decision time

Oh what a week! This week I have done or experienced all of the following: ran a fever, made blini, lost my voice, bought another month pass on my transit card, been barked at by a giant stray dog, got my voice back, tried an incredibly delicious type of cake that I have never seen before on my host mom’s birthday, broken a teacup by pouring hot water into it (my host mom did the same thing about a month ago, we’re not sure why most of the time its fine but sometimes they break), watched ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ in Russian, gotten an email from Claudia (German professor in Frankfurt whom I absolutely adore) with recommendations on books to look for in Berlin, and decided to stay with my host family next semester!

Yes, save the most important for last. After talking with Jarlath and thinking it over and then talking with my host mom, I have decided that it feels right to stay with my host family for the whole year. I am completely comfortable here and, while it might be nice to see another type of Russian lifestyle, I also know that it would be hard always comparing things to how they are now and that in my conversations with other students my situation is a comparatively excellent one. I have an extended Russian family, while most students live with just a host mom or host parents – I even met my host mom’s twin sister tonight via Skype, her name is Tanya and she lives in Kazakhstan and has a 2-year-old son – and while we may live 20 minutes farther from school than some students, I’ve decided that’s not a reason to change when I feel so comfortable here. So I asked my host mom last night (28th) whether she was planning on working with CIEE next semester (though I had already asked Jarlath the same question and he had told me yes), and she said yes, with a kind of funny look on her face. I asked if I could come back for next semester and she practically jumped out of her chair and said yes, of course, we told CIEE we didn’t want a different student and I’m so glad and on and on and how in May she will know English and I’ll know Russian so well and we can maybe go skiing in Finland in February for a weekend and she’s just so excited and that it’s the best birthday present that I’m going to come back and stay with them (her birthday is today as I’m writing this, the 29th), and it was so adorable and I knew I’d made the right decision. And if possible we’re even more comfortable all together now than we were before we talked about next semester! So I’m very excited, and it also means I’ll probably be able to travel home with just one suitcase, or two very light suitcases! I’m already looking forward to coming back in January, knowing I have this family waiting for me!

On the subject of her birthday, the most interesting thing happened. We went over to her mom’s for dinner and cake – more on the cake tomorrow but I have to write this before bed. Pasha stayed a little later but Irya and I headed home together, and I insisted on carrying her bag (not her purse, but we had picked up a pair of boots, a DVD we wanted to watch, and a few other things at her mom’s and they were in another bag), saying simply, “its your birthday, of course I’ll carry it!” and she looked at me kind of funny but let me carry it. When we got home and I gave it back to her in the hallway, she said that was the first time someone had said something like that to her. That she shouldn’t have to do something because it was her birthday. Even on ‘women’s day’ in spring, she said the men bring the women flowers but the women still slave in the kitchen over dinner and clean and take care of everything etc. I explained the concept of ‘breakfast in bed’ on Mother’s Day and she just laughed and shook her head and said how wonderful that must be. (I think I’ll teach Pasha a new tradition on Mother’s Day in May and we’ll surprise Irya.) A little while later when she unwrapped my birthday present to her (a vase to match the colors in the kitchen filled with her favorite candy), she remarked over and over how beautiful it was and how she would always remember when she looked at it how I had told her that she didn’t have to carry her bag because it was her birthday and how nice that was. I wish I had the vocabulary, in my own language or any foreign one, to explain to her or to this internet cosmos how that felt, and how badly I suddenly wanted to explain how grateful I am for everything she has done to make me feel at home while I’ve been here, and still I have no words. Her saying that seemed so candid – though she is never anything but honest – and I feel some stronger sense of connection with her as a result of that brief admission, and I cannot really explain why. But it seemed to me an experience which might help others glimpse a bit of the realness of the people here, and if not, I apologize for the detour and thank you for your indulgence.

