A New Adventure Begins

Travel.  Quite remarkable how quickly one becomes accustomed to it.

It really didn't hit me that I was leaving until about Friday night at the PEF Alumni event.  Which is a little strange, because I had been packing slowly for nearly a week and by Friday everything was ready to go.  But it wasn't until afterwards when I was talking to people that I really realized that I wasn't going to see any of them again until September, and some of them perhaps never again.  I don't cry at these sorts of things, but it was a sobering thought.  Evidently no one else realized it either, because I got texts from two separate people later that evening as I was moving the last of my stuff out (a very unwise idea on the Friday night of Reunions, mind you) and getting ready for my last night in an American bed for three months to the effect of "WAIT A MINUTE!  YOU'RE LEAVING?!?!??!"  They asked when they could see me and I truthfully said that the only way I could guarantee it was if they hung around with Joe.  I knew at least he would take pains to make sure I said goodbye before I raced off to my summer exploits.  I should probably also mention that I worked 19 hours for two different jobs in the three days leading up to my departure, including the morning we left for the airport (I actually had to pass off a shift to someone else because it wouldn't have finished in time for me to make the shuttle bus ;]).  So I wasn't just moping around saying drawn-out goodbyes and waiting to leave.

The only people I ended up seeing on the morning of my departure were Joe, his roommates, and a close senior friend of his that I had also gotten to know this past semester.  I hope I see them (the seniors) again, because I had become very close to some of them during the course of the year.  Last year the seniors graduating meant very little to me, because I only knew a couple of them and didn't even have very many friends anyway.  This year it really hit home how much I will miss them, and I begin to wonder again whether studying abroad my junior year spring semester is such a good idea, since it will mean missing the class of 2012's graduation.  But I have all summer to decide that, and we haven't even started off on the adventure yet!  So let's get going.

The bus was scheduled to leave at noon on Saturday, but because of one of the group members' unfortunate unforeseen circumstances we were delayed about 30 minutes.  Not that it mattered - we got to the airport in plenty of time to check in and wait around for another couple of hours.  The theme of waiting on people would continue through the next few days, however, and without cell phones (which were mandatory to purchase in Russia but aren't obligatory here) communication can be quite frustrating at times.

As opposed to last summer, when I went home for a week before traipsing off to Serbia and Russia, this year I chose not to go home at all in May and merely pack for Germany from what I had brought to college.  This brought up the interesting question of storing what I wasn't bringing out of the country, which turned out to be quite a lot.  Mom was (understandably) unwilling to drive down and pick up my stuff if I wasn't coming home (a 1000 mile journey with just all of my stuff to keep her company?  Granted, I have plenty of stuffed animals, which make fine conversation partners but they can't share the driving ;]).  However, she and my sister were planning a college visit trip during Emily's April vacation and she (conveniently) wanted to visit some colleges in Pennsylvania, so she decided that they would come visit me on the way and bring as much of my stuff as possible back home with them.  It was unbelievably difficult to pack everything I thought I didn't need for the summer in April, and though I planned to basically live out of a suitcase for a month, I ended up having quite a bit of stuff that needed to find a home for the summer.  Thankfully the wonderfully generous PEF staff and some close friends who live in the area made it possible for me to store everything I didn't need without having to pay exorbitant prices for it all.  However, since I didn't want to burden them unnecessarily with all kinds of stuff, and I packed so hastily in April (there were a few things which I accidentally sent home which I later needed, and I kept at Princeton FAR more than I intended to), I ended up bringing much more than I needed to Germany.  Problematic, when one considers luggage weight limits on planes which are becoming ever stricter as each additional pound means extra fuel costs.  So it turned out that BOTH my checked bag and intended carry-on were above the limit, and I didn't even try to weigh my backpack which contained my laptop and sundry other items which I intended to be my "personal item."  Thankfully the woman at the check-in counter was wonderfully gracious and didn't ask about the backpack, but only made me rearrange so that the carry-on bag said 8kg (it was originally 10kg, and the checked luggage was 25.5kg, when the limit is 23kg).  When I tried to weigh my big suitcase again to see how much over it was, she waved me away and strapped the tag to it before I could protest.  I suppose if she didn't see how much over the limit it was, she couldn't charge me for an overweight bag?  In any case, my prospects for souvenirs seem dour.  I hope everybody will be content with postcards, because unless I leave a significant chunk of my luggage in Germany, that's about all I can afford to bring back, and that's only if the German luggage-counter attendants are as gracious as the one in New York, which I somewhat doubt.  While waiting for the plane in JFK I began thinking of how much I was bringing to Germany that I could spare: which clothes weren't my absolute favorite, which books wouldn't I need again, which things I had brought that I would use up over the course of a summer (painfully few, as I planned to purchase most such disposables upon arrival).  But again, I have all summer to decide that.

Finally the call came to board and we eagerly crowded onto the plane (the second-longest in the world - the bathrooms are actually downstairs from the main cabin!!) only to wait another 60 minutes or so on the tarmac before being cleared for takeoff.  I didn't mind particularly - I was excited for Germany but not so-excited-I-can-hardly-stand-it.  While we waited I watched The Green Hornet which seemed to be about the only interesting movie option - I'm glad I had nothing else to do with that time, because watching that movie would certainly have been a waste of it.  And I usually like superhero movies... I do, however, tend to despise movies where the main character is a jerk - though Dan H may kill me for saying it, I really didn't like Rushmore either.  Finally we took off, which is always one of my favorite parts of a plane ride, and soon we were cruising up the New England coast (which I knew not because of my stellar sense of direction or knowledge of aerial geography, but because the plane had one of those nifty GPS-maps that shows the route and position of the plane, as well as sundry other information about the flight - if you are curious, go read my blog entry about my trans-Atlantic flight to Zurich last year, where I first encountered this useful bit of technology.  I probably spend a paragraph and a half describing it :P).  In true German style the plane was clean, all was orderly, the flight attendants were crisp and businesslike, and the food was stellar (well - for airplane food, anyway).  I had "asian chicken" for supper and breakfast of a roll, granola bar, and fruit salad (if you can call two slices of pineapple, one of watermelon, one of cantaloupe and one blueberry a fruit salad).  I slept around 3 hours in between, not bad on a 7-hour flight (I don't usually do well trying to sleep sitting up).  Because of the northernly arc of the flight trajectory (presumably to stay over land as much as possible in case anything should go awry and demand an emergency landing) I got to see both sunset and sunrise on the same flight from my window seat on the left side of the plane.  This is probably my favorite part of flying, even more than takeoff/landing.  We landed at about 8:30am Munich time, which is 2:30 EST due to the 6-hour time difference.  Upon deplaning I promptly took a wrong turn in baggage claim and almost got lost in the airport - not a fortuitous start to the summer, I must say.  In addition I discovered that whether in the airport in New York or on the plane, I had somehow misplaced my better pair of sunglasses and was now constrained to my big bug-glasses for the summer - at least I brought two pairs!

As soon as we deplaned, the Princeton in Munich program unofficially began - we were from that point on constrained to speak only German from 9am-9pm.  (I don't count blogging because I'm not technically *speaking* English, and I hope my professors and classmates will forgive me the exception in the interest of preserving my memories).  To my great surprise, I could do it!  In stark contrast to the rocky start of the Princeton in St. Petersburg program in which I participated the summer prior, when I was unceremoniously dumped off at my host mother's apartment to find that she spoke not a word of English and my Russian was lacking to the point that I could barely understand what she was trying to communicate, much less respond (again, for more on that traumatic experience, go read the post titled "First Impressions"), I found that most of the vocabulary I wanted to communicate with my classmates was easily within my grasp!  Not that my grammar is perfect or that I don't pause and stumble (and make up German words or use English substitutes quite frequently), but I can understand and be understood, and that is a huge relief and confidence booster.  Granted, I am speaking with my classmates and professor who are intimately acquainted with both my accent and vocabulary level, and I have found that speaking with native speakers is significantly more difficult, but not impossible.  There may be hope after all for me being at least conversationally fluent by the end of the summer, if I work hard these next 12 weeks.

After waiting around a bit more in the airport (another student's bag had been lost and Prof. Rankin had to buy the tickets for us to travel on the train to our apartment), we were finally ready to set off, all 38 of us.  Now, anytime you have a group of this size you run the risk of losing track of everyone, and sure enough, that is what happened.  Prof. Rankin had bought group tickets (for up to 5 people) which were good for three days, which was exactly the time needed to last us until June, when we would receive individual month-long passes for all public transportation systems (local trains, subway, buses, trams...).  Amazingly this, like so many other aspects of the program, is covered in the program fee.  Now I can't believe that PIM costs only $2500!  PIP was also $2500, but we were individually responsible for our plane tickets, transportation around the city, and so on.  However, with PIM we have to pay for all our own food, and the program is only half as long, so perhaps the advantage isn't so much as I make it out to be.  In all honesty, it probably isn't fair to continuously make these comparisons between PiP and PiM, but I can't help it, and so far PiM is coming out ahead by a long shot.  Anyway, back to the airport.  As was bound to happen, 13 of us didn't make it onto the train in time and it zoomed away, carrying Professor Rankin and all of the tickets with it.  Evidently he thought that we were all on the train together because he had handed out all of his tickets, but obviously not everyone had had a group of five and in the chaos, quite a few of us had been overlooked.  All was not lost, however.  I was one of the thirteen left behind, but I was in a group of five with a ticket.  Our group had gotten off the train to seek a less crowded car just as the doors closed and locked (train doors in Germany don't automatically open and close - you must push a button to open them that deactivates when the train is about to leave).  The other eight, however, were stranded.  We finally decided that the five of us should follow the group and inform Professor Rankin of the predicament of the others, since we didn't know whether or not he was aware of so many missing, no one had a way to contact anyone in the other group (since none of our American phones worked in Germany) and having one ticket between thirteen people wouldn't do anyone any good.  We caught the next train into the city and dutifully got off at our stop, but then paused, confused.  We started off in one direction, but when we didn't find the correct street as "the first street on the right", as described, we turned around only to be met by Nathan, one of the most energetic participants in PiM, who had been sent back to train station to meet and guide us back to the dorm building.  Finally we arrived and told Professor Rankin of the other eight (and confirmed that he had no idea that they had been left behind).  While he dashed off to return to the airport and retrieve them, we received our room keys and set off to unpack a bit before an informational meeting.  My room for the summer is number 309, which is on the fourth floor by American accounting (since Europeans count the ground floor as separate from the first floor).  We all have very similar singles furnished with a bed, a desk, two bookshelves, a large shkaf (a Russian word for a free-standing wardrobe for which there is no good English equivalent), a refrigerator, a nightstand, and a private bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower.  Ironically it is larger, newer, and nicer than my academic room in Princeton from last year.  Every Wednesday we have the opportunity to change out our pillowcase/sheets and towels, and the rooms are cleaned weekly.  There is a kitchen on every floor where we can cook our meals if we prefer that to eating out (which I certainly do, to save money - this summer is going to be expensive enough!) and the basement has a game room, music room, TV room, and laundry room.  The internet, laundry, game room, kitchen use, and just about everything else here is free - it doesn't get much better than that. :)  The doors, windows, and light switches are as I saw in Serbia and Russia (the windows open either out or tilt down, with no screens, the doors have a strange lip, and the light switches are large and flat) but that's all old hat to me now (such a worldly-wise traveler have I become ;P).  Bedding in Germany is done a little differently - they have a big pillow with a pillowcase, but there is no such thing as a "fitted" sheet - a flat sheet tucks around the mattress and additional bedding is provided by a comforter with a washable cover instead of additional sheets.  Pretty intelligent, if you ask me, though it takes a bit of getting used to when one is accustomed to several layers over oneself.

