From Russia, with Love

Последный

Блог 11

          So- I've done quite a bit here in Russia in the four months I've had. I've seen the Russian ballet, made snow angels on the frozen Neva, been stuck on the wrong side of a bridge until 5:30 a.m., been yelled at by little old ladies, met Eddie Izzard in a spice market in Istanbul, and most of all met some amazing and unique people. I am really truly glad I took this chance, even if it was a little late in my college career. It has definitely helped me decide what my next few steps are in the coming ever-so-frightening "real world". I figure that if I can handle myself, not get mugged, hurt, too lost or deported in a place like Russia- I can pretty much handle myself.

Bijan's first day in the square by the Hermitage.

          I am all packed and ready to head to the airport and even now I'm running into problems that can only be answered with, "because it's Russia…" To get to the airport I have to go to the mainland over a bridge. Of course, I need to get there around 4:00 a.m. and guess when the bridge is closed? My host mom doesn't believe me that the bridges go down for only 30 minutes between 2:45 and around 3:15 and then I'm stuck until 5:00, so if I go I have to go before they open the first time. It's like arguing with a brick wall that knows better than you do- but they really don't. Personal experience has me in the right, backed up by the power of the internet and my program coordinators. Of course the bridges open at 1:25, so I'll be at the airport for a while. It's Russia… 

Inside the Church of the Spilled Blood.

          So these last two weeks!!! Lots of goodbyes, lots of cultural stuff, and best of all Bijan. He spent the week here while I had finals and said goodbye to this extremely beautiful city. We did the whole thing- St. Isaac's, the Church of the Spilled Blood, Hermitage, Peterhoff, food, boat tour around the Neva, walks down Nevsky Prospekt, and Dostoyevsky's grave. If I'm any judge, I'd say Bij had a good trip, and I really enjoyed having him here. I am glad to be coming home to end our long distance trend, even if just for a little while.  From what I could tell, he thought the city was beautiful, more European than he expected, full of grumpy Russians, full of too much walking, and too many churches. I couldn't agree more. 

A lot of gold and blue, a lot like the rest of Russia...

          Here are some extremely big generalities that I have decided about Russians (my opinions in no way reflect the views of those around me- this is just my personal perspective). At least in St. Petersburg, the people here are inherently good. They just act like everyone else in the word wishes they could. They are grumpy and frowny on the metro because they had a long day at work, it's cold/hot/raining/smells funny and they are annoyed- so they glare. I always feel the need to pretend to be happy at stores or on the light rail/bus toward other people, lest they see my bad mood. Here- they don't hold back. On the other hand, they always want the best for you. I've had more friendly 

The Bronze Horseman and
St. Isaac's in the back.

people here give me a hand or help me in some way than I could really ever have hoped for. They take a crappy situation, like inches of ice on the ground for six-seven months out of the year, while in the other months the sun doesn't bother to go down, and make it work with them. They do like to remember their suffering, and the city helps them do that, but I think that they genuinely care about other people and are overall good at heart.

          The goodbye ceremony for my program, after finals, was on a boat with pictures and champagne and a certificate of completion, and it was actually charming. I am not one for goodbyes, but it was one last hurrah with some really awesome people. Bijan also got a free boat tour around the Neva so yay! Had to say bye to my best friend, Alexa, though, 

These wonderful girls!
Alexa, Anya, Emma, Jena, Bianka and Lauren!

which was not awesome. She may come out to visit (fingers crossed) so everyone else can experience the crazy that is Sasha! We also went to Peterhoff which was pretty much amazing! The weather wasn't great but it wasn't hot so we counted it as a win. I was mildly disappointed when we figured out that the trick fountains are man operated, but the palace and fountains were breathtaking and we got to take a hydrofoil there. There's not much else to say about the last two weeks. Finals, Bijan, goodbyes, walking, packing, oh my god where did I get so much stuff, etc. I think I gave myself a proper sendoff.

          My conclusion from these four months is: I could not be luckier. I am lucky to have had this opportunity, parents to push me out into the world and help me get there, 

Red Heads last ride.

Bijan's visit, a host mom whose schedule and habits were perfectly compatible with mine, meeting a new and most amazing best friend, and diving into a language that I truly understand in a culture I really just get.  We are surly, sarcastic, and don't always like other people, but at heart these people always mean the absolute best. Sure they are all  very focused on their own destinations and goals, but they'll always help out when you need it. We've had a few nights where we meet new Russian friends and go to a bar with them, and they always make sure we get home safe- no matter how recently we met them. True signs of good people. I will miss Russia, my walk to the metro, my view and my balcony and my favorite bars  and cafes, but I'm pretty happy to be coming back home.

Peterhoff!

What's next you ask?!?!

          Well! That is a fantastic question………… ummmmmmmm…… I'll let you know!

No, but seriously- I have one more class that is four weeks long and then I am DONE with undergrad as long as my study abroad credits transfer properly (everyone send competency vibes to my college advisor- she needs it, seriously!). After that I'm taking a "year off"- you know to explore art and music… No- to find a job and get a foot in the professional door. 

