Catching up on all the Things I Never Did

• On Saturday, Ksyusha and I had plans to meet at 2, but I didn't have anything to do until then, so I spent a lazy morning reading and studying every now and again.  At 1:00 I set out, and stopped by a Subway on my way to meet my friend in the city center.  The sandwich cost me $5, which is expensive by Russian standards, but it tasted like home.  In general, I have found that the American restaurant chains over here (although I've only been to McDonalds and Subway) taste the same as they do in America.  There is also a Baskin-Robbins on Nevsky Prospect (the main street in the city) that I'm very eager to try before I leave - the ice cream here is positively to die for.  It must be because the milk is so much thicker here than in the States (they have no conception of "skim" milk) but the ice cream is much more creamy and thick and overall delicious.  Anyway, to move on from my food fantasies...
• First, Ksyusha and I went to the Wax Museum.  There we saw Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Elizabeth the Beautiful, and many other famous figures with exaggerated superlatives attached to their names.  However, since there were only a few rooms in the museum, the entire affair only took us about 15 minutes.  It would have been a shame to end the excursion after such a brief period, so we decided to go to another museum.  Our next stop was Kunstkamera.
• Kunstkamera is the German word for art, but the museum actually consists of Peter the Great's collection of oddities and monstrosities, created to dispel superstitions about the workings of the human body.  There were lots of preserved fetuses in jars: at different stages of development, and with lots of different mutations.  It was, to say the least, gross.  Some of the exhibits were less appalling: like the two-headed calf, or the skeleton of Peter's Giant who was just under 7' 6".  On the first floor of the museum were displays of traditional artifacts from ancient cultures all around the world: North America, Siberia, India, China... it was an odd juxtaposition.
• After we had finished at Kunstkamera, it was still only 4:00, and we hadn't had nearly enough museum for the day :P so we traipsed next door to the Zoological Museum.  This was the real highlight of the day: I love animals of all kinds.  It was fascinating to see the skeleton of the blue whale and imagine what it would be like to come upon one while swimming in the ocean.  There were also several rather mediocre exhibits, like the stuffed dogs and cats and pigeons.  There were about 20 different pigeons - I guess a city like St. Petersburg would know about that... There was also a display of insects on the second floor, and it was really interesting for us to compare which species I was familiar with from New England, and which ones Ksyusha saw regularly in Russia.  Then we visited the live insect zoo, briefly - it wasn't as exciting as it sounds.  It consisted of about 15 cages of tarantulas, cockroaches, and beetles, and one scorpion.  I have a love-hate relationship with spiders: I'm terrified of them, yet they fascinate me.  Go figure.  
• While I was still wandering around the Zoological Museum, Aryeh called me to let me know that he and his friends would be meeting in about 30 minutes to eat supper together before heading over to the opera, for which I also had tickets.  So, unfortunately, I had to cut my visit short before beholding all of the wonders of the aquarium section - I dearly hope that I will have the chance to return before I leave the city for good.  I was hurrying home when Aryeh called back to say that plans had changed and the group would just meet at the theater about 45 minutes before the start of the performance, which was a good thing, since it takes 30 minutes to get to the theater.  Nonetheless, even with the extra time, I managed to be late, in the true Mills family fashion.  (Of course, I could use as an excuse that I had to change and make my own supper, as well as the 30-minute walk, and I only had a little over an hour before the meeting time...)
• When I finally arrived at the theater (well before the performance was due to start), I found out that the ticket that I bought was in the balcony above my other friends, due to some misinformation when I was buying my tickets.  However, I was able to talk to them before the show and during both intermissions (one between each of the three acts), so it wasn't so bad.  The opera was "Eugene Onegin," based on the epic poem by Pushkin and with a score written by Tchaikovsky.  It is the classic Russian opera, just as "Swan Lake" is the classic Russian ballet.  It was beautiful - the choreography and set design was fantastic, and the singers had such incredible range.  I knew better what to look for in an opera than a ballet, so I enjoyed and appreciated this much more than I did Swan Lake.  Also, it was once again in the Mariinsky theater, which is probably the most famous theater in Russia after the Bolshoy theater in Moscow.  So it was all around a very prestigious evening.  The opera lasted four hours, so it was nearly 11:30 by the time we finally headed home.  Naturally, I went straight to bed, it being already after midnight.  :P
• On Sunday I slept in - or tried to.  I finally got up at 8:30; because of the light, I really couldn't stay in bed any longer.  I used to sleep with a pillow over my face to make it darker in my room, but it has been far too hot for that the last several weeks.  Whether because of the heat, or my busy day on Saturday, I felt tired and without energy all day.  I ended up not going to church, and I didn't even leave the apartment until 2pm, when I set out in search of lunch.  However, this turned out to be a dismal failure: the restaurant that I had my heart set on going to was closed for renovations.  Not to be deterred, I set out to find a bus that would take me to the part of town where I knew another restaurant in the same chain was located.  However, I had a horrible time finding a bus that went where I wanted it to: at every bus stop there is a sign telling which buses stop there, but not every sign shows the route of said buses.  As a result, when I finally managed to find a bus that was headed in the right direction, I had already been walking for 30 minutes.  I then proceeded to wait for another 30 minutes for the correct bus to come; by that time I could have walked to the other restaurant and back.  But, at long last, I arrived at the restaurant: only to pay more for my lunch than I expected and not enjoy it nearly as much.  It was, plain and simple, a failure.  So I consoled myself with a milkshake from McDonalds and took the metro to Peter and Paul's Fortress, where I visited the Wax Museum.  Here were, again, the Russian Czars, but also Peter I's giant, Dostoevsky, Lenin, Pushkin, and various other uppity-ups who had been imprisoned in the fortress dungeon at various points in Russia's clouded history.  
• After my miserably failed excursion, I returned home and made myself an equally dismal supper of rice with a carrot salad.  The Russian idea of a salad confuses me - they seem to think that grating one vegetable and mixing it with half a cup of mayonnaise counts as healthy.  However, the carrots are good, and I'm desperate for vegetables, so I don't complain.  
• The one redeeming factor of my Sunday was the fact that we found my host's DVD player.  Latalia had bought both Gone With The Wind and Beauty and the Beast in Russian, and this prompted me to look to see whether we could watch them.  It wasn't difficult to find the DVD player - it was in the bottom part of the TV stand, which Latalia didn't know opened.  So we watched a Disney cartoon in Russian - it was very interesting.  I understood a fair amount, but not as much as I wanted to - and for whatever reason we couldn't figure out how to make the display color, so we had to watch it in black-and-white.  (I later discovered that the DVD player was on the wrong display setting, and fixed it.)  But it was good to see something so American and childish, because I was bored and felt like doing anything but studying.  Also, it was funny to see how some of the lines in the movie were translated - my favorite song was Вы наш гост (can you guess? :])

