family back home, especially for everyone at Living Waters, where I would normally be working in the summer.  I finally got up at 6, and we got ourselves breakfast (as usual, T.T. was at her dacha for the weekend) and packed lunches before heading out for our adventure.  We arrived just on time and no one was exceptionally late, so we were able to stay mostly on schedule.  We took a private bus to Novgorod (which conveniently happened to fit us all) and it took about 2.5 hours to get there.  I tried to catch some more shut-eye on the bus, but the atrocious road conditions and my seat in the far back made that rather difficult.  Unfortunately I had forgotten my hard ginger candies (which help alleviate motion sickness), or I would have read to pass the time.
We finally arrived at the city a little before 11 and waited around for about 15 minutes before our tour guide met us.  We went on a short bus tour of the city (it only took about 40 minutes to cover all of the interesting parts) before debusing (if you can deplane, you can debus ^.^) and exploring the крепость (fortress) and St. Sophia's Cathedral on foot.  The weather, as it was all last week, was gorgeous (чудесная in Russian - Tatyana was really impressed when she figured out that we knew that word, even though we learned it on about the third day of class here ;P) but almost too hot and we quickly tired of walking around.  It was really cool to see the inside of a working Orthodox cathedral, though: it is very dark inside because of the lack of windows and every surface, walls and ceiling, is covered with paintings of saints and biblical scenes.  Every Orthodox cathedral is split into three parts: the outer part, near the western-facing door, is for the women, children, and poor people (in olden times: now they can enter the main part of the church) and is supposed to represent hell: the scenes painted are often of torture and frightening things.  The main part of the cathedral is where the men gather to worship: it is representative of earth.  There are never pews or seats because in the Russian Orthodox tradition, suffering leads to salvation so it is better to stand.  The icons in the main part are mainly of saints, both traditional and local.  There are sometimes sarcophoguses (sarcophogi?) of famous or influential church leaders along the sides of the churches; I saw many people go up to these and kiss the top of them.  There are many candles lit around the room, which I am assuming serve a similar role as those in Catholic churches (if only I knew what that was, ignorant Protestant that I am ;]) but these provide the only additional light.  The final section of the cathedral, the "paradise," is separated from the rest by an iconostasis: a wall that reaches most of the way to the ceiling of the cathedral and is richly decorated with several rows of icons.  Only the priests are allowed behind it (although I have no idea what is back there: do Orthodox churches have altars??).  All in all, the cathedrals have a very solemn atmosphere, and I'm sure that the worshippers who come there are going through all of the rituals that they believe will lead to salvation; but it makes me glad that I know Jesus and that he isn't looking for me to do anything perfectly in order to earn my place in Heaven. 
After the tour of the fortress, we were all very hot and tired and hungry; good thing lunch was next on the itinerary.  We had a nice surprise at the cafe where we went for lunch: it was already paid for!  That was really great, and it ended up being a very nice three-course meal (Russians take food very seriously :]).  First was a salad that I wasn't very fond of because it contained atrocious amounts of tomatoes (I am not a tomato fan).  The next course was chicken noodle soup, (which surprised me that it wasn't something more Russian: they certainly have enough traditional soups...) followed by the main course of meat (I think it was either pork or lamb) and potatoes and coleslaw and peas.  We had both water and some really yummy (but ambiguous) fruit juice to drink.  
Then it was time to tour the monastary.  Since it was a working monastary, all of the women in our group were required to wear headscarves.  Latalia and I were able to borrow some from Tatyana: I got a giant pink polka-dotted silk scarf and Latalia received a somewhat more moderately-sized floral print one.  It was pretty awkward trying to figure out how to put it on, but apparently Russian Orthodox isn't nearly as strict as Islam; the head only had to be covered symbolically, it wasn't like we had to hide all of our hair or anything.  We saw inside yet another orthodox cathedral, but overall didn't stay at the monastary for very long.  Our next stop was a much more interesting one: we went to a Museum of Wooden Architecture.  It was a collection of wooden buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries which had been turned into museum pieces and filled with artifacts from the time period.  We saw inside the houses of a typical middle-class family, a typical poor family, and a working-class family.  We also saw some really amazing wooden chapels and cathedrals, decorated every bit as extravagantly as St. Basil's in Moscow or Church of the Spilled Blood here in St. Pete.  I got some great pictures there (although I was informed that I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the buildings a little after the fact - whoops!).  There was a great little souvenir market right outside the museum where I bought various souvenirs because they weren't too expensive there.  I'm kind of dreading the souvenir shops in St. Pete - the prices are notoriously exorbitant.  Let's just say, some of you may be receiving more "unconventional" souvenirs :]]
After the museum, we headed back to St. Petersburg.  It was unbelievably hot in the bus: the American Northeast isn't the only place that's had a heat wave this last week.  (Monday got above 100 degrees Farenheit, which is exceptionally unusual for Russia's Northern Capital)  Thanks to our crazy driver, we made it home in just over 2 hours (although at some points I think I would have rather been traveling more safely and less quickly!)  It was another hour before Latalia and I reached home again, so we finally got to the apartment at 8:30.  Since lunch had been paid for, we were able to eat the food T.T. packed us for our supper (sandwiches and yogurt).  I took a shower just to cool off before spending the evening studying (okay, we haven't even started the second semester and we have homework? Leave it to Princeton... :P) before hitting the sack at 11:30, more than ready for a good night's sleep.  