SO MUCH GOLD!

I am applying to graduate school for news-broadcast journalism at CU Boulder and am hoping to start that in August of 2014 (not entirely by choice- apparently they don't accept students in January :-/). I hope to continue my Russian, maybe find a tutor or something, become more active like learning krav maga or something awesome like that, and generally figure out in which direction I  would like my career to be headed other than up. So, goals: JOB in my field, continue Russian, support myself as much as possible and overall don't screw up!

Thanks all for reading this for the last four months! Not only does it save me from telling and retelling all my stories, it also helps me to remember and filter out all my experiences to the most interesting and important! I can also now tell who my real friends are by who actually read it ;-)!!! Just kidding (kinda). Hope you all enjoyed reading it. Who knows, I may start another one to break into the right spheres.

My amazing host mom Larisa Sergeevna <3

See ya'll soon!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. What am I supposed to do with the vodka on my bedside table, now?

Victory Day and Football

Блог 10

          AHHH! Sorry I'm so late- yet again! I swear that for once it was for good reason. I had a grand old time these last two weeks and actually tried to be productive! I'm so very proud of myself. On top of that, SPRING! Rain and beauty and birds and green grass. The rivers have melted, and, as I said last time, the sun is coming up EVEN earlier and going down EVEN later. It's still not down at 11:00 p.m. as I am writing this. School is picking up as we are nearing the end of the semester, and I  turned in a paper for politics, had a test in culture and am preparing for the finals that are to come. I'm so very close to being done. So- here's what I did while I was busy not writing this blog.

The view off Pushkin's back porch...

          Our program took us on a weekend trip during the May holidays to a little town about four hours south of St. Petersburg called Pskov. Every time we do something as a group we meet at a place called Kazansky Sobor which is a very large cathedral in the middle of St. Petersburg. I made it there on time, but of course, I am an idiot and forgot my passport. To be fair, my thinking was- we aren't leaving the country, so why would I bring it? Well hotels won't let us check in without it- that's why. So I ended up having to call a taxi and take it all the way back to my apartment and then to a metro stop on the very edge of town which ended up being annoying, expensive, and was a big time waster. Fortunately for me, four other people forgot theirs as well, so we still would have been stuck waiting if not for me.

Pushkin's grave

          So after a four hour long bus ride full of cranky college students we got to our hotel that really, almost reminded me of being in the mountains at home- just without the mountains. Our hotel was similar to some of the mountain lodges in Colorado except for the lack of pine trees and more birches but it was open and quiet and calm. It was in this sleepy place called Pushkinsky gori which is where one of Pushkin's houses was, and one in which he spent a lot of time in exile. I found out my host mom and her ex husband ran a hotel out there, which is very adorable.The tour was very cool and beautiful because there was a lake and a windmill….. it was lovely. We went on long walks through the forest, sat on our balconies talking, reading, knitting, and generally existing. Despite the terrible planning of our program, this trip was well done. I will say though, that one poorly planned part was that of the banya situation.

Looking like a gypsy woman next
to a monk with Sarah.

          Russian banyas  are public bath houses that are gender separated, and are basically steam rooms and then you beat each other with giant leaves and jump into a pool when it gets too hot. They are naked, of course, and I have yet to partake. I hope to go to one this week. Anyways, the poorly planned portion was the fact that the banya  had an outdoor pool. In full view of all the hotel rooms. So our CIEE students reserved the banya just for us and had time for the guys and time for the girls. I wish I had known that sitting on the back porch would put me in plain view of the men running out of the steam room and into the pool. That was unfortunate and not something you can unsee…

The walls of a fortress from the roof that
we weren't supposed to be on. Oops.

          Anywho… We went to a gorgeous monastery with real authentic monks on Russian Easter, and were invited up to the Holy Hill by a monk. That is a very rare opportunity for anyone, and more than that I even got a picture with the monk. It's kind of a rule that you don't photograph them but he jumped into the picture, so we figured it was ok. We also drank out of this stream that granted different things depending on which part you drank from. One was wealth, another health, etc. Again- it was simply lovely.

The stream that granted luck,
I think.

          This week was very fun because we had another short week and a 4 day weekend, which I am currently enjoying. On Wednesday we went to a real professional Russian football game, for the St. Petersburg team, Zenit. They played the team from Dagestan which was kind of 

The group of students that went to Zenit!
Ian, Billy, Anna, Bianka,
Emily, Kaitlyn, Agne, ME, Chris,
Jessica, Kristi and Jared.

frightening because of the massive numbers of riot police. They had to put riot police and empty seats between the fans of the two teams for safety and they were lining the streets. I think/hope this is because riots are common, but part of me thinks it's due to the racist chants being shouted at the away team... Some crazy person gave the fans fire or flares or something because suddenly the other side of the stadium was on fire, clearly an organized event, but still odd considering how dangerous they obviously think their fans are. Unfortunately we lost the game one to nothing, but the constant singing and cheers and things like that were really fun to try and match.