So, my growing lethargy is probably evident in the belatedness of this blog post.  Hopefully today I can write another and catch you up a bit more, although I have to admit that my adventures have been rather fewer and farther between as of late...

The Long Road Back

Needless to say, last week was really hard for me.  Besides the strict emotional drain of having to deal with the loss of so many of my valuables, there were aftereffects.  For instance, I had to pay to have the locks on our apartment changed, even though there was nothing in my purse that could link it with my address, only the Nevsky Institute.  Also, I had to get a new ID card for the Institute, which took several days, so for most of the week I had to beg apologetically at the front desk for the ladies who monitored the entrance to let me in and out.  Understandably, I was in a funk for the rest of the week - the necessity of replacing several of the most important items that were in my purse brought back all of my worries about money.  In addition to this, my parents were (understandably) concerned about the possibility of identity theft - my mother kept inquiring over Facebook about what the thief could possibly do with the information he had about me; in my confusion, I couldn't remember whether my social security number had been in my wallet, or exactly what information he would have been able to glean off of copies of all of my documents, my driver's license and the information card that had been in my wallet.  To make matters worse, one of the professors, Professor Blank from Princeton, kept confronting me about everything that I would need to replace, and her manner was very brusque and unsympathetic - very typically Russian, but not what I needed at the time.  I feel that Stas, our other professor, would have tried harder to understand; and on top of it all, Professor Blank insisted on speaking to me in Russian, which was just about too much for my poor frazzled nerves.  Several times on Tuesday I burst into tears, and Professor Blank frantically tried to calm me, but she wasn't very effective.  As childish as it may sound, I was scared and upset and what I really wanted was my mother.  The fact that my phone had been one of the things stolen was icing on the cake: not only was I already several thousand miles away from home, I couldn't even call and hear a friendly voice.