As usual, I didn't wear any sunscreen on Saturday (I don't believe in it) and I wore a tank top since it was so hot.  However, the sun here so far north isn't quite as strong as it is elsewhere, so I ended up getting a nice tan without burning.  So there.  :]]

Summer rain

Wow, what a week.  It's really hard to believe that the program is halfway over.

• On Monday, our group ate at a Georgian restaurant: Georgian food has a similar relationship to Russian food that Mexican fare has to us in America: foreign enough to be popular, but still not too far off from what we normally eat.  We ordered (on recommendation of Anna, who had been to that particular restaurant before) хачупури, which is a bread dish baked with cheese and possibly other foods inside.  We got one with just cheese, and one with eggs and cheese.  Unfortunately the cheese was very bitter (I think that's called old cheese) and I didn't really like it (it reminded me of the cheese they had at the Serbian wedding reception).  But overall, the dish was fairly tasty.  We also ate шашлыкы (shishkebabs) made from both chicken and lamb (the lamb was really good, but much more expensive: this is only the second time in my life I've eaten lamb) with a really yummy and slightly spicy sauce.  The restaurant is located on the mainland, but in a part of St. Petersburg I hadn't been to yet; also, since it was Monday and we spent all weekend studying, I decided to walk to the restaurant.  It was more than an hour's walk, but not significantly more complicated or lengthy than riding the metro would have been; besides, that neighborhood is very beautiful, along one of the many canals of the city.  However, walking home was a different story; my legs were tired and Latalia started not feeling so well, so we decided to take a маршрутка for part of the way.  I really don't know why they warned us in Princeton against taking маршрутки - I don't find them any less safe than a bus, and they're quicker (if a bit more expensive).  I had a bit of a challenge convincing timid Latalia of this (she hadn't been on a маршрутка yet) but finally settled the matter by getting on; she had to follow or find her own way home (a little mean, but the маршрутка would have driven away if we hadn't gotten on, and I didn't want to walk the rest of the way).  Unlike our last adventure with public transportation, the маршрутка was going exactly where I thought it was, and we got off at the end of our street.  It was totally worth the 27 rubles.  
• Also on Monday, I made a serious shopping trip to "7я семья" to replenish the snack food that I had finally consumed.  I spent 200 rubles and bought animal crackers (they aren't as good as in America :[), salty crackers (which are AMAZING after all of the sweet things I've been having), more pretzel-dough ring things (these ones are cheap and soft and GROSS :P), more peanuts, a couple of булочки (small pastries, sometimes with a fruit or творег filling), and some APPLES!!!!  Okay, so here's the story on the fruit.  One of the other members of our group, Mattias, had been bringing in apples every day as a snack; and since our supper always consists mainly of meat and starch, I was desperately craving some fruit and extremely jealous of him.  He said that the apples were only about 10 rubles each, but every store that I looked in had prices around 56 rubles.  I didn't understand and was getting pretty fed up when I looked more closely at the price tags and realized that the prices were per kilogram.  Duh.  Anyway, I'm really glad that I found that out; at "7я семья" I can buy Granny Smiths for less than 10 rubles each!!!!  Having the fruit this week has been AMAZING.  I didn't even realize just how much I missed it until I bit into that first one.  It was, to quote Molly, "a religious experience."  But really, thank God for fruit and cheap food.  