The away team fans surrounded by riot police.

          Thursday was a big day here. May 9th is Dien Pobiedy or Victory Day, when all of Russia celebrates their victory over Germany. There are military parades, veterans marches, beer everywhere, children waving flags, and lots of other very large, blatant examples of Russian/Soviet strength. Chris and I watched a parade and went to the Russian Museum, which I have already been to, but it was still amazing and beautiful and a great day. After that we went back to my apartment to watch the firework show off my sixth floor balcony. The fireworks were shot off from Peter and Paul Fortress, which I can see from my balcony and Alexa, Chris and I had a pretty nice night with wine and a view and the sun and a breeze. Life is good.

Flares and fire at the Zenit game

          Other than that, I'm being eaten alive by mosquitoes. I keep forgetting that St. Petersburg is a swamp but my 30+ bug bites are attesting to the fact. I have 15 on one arm alone and three on my face…There's one mosquito in my room and we are having an ongoing battle, and he's obviously winning. It'll be great to not look like I have the 

Victory Day fireworks off my balcony. To the right of the
dome in the left is a far away spire. That's the fortress.

chicken pox, but if that's the worst of my problems, I think I'll survive. I'm mostly just preparing for Bijan's arrival to St. Petersburg which will be on May 19th and will make my life that much better! I have a bunch planned for while he's here, but I also have to study for finals. Oh well.  That's all I've got for you today. I'm sure there's more but that'll come in my next blog. The next one will be in about two weeks and will be my final travel blog. I really enjoy writing for you guys so I may keep writing about something else, in a different blog. Well, I'll let you know next time. Lastly, sorry for the bad camera quality. I lost my camera charger, so all these are from my phone. Thanks again, guys! 

If you listen to my links, or even if you don't, this one is by far my favorite. It's heart-breakingly beautiful to me so I hope you think so too. The title is Не Для Меня, Not for Me. It's about soldiers singing about how the coming spring, the beautiful woman, the rivers, gardens, Easter, etc are not for them. For them is the piece of lead, the tears, the white body, etc. It's very beautiful so if you choose to watch any of these, let it be this one. Have a good week, everyone, and Happy Belated Victory Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=dBjge9MWrZA&feature=endscreen

Thanks Alexa for introducing me to this song.

Nothing like Anastasia....

Блог 9

                Well my days are getting longer, classes are coming to an end, and I can see my homecoming on the horizon- but none of that will happen before the rather interesting and busy month of May. As in America, the end of my semester is bringing papers, finals, and absolute senioritis. This last week was ok. I was pretty sick at the beginning (yes, I know- I'm always sick here…) but had a fun, if calm weekend.

                Thursday was spent at Kontakt with friends, and I managed to forget my keys at home. I got through the building door by being a creeper and sneaking in behind some woman, but then at the apartment I knocked, rang the bell, yelled, and talked to the dog through the door who was whining like crazy. I could hear my host mom yelling at him to be quiet on the other side and I yelled back but she never heard me. I 

My phonetics teacher, Neda, and Emma.

called her but she was on her phone, until finally I sent her a text and she opened up, but not without a lot of laughter and judgement... She was my saviour, but she punished me by feeding me brown kasha for dinner. I think I told you about kasha already- the oatmeal like gooey cement with a stick of butter melting on top that Russians eat for breakfast or when they are sick. Well brown kasha is a lot like brown rice, but not like brown rice at all. It tastes a lot like licking dirt, but with a worse after taste. She gave it to me once with warm milk, as kind of a hot cereal-  it tasted a lot like rice pudding but again, with that extra dirt flavor. Very unfortunate evening. Friday though- Friday was something completely different.

Lovely Russian friend, Pasha.

                Every semester our host program has a dance. Rather like high school (this program just causes college students to regress into high schoolers) we had a spring ball, which was basically prom without dates and with costumes. This year was a masquerade which kind of worked, but everyone took their masks off after about 20 minutes. We rented very ridiculous costumes from a rather grouchy Russian woman who kept exclaiming over our group of girls and how "big" we were and how she didn't have costumes that fit us. It was a magical experience overall. I ended up in a wedding cake and Alexa wound up in a Jane Austen inspired lacey wedding cake, both complete with hoops and bows. There were three brides at the ball, none of us terribly happy about the fact. They put the two pasty white redheads in all white… rough.

The not-so-blushing brides... 

                Anywho- the ball was very exciting. There was champagne, waltzing (terribly, on my part), a fortune teller, a murder, a duel in the rain… A very large game of musical chairs and, of course, the ball king and queen. Our king and queen were the ever adorable married couple in our program, Kristi and Jared, who also hosted the evening. Our choir sang some Russian songs, there was an attempt at a polka, and over all it was a pleasant evening.  Not really sure who won the duel but it was over a murder, or some such thing.

