Sunshiney Day!

Made it to my homestay today! After a day of orientation things and getting to know each other better, we hopped onto a bus and drove around dropping people off at their homestays. I actually have a roommate - well I have my own room but we share a host mom and brother - whose name is Rosa. My host mom's name is Liliana, and my host brother's name is Pasha - he's 14 and studies at a high school for math and physics, he must be very smart. We live on Valsilievsky Island (its the big kind of triangle shaped one to the north-west of Nevsky Prospekt) pretty close to the bay, if there weren't apartment buildings between us and the water I would definitely be able to see it. They are both incredibly nice - I think Pasha knows more English than he lets on and Liliana actually knows some words too which she trys to use to make sure we understood something important. Though I'm sure some things have gotten lost in translation. She makes incredibly good tea and apparently her mom doesn't live too far away, Pasha went to get some jam from her which was absolutely delicious. She's asked us what we would like for breakfast and started making the borscht tonight that we will eat tomorrow night for dinner. There is a TV in almost every room, including a flat screen in the kitchen which is kind of crazy but the more Russian I hear the better.

Its kind of a funny apartment, the outside is clearly Soviet concrete that doesn't look incredibly nice but the inside is absolutely gorgeous, everything looks new and is spotless. I will hopefully take some pictures and post them very soon. I don't have much furniture in my room at all but I have a balcony which totally makes up for it. I also have beautiful textured wallpaper and hardwood floors. I definitely like it alot, we'll just have to see how the chemistry is, if it is strange having a roommate or if it just doesn't work for whatever reason the program has made it very clear that I shouldn't be worried about talking to them about changing, which makes me feel very relaxed about the whole situation. So we'll let it play out!

Saturday we have a bus tour and then a lunch with the group, Sunday we have a scavenger hunt, and Monday starts classes! Its crazy but it just keeps going and going!

Its Saturday afternoon now and I'm going to post this while we're stealing internet from somewhere. The bus tour was really interesting -- though I'm still not really sure I have an understanding of the city its rather crazy -- I am going to try and post pictures from the tour on Monday from the internet on campus, ok? English Mass is at 9:30 AM tomorrow at St. Catherine's Cathedral on Nevsky Prospekt, according to their website, I'll let you know how it goes, I'll be able to wander around a bit too tomorrow morning - before you freak out its the nicest and most touristy part of town so it will be fine and its a Sunday morning. Then our scavenger hunt starts at 12, so that should be crazy fun. I remember the scavenger hunt in DC that we all thought we'd hate but ended up showing us some great areas of the city that we wouldn't have found so hopefully this one will be similar. We'll see!

All my love to all of you, pictures hopefully on Monday and then we'll see how the internet goes!

American music follows you everywhere...

First of all, before I forget, there is a PAULANER restaurant in our hotel, aka tonight when I'm not wiped out from a super long travel day, there will be fun times to be had in the Paulaner restaurant and bar -- maybe German food will be my comfort food in Russia. Note: I did in fact find my comfort food in Paulaner tonight, Weizbier (out of a glass like ours mom I almost bought you another one) and Apfelstrudel. It was pouring down rain (still is as a matter of fact) so we did a little bit of wandering around and then decided to check out the live band in the Paulaner restaurant. Ok, now back to what I was writing this afternoon...

Eating Haribo as I write this seems to confirm that idea (that German food may be my comfort food). Anyway, today we did all kinds of orientation-type things...had a specific type of picture taken for our extended, multi-entry visas, got Sim cards (which means my cell number is now different but I still get to have my phone with all my contacts etc.), and had blood drawn at the hotel clinic for another round of HIV testing since the Russian government doesn't trust anyone else to correctly run blood samples in a lab - also for the purpose of extending our visas and making them multi-entry. Also talked about safety and health concerns, essentially don't walk around at night and hold your bag in front of you in the metro (other things too but I won't bore/scare you). And as always, the obligatory 'special concerns for females' section. We walked around a little bit too, Jarleth demonstrated how to buy cards at the metro and how to add money to a Sim card using a machine, and also showed us the post office. Apparently if you send books home the slowest way they literally tie them in a canvas sack and paint the address on it - might just have to try it. It takes 3 months to get across the Atlantic though he said. Our part of the group will get our academic orientation tomorrow so I will be sure to ask about the internet situation.