The weather here shouldn't be as terrible as Russia - more like a Maine summer with many rainy days around 50˚F as well as a few hot ones closer to 80˚F.  After the trauma of last year's persistent 90˚ heat without any air conditioning, I welcome rain and cool.  I've also changed my philosophy on clothing and brought a fair sampling of my American wardrobe, everything from hoodies and jeans to tank tops and shorts - though the proportion of sundresses in my closet is certainly higher here than back in the States.  According to my classmates I look fairly German already (well I am about as white as they get), but to me the more important thing is being able to SPEAK the language rather than LOOK like I fit in.

After having a bit of time to unpack and get our bearings, and having been well-oriented to the Wohnung (apartment) - in German, nonetheless - we set off back for the city to meet one of the graduate students who was coming from Princeton.  Unfortunately her train was late - more waiting.  When she finally arrived, we wandered the city center for a bit, but most of the fun was taken out of the excursion by our over-tired and jet-lagged state.  I understand the sentiment of wanting to give us something to do so that we don't all go to bed at 2pm and wake up at 3am, but it wasn't very enjoyable.  We split up a couple of times and though we gave clear instructions for when and where to meet again, we inevitably ended up waiting for people again - and tempers were short.  We found a Deutsche Bank ATM (Bank of America has an agreement with them whereby fees are waived, which could potentially save me quite a bit of money over the summer) and I withdrew 200€ before I realized how much that was in dollars - being abroad had put me back in Russian mode, where the exchange rate is 30 roubles to the dollar.  I had to remember that here it was the other way around, with 1.4 dollars equalling one Euro as of a few days ago - I'll have to be even more careful with my spending this summer.  Anyway, I shouldn't have to visit an ATM again for awhile (although there are always many more expenses up front, so I shouldn't expect that any spending trends this week will continue), and there is a small safe in the room at the apartment so any extra money as well as my passport, debit card, camera, iPod, etc. should be much safer.  Unfortunately my laptop won't fit in the safe or I would keep it there too, but the rooms lock automatically and I'm not too worried.  That's one big difference between Russia and Germany - I brought my laptop Alek this year, which means many things.  Perhaps most importantly, I won't *have* to wait an entire week between blog posts, which means that each one may not be a novel.  I'll also be more connected to America and the world in general, more reachable by email, on Skype more often, etc.  Friends from home can even text me on my Google voice number and I can check it from either Alek or Sebastian (my iPod which is also here with me and connected to the internet), though from this distance I can't imagine that there is anything that you would want to text me that couldn't be better said in an email.  On that note, please know that I'd love to hear how you are doing - I can't be the only person having an exciting summer! :)

So, back to Sunday.  Since it was Sunday, many stores were closed, including nearly every Apotheke we ran across (most of us hadn't brought liquids such as shampoo/conditioner/soap, etc. and we were in desperate need of showers).  But, we wandered around and got a feel for the city center, ending at Marienplatz in time to see the famous cuckoo clock which plays every day at 11am, noon, and 5pm.  Then we finally returned to the dorm for the night, where I organized my few belongings to my heart's content (I'm not happy unless my room is clean and organized), calculated my budget for the month, and made lists: to do, to buy, lists to make, etc. ;)  Finally at 8:00 I was too exhausted to do more and fell gratefully into bed before even the sun had gone down.  My room has east-facing windows, and I look forward to being woken up by the sun every morning - that is one of the main reasons that I picked my room at Princeton for next year.  And so I slept the sleep of the weary traveler, happy to be in a made-up bed once more (my bedding had needed to be packed a couple of days before I left so I spent my last two nights in America huddled on a bare mattress with a sweatshirt for a pillow - miserable even when it is too hot for blankets).  And here my saga ends until another day.

Prologue, if you can call it that

So, back again.  And by "back" I can only mean "back away from America" because Germany is really nothing like Russia, though I can't help but keep comparing them.  I guess that's how life with a human brain works, though - you take all your new experiences and compare them to everything familiar and go from there.  I've been seeing that more and more in my life over this year through a few circumstances, and the Russia vs. Germany thing that I keep returning to just drives the point home.

For all of you who are just joining me for whatever reason (you didn't know me or know about this blog last year or you're here in Germany with me and frankly don't give a sweat about my Russian travels), welcome.  I hope you find this at least entertaining, if not too relevant to anything you're doing.  I tend to write mostly stream-of-consciousness, though it is a bit more organized than my thought life.  The posts are long, though hopefully they'll be shorter and more frequent this year than last.  Yes, I write about what I do on a daily basis, but I also try to incorporate and draw out any lessons on travel/life that I think can be learned from my experiences, because in the end, who really cares what I ate for supper every night?  Feel free to comment on any posts, I love feedback of any kind.  If you're a friend from home, please know that emails (no matter the length) are always welcome and read eagerly and often.  Disclaimer for my fellow participants in the Princeton in Munich program: I will use your names unless you specifically request that I refrain from doing so.  However, I will restrain myself to only your first name and last initial if there are multiple people with the same name here, so that only people who know you will know who you are (i.e. future employers won't be able to find incriminating evidence against you here when they Google-search your name).  If you read any of my posts and believe that what I have written paints an unfair or unflattering picture of yourself, please have the courtesy to let me know via email or Facebook and I will immediately attempt to remedy the situation by editing or deleting the offending post.

Phew, now that all that unpleasant legal stuff is taken care of, let's get down to the exciting part.

So, this is ostensibly a travel blog, but it's all about my adventures, so I think it would not be completely out of place to put in just a paragraph about the 10 months that have passed since my last entry.  I've now survived two years of Princeton, which is not exactly a small feat.  This year was full of many more core classes (in the MAE department) than last year, and was therefore more intense and concentrated.  I pulled through with pretty good grades, all things considered, though I've finally had to let go of my high school dreams of all As.  I got quite busy as the year went on between studies, paid employment, and extracurricular activities.  I upped the ante significantly this year by jumping from one to four jobs, but honestly didn't feel like that was a significant contributing factor to any feelings of being overwhelmed.  I got a LOT more involved with PEF, the Christian fellowship group on campus, and am so glad that I did.  I finally found my niche and made a TON more friends, including some that I have a feeling may be around for quite a while after college :)  I got into KS, the Christian a cappella group for which I tried out at the beginning of my freshman year and was rejected from, which was definitely one of the high points.  And yes, for all of you from home who have been asking, I finally found a boyfriend.  He's perfectly lovely, and I could talk about him all day, but this definitely isn't the place for that, so you'll just have to inquire by email.  ;)

Now before we completely move on to my German adventures, I was looking back through my journal of last summer (basically a condensed version of my blog) I found a page labeled "Things I've Learned in Russia".  Some of them are relevant, others less so but quite amusing, so I thought I would include it here with minimal commentary as a segue into my next adventures.


Things I've Learned in Russia
I should probably preclude this with the information that I brought almost no "American" clothes to Russia last year upon the information that looking American would make me a target.  So my wardrobe consisted of sundresses, skirts, blouses, and heels, which (for any of you who know me) is drastically different from my normal dress of a T-shirt, jeans and Tevas or sneakers.  Thus the several statements pertaining to clothing.

• Well-fitting shoes are the key to happiness.
• Pack more Band-Aids and way less clothing than you think you need. Didn't follow this one very well this year, but my philosophy on clothing has also changed drastically, as I'll explain later.
• Knee-high pantyhose are the greatest invention ever.
• You only use about 500 words to communicate - really.  But not the ones you're taught in language class. Expressing my frustration with arriving in Russia not having learned all the necessary grammar or having covered certain vital topics such as telling time.  The German department prepared us much better for day-to-day communication.
• Russians don't snack, they just drink.
• As long as you look confident and walk quickly, people won't (usually) bother you. A reference to my (very stupid) midnight tour of one of the seedier neighborhoods of St. Petersburg.  It's a pretty good story - I recommend you go read about it at the end of my July 16, 2010 post "The Fatalist".
• I look like a good person to ask for directions. This happens ALL the time - in America as well as other countries, evidently.
• Wearing shoes without socks makes them stink.
• You can get used to anything... even 95˚ heat. Compared to the unbearable heat of last summer, Germany feels downright cold!
• 8 weeks is way too long to be intensely studying. 6 weeks was about the limit for our group - the weather may have had something to do with that.
• You can never play too many games of iPod Solitaire. Yeah, I didn't really take advantage of St. Petersburg most times - far too many afternoons were spent sitting at my desk, making flashcards and playing Solitaire.
• Cold showers are the best thing in the world (when you're roasting), but they don't really cool you down. I've heard tepid water does a better job, it's less of a shock.
• People in cities walk more than people in small towns.
• You can never be too careful in a crowded place. Since my purse got stolen last summer I'm SUPER paranoid here, but I guess that could be a good thing...
• You shouldn't keep all your valuables in one place, and NEVER carry around something irreplaceable.  
• You never want something as much as when you don't have it.
• Go to museums as a student - it's way cheaper. In Russia at least - Germany seems to just do the child/adult split.
• Barter ruthlessly - if they won't go cheaper, someone else will.  And they all sell the same stuff.
• The more expensive the souvenir is, the bigger discount you can get.