                That's about all my week was. Alexa and I tried a new restaurant on The Island last night. An Azerbaijani place whose main ingredient- unfortunately enough for me- was cilantro. Not my favorite thing on earth. May though, is full of wonderful holidays. This week will only be two days long and then a five day weekend spent mostly in the town of Pskov with the program. Then the week after that is Victory day and a 

My group, Group 4!!!

four day weekend. We are trying to get out of town for that, but so far we've been a bit lazy and haven't made any plans. I have a paper to write for my political culture course and a poem to rehearse for my phonetics final. I'm thinking of doing a poem by Anna Akhmatova called The Last Toast. It's always been one of my favorites, and I think I have a better chance of saying it all correctly if I am very familiar with it. Sorry for such a short post, but it was a very normal week, as Russia goes. The sun didn't go down until 10:30 tonight, so my schedule is a bit wonky. I'm not sure if there will be a post next weekend but I will try very hard to get one written.

                Thanks again for reading and don't forget to follow my blog!!!!

Винни Пух и День Забот

Блог 8

          Hey folks! Been a while. The last two weeks were relatively uneventful, especially in comparison to the wonderfullness that was Turkey. I was really really sick when I got back from Turkey and am still recovering from some weird stomach  virus or whatever it was. Still not feeling 100% but hopefully it'll go away soon. Alexa thinks I'm dying but I'm pretty sure I'd know. In any case, I'll go to the doctor when I get home.

          Despite being determined to be more productive culturally this weekend, we kind of failed at doing so. We have a lot of plans to go to really interesting, educational, historical places, but the only interesting place I managed to get to was Khram Spasa na Krovi (Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood). We went on a nice walk around some parks and walked around the church. The church was built in the late 1800s and is the most "Russian" looking building in all of the very western city that is Petersburg. The church was built on the site where Alexander II was assassinated and was built in his memory- thus the title, Spilled Blood.

Khram Spasa na Krovi

          Spring has finally come to St. Petersburg, and with it the nighttime sun. Every day the sun goes down later and rises earlier, and the bridges have started to go up at night. That would have been great to know Friday night when we got stuck on the other side of the city, but I'll get to that later. The Neva river finally melted so the ships come through every night, so the bridges open late at night for a short-but-oh-so-inconvenient time every evening. With the sun staying out longer and longer, I can feel the White Nights coming. Those nights where the sun never goes down and people start getting weird because no one can ever sleep. There is no more snow on the ground (yay!) but somehow there is wet everywhere. The ground is wet all the time, and there are huge puddles everywhere. For some weird reason all of the parks are closed, and we think it's so that they can dry out.

Very pretty Khram.

          I'm going to take a second and complain about our program. Most of what they do is great, and they organize a lot of silly outings that are good fun and interesting, with tours and such. But the classes we have are- frankly- pointless. I genuinely feel like my language skills have gotten far worse- and I know everyone's response to this is always, of course because now you know what you don't know- but no. I used to be a great writer with exceptional grammar skills, but now I can barely spell basic words. My understanding has gone through the roof, but my grammar has gone through the floor. I can speak, but I know that I sound like a six-year-old when I talk- although some of those damn six-year-olds can talk me out of the park… Le crap….

          Anywho- last Friday night we found ourselves- once again- at Kontakt, because, apparently in Russia, all roads lead to Kontakt. For once, the night didn't end there. Sitting next to us at the bar were two lovely girls, one from Germany, one Russian. They study music in Petersburg, are around our age, and are absolutely wonderful. Lidia and Dasha (guess who is from where) decided to take us with them to a jazz club with live jazz. The club was called The Hat and was really cool, with middle aged male bartenders wearing bow ties, and cool music and a sweet trumpet player and our insane friend Lidia making friends with everyone. It was a great time, so this past Friday we wanted to go out with them again. This time we went to some back alley electronic club with lots of colorful lights and loud music and I felt too old and no one was dancing. It could have been fun, if we hadn't gotten stuck there.

Honestly, I didn't take any pictures this
week, so here's a big bell from the Kremlin
in Moscow.....

          As I've told you, I live on Vasilievsky Ostrov, which is an Island across the Neva from the main part of Petersburg. It's really gorgeous on what I call, "The Island" and we have all we could ask for, but as I said before, unbeknownst to us, the bridges started opening this week. That means that we were stuck in that club until the bridge to The Island opened at around 3:00 a.m. Really, that's not too bad but we are all old and lame and desperate to get home so I sat there guarding Bianca who had fallen asleep on the table while Alexa danced with Dasha  and Lidia (so many names!) went off to who-knows-where, until we could run out of the alley before we got mugged and wait for our taxi. This all sounds more dramatic and dangerous than it was, because this "alley" was within two blocks of one of the busiest parts of the city, but it seemed bad at the time.
          On Wednesday night, my host mom taught me how to make sirniki which was both entertaining and delicious. They are these small, round, fried cake things that have a similar texture to cheesecake and are sweet and completely delicious. They are make out of curd, flour, sugar, etc. and are amazingly delicious with smetana (Russian sour cream which isn't gross like American sour cream) and sugar on top. She usually makes them for me for breakfast on weekends and when I told her how much I like them she helped me make them, and made them for me again this morning. What a sweetheart.