• Actually, I've made a trip to a store nearly every day this week.  Monday was the biggest, but I stopped back at "7я семья"on my way to school Tuesday and bought a drinkable yogurt for lunch (strawberry, of course ;]).  On Wednesday I trekked out to Идея, another grocery store a couple of blocks from the Institute, where I bought another 8-liter container of water and some булочки с яблоками (apple pastries) for 15 rubles each.  They have become my morning snack every day.  I was much smarter about the water this time than last: I walked back to the nearest bus stop and rode an автобус most of the way home.  (I have officially mastered public transportation in St. Petersburg.  I think I have due occasion to be proud.)
• Tuesday also marked my first unofficial outing (of what I hope will be many).  Mattias and I went to this old orthodox cemetary on his island that he often runs past but wanted to explore more fully.  It was so cool!  The graveyards in Russia are vastly different than those in America: they are designed to become overgrown, instead of looking like perfectly manicured lawns.  The outside of the graveyard had tombstones from the 19th century, and it really looked like a woods: the trees had grown up around the graves and there were ferns and flowers everywhere almost obscuring the stone or metal crosses.  We knew it was mostly orthodox because of the cross with the extra, slanted bar on the bottom (although I have yet to research what that means).  The middle part of the cemetary, however, was comprised of very recent graves: many people had death dates within the last 10 or 20 years.  As such, this part of the cemetary was open and not yet overgrown, although we could see how the dirt was left on the graves so that plants could grow undisturbed.  The graves themselves were very different, too: it appeared that instead of burying the bodies in coffins, it is much more popular to be cremated in Russia.  Each tombstone stood at the head of what looked much like a stone bathtub: a hollow structure raised above ground with stone or (if the person was much poorer) metal walls, filled with dirt and presumably the remains of the person.  It seemed that the tombstones followed patterns: persons who died in the early 1800s had mostly metal crosses, while those of a bit later were often comprised of pebbles pressed into concrete, forming a sort of crude mosaic; the newest ones were granite or marble (as you might see in America) and a few had elaborate wooden crosses with icons on them.  One thing that I noticed that I had never seen before was that many of the people who died in the recent past had a portrait of themselves etched into the marble of their tombstone.  These were mostly busts of the people when they were in their prime, although we saw one rather extravagant full portrait and an apparent filmmaker who put a picture of a camera on his gravestone in lieu of any religious imagery.  Some of the stones had messages like you might expect: "in loving memory" and such (all in Russian, of course).  There weren't enough of these for me to notice a pattern, whether there are typical things to put on a gravestone (like we might put "rest in peace").  The other big thing I noticed was that none of the graves dated from the Soviet era.  Many of the older ones were from the 19th century, and there were many from the last 20 years, but if there was any death date between 1920 and 1990, that person was buried with someone who died outside of that time frame.  I wonder whether, since there was a chapel in the middle of the graveyard and it was obviously a very religious place, the Soviets closed it during their time of power (since they shunned nearly everything religious).  It definitely gave me something to think about...  otherwise, it was very clear that Russians respect their dead in many of the same ways as we do.  There were many bouquets of flowers on the graves, both real and fake, as well as many candles and jars of incense (which are more characteristic of Orthodox Christianity).  Some of the graves were simple and humble, while others were extravagant and displayed the wealth of the surviving family (some might even be worthy of the title 'shrine' more than 'gravesite').  One last thing that caught my eye was what looked like letterboxes in one corner of the graveyard.  When Mattias and I got closer, we could see that some of the boxes had marble covers over them with names and dates, and many had flowers affixed: it was a condo-cemetary!  The cemetary was nearly full: I wonder whether the letterbox-graves are available for economic or space reasons.  In any case, that is something that you would never see in America.  
• The weather this week has really taken a turn for the better: ever since Sunday it has been warm, sunny (and mostly clear) although it is often very windy here not far from the Baltic Sea.  I even got a bit of a tan from wandering the graveyard Tuesday (it was a full two hours from the time we left the institute until I finally got home) including a tan line across my chest from my purse :P  Well, such is life: it's better than the "farmer-jane" tan I usually get in the summer from my constant outfit of T-shirts and jeans :]
• On Tuesday Latalia and I met Tatyana's older daughter, Olya, for the first time.  She had been in Turkey during the month of June, on vacation from work, but now her vacation time is up and she has to come back to work (although she tells us that she has a really great job, so that's not a sad thing for her).  She is married and has a 6-year-old daughter, Nastya, whom we have yet to meet.  But Olya was home for supper on Tuesday night and we got to introduce ourselves to her.  Meeting someone new really brought home for me how much my Russian has improved; I understood nearly all of her questions and I found it fairly easy to respond.  If this is what has happened after only four weeks, I can't wait to see how things will be after eight!!  So, we talked a lot to Olya, and learned that T.T. would be going to the dacha for the next couple of days, so Olya would be preparing our meals (as if we can't do it ourselves - I think hospitality is a really important thing with the Russians, so I won't take it as an insult to my intelligence).  I really liked Olya: she was very nice, and interested in our lives, and she looks a lot like her mother :]  She also takes care to speak slowly and clearly to us, but she only knows about as much English at Tatyana.  Overall I hope we made a mutual good impression.