Let's hope some of these lessons help me out in Germany!!

The Dog Days of Summer

Firstly, I'm terribly apologetic that this post is so late in coming.  I know I should have written it as I went in Moscow, but things got... well, you'll read about it.  At least I'm finishing it, right?

Moscow.  The only other city in Russia that anyone knows anything about.  Well, I guess I can say I've seen Russia, now...

• Since we had had our Grammar final on Thursday, we watched a movie for most of class on Friday.  The film we chose was a Russian one (of course) made in the 70s: Иван Васильевич меняет профессию (Sometimes translated and sold in the states as Ivan Vacilevich: Back to the Future).  It is a Russian classic about a kooky engineer who invents a time machine in his apartment and accidently causes the floor manager of his apartment to trade places with the Russian Czar of the 16th century, Ivan the Terrible.  It was a good experience in bad cinematography - the chase scenes were filmed in fast-forward and the acting was stiff.  Worse yet, it took the stale science-fiction cop-out: at the end of the film, the engineer wakes up and it is all a dream.  I understood about 60% of the dialogue, since they spoke quickly and mixed modern Russian with the language of Ivan the Terrible's time.  But, it was good not to have to think too much.  
• After classes we all gathered in the cafeteria for a small celebration in honor of finishing the program.  There were small Russian pastries and cakes, as well as cold iced tea.  It's very hard to believe, after 8 weeks, that we're really done.  After the celebration and catching up on my blog, I set off home to take care of my last few things before Moscow.  I was already packed, and there was really only one more thing I wanted to do in St. Petersburg, something I had been thinking about all summer... changing into jeans despite the heat, I traipsed down to the park and found the women who bring the ponies every day to give rides to the children.  I was turned down at the first two ponies, being informed that they were for small children only (although I did my best to look small and unimposing).  Not to be deterred, I walked over to where the woman who always rides her horse over here (and whom I saw texting and riding my first day in St. Petersburg, which instantly made me like her) and repeated my inquiry.  Looking a little askance, she nonetheless went over to the horse and unbuckled his reins from his saddle, indicating that I should mount.  I did so and she proceeded to lead me in a large circle around the park.  It felt so good to be back on a horse, although I didn't dare to do much to direct him myself since I didn't know how he'd react.  At the end I got a picture of myself on his back (my first picture with my disposable camera), payed out my 250 rubles, and returned to the apartment, satisfied.  (I would have been happier with a picture on one of the ponies, even if I didn't ride it, but was too timid to ask).
• After this successful foray, I reviewed the contents of my suitcase one last time (it only made sense for me to bring just my carry-on instead of all of my luggage) and set out to meet my traveling companions at the Georgian restaurant that we had visited earlier upon Anna B's recommendation.  Since I had yet to find my sister an appropriate souvenir (she had requested a tie-dye shirt with cyrillic writing on it, which proved a singularly difficult thing to locate in St. Petersburg) I decided to spend the hour-plus before our meeting-time in remedying this situation.  Since I couldn't fulfill both the tie-dye and cyrillic requirements, I decided that a white shirt would serve just as well, and we could tie-dye at home.  Unfortunately, there is a strange dearth of nice white T-shirts in any size between youth Medium and adult Xtra-Large at the end of July in St. Petersburg.  After scouring every souvenir stand between my apartment and the Hermitage without success (at least 20 stands), I resigned myself to the necessity of returning to the souvenir fair, as overwhelming as I knew it would be, in order to find what I was looking for.  Finally, my search was rewarded, though I had to settle for an orange shirt instead of a white one in order to get one in Emily's size with appropriate lettering.  It wasn't a complete waste, however; I was also able to find another perfect souvenir for a good friend, as well as a fan (a last-minute idea which turned out to be the best one I'd had while in Russia).  By the time I reached the Georgian restaurant (right on time, might I add) my poor suitcase was much the worse for wear, but I was happy, albeit thoroughly tired out from wandering the city for 90 minutes.  As it turns out, I needn't have been so meticulous about time - the rest of my group didn't arrive for another 40 minutes after telling me to go into the restaurant and get us a table (since the restaurant was nearly empty, I just ended up looking quite silly, sitting alone at the big table for such a long time).  They claim that they got lost, which made me rather more reluctant to follow them once we left the restaurant and our opinions differed on the direction of the train station.  But, since we still had over two hours until our train left (I never understood why we agreed to meet and eat at 6:30 when our train left at 10:40), I decided that getting lost wouldn't really cost us much of anything, in the long run.  So, we meandered towards the train station, consulting maps and signs and intuition along the way, and arrived well before 9:30.  
• While we were waiting for it to be time to board our train, Tatyana called me one last time to see me off (since she hadn't been home from work yet when I left at 5).  We exchanged pleasantries, reconfirmed my plans for my return on Tuesday, and said some of our last goodbyes.  I noticed with pleasure the ease of our conversation - I guess the program does teach you how to speak Russian, although it certainly isn't easy…  Finally, at 10:10 we heard the announcement for our train and proceeded to the platform to board.  Emily, Aryeh and I had been able to book a 4-person compartment together, and found that we would be in quite comfortable accommodations.  Overnight trains don't seem to be very popular in the US (at least, I had never traveled on one or heard of anyone who had, but I'm not exactly the most traveled person…), but I thought it was a quite sensible and comfortable way to travel.  Emily and I took the top bunks, but soon reconsidered our decision when we discovered that the window in the compartment didn't open and the air at the top tended to be hot and stuffy.  However, as soon as we began moving, we made the glorious discovery of the ventilation system: from a vent in the ceiling blessed cool air was pouring out, and it turned out that we had the better bunks.  Since we were only three and it was a four-person compartment, we spent a bit of time getting to know the last occupant - a young Russian woman named Alina.  She was very nice and (as most Russians have been, in my experience) quite impressed with our feeble attempts at communicating in her own language.  After visiting with her for awhile, we were contacted by the remaining member of our group, Molly, who hadn't been so fortunate as to book with us.  She was in third-class, which consisted of open compartments, and requested that we bring her her share of the perogies we had purchased for the journey.  Emily and I promptly set off to deliver the goods, passing through a total of 30 doors in 5 wagons before we finally reached her berth.  Seeing her surroundings made me very glad that we had booked a closed compartment, even through we had had to pay a bit more for the ticket.  It really was a roll of the dice who you ended up bunking by, and the cooling system wasn't nearly as evident in the third-class wagons.  (Emily and Aryeh booked third-class on the way back to St. Petersburg - as far as I know, they made it back safely…)  After this adventure, we hunkered down for the night, although I'm not really sure how much I actually slept in the next 7 hours.  But it was quite a blessing to be cold enough to curl up in my sheet instead of sweating out the night as I had for the past few weeks.  Emily even used one of the provided wool blankets, but I preferred to savor the sensation of cold, as I knew it would be the last time I would feel this way until I left Russia.  
• Around 7 the next morning we got up, changed back out of our pajamas, and ate our ration of perogies for breakfast (some mushroom and some cherry - I decided to pass on the salmon in the morning :P) The train pulled in right on schedule at 7:40 and we promptly detrained and sought out the entrance to the nearest Moscow metro station.  Now, although the Moscow metro system is much more extensive than the one in St. Petersburg, has an ingenious ring line that encircles the city and connects the other lines like spokes in a wheel, and some of the metro stations are more like museums because of the Communist initiative to beautify public spaces, I don't like it nearly as much as the St. Petersburg metro.  I felt that it was dirtier and more run-down, probably because it is older.  In fact, I didn't like Moscow in general nearly as much as I did St. Petersburg, and not just because of the smog (caused by the nearby wildfires that were burning down entire villages) that clogged up the air and obscured even the buildings across the street from the hostel.  St. Petersburg has a much more open and European feel (as it was designed to have), and though being situated on the Gulf of Finland means that the humidity is always higher, I really grew to love the rivers and canals that ran through the city with its 400+ beautiful bridges and its White Nights.  Okay, maybe not the White Nights.  I will admit that I was quite relieved when in Moscow it was dark by 10pm, like in decent places.  :]  But anyway, it certainly wasn't dark at 8AM as we parted ways with Emily and Molly (who would stay with an acquaintance in another part of the city) and made our way to Godzilla's hostel, which happened to be located across from the police headquarters of Moscow.  In America, this would have been a much more comforting thought, but I still felt that we wouldn't have much to worry about as far as safety in our immediate neighborhood.  Otherwise, Aryeh and I were very impressed with the hostel: it was very professionally run and the staff were as helpful as possible, and fluent in English although some of them were evidently native Russian speakers.  We checked in (which involved paying the key deposit - somehow only Aryeh got a key, but our door ended up never being locked, so it wasn't a problem - arranging for the hostel to complete our registration with the police station, and being shown to our room so that we could put our bags by the beds we chose), and as I looked around the 10-bed mixed-gender dorm, I remarked to Aryeh, "Why do I feel like this is going to be 9 men and me?" He responded pragmatically, "Because it is.  How many girls do you know who would volunteer to sleep in a mixed-gender room?"  Thinking about this, I decided that he was right.  I didn't know any, including myself.  Originally, Emily was supposed to be in the room with us, but when the opportunity arose for her to stay with Molly, she jumped at it.  It ended up being all right - we were only in the room to sleep, and we didn't even do much of that during our stay due to the heat and certain other circumstances which I will vaguely relate later.  