Finally, some sense came out of the confusion: we decided that it was most necessary that I replace my phone and my keys: the rest could wait.  So, on Tuesday I went with Nadia, one of the program's coordinators, to get me a new cell phone.  We went to the store nearby and she asked for their cheapest model, explaining that I would only be in the country for another 2 weeks, so quality wasn't a big issue.  They replied that the one they had came in black or white - then one of the salesmen added that they also had pink ones.  On a whim, I replied - "I want the pink one."  When it came out, it was every bit as hideous as I imagined; I hate pink, as a rule.  Yet somehow the ludicrous appearance of my phone cheered me up more than anything else had been able to do yet. As an added bonus, the store clerk said that the phone might be able to work in the States with another SIM card, and when I inquired about Germany (I'm planning to do a similar, though shorter, program next summer in Germany), he responded that it was even more likely.  So perhaps my purchase isn't for naught, after all.  Also, I paid only 1040 rubles (about $35) and got 350 rubles on the SIM card, which, at the tariff rates over here, should be more than enough to last me the remaining two weeks, so at least I won't have to invest any more money in the phone.

To make matters worse, the heat wave continued with gusto this week: Saint Petersburg hasn't had weather like this in 40 years, so of course air conditioners are in short supply.  Why would you need them when a typical year sees about 30 days of sun?  Our classroom at the institute was the worst - there is only one room that has an air conditioner in it, and even that doesn't help much, but the other is absolutely unbearable.  They tried bringing fans in, opening the windows and door to encourage a draft - nothing worked and we could hardly pay attention for the heat.  Latalia and I are quite fortunate with our apartment - it is larger and much cooler than most, but the heat eventually permeated even there, and I was having an incredibly difficult time sleeping for the heat and the humidity.  (I've never been able to sleep in a hot room - at Princeton it was nearly half a semester in the fall before I could sleep underneath even my sheets.)  I eventually put myself on a voluntary hot-water strike (hot water in the city is mostly centralized, a relic from Soviet times, so many neighborhoods in the city lose hot water for a two-week period in the summer so that the pipes can be cleaned - however, since we have our own hot-water heater, we are spared this inconvenience), taking freezing-cold showers every evening before bed in a desperate attempt to lower my body temperature and allow me to sleep, but to little avail.

The other torment of St. Petersburg, by virtue of its being a city built on a marsh, is the abundance of mosquitoes.  I thought they were bad in Maine, but here they have an entirely different breed.  I swear they are at least twice as large, and in my 8 x 25 room I can hear them buzzing no matter where they are.  They particularly seem to enjoy the damp climate of the bathroom; every time I went in there I would hear the ominous high-pitched whine.  It was especially torturous to take a shower.  It is a stand-up shower with sliding glass doors; hearing the buzzing start up upon closing the shower doors is like a little piece of hell.  And these mosquitoes take no prisoners: in Maine, they might buzz around you for a bit before landing.  Here, they literally dive-bomb your face.  I am not exaggerating: World War III nearly broke out in my apartment last week as I made a full-scale attack on the little monsters.  Every night, before I would go to bed, I would close my door and make up my bed, then lie awake and read my Bible, waiting for their inevitable attack.  Once I spotted one, I would follow it around the room until I was able to exterminate it, sometimes hunting for up to twenty minutes for a single mosquito.  But it was worth it; on the nights when I neglected this duty, I might wake up with as many as four or five bites on my face, arms, and legs, not to mention being woken up at ungodly hours by the buzzing in my ear.