• One funny (and embarassing, to tell the truth) story about Tuesday:  I had told T.T. about having been a Presidential Scholar and going to the White House and meeting Joe Biden.  She was (in my opinion) overly impressed; anyway, she bragged about me to her daughter (that's a little backwards...).  Then Olya asked about how many people were in the program.  I estimated... "around 70," I said.  They looked impressed.  Then Olya asked how they were selected, and I explained that there were two from each state, as well as a few Arts Scholars... then Tatyana asked me how many states there are.  "50" I confidently replied.  Then the last number that I had said reoccurred to me... sheepishly, I corrected myself and said that there were probably about 120 people in the program.  50 x 2 still equals 100, even here in Russia... we all had a good laugh out of that one :P  I made my excuse by saying "I came here to study Russian, not math..."  So for all of you who may be misinformed to the contrary, I too make mistakes.  Silly ones, too.  :P
• On Tuesday night (actually Wednesday morning) at 1:40 am, my phone rang.  Now, usually I turn off my phone at night, because the alarm still goes off even if the phone is turned off.  I was also dead asleep at 1:40 am (like a normal person).  So at first I was very confused, because even in the White Nights I could tell that it wasn't 7am, when my alarm was set to go off.  By the time I reached my phone (which was still in my purse instead of on my desk) some part of my subconscious had registered that it was my ringtone, not my alarm, that was sounding, and I answered the phone.  The voice that met my ear was speaking in Russian, and somehow (don't ask me how) I understood that it was Olya and that she was telling me that her key wasn't working in the door, so would I please come and let her in?  I did, and met her profuse thanks with only a "пожалуйста" (you're welcome).  It was only upon reaching my couch-bed once again that I realized what a feat I had just accomplished.  Roused from a sound slumber I had not only recognized my ringtone but been able to understand spoken Russian and react appropriately.  I think that means I've reached some kind of level of internalizing Russian: I just hope I don't have to test that very often.  (Fortunately, I was able to go to bed early the next night and catch up on my disturbed slumber.)
• Olya made breakfast for us both Wednesday and Thursday morning.  She made it much earlier than Tatyana tends to: it was ready by 7:50 instead of the typical 8:07.  Latalia and I were very glad for this because it meant that our walk to school was much less rushed than usual.  In Conversation class on Wednesday we did a ток-шоу (literally pronounced "tok show-oo"- I love Russklicized English words) in Russian.  It was possibly the most fun I've had in class all semester.  Each member of our group was given a role (I was the daughter) and we role-played a talk show where we had to resolve a problem: Dad wants to travel but Mom would rather stay home and watch TV all vacation.  What should they do with the kids and pets?  Our professor was the family dog, and every time we talked about the family and fogot to mention her she would bark - "gaf-gaf"!  It was crazy fun.  In my group are probably 8 of the smartest people you could find, and then you put them together and unleash their collective creative genius.  It was like drama, all over again.  In Russian.