• After finishing at the hostel, Aryeh and I set off for Red Square, armed with a map and cultural guide of Moscow generously furnished by the hostel.  On the way, Aryeh placed a call to the US and we quickly discovered how abominably high the roaming costs are for Russian cell phones - it wasn't 5 minutes before his phone ran out of credit, and he was using an international phone card that should have kept the rate at 1 ruble per minute.  This was to prove a constant source of hassle for us over the duration of our visit, prompting Aryeh to eventually purchase a Moscow SIM card just so that he could avoid the roaming charges.  I was able to escape this by only using my phone sparingly - since I had had to replace it only three weeks before and almost never used it, I still had 250 out of the original 300 rubles of credit left.  It was frustrating to finish a short call and see that your balance had just dropped by 20 or 30 rubles.  Costs in general ran about 10x higher than they would have in St. Petersburg.  After we grew wise to this, we tried to minimize use of the phones, which meant that our communication with Molly and Emily was less than consistent, which led to additional frustrations.  As did their tendency to run late, although mentioning this is really the pot calling the kettle black - I'm notorious for my inability to be on time.  When they arrived, we toured Red Square and took the obligatory pictures by St. Basil's Cathedral, then got in line to visit the mausoleum and file solemnly past what is ostensibly Lenin's mummified corpse.  No one (except perhaps Prime Minister Putin) knows whether or not it is real.  It looked awfully waxy to me, but that might have been the dark interior that my eyes were trying to adjust to or the strange reddish light that was cast upon the corpse.  We couldn't stand and gawk for long, however; any sign of hesitation on our part and the imposing, expressionless guards blew their whistles at us, glared, and motioned for us to move on.  It was quite intimidating and none of us wanted to test our luck with Russian security guards.  (We all wanted to get back to America in one piece and on schedule :P)
• At this point, though it wasn't much past noontime, it was almost unbearably hot in the city center, so we took refuge in the GYM department store complex that lines one side  of Red Square, where we sat at an umbrella'd table and sipped flavored lemonade.  Then we returned to our respective dwellings to wait out the hottest part of the day, determining to reconvene for supper.  Unfortunately for Aryeh and I, our hostel wasn't much cooler than outside, but at least we could sit down out of the sun.  We ended up having peanut butter sandwiches for lunch (courtesy of Latalia who had the precious spread shipped from home since it is a thoroughly American food) and then watching Saving Private Ryan in the lounge on the TV that has something like 200 Blu-Ray movies attached to it.  It is undoubtedly one of the best and most intense movies I have ever watched.  That took us well into the afternoon, so by the time the movie finished it was time to meet up again.  We decided to explore Arbat St., the souvenir center of the city.  I insisted on walking there although Aryeh doubted that I could manage the trek in the 30 minutes until our meeting time.  I got there more than 5 minutes before Aryeh, and well before the girls.  They had quite a time finding us (three metro lines converged at our meeting place although the exits were quite a distance apart) and we had to use quite a few of our precious cell phone units in giving them directions to where we were.  Finally we were together and we set off down Arbat St.  We stopped at a Sbarro's for a reasonably priced and quite tasty supper of real, American pizza, then toured a souvenir shop so that Aryeh could buy his brother a soccer jersey (to his chagrin, he later found the same jersey for less than half the price at the outdoor market at Red Square) and finally returned to our hostel at 10.  It turned out to be a good thing that we didn't come back any earlier; as it was, even with a cold shower to rinse off the sweat, I couldn't sleep until almost 1AM because of the heat.  Aryeh gave up on trying to sleep early and watched Inglorius Basterds in the lounge - in retrospect I wished I had joined him.  I tossed and turned and suffered until about 6:30 when the heat from the 10 sleeping bodies raised the temperature in the airless room beyond bearability.  I awoke Aryeh around 7 and asked what he wanted for breakfast, then walked to the nearby produkti to buy yogurt and juice for the both of us.  This became my sole breakfast during our time there, but at least it was cheap (I was spending far more than I planned to in Moscow between eating out twice daily and the cell phone roaming charges).  
• After breakfast, Aryeh and I watched the news until 9:00, a time we deemed reasonable to rouse the girls.  After obtaining their promise to meet us at 10 at Red Square, we set out to be there at the appropriate time.  However, we should have learned from our experiences the day before - they were an entire hour late in meeting us, wasting the preciously cool morning hours.  They apologized profusely, explaining that their hosts had offered them breakfast and they couldn't politely refuse.  Thinking of our own meagre breakfast, Aryeh soundly reprimanded them for their inconsiderateness to us, their traveling companions.  Our grievances aired, we set out to explore the Kremlin, the fortress that forms the heart of Moscow.  Several buildings house active government agencies, but the cathedrals and the Armory are open for public viewing.  Fortunately, tickets were fairly inexpensive with our student discount cards, but it was quite a hassle getting in to the fortress.  When the guard at the entrance saw that we had timed tickets for the Armory, he told us to go there first, even though our ticket time wasn't for a good hour.  When we got to the Armory entrance, Aryeh was told that he would have to check his bag, which necessitated traveling nearly all the way back to the Kremlin entrance to find the purse check.  Then when we got there, the guard looked askance when we said we were trying to enter the Armory - he asked Molly if she understood Russian and when she modestly replied "A little," he informed us in broken English (direct quote, now) "Lady bag okay in Kremlin."  It was probably the best quote of the trip.  Anyway, we finally got into the Armory at about the right time, and it was well worth the hassle.  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed there (for good reason) and I only had my disposable anyway, but it was quite awe-inspiring to see the actual coronation gowns of some of Russia's most famous Czarinas and the carriage collection of Elizabeth the Spender and some of the most elaborate icons and Bibles that I've ever seen, as well as more gold and other precious metals than I've ever seen gathered in one place.  I could have spent all day there walking around with my mouth hanging wide open :]
• After the Armory it was well past lunchtime, so we walked back to Arbat St. to a "fast-food" chain called MooMoos for another delicious and relatively affordable meal.  The larger-than-life cow statue out front which I mounted, despite Aryeh's naysaying, was a definite plus.  Then we traipsed back to the Kremlin to check out the old cathedrals, which was definitely worth the trip back.  They were impressive and towering and covered with ancient portrayals of saints inside.  Most importantly, they were filled with cool air - they must be unbearable in the winter, but in the 40+ heat they felt marvelous.  Aryeh only went into one, then opted to sit down outside while we explored the rest.  This was my first of many indications that something wasn't quite right.  My "leader radar," as we OA Leaders call it, told me to keep a close eye on him from then on… 
• We finished the Kremlin by midafternoon and decided to once again seek shelter from the heat.  This time we went to the Euromall and watched a movie - Salt, the new spy movie featuring Angelina Jolie.  Russians have a serious love affair with Angelina, so the anticipation for the movie was high.  It couldn't have been the premiere, however, because the theater didn't end up being very crowded.  In Russian movie theaters, they have assigned seating that you choose when you buy your ticket, as well as ticket checkers at the door to each theater - an interesting way to make sure no one sneaks in to the movie.  The movie was very good, and although the plot was rather intricate I was able to understand around 85% of the dialogue and follow the action fairly well (ironically, in case you don't know, Salt is about a Russian sleeper agent who has infiltrated the CIA, but no one really knows whose side she's on - very appropriate on many levels).  I was, once again, proud of the progress I had made even since watching Twilight near the middle of my stay :]  However, although I saw the movie in Russian in the middle of Moscow, upon walking out of the theater I had to remind myself that I was in Russia, not America, that's how obviously American the film was.  Incidentally, it was a strange experience to hear the character of the President of the United States talk about Russian spies - in Russian. XD  
• Supper after the movie was taken at Шашлик-машлик, a restaurant in the mall that specialized in shish-kebabs.  I ordered a nice, simple, inexpensive chicken shish-kebab.  Molly and Emily, on the other hanse, decided to be a little more adventurous and ordered shish-kebabs with - I'm not joking - sheep testicles.  They described the texture as "spongy" - and I'll leave it at that.  We must have presented a strange order to the waitress - in addition to Molly & Emily's experiment, Aryeh ordered rose-flavored soda.  (I'm amazed at that man's ability to do the most feminine things and still retain his masculinity - mostly because he just doesn't care.)  After supper we headed back to the hostel.  Unfortunately it was only 8:30 - though it was cooler this night, I still couldn't sleep until 10:30 and I was up again before 6:30.  The lack of sleep was beginning to tell on me a bit.  Breakfast was yogurt and juice again, then I decided to watch another movie before starting out the day.  I chose 2012, a movie I had been wanting to see since it came out.  It wasn't worth it - it was one of the cheesiest and most predictable movies I've ever seen.  Another American watching the film with us aptly commented, "I could have written a better screenplay."  Unfortunately, I underestimated the length of the movie and when it came time to head out to meet Molly and Emily, there was still a good 40 minutes left of the film.  Well, I hated to leave without seeing the ending (and considering how they had treated us in the past couple of days, I didn't think it was too much to ask them to wait for us for once - for all I knew, they would be late too.)  With that in mind I decided to stay and watch the rest of the movie, texting Molly with an estimate of how late we would be.  However, Aryeh didn't see it in the same way that I did and eventually just left.  Although the movie still wasn't over (I found out later that I hadn't missed much in the last 15 minutes :P) I followed him, not keen on navigating the Moscow metro by myself.  We ended up arriving just when I said we would and I did feel guilty about making them wait for such an unimportant, selfish reason, although they didn't seem too fazed by it.  Once together, we set off to visit the Tretyekov art gallery.  After 15 minutes of searching we finally found the entrance, only to discover that it was closed on Mondays (as are many museums and places of business in Russia).  Since it was by now 11:30 and our morning was gone, they decided to visit the apartment-museum of author Bulgakov (I had never heard of him, but he wrote Master & Margarita, which the other three evidently loved).  Since it didn't open until 1:00, we made a detour for lunch at a Штолле that we found just down the street.  The atmosphere in this restaurant was much more refined and enjoyable than that of their locations in St. Petersburg and the waiter was very friendly.  