HOWDY

Nov 11!!!

Why hello there! Sadly, I am leaving lovely Roccia in… one month and 2 days. DEPRESSING!!! But actually I am really excited to go back and see you all… and my baby Xeen!!!

SO I pretty much haven’t written in a month, and obviously a lot has happened. Including a trip to St. Petersburg!!! Petersburg was awesome, but it was way too short and I definitely didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked. But it still was a needed break from classes and such. And we did get to see the Hermitage!!! I have a bunch of pictures, I guess that I will be putting up when I get back since I have serious issues with internet everywhere here when it comes to uploading, but it is so awesome! My camera died like halfway through being there ( I was there for about 5 hours, although I will admit I was lost from the group/tour guide for a bit…) but I will just take other people’s pictures that they have posted.

*Ok quick interlude: I’m currently watching The Master and Margarita on tv and if you have read that book you know that Behemoth is a large black cat…and he is pretty much hilarious in this movie. Go watch it. If you understand Russian.

We also saw the Peter and Paul fortress with the church that had the graves of Peter the Great and Catherine and other tsars, and all the Romanov graves INCLUDING Anastasias… since that is just a myth that she wasn’t found. I think it’s a fake gravestone thing. But we also saw the Peter the Great statue, the Church of Christ the Savior on Spilled Blood, Winter Palace (obviously), and many other things just from the outside/walking around/ bus tour on the first day. We also ate at the Idiot (like Dostoevsky’s novel) which had pretty much the most hilarious translation of it into English I’ve that I’ve seen of any translation into English here. And I’ve seen some pretty good ones. Kelly’s friend from Ireland was on the trip with us, and her and I bought these huge poofy black hats with the ear flaps and everything and a soviet symbol pin on the front. We got some nasty/hilarious looks wearing them, besides the fact that we looked all around special needs wearing them. And couldn’t see because they were too big. Mine is a gift though, and I also got a few other things there for people. It was really rainy, and snowed for the first time while we were there. When we got back to Moscow it was snowing too, and there was snow for a few days!! Now it is randomly warm again and just rains and gets my boots really muddy. Poo!

But anyway the train to Petersburg was a bunch of small compartment rooms with 4 beds; I was with Kelly, Anya, and Adriana. So basically it was pretty sweet. No one really slept on the way there because we were too excited and it felt like a giant sleepover or something. While we were in Petersburg, we stayed in a hostel and were served the same exact breakfast every day (a hard boiled egg, some bread and a piece of cheese, tasteless cereal and really…poor quality instant coffee) BUT there was an awesome grandfather breakfast there who would happily seat us and make us eat and he totally made breakfast worth it. He was so cute and awesome, I went everyday because he knew if you didn’t go and it made him sad.

We also became regulars at this really good and cheap café that was like a foot away from the hostel, and had a table and everything. I loved where we were situated (HA!) in Petersburg because it wasn’t in the middle of nowhere like where we live in Moscow, it was actually around Nevsky prospect which is a really famous street and a lot of sights and Idk. It was just so pretty and not ghetto and pretty much awesome. I liked Petersburg, but I am glad I’m in Moscow. Petersburg had bridges and canals and lots of cobblestone and statues and was really beautiful, but it just looked sooooo European! I mean it is meant to be the ‘window to Europe’ but still. I came to Russia to be surrounded by Russian culture. Petersburg was more like a European touristy city. But I definitely still wish I could have been there at least a full week.

K I’m really sorry but it’s already late and I really need to do hw, but I will TRY to write more. We are going to a hockey game tomorrow and a museum Sunday so that should be something to write about!

Until next time!