• Thursday we had our final exam in Grammar.  It wasn't too bad - only six pages, single-sided, and I remembered nearly everything: there was one concept I was unsure about but it turns out that I got it right in the end.  In the afternoon we had Conversation, as usual: every day our homework is to think about a certain subject in Russian, and at the beginning of class we talk about what we thought about.  (I say the beginning of class, but as the semester goes on this has gotten longer and longer - now it takes nearly an entire period to get through all 8 people and their thoughts, which I suppose is a mark of growth.)  This day the subject was "sports" and many people talked about the sports that they played when they were younger or what they currently do for exercise (we have a couple of serious runners in our class, including Mattias who seriously reminds me of Daddy in several ways :]).  Phil Miller, one of the kids in our class, was a diver in high school and also practiced gymnastics for a while: thus, he is very flexible.  During his time to talk he tried to explain what kind of gymnastics he did, but the teacher didn't understand, so he demonstrated by doing a backflip at the front of the classroom.  Fortunately, he didn't get hurt, but it looked pretty dangerous... Molly, one of the other girls in the class, told him that she would only be impressed if he did a handstand-pushup.  He's a guy: of course he tried it.  He did a handstand at the front of the room, but couldn't balance for very long: he went to rest his feet on the wall and instead they found the door, which (since it was unlatched) opened at the touch of his feet and he slowly and gracefully toppled upside-down into the hallway with a terrific 'thump.'  The other group was at this moment taking their grammar final in the adjoining classroom, and Stas was administrating it.  Upon hearing the commotion (according to later reports) he jumped several inches into the air before rushing out into the hallway.  All we saw was Phil get up, brush himself off (he was, of course, unhurt) and give Stas, who was now standing in the hallway, a sheepish smile before re-entering the classroom (and, might I add, continuing his shenanigans).  However, as I learned later, Stas, upon returning to the testing room, was heard to mutter, "That man will be the death of me," which is, of course, a very dramatic, romantic, and utterly Stas-ian thing to say.  I would be hard-pressed to say whether I've ever had a teacher who was kinder or cared more about us than Stas.  For his sake, I am quite sad that I will not be continuing with Russian but instead moving on to bigger and Deutsch-er things.  I also can't believe that he's leaving this weekend: I'm so glad that we at least get to eat dinner with him tonight before he returns home to his wife and daughter.  
• But this wasn't the only thing that made Thursday the highlight of my week.  I'm finally used to heels now (or, at least, the pair that I brought from America, which fit my feet exceptionally well and are quite comfortable, as heels go) so I was wearing them again on Thursday.  Just before class let out for the day there was a sunshower outside: the sky was bright blue, but the rain was pouring down.  It only lasted a few minutes, however, and by the time we started walking home the weather was beautiful again.  At least, it was beautiful right above us: as I reached the first intersection and looked down the road I could see a visible gray front of thunderheads quickly rolling towards us, complete with lightning and a gray curtain of rain.  I decided to try and beat the storm home, since I didn't have my umbrella with me.  I found out that you can, indeed, run in heels, as long as you keep well-balanced and take short steps.  I was still about three blocks from home, however, when the storm broke upon me.  Huge, sparse raindrops quickly evolved into a 'soak-you-to-the-skin' downpour before I could go more than 50 feet.  The thought crossed my mind at one point to seek shelter in a doorway or store, but as I looked around and didn't see any immediately nearby, and as I was already wet and had no idea how long the storm would last (and as the lightning and thunder were something terrible, directly overhead) I decided to book it for home and try my luck.  Not surprisingly, by the time I reached my apartment I was thoroughly saturated and water was streaming from my hair and skirt.  My purse was also soaked, but fortunately nothing was damaged (good thing, too: I had my iPod, phone, camera, wallet, and $125 textbooks in there!)  The storm subsided probably 10 minutes later, and then Latalia came home much drier than I (she had, intelligently, taken refuge in a store through the worst of it; she had also had her umbrella with her, and a coat on).  But the rain was warm, and honestly, had I not had my purse with me, I may not have hurried home so quickly: it's good for the soul to stop and dance in the rain every once in a while.  :]]  Besides, clothes dry, and you only live once!
• And that wasn't even the end.  About 6:00, another terrific storm rolled in.  From my desk I could see it approaching and hear the nearly incessant thunder through my open window.  It was so incredible that I took video of it, since pictures couldn't capture the unbelievable swiftness with which the clouds moved or the quick succession of thunderclaps.  There was even hail, for a little while!  I was forced to close my window because although the storm was moving parallel to that side of our building, the rain was falling so hard and so fast that it was splashing into the room off of the windowsill.  But again, the rain was warm and the air smelled so fresh afterwards that it wasn't really an unpleasant experience, after all. :]]  I was, however, glad to be inside during this display of God's power, which lasted nearly an hour!  And I mean, full-blown thunderstorm for nearly an hour, not just raining.  It was truly Awesome.  Unfortunately, Tatyana wasn't as lucky as Latalia and I; I'm not sure where she had gone, but she was intending to be back at 6 and was walking home when the storm hit.  She, being a native St. Petersburger, had her umbrella with her and took shelter somewhere, but by the time the storm was winding down at 7 Latalia and I were both very hungry.  (We're both accustomed to eating between 5 and 6 in the evening, at home.)  We didn't know where T.T. was, so we finally decided that fending for ourselves for supper, under the circumstances, was allowable.  Of course, as soon as we put the frozen блины in the microwave and started warming them up, Tatyana walked in.  I should have known.  But, she wasn't offended by us making our own supper, and only offered to help us prepare it now that she was home.  (Good thing, too; I was worried that she'd be mad at us, since she hardly ever lets us prepare our own meals.)  So supper was microwaveable ham-and-cheese blini and cold hamburger котлеты, made with a new recipe that actually turned out to be quite good (the meat was ground up and mixed with onions and some spice that I couldn't place but that made the burgers almost too tasty).