I ate one pirojok with meat and one with творог for dessert.  The house-apartment was small and would have been much more interesting if I had known who the author was or been able to read any of the display plaques on the various artifacts.  The highlight of the museum was the big fluffy black cat named Behemoth (presumably after a character in one of Bulgakov's books).  Needless to say, the museum didn't take us long, and though I really wanted to go to the Gulag Museum, it too was closed on Mondays.  (If I were to do something like this again, I would plan it much more beforehand so that we wouldn't get nasty surprises like this.  It wouldn't have been hard to find out what days which sights were closed. :P)  So, since by this time it was again scorching hot, Emily and Molly suggested that we go to a celebrated park and play in the fountains.  It was yet another disappointment when we arrived only to find one row of fountains opposite a scorched grassy ridge, and every one of the refreshment stands were closed.  As we learned later, it was paratrooper day, so there were drunk soldiers everywhere.  Nonetheless, we readily jumped in the fountains (all but poor Aryeh who was wearing jeans and sneakers) in a desperate attempt to cool off.  We couldn't stay long, however; since Aryeh wasn't in the water he had to sit in the blazing sunshine and it was quickly taking its toll on him.  Emily and Molly suggested that we walk to their place, which they didn't think was very far, although security was tight and they weren't sure whether they would let Aryeh and I in.  I didn't think much of this idea, but didn't have a better one, and I was too concerned about what the others would think of me if I protested.  Aryeh was in no shape by this point to walk the distance, but we nonetheless set off.  As he dropped farther and farther behind, I stayed with him, but the girls seemed hardly to notice as the distance between us continued to grow.  The "easy few-minute walk" turned into an agonizing half hour of struggling through the heat with no sign of respite.  Occasionally Molly or Emily would turn around and call "we're almost there!" but by the third time they did this, we stopped believing them.  Finally we reached the apartment, and we fortunately didn't have any problems with security.  The apartment where they were staying was spacious, and nicely furnished, but most importantly it was cool.  We each drank two tall glasses of cold water, then sat in the comfortable living room and munched on watermelon while we waited for our body temperatures to return to normal.  As it was already past 4, I hinted broadly that I would be more than happy to be done for the day, for us to each find supper in our own neighborhood, and reconvene early the next morning.  With the way the day had gone, I couldn't imagine the drama of trying to agree on a restaurant and find our way to it separately.  Although I was loathe to leave the coolness of the apartment, I was quite eager to return to the comfort zone of the hostel and put this trying day behind me, spending the evening watching movies in the lounge or catching up on my blog from the "internet cafe" (2 computers in the main lobby).  Alas, it was not to be.  As we struggled back to the hostel, it became more and more apparent that something was seriously wrong with Aryeh - he could barely walk by the time we neared our destination.  
• Now, if it had been me who had been so sick, I would have described to you everything in all its tedious and embarrassing details.  But I wouldn't want someone else writing about what happened to me in a foreign country, because it's not really their business.  In fact, this whole thing is only my business in how it affected my night, so I'll stick to that.  Suffice it to say, my leader radar didn't fail me.  After we finally made it back to the hostel around 5:30, I bought fixings and made us a nice supper of chicken пельмены covered with сметана.  It was quite delicious, if I do say so myself.  I also fulfilled another of my desires that I had had for a while - to buy and eat a watermelon.  I picked the smallest one they had at the fruit stand, but it was still a significant piece of fruit.  I sliced up a quarter of it for Aryeh and I, but since he didn't want any I was forced to eat it by myself.  I finally left what I couldn't eat for the other guests of the hostel. :P Aryeh, meanwhile, was finally worried enough about his health to call International SOS, our health plan, and they were very helpful.  However, the roaming charges on his phone were so high that he was literally burning through his money, so he went to take some more out of the ATM and discovered, to his horror, that he had lost his bank card.  This was adding insult to injury.  We finally decided that it was necessary to buy a Moscow SIM card (without the roaming charges, incoming calls would be free and outgoing would be a mere 1 ruble/minute instead of 10), which was an ordeal in itself to find an open store and explain what we needed.  The adventures of the night culminated with a midnight taxi ride to a European medical clinic, since SOS decided that Aryeh's situation needed to be taken care of sooner rather than later.  We had no idea where we were going, the taxi driver only spoke Russian, I had been woken up to come along and was still quite groggy… it was certainly an adventure.  But we made it through and one hour and 700 rubles later we were back at the hostel and everything was taken care of.  I'm glad everything worked out in the end, but it isn't something I wish to repeat in the near future.  
• The next morning we were able to sleep in a bit longer (which probably had more to do with our exhaustion than anything else).  Breakfast was even more meager than usual - neither of us had much money or energy to spend this morning.  I ate another quarter of the watermelon and a peanut butter sandwich.  We then packed up our belongings and checked out of the hostel (they kindly allowed me to store my bag there for the rest of the day until it was time for me to head to my train), then set out for Emily & Molly's, where we would leave Aryeh's bag for the day.  I was very pleased and relieved to see that Aryeh was nearly back to normal this morning.  After stopping by Emily & Molly's, we headed back to the Tretyekov gallery (although, to be frank, I had had my fill of art museums and galleries in St. Petersburg).  We looked at more Russian art that I didn't understand or grasp the significance of, including some very impressive mural-paintings and the famous scene of Ivan the Terrible after he has killed his only son in a fit of rage (okay, that one was pretty cool).  Afterwards we went to a food stand that specializes in baked potatoes (how perfect, that my last complete meal in Russia should be potatoes) for lunch - I got mine with chicken and sour cream on top and it was very satisfying.  Afterwards, Aryeh, Emily, and Molly wanted to do some final souvenir-hunting, but since I was out of money and had had my share of shopping in St. Petersburg, I decided to split from the group and do my own thing until it was time for my train to leave.  The other members of my group were skeptical about this, which surprised and peeved me a bit. Did they not think I could take care of myself for three hours?  I had been accustomed to roaming St. Petersburg by myself, since my roommate's desires rarely coincided with mine, and I had somehow managed to keep myself out of any serious trouble ;].  A little insulted, I took my leave of them after assuring them that I had adequate plans for the interim.  I walked several blocks over to a place labeled "Sculpture park" on my map, since I couldn't visit the Gulag museum as I really wanted to and didn't relish wandering around Moscow for three hours.  It was somewhat interesting, but most of the sculptures were rather abstract, and as such, not very appealing to me.  There may or may not have also been a movie being filmed there - at one point I was confronted and shooed away from a group of people by a sour-looking man in uniform.  Fortunately the admission price was only 10 rubles for students, because at this point I was dangerously low on money.  The park was large and I easily spent two hours there, then walked to the nearest metro stop and returned to the hostel for my bags.  This also required taking out some money in order to pay for the two separate metro rides, much to my dismay.  Each time that I took out money, I was charged a $5.00 surcharge by Bank of America, so taking out only $15 (500 rubles) wasn't a very economical option, though it was my only one.  
• After retrieving my bag, I proceeded to the train station.  By the time I arrived at the correct metro station, it was much closer to the departure time of my train than I was comfortable with, and to make matters worse, I couldn't remember which building was the Ленинградский вокзал (and they certainly weren't well-marked).  I ended up having to timidly request directions from a group of милиция  (policemen) - the first and only interaction I had with law enforcement during my entire stay in Russia.  Once I found the train station, I had to ask again to be pointed to the correct train, but at least I was able to board on time.  It was a very nice 4-hour journey that seemed even shorter than that.  The seats were comfortable and the wagons were air-conditioned - and it should have been comfortable for the $100 I paid for my ticket…  Once I reached St. Petersburg once again, I called Tatyana to let her know that I had arrived and would soon be back at the apartment.  I'm glad I did, for she informed me that she was laid up at her dacha with a mild fever and wouldn't be coming back to the apartment that night - Olga would come instead.  (Although I had keys to get into the apartment, Nevsky had arranged for a taxi to take me to the airport - at 3AM for a 6AM flight :P - and they would call when it had arrived with the number and color of the car so I knew what to look for, and I needed someone fluent in Russian to be there to answer that phone call and get the pertinent information.)  So, once again in my comfort zone in St. Petersburg, I took the metro home, stopping on the way for some food and last-minute purchases.  I arrived home at 9:30 and Mom called soon afterwards to double-check travel arrangements with me, which was quite welcome.  Then I set about to pack everything up, a more daunting task than I first suspected.  Olga didn't arrive until 11, at which time she made some tea and we sipped that and snacked on watermelon (that I had successfully brought all the way from Moscow) and chatted until midnight.  Then I dragged myself off to bed for a too-brief respite, albeit the best sleep I had gotten in several days.  I was suddenly and rudely awoken by a loud noise - I believe she turned the television on full blast - and a pounding on my door at 3 AM.  My taxi had arrived.  As I was stumbling down the stairs with my bags, Olga asked me about money, informing me that the charge for the ride would be 950 rubles.  My blood froze - I had barely 300 rubles on me!?  My only partially-awake brain tried to process everything - I had thought that Nevsky would pay for the taxi!!  As it turns out, I was right, but it made for a very nerve-wracking taxi ride.  The city was beautiful at night, though, with all of the lights on and the bridges up.  The White Nights are solidly over, though by the time we reached the airport I thought I could detect the faintest hint of light in the East.  The taxi driver had bad techno music blaring on the radio - I assume to keep himself awake.  Although I had heard far too much bad techno this summer.  These thoughts and many others were swirling through my head as I looked around the Venice of the North for the final time.  It has been a good summer, I concluded, but I am ready to go home.