As I said, no pictures this week, so here's an Olympic
Mascot in Moscow for the 2014 Sochi games!

          Finally, Saturday, I went bowling with some of the other people in the program, which is always fun, and I'm pretty sure the tattooed oh-so-typically-Russian man at the table next to us offered to buy us drinks, but I declined because what he said made zero sense to me. It had to have been a drink offer, but it was phrased oddly. This week we also went and rented costumes for our Spring Ball with CIEE which is a masquerade this year, so expect stories and news on that next week. I will be appearing in my role as Snow-Beast, Wedding Cake, and other big puffy white dress related jokes. Still need to buy a mask, so maybe that will make up for it. For now, I am going to edit my resume, and apply to tens of jobs online in the hopes that someone will take pity on a soon-to-be-graduate with a year to kill before graduate school. Send me all your professional vibes!!!!

Here is Russian Winnie the Pooh to get you through the week. His name is Vinney Puh… I hope you find the translation as hilarious as I do:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73uIn56G1YE

Istanbul (aka- where you'll find me when I need to hide from the government...)

Блог 7

St. Basils!!!!!!

          Hey guys! Sorry for the very very very late post, but I will tell you, it was not for nothing! While I've been away, I have been to multiple interesting places and cannot wait for you to laugh at my awkwardness. Quickly, I'll catch you up on the week before I went on vacation. I swear everything gets better after this first story. Two Wednesdays ago was, simply put, a terrible day. I was groped on the metro, tripped over the sole of my shoe which had decided to secede from the rest of the boot, ended up getting a packed lunch of onion and fish salad, had the door to the mashrootka (unofficial bus- more like a van) shut literally on my face, and about ten other small things that added up in to one big mess of a day. That was super lame. Then, that Saturday, we went on another excursion that I couldn't wait for. I have been able to see it of my balcony for two months, and have been dying to go. Petropavlovsky Krepast or Peter and Paul Fortress. 

The Cathedral in Moscow in which
Pussy Riot protested.

Amazing, stunning, and very interesting are words I would use to describe the inside of the sobor (church) that houses the remains of the majority of the Russian rulers and their families since Peter the Great. Unfortunately the outside was completely covered in scaffolding, but it was very impressive.

          Last Friday, the last of March, all of the little CIEE students got down to the train station, Moscovsky Vokzal and got on the midnight train to Moscow. There we took a tour of the Kremlin, spent time on the Red Square, walked along amazingly different and more Russian streets, saw some 

Inside the Kremlin.

very beautiful metro stops and overall had a very good time. I'm not going to spend time talking about Moscow though (sorry) because it has been overshadowed by last week. From Moscow,  a group of us made our merry way to Istanbul (which shall, from here on, be known as Paradise, or my new home). In Moscow and St. Petersburg it was snowy, cold, wet and dreary. In Istanbul, everyone smiles at you, even if they are trying to sell you something it's such a welcome change, the sky is gorgeous, the weather is warm, there are beaches and bodies of water that aren't frozen… Palm trees. We saw palm trees! 

          We saw all the big sights, went inside the Hagia Sofya, Blue Mosque, the Archaeological museum, textile museum, Galata tower (you can see the whole of the city from the top of the tower), the Süleymaniye Mosque, the aqueduct, Grand Bazaar, Spice Bazaar, Topkapi Palace, Constantine's Column, Hippodrome, Book Bazaar, Taksim (a popular night area that we visited during the day- oops), and so, so much more. More mosques than I can possibly name. I am obviously not going to cover all of this because it would take forever- but here are the highlights.

The Hagia Sophya

          We got in on Sunday night, the five of us, four girls and one guy. We figured this could lead to a lot of jokes, and we were not disappointed. The first night was an 

Loosin' my cool meeting
Eddie FREAKIN' Izzard!

adventure just getting to our hostel when our shuttle wasn't there and we ended up needing a taxi, which then couldn't find our hostel. Finally, after some walking, we found it and went on a tour of the neighborhood. We were in the rather important part of Sultanhamet where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophya face each other, the Hippodrome and Basilica Cistern off to one side, and an overall loveliness everywhere. So the first night we saw the Hagia Sophya and Blue Mosque all light up and went back to the hostel for the night. The next day, we all went hard. It was a lot of walking and getting lost but we found a lot of cool landmarks, a gorgeous park, and the Spice Market. Best part of my day, meeting Eddie Izzard in the Spice Market in Istanbul… WHAT?!?