• Today I had my finals in Reading and Conversation: I don't know when we'll know our grades, but I'll let you know as soon as I find out.  I'm not too worried: the work is hard but I know I've vastly improved and I feel good about all three exams.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I got an A in Reading (but I don't know if the grades she handed out were only for some parts of the exam or the entire thing: it had four separate components - an essay, vocabulary exercise, recitation of a poem, and an oral response.  That was by far my most intense exam) and Conversation was really easy.  But we'll see.  I'm sure I'll live up to my expectations, as usual.  

So, another week gone.  The time has really started to fly by here.  This month I really want to take more advantage of the rich culture that surrounds me on every side in this beautiful city, whether that be going to the Hermitage more often (I could spend 20 hours there and still not see everything) or the other museums, or just wandering around the many parks and neighborhoods.  I want to go to the Necropolis, where you can see the tombs of Doestoevsky and Tchaikovsky; Peter and Paul's Cathedral, whose spire is the tallest point in the city and in which are buried all save two of the Russian tsars; the Field of Mars with the Eternal Flame in the middle; Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood, possibly the most picturesque (and certainly most Russian) cathedral in the city; Tsirk na Fontankyeh, the city circus; the zoo; and the list goes on.  Now that my Russian is much better and I've discovered that I won't necessarily get lost every time I step onto the metro, maybe I'll be less inclined to hole myself up in my room each afternoon and play endless rounds of Solitaire on my iPod (I kid you not, that is what I spent the last week doing).  But, only time will tell!!

The One-Month Mark

Today marks the one-month anniversary of my arrival in Europe.  By 18 days, this is the longest period I have ever been outside of the United States (and by 2 weeks the longest time I have spent in a country other than the US).  I think it perhaps a cause for celebration:  I think I'll forget homework for tonight and go for a good long wander around the city.  I'll meet my friends for dinner and then enjoy a peaceful stroll back home under the hazy glory of the White Nights.  (Wow, that almost sounds cool enough for me to have actually planned these things to coincide.  I'm going to blow my own cover on this one; none of those things have anything to do with the fact that I've been here a month.  The eating out is postponed from last week and I walk because I'm too stingy/nervous to take the metro.  I don't have to worry about homework because I study so much on the weekends.  But you are free to think of me what you like :P ;])

Seen from one angle, my weekend was incredibly boring and kind of pathetic.  It's a good thing I'm used to seeing things from a different angle.

• On Friday night, I decided to finally wash the clothes that I had worn when traveling from America.  It sounds disgusting, but it's because both the skirt and shirt are covered in sequins and marked "Hand wash only."  I don't usually pay attention to those kinds of things, but I like the sequins.  Here's a good side note: when traveling, your choice of clothing should be governed by both the comfort level of the clothes and the convenience of washing them.  I failed on the second count.  However, I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to hand-wash them; after all, they weren't stained or anything, they just reeked of sweat.  So I put some tepid water in the sink and poured in some of the detergent powder that we use over here.  Only then did I notice that the tags of both articles said "Hand wash cold" but I figured that wouldn't be a big deal.  Once again, I failed.  Both the shirt and skirt were made in India - I guess in India they don't know the meaning of "colorfast dye."  The colors in both articles ran like nothing I've ever seen before.  And the skirt was a bright, turquoise blue.  I'm just glad that a) I hand-washed them; and b) I didn't have anything else in the sink with them.  It was actually quite humorous - the water in the sink was a brilliant turquoise color.  I should have taken a picture.  However, I'm happy to announce that neither the skirt nor the shirt appear at all permanently the worse for wear, and they are clean (and fresh-smelling) now.  So that was my adventure of Friday.
