On a blustery day...

Sorry for the break between postings, have yet to work out a solid routine for making sure I journal and blog and email, so thanks for your patience!

I was also a little under the weather at the end of last week. We had planned a dance excursion for Friday night, but the moment my host mom heard I was a little sick I was placed under house arrest for the night – though my phone was in my room so my friends were a little worried for a little bit. I was sat down in the kitchen and told to drink my tea and eat an apple, and moments later my host mom re-appeared with a tub of steaming hot water – to which she added boiling water as I watched. I was then told to stick my feet in said boiling water in order to clear out my head. I was a little nervous, but eventually got my feet in the hot water and had to sit there for more than an hour while she added more boiling water every time she thought the water was getting cool. It was actually really nice, because she stayed in the kitchen with me and we were watching a talk show and talking about it and reviewing vocabulary from the week. She always asks what words I’m learning and makes sure to use them and question me about them so that I get as much practice as possible. So after the feet soaking I was bundled in a big bathrobe and sent off to bed with another steaming mug of tea at about 10:30, only to discover that another blanket had been added to my bed! Needless to say, I slept incredibly well Friday night, though I didn’t get to go dancing.

Saturday turned out to be terrible weather so we postponed our trip to Peterhof and wandered the halls of the Hermitage instead. The dancing crew hadn’t gotten back until about 4 am the night before so they had wanted to do something low-key, which I was agreeable to since I was still trying to not be sick. The Hermitage was incredible, we avoided the crowds around the most famous paintings and headed upstairs for some of the most beautiful architecture in the city. In one room, the woman working security asked me where I got my boots (of course I was wearing my Burberry rain boots because it was a downpour outside) in Russian and we had a little conversation about where I got them, how much they were, where I was from in the US (initially she thought I was British), where exactly Ohio is located, and why I was studying Russian – which she thought was wonderful. I was just excited to be able to have the conversation in Russian! I told my host mom about it later and she was also super excited, which was very cute. After wandering the Hermitage for a few hours we got hot chocolate at a café and laughed over stories of the night before, both my feet-soaking antics and the inevitable fun that occurs when you’re out at night in St. Petersburg while the bridges are up and your male escorts decide they need some shaverma (street food, kind of like gyros but a little shadier) at 3 am. (When we take gypsy cabs home we always try to have a guy in the car which can sometimes be interesting.) So it was a lovely afternoon full of story-telling, shoe-watching through the windows of the café and getting very excited over the ice-water that was served with our hot chocolate.

Saturday night my cooking lessons continued and my host mom taught me how to make blini before going out for the night. We made the batter from scratch – though she’s one of those cooks who just knows how much you need, the only thing I could reproduce is that there were 2 eggs because I cracked and whipped them. Don’t worry, I’ll make her translate her knowledge into recipes before I come home in December so I can cook Russian food for you! (On an almost related side note, I finished My Life in France today and enjoyed every second of it, I’m getting lots of reading in on the trolley-bus ride in the morning and in the afternoon when I can manage to get a seat. Am currently working on Team of Rivals when I have my ipod and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall when I don’t, thank goodness for old CIEE students leaving a nice collection of books behind.) Blini are very fun to make, just a little oil in the pan and pour the batter in while turning the skillet so the batter covers the pan. My first few attempts had a few holes where I hadn’t turned the pan fast enough – despite my host mom yelling ‘turn, turn, faster’ in Russian the whole time. By the end, though, they turned out rather pretty and absolutely delicious. We ate them with jam for dessert but you can do pretty much anything with them.

Sunday we made it to Peterhof. First, though, I read at Mass and sat with the small choir, which was great! Had coffee with one of the couples, the husband had just returned from a city not too far away that is actually the sister city to…Duluth, Minnesota! Crazy, this small world we live in. Anyway he was full of stories about the incredibly nice people who were in this city and how the food was wonderful and that we simply must take the overnight train there as soon as we are able to – aka as soon as we get our passports back. So add that to the list. Then I met up with Kelly and Sarah and we headed to Peterhof via a Marshutka, which are lovingly nicknamed the communist taxis. They’re like buses, only not regulated, and you can hail them anywhere on their route. They’re the cheapest way to get to Peterhof, and it was kind of fun to drive through what passes for suburbs in Russia. (For my fellow Guatie lovers: I was shocked how the drive reminded me of the drive from the city to the country in paradise. Lots of corrugated metal walls across from stucco villas made me smile and I had to explain why I was smiling at such a strange landscape. No coffee farms though, unfortunately.)

We were in luck when we got there because there had been a ceremony the night before to signal the end of the fountain season, but because of the gorgeous weather they had been turned right back on again! Peterhof without the fountains would still have been pretty, but not the same. There were trick fountains that reminded me of Hellbrunn in Salzburg, beautiful large cascades similar to those in the park at Schonbrunn, and random ones throughout the extensive park that made you wonder if you were in Italy or Russia – though I don’t think they ever need to turn off the fountains in Italy. Peterhof’s fountains are fed by mountain streams through a complicated network of pipes, locks, and pumps (Kelly brought her guidebook so we were discovering interesting facts all day). We decided not to go in the palace and dedicate our time to enjoying the weather and seeing as much of the grounds as possible. Peterhof sits on the Baltic, and so now my boots have been in one more sea! Between the water, the fountains, the tree-lined groves, and our obsession with photographing everything from changing leaves to children’s mullets, it was a wonderful and relaxing Sunday. I’m still organizing and editing the pictures, but they will be up soon! Got home Sunday night, watched a movie with the host family, then did some homework and headed to bed to read and prepare for the week.

This week marks a month since the beginning of my time in St. Petersburg, which is absolutely incredible to me. In less than three weeks I will be in Estonia, and in less than two months I will be in Germany, and in less than three months I will be back in the US. Time really needs to remain more constant, it speeds up so much when you're in a new country!! But I have quite a bit to be thankful for; I was able to talk to Anna on her birthday, classes are still going well, I'm enjoying not sharing my host mom with another student and learning to cook with her, my Russian is definitely improving quickly, and the weather hasn't been terrible! (Though I probably shouldn't include that last one, apparently the forecast for the next week = me wearing my rainboots every day.) So here's to all being well in the Window to the West!