Blue Mosque

          The vendors in the Spice Market do their very best to be persuasive enough to get you into their store and to purchase something. They go from flattery to pretending to be offended that we were ignoring them to jokes. As I said, jokes about our group were pretty easy to make, apparently. Our personal favorites were, "Are you the Spice Girls?", "What a large harem for one man!", and the winner, "Charlie- you are only supposed to have three angels!" Those were the most common. Some of the more clever salesmen tried to add on to older material, like, "Charlie- why do you have four angels? What is this, global warming?!" Even on the street where our very lovely hostel was, the 

Inside the Blue Mosque

restaurants had men on the street doing anything in the power except throw us into their joint. Our hostel had a café out front and very friendly staff who quite liked Rhiannon, one of the girls I was with, but trying to get to our café was always a challenge. The first night we ran into a rug dealer down the street who invited us to his shop and offered us wine and champagne, then told me I could have anything in his store for free. He then told Alec, as we were leaving, that if he touched me it would be like touching him. Super creepy, now that I think about that, but it sounded a lot less bad at the time- but we avoided him every day after that.

Inside the Hagia Sofya. Sorry about the bad light...

          We went to the Grand Bazaar, and before we even made it into the bazaar, we were met by a terribly friendly rug dealer who took us to his shop, gave us apple tea, kept repeating the same, rather rude and obscene phrases in English. We finally got out of there, but not before he unloaded three small rugs on us in an embarrassing display of American ignorance. Some venders would sell at us in English, occasional Russian, once German and Emma got Spanish at one point. I think they are very good at telling what European countries people are from, but Americans are difficult because we are such a mish-mash of different ancestry.

Princes' Islands on a random street with a carriage.

          Our best day, in my opinion, was spent on the largest of the Princes' Islands,  Büyükada after a ferry ride, and went on a calm walk through a farmers market, brought bread and cheese, bought fruit and found an amazing pier that was definitely not somewhere we were supposed to be, and had a picnic. We were enjoying soaking in the sun, when we suddenly noticed that we were being circled by gulls. Two landed rather

On the Asia Side enjoying
the sun.

 near to us but a rather intrepid little cat defended us against them, and joined our picnic in return for a bit of our feta and affection. So kind of him. We named him Kabatash and he was a sweetheart, and then took a cat nap in the sun. A few days later, we went to the Asia side and found an area called Moda (suggested to us by Emma's very handsome Turkish friend, Sayid) and had a really unique breakfast with some good sauces, a real honeycomb, and cheeses. Then found some world famous (or just Istanbul famous?) ice-cream and enjoyed being in Asia.

Whirling Dervish!

          Obviously I can't tell you as many stories as I would like to because this is already becoming too long and you all have lives, jobs, or T.V. shows to get back to. Overall the entire trip was awesome, amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, and I am not happy about being back in dreary Siberia. I'll save you having to listen to the arduous tale of my plane rides home, but when I did get home I spent two and a half days in bed dying of some Turkish virus, or food poison, or something…. I'm still not great but I think after some rest this weekend, I'll be ok. Realistically, I'm glad to be back in Russia, but it was cruel for them to let me go to somewhere so shiny and friendly, where people smile at you on the street and you don't fall on your face all the time because of the ice everywhere. It's staying light out for a lot longer now, though. The sun isn't down until after 9:00 and it's up much earlier, so we're well on our way to the "white nights" over here. That's it for today- I hope it made up for two weeks of being gone. Sorry about that! I'll be back next Sunday, April 20th and should be back on blog schedule after that. Thanks for reading, ya'll!!!

The great group of folk I traveled with!
(Right to left: Alec, yours truly, Hannah, Rhiannon, Emma)

Pancakes for everyone!

Блог 6

         So cultural blunders... Here's one of my new ones... My host mother and I were talking about Russian names because when I went bowling I found it funny that every board had the same list of names: Ivan, Tatiana, Anya, Sasha, Olya, etc. There is very 

The Neva half frozen on our walk.

 little variation to me. On the street and in history it seems that everyone has one of five set names. That can get frustrating since I go by Katya and respond to it when someone says it near me. My host mom responded by saying that America is the same. Everyone's name is Michael or John or Sarah. This got into a conversation about Russian names that I like and I said I've met a few Anastasias, and a lot of people I know love that name because of the animated film. She was quiet for a while, and then, visibly tearing up, explained to me that she could never name her daughter that because of the weight the name carried. She became very upset thinking about the death of the Romanov family that I had to change the subject. I have noticed that only professors and tour guides don't get choked up when speaking about those tragic events, because they have been desensitized. This was an easy mistake to make,  making light of a story from a movie, but to my host mother that is very recent and obviously very difficult to face. I made my host mother cry. I am a bad person… 

St. Isaac's Cathedral from below.