• All Friday night and continuing through Saturday we were bombarded with thunderstorms and intermittent rain.  As a result, Latalia and I stayed home on Saturday and spent the entire day studying.  Which seems more boring than it is; I actually don't mind having a lazy study-day every once in a while.  There wasn't really any pressure, since it was the weekend; I got a lot accomplished; but I also had a lot of time to read and procrastinate.  It almost felt like summer vacation.  The most entertaining thing that happened all day was the thunder: when it got really close and boomed overhead, the noise would set off the burglar alarms in our building and the one next door.  Occasionally I worried that we might lose power; then I remembered that we're in a big city and not in Maine, and big cities don't usually have those problems.  Although when Latalia and I were walking around on Sunday we saw some pretty good-sized trees that had been blown down by the wind and rain, so perhaps it wasn't an entirely superfluous fear.
• On Sunday we went to church, as usual.  It always makes me smile to hear the same old familiar worship songs sung in Russian (when they're translated from English, they never make as much sense or sound as good but at least it helps me to learn new words and I can sing more easily because I already know the tune).  This week we sang "Your Love is Amazing," "Amazing Love," "I Could Sing of Your Love Forever," and "Your Name is Holy."  I videotaped us singing some of the choruses so that I can show the people at Calvary Chapel when I get back to America.  I hope they enjoy it as much as I do.
• Both on our way to church and afterwards Latalia and I ran across some kind of road race which was being run in St. Petersburg.  After later researching it I discovered that this is the "White Nights Marathon."  I found the information for it on some obscure marathon-review site where people can write reviews for the marathons they've run.  Most runners complained about the scarcity of refreshment as well as how the citizens of the city don't seem to care that there are people running a marathon around them.  I would say from observing the event that their remarks are quite accurate - I hadn't seen any sort of advertising for the race (not that I would have understood it anyway) and saw almost no one along the course cheering the runners.  The police would stop traffic on whatever section of road the runners were going along until they had all passed, then life resumed as normal.  From what I observed, it didn't seem that the citizens of St. Petersburg were very aware of this marathon, either - many marshrutka drivers and people in cars were honking and seemed confused as to why the traffic wasn't moving.  Kudos to the people running the marathon, though - it was a gorgeous day for it but SO WINDY!!  We saw lots of old people walk-running and even some in athletic wheelchairs :]
• After church, Latalia and I decided to visit the Hermitage, since the weather had vastly improved and we on no account wanted to stay at home studying for another afternoon.  So, we grabbed a quick lunch at MacDonalds (I got a McChicken and a McFlurry - the McFlurries in America are much better even though the ice cream is tastier in Russia) and walked over to Palace Square.  We soon discovered that this is where the finish line for the White Nights Marathon is located; it was very crowded and confused.  At one point it was so windy that the finish line blew over - I hope no one got hurt :P  In any case, Latalia and I quickly figured out where the entrance to the museum was and commenced standing in line.  And did we ever stand in line!  It was a good 40 minutes between the time we entered the courtyard and when we finally got in to the museum.  Fortunately, students (of any nationality) have free admission, so we plan to go back several more times.  
• The Hermitage is known as the best collection of Western European art in the world, and I believe it.  There was SO MUCH ART there!!  I had only been in an art museum once before (and that was the Princeton Art Museum) so I was completely unprepared for the scope, elegance, and opulence found in the one-time Palace of the Czars.  Latalia and I looked at Ancient Egyptian artifacts (including a mummy!!!), Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, and really explored the Italian Art wing (which is unbelievably extensive).  We also passed through the wings of Flemish Art, Netherlandish Art, Dutch Art, Spanish Art, Medieval Art and Artifacts, and European Arms and Armor!  Which was for me the coolest part that we saw yesterday.  It is incredible to think that one could wear a suit of armor such as I saw there and do anything, much less fight!!  They had equestrian armor, too - that was cool.  We saw a Pablo Picasso exhibition, too, but I was much less impressed.  I don't get modern art (I don't think anyone does, really, but I don't even appreciate it as art).  Besides, it didn't belong in the midst of such palpable history.  Sometimes even more amazing than the art itself were the rooms that it was housed in!  It can be seen in every room how the Hermitage used to be the Palace of the Czars - from the exotic wood floors to the extravagantly painted ceilings, many of them overlaid with gold.  There were even a couple of actual throne rooms!  I couldn't help remarking, a little sardonically, "I've never been in a throne room before."  We also walked through an exhibition of how Russian nobleman's houses were typically furnished in the 19th and 20th centuries - the extravagant writing-desks and tea-tables were very impressive.  There was even a fully furnished library with a balcony to get to the books on the top of the shelves (that was Latalia's favorite room, and one of mine).  My absolute favorite room, however, would probably have to be the corridor that we found on one edge of the building - the ceiling was painted apparently to imitate the Sistine Chapel, with dozens of biblical scenes in the Italian Renaissance tradition.  This is my favorite style of art and I had a great time craning my neck and spinning around trying to figure out which biblical story each panel represented (I was able to recognize most of them without much difficulty).  Only I wasn't able to stay in that room for too long, because I quickly got dizzy. ;]  The most surprising thing I saw at the Hermitage was probably the exhibition of Korean art on loan from some Korean national museum.  I definitely didn't expect to see Oriental art prominently displayed in a museum in St. Petersburg, but I also noticed that guided tours were available in Russian, English, German, French, and Korean, so there must be some backstory about the relationship between Russia and Korea.  I mean, why Korean and not Chinese?  In America, Chinese would be much more likely to be seen as an alternate language than even Japanese and especially Korean.  There must be some reason in Russia's history for it.  
