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