After a brief tour of the area - for my Google Earthers our hotel is on Moskovsky Prospect, on Pobedy square - we went to a museum dedicated to the siege of Leningrad. Apparently this wasn't the only museum, but it is a very interesting combination of outdoor monument and indoor memorial hall. The woman who gave us a tour was lovely, everything was in Russian so she had to try and explain it to us in English which you could tell was a little difficult for her but she had some really great insight about the things in the hall, and she was probably old enough to have lived through it, though she didn't say. She said they still find the little cases that held soldiers' documents when they're doing construction in the area around St. Petersburg. A very sobering thought which has added my growing perspective on St. Petersburg.

This evening when we were walking around we saw our first stray dog, hanging out outside the McDonalds just down the street. Maybe it was trying to enjoy the free wi-fi.

Tomorrow evening we move in with our host families, which I am very excited/nervous about. But I'll never be too far from home...the band in Paulaner is currently playing Mary Magdalene's song from Jesus Christ Superstar...and I've heard 'dancing queen' about 3 times already, plus any number of other generic American hits. So no worries on that front, maybe my host mom will like Abba. I'm not sure when I'll be online next, honestly it will probably be until Monday when we are at the university. If I can be in touch before then obviously I will be!

Thanks so much for all the comments, I will post pictures early next week hopefully, haven't taken hardly any at the moment so you're not missing anything.

Love to all - beth anne

Now Arriving in St. Petersburg...

Safe and sound in St. Petersburg, in a hotel for orientation that appears to specialize in group travel and tours so there are all kinds of groups of people walking around which is really amusing, I love being back in a place where you can hear so many different languages just by walking down the hallway.

My travel day (well, day and a half, but who's counting) went as well as could be expected, flights were on time and my luggage made it all the way here with me. Had some great conversation and laughs with a young guy from Nepal who is working on Wall Street on the transatlantic flight, interesting stories and friendly people can make a day so much better. The fuss about the weight requirement turned out to be a non-issue - which I was slightly bummed about in a way since I was so excited that I had managed to pack less than the 77 lb limit - and we all just walked right through customs after having our migration cards stamped, nothing out of the ordinary customs procedure at all. Maybe thats what happens when you prepare for the worst.

Haven't actually seen much of the city at all, we took a bus from the airport to the hotel that took about 10 minutes so was able to witness some rather crazy drivers but not much of St. Petersburg itself, as the airport is on the outskirts. Tomorrow begins orientation and I think we will be riding public transportation at least a little so I'll let you know what I think of the city after I've seen more of it!

I'm doing just fine, a little nervous about the host family situation since I don't know anything about them yet, but I'm sure it will work out how its meant to - and I think we'll get some more information on it tomorrow. Excited to start a new adventure, and the people I've met have been great and full of stories so I'm sure there are plenty of fun and interesting times ahead!

I know everyone wants contact information, pause. Military with gun just walked into the lobby, and nobody pays them any attention. Must just be business as usual, I think they're checking up on the restaurant/bar that has music playing. Anyway, where was I...contact information. Well I'm at the hotel at the moment and I have 30 free minutes of internet which I'm about to use to create this blog and talk to whoever happens to be online! I'm assuming we will find out tomorrow about the internet at the CIEE office and once I know my class/activities schedule I will post it here so that we can work out times to chat. (Also, for those of you that I told about the voicemail number, I left the card somewhere at home I think so I'm going to see if mom can find it, so hold on for that.)

I think thats it for now...feel free to comment via your favorite social media site, or email me, and when I post my other contact info and convenient times to chat I'll post the address where I can get mail in case you're more old-fashioned than email :-).

Love to you all, and thank you for all the support you have each given me in getting this far. I will do my best to keep in touch, and please help hold me to that! All the best and love to all of you! xo - beth anne