The Last Gasp

I would be hard put to say whether this last week passed more quickly or slowly than the others.  It certainly seemed to last long enough while we were in the midst of it...

• Monday marked our last Reading class - our final is Wednesday.  Reading was probably my least favorite subject of the three - I'm not sad to have it over with. :P  Likewise with Grammar, though that was much more enjoyable... at this point, most of us are just ready to be done.  It's even difficult for me to get up the motivation to study, I'm so burnt out... I really think 8 weeks is too long for an intensive program such as this, without any breaks.  The progress is evident, but it still wears on you.
• Monday also marked my last official meeting with my Russian friend.  We met after school and walked to one of the northern islands (Yelagin Island, the one that I explored during my not-so-well-thought-out late night excursion).  We rented a pair of roller blades for me (Ksyusha had managed to find her own pair) and spent two hours criss-crossing the island on the asphalt paths.  That's the thing about roller blades - they don't really work on anything but asphalt.  Trust me - we tried. :P  We visited the "zoo" on the island: a collection of half a dozen pens of goats, sheep, and a pair of bedraggled reindeer.  We went to the very tip of the island, where it faces the Gulf of Finland, and looked out across the water to where the horizon blended together and the sky became indistinguishable from the sea (sorry, thought I'd wax a little poetic there ;]).  Then we made laps around the island until our two hours were up, trying to get our money's worth (the cost to rent the roller blades was $10 per hour, but it was Princeton's money, so I didn't really mind ;]).  Unfortunately, Ksyusha was much slower on her blades than I was, not having skated for 2 years, which slowed me down a little and took a little bit of the fun out of it, since she was constantly behind me and I often had to slow down or wait up for her.  But we skated the entire two hours, and at the end got a pleasant surprise when Zarina, my other Russian friend (remember that fateful day at the McDonalds?) also showed up.  Since we hadn't even come close to spending the $250 allotted to us by Princeton for the program, we decided to treat ourselves to supper on a cafe on the island.  The food was good, but nothing special: I had a milkshake, a pork shishkebob and a "ceasar salad."  Russians sure do have a strange idea of a salad: at home, I'll get a single vegetable (usually a carrot) grated into a bowl and mixed with mayonnaise.  At the cafe, the "salad" consisted of a few leaves of lettuce, a hard-boiled egg, a slice or two of tomato, some cheese, and an onion or two, all drenched in dressing.  It was certainly not an entire serving.  But we accomplished our aim: the bill came to 1065 rubles (~$35) and we filled our stomachs.  On the way home I purposely went out of the way to get some ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins on Nevsky Prospect: I figured since ice cream is so much better here than in the States, and since Baskin-Robbins is really good ice cream back home (at least, it's pricey enough...), therefore, Baskin-Robbins in Russia must be to die for.  Unfortunately, there was a logical error somewhere in my theory.  It wasn't worth it - I paid $4.50 for two tiny scoops in a waffle cone and it wasn't even as good as the ice cream at Чайная ложка which I can buy for one-third the price.  But, you live and learn, I suppose...
• Unfortunately, our Conversation class has finally begun to get interesting, just about the time we are finishing the program.  We started playing word games this week, and the teacher would have us do a dialogue on an assigned topic, then we would have to answer questions from our classmates on other topics of the teacher's choice.  It is a good exercise in improvisation and coherency - exactly the skills one would need in an actual conversation.  I wish we had begun this four weeks ago - but perhaps four weeks ago we would not have been able to do this.  Who knows.  In any case, I am finding it more and more difficult to enjoy classes in general, and studying even less so.  Both Tuesday and Wednesday I made valiant attempts to study, with the effect that I probably added a dozen or so words to my vocabulary, and decided that I already knew most of the grammar topics fairly well.  Well, we'll see about that.
• Wednesday was our last "excursion" with our group - we went to a combination ballet-drama performance at a little-known theater in the city center.  The dialogue (or, I should really say, monologue) was simple enough that I could follow most of it - something about a deranged man in the psych ward who wants to dance and doesn't think anyone understands him.  Typical Russian plotline, I suppose.  In any case, the dancing was very beautiful, especially the female dancer (whom I later learned was one person in several costumes, not several separate dancers, as I at first thought.  I don't do culture, ok?  I'm from Maine.  Give me a break).  The highlight of that night was beating Latalia home, even though I walked and she took the metro, and it was a 45-minute walk.  I now feel justified in walking everywhere instead of taking a circuitous and complicated metro ride that involves several transfers.  :P
• The way it worked out, our group had one final exam on each of the last three days of classes.  Wednesday was Reading - it was a difficult essay test, and the teacher didn't make it clear until afterwards that she would focus on grammar and clarity instead of actual content (as she said, this is a language, not a literature, course).  I wish I had known that before I slaved away for 90 minutes on it.  Still, I will probably get a satisfactory grade, after all; I probably should have studied more vocab related to the topic, but I can't change that now.  Thursday was Grammar - as I suspected, I was basically ready.  Although we also had Grammar class on Friday, the teacher wanted to be able to give us our tests back and take any questions, so we took the test a day early (which was fine with me - as I said, I was just ready to get it over with).  I did reasonably well - the mistakes that I made were either stupid or not something that much more studying would have helped.  Today, Friday, we had Conversation - the teacher called us up one by one and gave us a topic, which we then had to discourse on then and there without preparation.  Finally, something that simulates actual conversation in Conversation class!!  Actually, I preferred not having time to prepare - it set the standard lower and it was more excusable to ramble and not have a concrete storyline or something exceptionally creative to tell about (my classmates consistently put me to shame in that area during the last semester).  My topic was "Film and Television," so I talked about how I rarely watch TV, and my favorite movies and genres of movies, and the movies I have watched here in Russia.  I got an A, as did most people - the class isn't particularly strenuous, and the grading is actually somewhat arbitrary, from what we can see.
• Thursday I had the opportunity to meet Ksyusha one last time.  My sister Emily wanted a tie-dye T-shirt with cyrillic lettering on it for a souvenir - I didn't realize how American tie-dye is until I started looking around.  Ksyusha thought she had found a place where I could get one, but it turns out that it was a false lead - they only had black and white shirts, and none of them I particularly liked.  I'll get one today from one of the souvenir kiosks (sometime between packing, buying last-minute food items and meeting my traveling companions for supper at 6:45 :P).  But, we were able to visit the Zoological Museum again, since we hadn't been able to finish it last time - and was I ever glad we did!  As it turns out, admission to the museum is free on the last Thursday of every month - and guess what yesterday was?  That was a nice surprise.  I found out that what I had thought was a small side-hall of the museum turned out to be where most of the exhibits were located - including a couple of mummified baby mammoths and more antlers on the wall than I have ever seen in my life.  Their bird collection was also enormous - it is amazing to think of the breadth and variety of species out there!  It was just amazing to see all of the creativity there is in God's creation - not to mention I got to see some of my favorite animals that I have never seen before (i.e. an okapi ^.^).  After this, my feet were tired, so I pointed them homeward.  Latalia was going out for supper with some friends, so I made myself pelmeni (my favorite Russian dish) and a carrot "salad" and sipped my tea, feeling very Russian.  I think this country has gotten me into the tea-drinking habit - I'm even bringing some home so that I can have it occasionally in my dorm room at Princeton.  Who knew... :]  After supper, I called Tatyana to let her know of my plans for the next day concerning my departure for Moscow, and we talked for a full 13 minutes in Russian!  And I understood her!!!  I really have made progress (which she also noted, and congratulated me for effusively and repetitively :P)

And so we come to the end.  Moscow now is going to seem like an epilogue, of sorts... but a good one.  I'll have to tell you all about it (and my epic return journey) when I get back.  Until then, stay sane!  Twewthfully yours, Эмилия ;]

Welcome to the Jungle

My last weekend in St. Petersburg.  It seems strange that now we are coming up to all of the "last"s: last weekend, last Monday, last quizzes... but it's good.  I'm ready to come home now.