• As could be expected in such a museum, photography was not allowed; but there was an interesting exception.  A ticket can be purchased for 200 rubles (about $6) that gives you the right to take "non-professional photography and video."  Since I can gain entrance to the museum for free, I figure that it wouldn't be a bad idea to purchase one of these tickets on one of my visits, so that I can photograph without being subtle about it (or in the very least without my conscience bothering me later ;]) and share some of the splendor that left me open-mouthed for the entire 90 minutes that we wandered the museum.  In any case, I will have to return - there are entire wings of the museum that we left unexplored, and we didn't even go up to the third floor or to Peter the Great's Theater which adjoins the Hermitage. 
• Finally, at 5pm Latalia and I returned home, footsore and with our minds filled with all that we had seen.  We had quite a bit of difficulty getting into the apartment - the humidity in the city is rising and it has caused our wooden door to swell in its frame; I feel like I'm going to break something every time I force it open :\  Tatyana finally returned from the dacha, where she had remained all weekend (for which we were very glad.  She left us some sort of Russian microwaveable TV dinners for supper on Saturday night, but they consisted of rubbery cutlets and over-frozen mashed potatoes and were overall not very appetizing.) and cooked us supper - pelmeni again (the meat-filled bite-sized perogies we've had several times now).  I really enjoy her cooking, but I wish she'd feed us something besides cutlets and macaroni... I do understand though.  Latalia has yet to explain to her exactly why she's so picky (she has a sensitive stomach and new foods can throw her off really easily) so T.T. only dares to cook what she knows Latalia likes.  She tried soup and I told her that I don't really like that; Latalia isn't very fond of rice (she's not accustomed to it) and neither of us like tomatoes.  She's figured out that I like cucumbers, so I get them just about every night with dinner, but that's the extent of our vegetables, and we never have any sort of fruit.  She thinks it's strange when we ask for juice in the morning or any sort of drink with dinner, and we're both too timid to insist (and I feel that I don't know enough Russian to do it politely, and I by no means wish to risk offending her again).  Hopefully none of this will lead to a serious deficiency in any vitamins or minerals.  I've asked, and Anna said that fruit bought from fruit stands should be okay as long as I wash it; there's one nearby the institute so I think I may start purchasing apples so that I'm not completely devoid of those food groups in my diet.  :P
• Mom called again!!!!  It was so good to hear from her (this is only the second time we've spoken since I left, not including the brief Skype conversation we had in Belgrade) and it really helped to cheer me up.  The only part of my studies that is really getting to me is the vocabulary - there's so much of it that I feel that I can't possibly keep up (and I'm never sure how much I really have to know).  Mom said - and she's right - that the best way to learn the vocab is to use it in conversation, but that's a bit difficult when the only Russian I have to talk to is Tatyana.  But I refuse to despair - the program isn't even half-over, and already I can carry on conversations in Russian with some ease (and a lot of painful pauses and "umm..." and blurted English words and pantomime, but at least it's something :]).  It's a good thing that she was able to get through this time - she actually called me on Friday evening, but I wasn't near my phone so I didn't hear it ring.  She tried again on Sunday but caught me literally as I was finally walking into the Hermitage building (after my 40-minute wait during which I would have been more than happy to talk to her in order to pass the time, but such is life ;]) so it was good that we finally found a time when we were both free. 

And so passed another weekend.  The Hermitage marked the first thing that Latalia and I have really done on our own impetus, and it was so fun that I can't believe that I haven't been doing more up to this point.  I fully intend to change that - get ready legs, you're going to have to do some walking!!  For, after all, what good is a Wide-Eyed Wanderer if she just stays cooped up in a cold bedroom studying all day long??