          Anyways, last week Sasha and I (mostly Sasha) discovered an Indian restaurant and walked there from the Island upon which we live. There are officially 42 islands in the city of St. Petersburg. There used to be around 100 but for reasons my Culture teacher told me very quickly in class, there are now 42. So Sasha and I walked around our neighborhood, across the Neva, to the Bronze Horseman, past St. Isaac's Cathedral which is the largest church/cathedral in St. Petersburg (and Russia, I think, but don't quote me), and after a lovely dinner she, Anya and I attempted to go to the Opera. When I say attempted, I mean that the building was beautiful, small and intimate, but the version of La Boehme presented was basically Rent with no microphones and an orchestra that was too loud for the actors. The show was a big disappointment that ended for us when the first act of a classic opera concluded with actors in neon bunny ears (yes, like Easter bunny ears). I can't understand why they would bother doing La Boehme and staging it as an unusual version of Rent, but we think we may have seen a rehearsal which is how the tickets were so cheap.

The Bronze Horseman (got its name from
the poem. Wasn't called that
originally).

          Friday I went and got Russian doughnuts, called pishky which taste like funnel cake but not all sketchy and festival-y. They are amazingly delicious and only 12 rubles each… This is very dangerous for me. After that we had a very dubious adventure at a Georgian restaurant. The problem we encountered was that we didn't know the names of any of the foods so we just went off of what meat was in the description and hoped for the best. The best dish was kind of a chili with lamb and whole pomegranate seeds. Very unusual and amazing. I had a lamb stew that was supposed to be spicy but instead just burned my tongue because it was ridiculously hot. That concluded last week, and just leaves the weekend. Saturday was a night in, but Sunday is an entirely different story.
          Sunday, St. Patrick's day for you, was the big Maslenitsa celebration for us. Surprisingly, St. Patrick's day is not as big here as one might think (yes, sarcasm), but Sunday was the first time I have seen so many Russians smiling at one time. Maslenitsa is the Russian equivalent of Fat Tuesday, just colder and involving a lot of blini, or pancakes. Blini are basically crepes that you put cabbage or jam or anything in, and the point of this holiday is to enjoy as much butter and blini  as you can before Lent. You eat blini because, with the butter, they represent the sun, so it's a way of inviting the sun to come out. Another way to entice spring... The other traditions of the day are also ways to say goodbye to winter and welcome spring. To do that you buy a scarecrow type doll dressed as Mother Winter and stick her in the snow. Then you light her on fire. That's the best part... I wasn't prepared for that on my way to school Friday, and on my walk I saw what looked like a burning cross or effigy. Well, if you're from America and you see something that looks like a burning cross, you start to get pretty worried. The effigy thing was a bit concerning but I was genuinely worried it was a cross. Fortunately it was just Mother Winter, but still it was rough to walk anywhere near that when I had no other way to get to school…
          Sasha and I went to one of the smaller islands, Krestovsky ostrov, which has a very large and seemingly endless park. We wandered for a few hours, got lost for a while, walked across some rivers, watched Russians smile and dance and act silly (of all things for a Russian to be!) which made the very cold day an absolute delight. I bought a bunch of silly souvenirs, including lollipops in the shape of roosters (why?) and some lovely traditional wood items. After that we went to a Ukrainian restaurant and tried their green borsht (not as good as in Ukraine- frankly it was awful). Sasha had the chicken Kiev and I had sautéed potatoes and bacon (kind of) covered in very strong, raw, green onions. Neither were worth repeating, and while the restaurant was adorable, the food did not equal the décor. 

Large doll that will
be lit on fire.

Our Maslenitsa dolls!

On fire in the snow!

       Other than that, I've mostly been dealing with the weather. This is, apparently, an unusually cold spring. My host mother and teachers keep assuring me that it will get warmer, but I don't believe them. I keep seeing photos of buildings in St. Petersburg during the summer with grass and trees, and I am convinced they are photo shopped. All I see is grey and snow with a little wind on top. It takes effort to get out of bed every day, simply because it is a chore to put on as many layers as I predict I'll need through the day, go out into the bitter cold, take an hour to get to school in a crowd of grumpy, miserable, fur covered Russians, only to get yelled at for accidentally bumping into a babushka. One thing that always brightens my day, though, is the sight of the little old, dripping with fur babushkas wearing Uggs. There is nothing funnier than seeing a fashion statement for twenty-somethings in California be used for warmth by little old ladies.

A sign in the park that reads, Beware Squirrels! Russian

squirrels be crazy!

          I am working on remembering the tiny little things that happen every day that make me laugh or things that I find ridiculous, but when it comes time to write things down, I can never remember what they were. One and a half more weeks until my travel week, though! Can't wait to tell you all about it and I promise there will be tons of pictures. Have I told you guys where I'll be going? No? Good- no spoilers! Hope you all are enjoying shorts weather, light jacket weather or sweater weather… My ski socks and many layers of leggings envy you greatly. Send me your warmth and sunlight, and have a good week!

Better late than... well... you know...

Блог 5

          So just what I thought would happen, happened! I committed myself to publishing on Sundays and here we are on a Tuesday… Anywho- this will be a very eclectic post so I hope you can all follow my weird and random train of thought!