• I was planning to do all of my souvenir shopping in one fell swoop on Saturday: just set aside the day and wander from souvenir stand to souvenir stand, searching for the best deals.  I should have known that things never work out the way you want them to :P  For starters, a terrific thunderstorm started up just as I was planning to head out.  It was no use searching for souvenirs in the rain, so I was forced to stay in and study all morning - and am I ever tired of studying.  Finally, around noontime, I headed out in search of some lunch (the rain had stopped by this time, but it was still cloudy and threatening).  I here ran into some luck; stopping by Петёрочка, I found microwaveable popcorn, and then! a rack of DVDs, $3.99 each.  Browsing through these, one in particular caught my eye: Хроникли Нарнии: Принс Каспиан.  I quickly checked the back of the case: indeed, it was in Russian, English, and Ukranian.  My decision was made: armed with the popcorn, the movie, and a chocolate bar for good measure, I happily traipsed back to the apartment, stopping by Teremok on the way to pick up a ham-and-cheese blin for lunch.  The movie was thoroughly enjoyable (in English, of course - I hadn't yet had the pleasure of watching the second Narnia movie, and my Russian is certainly not at the level to understand an entire movie...) and the popcorn was delicious, albeit a bit on the stale side.  The chocolate made up for that, however... I'm trying to find the best European chocolate over here that isn't too expensive, so that I can bring some back for you guys :]
• Finally, by the time I had finished the movie, the weather had cleared up and the sun was doing its best to make up for the morning's rain by shining twice as strongly.  Seeing as it was only 2:30, I decided that there was no time like the present to set out, and perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to only shop for an afternoon rather than an entire day.  With this in mind, my hopes high, and my wallet fat, I set out on my adventure.  
• As you can imagine, I systematically searched all of the souvenir kiosks between me and the center of the city, looking for the perfect gifts for my friends and family (and more importantly, at the perfect prices).  Although this may surprise you, I can get quite nervous when it comes to bartering, but the fact that I had a limited amount of money to spend and a certain amount of souvenirs to buy helped to bolster my courage.  I quickly learned that some salespeople are much quicker to bargain than others, and some will barely engage you (the more engaging ones are harder to get away from, I find).  I also found out that the more expensive the souvenir is, the more of a discount you can get for it.  Finally, I learned that the souvenir stores are not always more expensive than the kiosks... and that, though матрошки did not originate in Russia, contrary to popular opinion (they actually come from Japan), they are now the classic Russian souvenir - and they are everywhere.  It is rare to find a kiosk that doesn't have a few of the portly stacking dolls lined up on a shelf, or on display.  And you can find матрошки with pictures of anything - from the traditional Russian babushkas to fairy tales (I was particularly interested in these for my cousin Grace, but they were all very expensive) to sports teams to the Beatles to Russian political leaders to Barack Obama and family to popular movies and TV shows (I even found a LOTR матрошкa, but the quality wasn't very high, so I passed on that one).  Not to bore you with all of the details or a description of all of the souvenirs that I purchased (you can see them when I return, and if you're lucky, you'll even get one :]), I'll just say that after $100 I had found most of the souvenirs that I was looking for, and then some.
• By this time it was already 8:00, and the kiosks were beginning to close shop for the day, so I headed home to a supper of cold vegetables.  It sounds gross (and probably was) but after walking around for 6 hours in the scorching heat (the sun quickly warmed things up even after the morning's thunderstorm) they tasted like a gourmet meal.  Still in a somewhat lazy mood, it struck my fancy to watch a movie in Russian before I went to bed.  Tatyana has a smallish collection of DVDs and videos, including several multi-movie DVDs the likes of which I have never seen in the States.  From one of these I finally selected King Kong as my film of choice, mostly because I figured the dialogue would not be crucial to the plot (at this point in my Russian, I still only understand about half of what is said at normal speed).  However, this turned out not to be such a great decision: I didn't realize that the movie was 3 hours long, so it was past midnight when I finally got to bed.  Normally, this would not have been a problem, particularly on a Saturday night, except for the fact that I had requested to accompany Tatyana to the 7:00 Orthodox service the next morning.  Well, we all make mistakes...
• Regardless of my insufficient night's sleep, I arose at 6:30 in order to prepare to attend the service with Tatyana.  We walked over to the cathedral, which is very close to our apartment.  The service lasted about 90 minutes, and I will do my best to describe my impressions here.  The thing that struck me most was the ritual of it all: there was a set order in which things were done, and I imagine that many of the same things are said every week.  But there was more than enough happening during the service to keep my attention: the (non-professional) choir sang slow, solemn hymns in Old Church Slavonic (T.T. informed me that her husband Vacilly also sings in that choir); the priests in their long, ornate golden robes walked around the altar, came out in front of the congregation and declared things, then walked back behind the iconostasis; one of the priests produced an incense burner and proceeded around the altar and back and forth in front of the worshipers, swinging it in a rhythm; members of the congregation bought and lighted candles in front of the various icons hanging on the walls and the columns, recited prayers before them and kissed the glass frames protecting them; an offering was taken by three humble-looking ladies who passed around the cathedral holding offering-plates; a golden chalice was produced with much ceremony and the members of the congregation were each fed a spoonful of its contents before they filed over (with crossed arms) to the table where communion was being served; one of the priests mounted a raised platform and spoke for a few minutes, apparently reading a prayer or passage of scripture from a large tome; a gilded book was brought out, opened, read from, then replaced somewhere behind the altar (I'm assuming it was a Bible); and at the end, the oldest priest took a golden crucifix and allowed each of the worshipers to kiss it, in turn, before they filed out of the cathedral.  I was exceedingly impressed by the acoustics of the cathedral, until I realized that there were strategically placed microphones near where the priests stood to talk (but I'm still sure that the building was designed so that sound from that specific place would resonate the most).  It was also interesting to see the dress of the people who attended the service: all of the women were in skirts that came at least to their knees, and they all wore head-scarves (I did too; no woman is allowed to enter a working cathedral with her head uncovered), and none of the men wore shorts or hats; but that is where the uniformity ended.  The people were dressed in all different stages of formality: some men wore khakis and dress shirts, but some were in jeans and T-shirts.  The priests also surprised me with their lack of uniformity: they all wore similar robes, of course, but were all of different aged and had all different styles of facial hair (I guess I had assumed that there would be some sort of strictures for how the priests should be bearded).  At many points during the service, the people crossed themselves, and sometimes bowed all the way to the floor, but I couldn't exactly find a rhyme or reason to it.  There was also a bit of call-and-response on the part of the choir: the priest would read part of a prayer and the singers would respond Господи помоги, Господи помоги, Господи помоги нам, which, being translated, is "Lord help, Lord help, Lord help us."  Once, the priests recited something and most of the members of the congregation joined in; there must be some prayers that everyone is supposed to learn by heart.  Overall, it was different in action from a service at Calvary Chapel, but perhaps not so far off in spirit; I could still feel the presence of the Lord in that place and I am sure that there are many people who worship from the bottom of their hearts in the only way they know how through this church.  But I am glad that I nearly always understand what my pastor is saying (I am fairly sure that the majority of the service was conducted in Old Church Slavonic, which is no longer used or even understood by most Russians).
• Tatyana repeated many times over both before and during the service that I could leave when I got tired or bored, or at least sit down on the benches that are on the side for the elderly members of the congregation who physically cannot stand on their feet for the entire 90 minutes, as is required since there are no other seats in the cathedral.  But I chose to stand the entire time, wishing to have the full experience of a Russian Orthodox service.  For that Tatyana was very proud of me afterwards, and kept telling me how wonderful it was that I stayed for the entire time.  I feel like I have a new grandmother now - T.T. seems to be proud of me for almost everything, from my progress in Russian (we can actually hold decent and lengthy conversations on a select few subjects) to my mediocre cooking skills to things like this.  I will, indeed, miss her when I return to America, and may even endeavor to write her a letter every now and again (international calling is nearly out of the question because of the cost and time difference, and she doesn't use a computer).  Anyway, on our way out of the cathedral we saw an ambulance parked outside; apparently one of the older churchgoers had fallen and hurt herself pretty severely on her way out.  Incidentally, I only saw older women at the service; the oldest man there was probably the priest, and the oldest male worshiper couldn't have been over 50.  I wonder why that is - I'm sure past a certain age you would still find the effects of WWII and the Siege of Leningrad, when more than 1.5 million citizens of the city died, and the men of that generation became very scarce.  Or perhaps it is that men who grew up in the Soviet era tend to be less religious than the women, or perhaps the women live longer for any of several reasons.  But it was a striking fact.
• After church, we went to the local grocery store for bread and milk, then returned to the apartment for breakfast.  It being my last weekend in St. Petersburg, I decided to visit the Hermitage with Latalia again (which, unfortunately, I had only visited once before during my time here, which is not nearly enough time to appreciate the vast collection of art in this extravagant 5-building complex).  This time I brought my borrowed camera and took pictures of some of the interiors and works, so that I can show you all a little of the splendor of Russia.  Of course, it won't do it justice, but I can at least try :].  After that, I found a couple more of the souvenirs I hadn't managed to find the day before (namely a painting for my Aunt Shirley and a gift for my cousin Ben), then took a circuitous route back to the apartment in order to photograph the Bronze Horseman monument and the large ships that lay moored in the river: apparently Sunday commemorated the 310th anniversary of the founding of the Russian Navy, and the sailors were out en force.  I think my dad at least will appreciate the pictures of the big war ships - he will be able to tell me all about what they are for. :]  But the real reason for my roundabout way home was so that I could take a ride on the tram, which I had been wanting to do for a while.  I have now officially used every possible form of transportation here in St. Petersburg (a fact of which I am very proud) although I still prefer to walk, when it is possible.  
• Home again, I cooked supper, as I have been doing more and more often lately - cutlets, rice and vegetables.  While the food here is good, and filling, and hearty, I really miss American food... a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a piece of bacon pizza... but now I'm drooling XD

And so passed my last weekend in St. Petersburg.  It's hard to imagine that I'm so close to the end... I've already been here for 7 weeks... I'm ready to come home. 

Thank God for Peanut Butter

Well, since I realize that my blog is starting to sound more like a chronicle or a detailed police report than an interesting story, I'll try to only hit the highlights of last week.