The bright spot of my week was Wednesday.  I met my other new Russian friend, Ksenia (Ksyusha for short) and we went on a boat tour of the canals and rivers of St. Petersburg.  The bridges were beautiful, but made me miss my camera even more sharply, and since the tour was in Russian, I only understood about 30%.  However, Ksyusha lent me her camera and promised to email me the pictures, and the tour probably wouldn't have been all that interesting anyway (who actually cares when all of the bridges were built?) so it wasn't that bad.  After the tour, Ksyusha asked me when I would next be free and then told me that she would get in touch on Friday about plans for the weekend.  After the sporadic or nonexistant communication from my previous Russian friend, this eagerness to hang out came as a pleasant surprise.  In addition, Mom called me on Wednesday evening and assuaged my fears about money and such.  It was wonderful to talk to her again.
But, most of my week went more like this.  The combination of the heat and the emotional stress of the recent events made everything seem like a bigger deal than it actually was.  Tatyana didn't come home on Sunday night, which was actually quite a common occurrence (I believe that, were she not hosting Latalia and I, she would spend much more time at the dacha than she currently does); we made ourselves supper and thought little of it.  However, when she still hadn't returned by Monday afternoon, we began to wonder, especially since the food supply in the refrigerator was running low (it seems that Russians go shopping much more often than Americans and leave less in the fridge; I know that at least in my family the refrigerator and freezer are always over-full).  Finally, Latalia got a call from Olga, explaining that she had tried to call me several times with no success (for obvious reasons) and that she would be over in about twenty minutes to cook us supper.  I was relieved, especially since I wasn't sure whether anyone in the family yet knew about what had happened with my purse.  As I suspected, Olga didn't know, and was shocked and sympathetic when I told her.  I heard her talking to her mom on the phone later that night, letting her know, so at least that problem was solved.  She then assured us that T.T. would be home the next afternoon, which news Latalia and I received gladly.  In hindsight, there was nothing to worry about in the situation, but at the time I was nearly in hysterics, not knowing where my host was or whether she knew what had happened.

Other little things were also easily blown out of proportion; the new lock, changed on Wednesday, doesn't work nearly as well as the old one.  Instead of automatically latching when the door is closed, it is necessary to use the key to lock the door behind yourself; and if the lock isn't put in exactly the right position it becomes impossible to open from the outside, even with the key.  However, I finally received a new set of keys on Thursday morning, for which I should be grateful, since it relieves Latalia of the burden of making sure she is home when I need to get into the apartment.

Also, the problem of finding a camera for Moscow has turned out to be quite an ordeal in its own right.  It's very important for me to have pictures to commemorate my time there - in all probability, I will never return to this country, much less that city.  Emily, one of my traveling companions, graciously offered to share her pictures with me, but I tend to have (thanks to Nikola) a rather unique taste in photography, and I really want to be able to take my own pictures.  It seems that disposable cameras are a rare thing in this city - no one seems to know where I can find one.  I search the souvenir stands each time I walk by; occasionally I see batteries, but have yet to find a disposable camera.  I've tried camera stores, as well, and was told that while they carry them in general, the particular outlets where I inquired didn't have any.  I debated asking Mom to send me one from the States, but was eventually convinced that the cost of shipping would outweigh the value of the camera, and the uncertainty of receiving it in time made it completely not worth anyone's while.  I even considered buying a good-quality new digital camera here, but quickly discovered that it would be significantly more expensive than in the States, and I have no wish to make such a purchase hastily.  I've heard rumors that the souvenir store at the Hermitage has disposable cameras; at this point I am willing to pay the exorbitant prices that I am sure I shall find there, just to have a camera.

On Thursday we had another of our infamous "excursions."  We have had several of these field trips throughout the program; they usually consist of a tour of some museum or palace, and tend to be less than entertaining.  Last week was a walking tour of the neighborhood where the action of Crime and Punishment takes place.  We spent more than two hours wandering the streets of one of the dirtiest and poorest neighborhoods in St. Petersburg, hearing about how it was in this very building that Raskolnikov, the main character in the novel, did such-and-such, or how we needed to get into the spirit of squalor and depression that characterized the neighborhood in Dostoevsky's time.  We got into the spirit, all right - the tour was hot, tiring, too long, and none too interesting.  I inconveniently kept remembering that all of these places we saw were where fictional characters carried out fictional actions and therefore nothing had ever really happened "in this very building." :P

However, on Friday the weather finally broke.  The sky clouded over and thundered and threatened all day, although the actual rainfall was little and the storms were nothing like the fury of those of a few weeks previous.  Also, I finished The Jungle last week - I'm sure that that most depressing of books was not helping my mood any, and no longer having an iPod to distract myself with meant that I read even more than I might otherwise have done.  In addition, I had an unusually long and interesting conversation with T.T. after supper on Friday, discussing our various beliefs and opinions (although such conversations always leave me a bit frustrated and unsatisfied with my limited Russian vocabulary).  So, the week wasn't all bad.  On top of this, Ksyusha texted me on Friday and we made plans to visit the Wax Museum, one of the items on my list of things to do before leaving St. Petersburg, on Saturday.  So I also had something to look forward to for the weekend.  It's a good thing, too - being depressed always drains the energy out of me, and it's very difficult for me to maintain a bad mood for very long.  :]

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.  :]]