Vegetable casserole, chicken and beef soup.

      This week was more of the usual but with some fun additions! Wednesday I took a Georgian cooking class and learned how to cook goodness knows what. We made pirogi which are pies in which you take dough and wrap it around a giant ball of egg and cheese 

Our lovely cooking class,

(mostly cheese) and then roll it out so the cheese stays in the middle but the pie is, you know, pie shaped. Then bake it and it becomes delicious and melty. We also made a beef soup with onions and chili peppers and tomatoes, a chicken dish that tastes very similar to my dad's chicken cacciatore, and a vegetable casserole which was the most unique of all. It was layers of grilled zucchini with a sauce made out of chili, garlic and walnuts that were put through a meat grinder. Super easy to do at home if, you know, you happen to have a meat grinder lying around... I am thinking of going to the Russian cooking class on Friday and learning how to make borscht. The cook that taught us was a classic large scary man who spoke no English and either thought we were ridiculously stupid, or absolutely hilarious. We like to hope it was the second.

Cheese Pirogi!

          Thursday was my friend's birthday so we started the evening at none other than the lovely SPB and moved on to ladies night at a very large, noisy, bright club called Club Metro or some such nonsense. A giant neon building with three floors of dance floors, smoke and bars. It was fun but maybe not something I ever want to repeat. I did hang out with some Russian people (finally) and it was a generally good night all around. Friday was International Women's Day, which is a much bigger deal in Russia than anywhere else ever. Vosmova Marta (Eighth of March) is Women's Day and not only did we get the day off school, but every woman in a person's life receives flowers. I bought my real and host mothers flowers (though received none myself- harrumph) and took a true "women's day" and stayed in my pajamas while watching Gone With the Wind with Alexa… While I may have missed partying it up on the holiday, like  my host mother did, I decided to take a personal day. I stand by my choice.

Дворец Юсуповых на Мойке,
literally the Palace of the Yusupovs on the Moika

          Saturday morning was excellent because I took a tour of one of the most amazing and extravagant palaces in Russia, the Yusupov Palace. This palace is famous for many reasons, the main one being it was where Rasputin was murdered by the owner, Felix Yusupov. Now if you're like me or anyone else who grew up in the 90s, Rasputin was a crazy Russian magician or religious wise-man or something voiced by Doc from Back to the Future who was trying to kill Meg Ryan while John Cusack tried to save her. Meanwhile Angela Lansbury and Bernadette Peters are looking for Meg Ryan in Paris… 

The room in which Rasputin was shot with helpful
yet creepy wax figures.

Apparently that's not quite the story. Rasputin was a very religious man that got in very close with the last of the royal family, the Romanovs right before they were killed, partially because he had some way of helping Prince Alexei with his hemophilia, which he inherited from his mother (women only carry the gene but men have the issues) who in turn inherited it from her maternal grandmother, Queen Victoria. Rasputin spent a lot of time with the royal family and the three daughters of the Czar which many people resented and found suspicious. Many nasty rumors flew around and many believed he had too much influence for someone with basically no noble blood or heritage. Long story short, Felix and a bunch of others tried poisoning him and failed, shot him and failed, shot him again and threw him in a frozen part of the river. Rumor says that he was found with water in his lungs which means he was alive after two gun shots. This can't be confirmed because Empress Alexandra didn't let them autopsy him, and the train in which his body was being transported was burned to the ground.
          Anyways, the Yusupov Palace is the most extravagant place ever. The Yusupov family had a long history of diplomacy, Nicolai Yusupov was high up in government under at least four Czars including Catherine the Great, Paul I and Alexander I. They were one of the richest families in all of Russia, but when the revolution happened in the early 20th century, Felix and his wife had to leave the country and all of their possessions and moved to France. Well, almost all. They took the jewelry and two Rembrandts. Among the jewelry was the very famous La Pelegrina pearl that, after the family sold it in France, was eventually given to Elizabeth Taylor. They were so rich that when designing the palace they had different styles for each room. One room would be baroque, another in gorgeous Moorish style, the next French. The palace has a personal theatre which makes it one of the most extravagant palaces in Europe. There are rooms devoted entirely to their musical instrument collection, imitation wood, real pear tree furniture, ballrooms, a billiard room with weirdly perfect acoustics, and a gorgeous library that used to have thousands of books! It was amazing. If ever in Petersburg, I highly recommend a tour.

The amazing private theatre!

          Today (Tuesday) I had two tests, one largely on the architecture of St. Petersburg (who, what, when, where, for whom) and the other… well I'm still not sure what that quiz was on. I also found out that I have the best host mom ever. When she hears me coughing she makes me milk and honey, even in the middle of the night… At least I thought it was milk and honey but then it was warm milk and butter… Gross. This upcoming week should be very fun and we are currently preparing for Travel Week which will be AMAZING and I can't wait to tell you all about it. No spoilers, though, because it gives me less to write about when the time comes. Trust me- you will all be jealous!