• I went to the store on Monday, spent 214 rubles and got food for the entire week.  Not the most appetizing fare, but certainly cause for celebration: nowhere else could I spend $6 and feed myself for 5 days (granted, it's really only 5 meals, but the point still holds).  This is good, since I am still thinking about all of the money that I lost when my purse was stolen (in bills as well as goods), and the time is drawing near to venture out into the wild jungles of the souvenir fair, where every vendor waits to pounce on you and lure you in to paying at least twice as much as what everything is worth.  I'm not entirely sure that I'm ready. :P
• Last week I was very busy after school.  Monday I met Ksyusha, Tuesday I went to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery,  Wednesday I blogged (and that was an adventure in itself), Thursday we went to the Russian Museum, and Friday I once again spent time with Ksyusha.  Somewhere in all of that I still managed to do my homework either on time or early and get a full night's sleep every night.  Can it be that I've really figured out how to study and have a social life simultaneously?  Or is this just an illusion, enabled by the fact that I'm only studying one subject and therefore have 20 instead of 24 hours of class each week? (Wow, I actually didn't realize that it was that much... my schedule last semester seemed like a lot, and yet 4 hours per day doesn't??  Guess I'm back in High School mode here...)
• After school on Monday, Ksyusha and I went to Михайлевский замок (Michael's Castle), which is now a branch of the Russian Art Museum.  There were some very recent works there, painted in the last few years, that especially caught my eye.  I also noticed that the interiors of this building aren't nearly as extravagant as many of the palaces that I have seen here (although, of course, not much can compare to the Hermitage...)  On the way back, I got it into my head to ride a tram, and waited by the stop for about 20 minutes before I gave it up as a lost cause and walked home (I should have learned my lesson from the day before...)
• After supper on Monday, Tatyana and I had a good long talk on two of her favorite subjects: religion and boys.  Fortunately I've become fairly well-versed in the vocabulary necessary to discuss these themes, so it was fairly interesting for the both of us.  In the seven weeks that I've been here, I have at least learned how to express my opinions even when I lack the particular vocabulary (one of the most necessary skills in any language XD).  I'm still not sure whether she's entirely clear on my plans for after the program, particularly when I will be returning to St. Petersburg from Moscow to catch my ridiculously early flight out on the 4th.  But, we still have time to work that out (and to tell the truth, I'm not really sure I'm entirely clear on my plans :P).
• The days were a bit cooler last week, at least at the beginning - that was a welcome relief.  It's such a nuisance to have to shower in the evenings, because then I have to either dry my hair manually (and my hair dryer is the only appliance that I brought with me that doesn't work very well over here) or wait for it to air dry - and with my hair, that takes hours.  The other option, going to bed with wet hair, has led to some dire consequences in the past.  So I was very glad when it had finally cooled down enough to justify taking showers in the mornings again.
• On Tuesday Anna B took a few of us who expressed interest on an expedition to Alexander Nevsky Monastery.  This is the Nevsky for whom Nevsky Prospect, the Nevsky Institute, and sundry other buildings and sights around the city are named.  We went inside the cathedral, and I noticed that there were many fewer murals on the walls than in St. Sophia's cathedral in Novgorod - perhaps because it isn't as old.  We also ate pirojki in a cafe downstairs, but the real attraction to the Monastery is the cemetery.  The Necropolis is the final resting place of some of the most famous Russians of all time, including Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky.  Their gravestones are unbelievably extravagant, as you can imagine; complete with sculptures of the artists and excerpts from their most famous works.  But, it's still a graveyard; they're still dead; by now, they look just like every other person that died more than 50 years ago; and someday, you and I will look like that, too.  Okay, maybe that's a little too morbid.  But it is interesting how much attention we pay to those who are now no more than worm food, all because of what they did during their several dozen years on earth.  After all, you only go around once...
• Also on Tuesday, one of the administrators of the Nevsky Institute who had heard of my plight brought in her old digital camera for me to use.  It takes a rechargeable battery pack and a Memory Stick instead of an SD card, and the last pictures on the Memory Stick are from 2008, so I know the camera is fairly old.  But it is a digital camera, so at least I can have pictures from my last two weeks here; and it is a Canon PowerShot, 7.2 megapixel - a pretty good camera.  The only complication is going to be getting my pictures off of it before I have to return it (which, incidentally, is before I go to Moscow, so it doesn't solve that problem :P).  But I trust that it will work out, in the end.
• The food this week, at least, got a little more interesting than it has tended to be.  Olga came and made us pelmeni on Tuesday (which is now officially my favorite Russian dish.  I'm a big fan of stuffed pasta from any part of the world - ravioli from Italy, pirogies from Poland, dim sum from China... :])  And then on Wednesday morning, she cooked us French Toast!!  (It has a name in Russian, but I forget it.)  It was really good - better than when I had it in Belgrade - and tasted much the same as in America, undoubtedly because it was made the same way. :P  I also got Latalia's permission to make a peanut butter sandwich with some of her peanut butter which her mother sent her (since she won't be able to eat it all by the time she leaves), so Wednesday was a very good food day.  I didn't realize how much I enjoyed American food before I had to go without it for a few weeks.  I especially miss breakfast foods - the Russian idea of breakfast is oatmeal and tea :P.  I want pancakes, French toast, waffles with peanut butter and Mom's pineapple-rhubarb jam, omelets, muffins, bacon, and especially fruit.  We have cornflakes every morning - it's something, and I do like cereal, but breakfast is my favorite meal and I love to eat hearty in the mornings.  But, now I'm making myself hungry just talking about this, so I'd better stop. :P
• I had thought that the mosquitoes were done with - turns out I was wrong.  On Wednesday night the biggest mosquito I have ever seen buzzed around my room ceaselessly all night.  Every time I woke up - and I woke up often - I could hear the hellish whine, which sounded like it was right above my head, but if I got up and turned the light on, I could see that the creature was, in fact, on the opposite side of the room (if that tells you anything about how big the thing was :P).  I never did end up killing it, even after getting up at 6:30 and chasing it around the room for 30 minutes.  I left my door open when I went to school, and I can only assume that it flew out, seeking fresh blood or better territory or something.  I can only hope that it doesn't breed in our house - more of those mutant mosquitoes and I can forget about sleeping again while I'm here. :P
• As I said, on Thursday we went to the Russian museum after school, with the entire group.  Incidentally, this was our last group outing (and I was none too sad about that :P).  We had an excellent guide, however (the same guide as conducted our bus tour of the city upon our first arrival in the city) who spoke very good English and moved at a good pace through the museum, telling us interesting things about the artists and their works so that none of us were ever very bored.  I pride myself on the endurance I have built up over the summer as far as walking goes - good thing, too, since I'll be an OA leader in September and that will be my sole occupation for an entire week.  In the interest of this, I decided to walk to our meeting place, although I would barely have enough time.  Yet I managed to not only make it in time, but arrive almost first (as I later learned, this is because several of the group stopped for drinks and snacks and their orders were slower in coming than they expected).  Afterwards, I walked back to the apartment and began to inquire about souvenir prices, so that I didn't get roped into buying the first pretty matroshka doll that I came across for twice its value.  I found some beautiful paintings of sights in St. Petersburg for my artist Aunt Shirley, and made note of the vendor's location to return when I had more money.  There are also many artists who are willing to draw a portrait of you for the right price - namely, 500 rubles.  I'm still not sure whether I can justify spending that kind of money (~$17) on a picture of myself.
• Friday was without a doubt the highlight of my week.  Class was ridiculous - for whatever reason, my classmates (especially Phil) were in a particularly silly mood, and kept answering questions with lines from the poems that we had memorized.  They were impressively creative with how they managed to incorporate the depressing sentiments of Lermontov's 19th-century poetry into exercises about verbs of motion and subordinate clauses.  And that was only grammar class - in conversation, things deteriorated even further.  All summer, we have had assignments called "Creative task: Let's think about it... in Russian."  This means that we are given a theme and have to come up with a several-sentence story that we tell aloud on that particular theme.  At first, these were short and stumbling and we took them very seriously, usually writing down what we wanted to say and either memorizing it or reading straight from the paper.  Then we got completely bored of it and it became a real drag.  Then one day someone realized that instead of laboring to come up with a story, we could take movie plots and retell them, adapting them to the necessary subject: our teacher, a native St. Petersburger who speaks little English, would not be likely to know many American movies.  Suddenly, the boring and pointless exercise turned into a game: to see who could guess the movie first, without letting the teacher know what we were doing.  Our stories also had to be believable, because if she caught on that it was a movie, our cover would be blown.  The theme was vacation/holiday: Emily told about one time when she was in Australia and was temporarily kidnapped and taken to Sydney (Finding Nemo - no one guessed that one :P).  Hayk recounted the time when he skipped school his senior year and went joyriding in his friend's father's Ferrari (Ferris Beuler's Day Off).  Phil explained that there was a village in America where everyone thought that it was still the 19th century, through the cunning of the city fathers (The Village).  Mattias explained the history of Boxing Day - that one time there was a champion boxer, but she suffered head trauma in a fight and her trainer helped her commit suicide so that she wouldn't have to live connected to a ventilator (Million-Dollar Baby).  It was a hoot - we were all excited for Tuesday, since we had connived the theme to be "visiting strange relatives".  Conversation is now our favorite class.
• After class on Friday, I met Ksyusha near Peter and Paul's Fortress, and we went to see the products of the Annual Sand Sculpture Competition, held there on the beach of Hare Island.  The theme this year was "Film" - there was even a sculpture dedicated to Lord of the Rings!!  I got a picture by that one (although I took pictures of all of them).  It was absolutely incredible that the stuff that we were walking on was also the medium out of which these artists had crafted the masterworks that we saw in front of us.  However, it didn't take long to look at the dozen or so sculptures, so we decided to take a detour into the interior of the cathedral in the fortress before our next activity.  In this cathedral are buried all but two of the Russian Czars (the other two are buried in Moscow), a testament to the fact that, for most of the city's history, St. Petersburg has been the capital of Russia.  This cathedral is much more western than most in St. Petersburg - the large windows let in more light and the long, thin spire is definitely not Russian.  I saw there (yet another) bust of Peter the Great as well as the graves of Catherine II, Elizabeth I, and the family of Nicholas II who were kidnapped and shot in a backwater village after the Revolution.  But these only half held my attention, as I was really looking forward to where we were to visit next - the ZOO!!!!
• I love zoos.  Actually, I'm more like a 7-year-old in my interests: you can have your art, history, and theater; just give me animals, a beach, or a playground.  But I probably have more fun, so it's okay :D  I had been wanting to visit the St. Petersburg Zoo all summer, but my (liberal, tree-hugging) friends continually warned me that the conditions would be atrocious and the animals would be mistreated and hungry, and that I shouldn't go (or at least shouldn't expect much when I did).  Then, when I lost my camera, I wanted to wait until I got another before I went, so that I could take pictures, which is my favorite thing to do at the zoo.  So finally the opportunity presented itself (Ksyusha was more than happy to accompany me to the zoo), and we spent an entire afternoon gawking at all of the wild animals and trying to make sure that we didn't miss anything.  We saw a snake in the process of shedding its skin, and watched it until it had finished.  We visited the Spider Room (eek!!), complete with dirt on the floor, sticks and leaves surrounding the terrariums, and a rope spiderweb on the ceiling from which hung the shed skins of all of the tarantulas.  When I first came in and nearly ran into one of these grisly carcasses, it was all I could do to keep myself from screaming.  Good thing I like being scared... :]  In the arena, where there is usually the opportunity to ride horses, there was a fine trotter and a shaggy pony being lunged (for those of you who aren't horsemen and women, that means that they were going around in a circle while the person stood in the middle on the other end of a long canvas rope and directed them.  The trotter was being trained to pick up its legs more when it trotted, so that it would be more of a floaty gait.  The pony was just being exercised.  Of course, I was probably more interested in this than in any of the other animals in the zoo... go figure. :P  But we also saw lions, and tigers, and bears (oh my! - sorry, couldn't resist XD), and leopards (snow, black, and normal), and tons of predatory birds, and hares, which are much larger than rabbits, and Prezhwalski's horses (that's spelled wrong, but I don't really care - they're the only true species of wild horse still in existence, and they live in Mongolia), and mountain goats, and a very active tapir, and reindeer, and moose!!  It was really cool - there were definitely some animals there that I've never seen before so closely.  Like the polar bears, or the hares, or the reindeer.  There was also a petting zoo where you could feed goats (which we, of course, did) and a frog house, which we also visited.  There was a series of rooms in the middle of this building which you could enter, and when we did we discovered that they were actually animal cages that were designed to let the zoo visitors get up close and personal with the animals.  It wasn't anything dangerous - just a couple of fish, some turtles, and a two-toed sloth who glanced blearily around at us before going back to his nap.  But it was definitely something you wouldn't have the chance to do in America - you know, animal rights activists and whatnot.  Something else we saw that I don't think you would in America was the animals being fed.  That's not so strange, but instead of pre-prepared vitamin-packed food mush, there were actual, dead, bloody prey animals.  The ferrets and meerkats and eagles got mice, while the big cats and bears were fed chickens.  The zookeepers weren't worried that the zoo-goers might be squeamish or anything - I guess they figured that if people wanted to see the animals, they might as well see them as they would be in the wild.  I won't gross you out with vivid descriptions of how we could hear the meerkats crunching the bones of the mice or anything... but it was pretty cool.  And, contrary to all of my friends' fears, the animals all seemed well-fed, happy, and as active as they can be expected to be in the terrible 90-degree heat.  Many of them were trying desperately to cool off, whether lying on the cool cement floor or panting (especially the cold-climate creatures like the polar bears and mountain goats), and I felt bad for them then, but this is quite unusual heat and there is really nothing the zookeepers could have done about the weather.  

So, we are finally nearing the end of this series of my adventures.  As you probably know, I will be in Moscow for the weekend after the end of the program, and there I will most likely not have the luxury of a computer.  Thus, I will try my hardest to catch up on my blog before I depart Friday evening, but there will be a lull (although not more than there already has been, at times) followed by a furious spurt of several entries within a short time span, once I return to the States.  Thus, I advise you to catch up now so that you don't get overwhelmed (although, when I think about it, if you're reading this you're basically caught up, and if you're not you wouldn't be reading this, so it won't help you - oh well! :P)  As always, twewthfully yours!!!

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...