Now its Friday! Classes this morning went just fine, though the bus ride there was a bit of a nightmare, and now I owe you some details on the cake! It was like a chocolate shell with a cake bottom and thick, sweet, whipped cream. It is incredibly light and sweet, and absolutely delicious! Most of the cakes here are already cut into pieces when you buy them, so there was no ‘cutting the cake’ but it was still a fun evening. This weekend should be all kinds of fun, going ice skating tonight with some friends really late, and then tomorrow heading to the Alexander Nevsky monastery during the day and the Halloween party for the university at Club Revolution at night! Then Sunday is All Saints, and next week Wednesday is a holiday so there is no school (though my host mom and host brother both didn’t know what the holiday is) and Thursday night we head to Moscow! And from there, Berlin! On the 9th of November Tom and I are going to try and be on the square where the Brandenburg Gate is for all of the festivities, so look for us if they’re showing it on the news. ☺ They are going to knock over more than 1000 giant painted dominoes along the path where the Berlin Wall stood right by the Brandenburg Gate, and we are going to do our best to be close enough to see at least part of it! I won’t have my computer with me in Moscow or Berlin, so posts will be shorter but I’ll type up my journal when I get back so don’t worry you’ll still get a full report! Then it will be the middle of November! Hope fall sticks around a little longer on the other side of the Atlantic, here the weather forecasters have decided that we are just about done with fall! Much love to all!

Leaves and Cobblestones!

On this day in the last week of October, we have been blessed with warm temperatures, if not sunny skies. (You can’t have everything, even in Russia.) The ground around the Smolny cathedral is absolutely covered with yellow leaves and those little helicopter things, many of the trees on the grounds here must be maple just like the giant in our front yard in Cleveland Heights. Makes it a little slippery heading to school sometimes, but the beauty of the yellow leaves, bare trees, iron grate, and sky-blue cathedral more than make up for it. I’m here early at school, don’t have class until 11:40 when the second pair begins, but I got to talk to Anna this morning which is worth more than many hours of sleep! I have an exam in grammar this afternoon after lunch, but my host mom drilled me all last night in many of the things which we are expecting to be on the test so I feel well prepared – and well fed, since while she was drilling me she was also making and giving me blini! So I have an hour and a half to read, finish up some homework, and study a little more before my conversation class, and I thought I'd drop you all a line as well! Nothing exciting has happened since I last posted, though I do feel quite a bit better which is I suppose an important development! It is supposed to be very cold tomorrow evening, which immediately following a warm day like today could spell health-disaster but we'll take it as it comes! My host brother said about half of his school is out sick with the flu – apparently just the regular old flu.

Thank you for all the well-wishes, I really appreciate them! Hopefully I will continue to feel better, we are thinking of visiting the Alexander Nevsky Monastery on Friday or Saturday – there are a few famous graveyards there so it seemed appropriate for Halloween-time. Much love to you all, enjoy the fall colors!

Happy Friday!

It has already been a week since Estonia! It is interesting how you examine and refer to time differently when abroad. But a week ago, this moment, we were waiting at the border. And two weeks from last night we will be boarding a night train for Moscow. That will apparently coincide with some pretty cold weather moving in, I have been surprised at how stable the temperatures have been. I’m not sure whether I had expected them to just drop uncontrollably towards absolute zero or what I was expecting, but the hovering around +2 and constantly raining must not have been exactly it. I have learned a valuable lesson thanks to the rain, however – my black suede boots are not waterproof. Will need to treat them a few times over break.

In other news from Piter, my host mom has decided to investigate applying for a spot in the green-card-lottery. She just mentioned it the other day, I’m hoping to have a deeper conversation about it soon and I’ve been working on learning vocab that might help in a conversation about the benefits and drawbacks of life in the Soviet Union. I did learn that she is talking about the period under Brezhnev when she is nostalgic for the USSR, she was quick to say that of course the earlier years were terrible and her grandmother had horrible stories about the revolution and the early years. We have been talking about the life of Joseph Brodsky in my civilization class, which provides another interesting perspective to such conversations since Brodsky left the Soviet Union, received the Nobel Prize, and then was never able to see his parents again thanks to his homeland’s undeviating policies. My teacher remarked that such a system that cannot deviate in order to recognize the purpose of a parent’s journey to see their only son almost commands respect because of its pure constancy. (She’s not a fan of the Soviet Union at all, she taught in the US and essentially ended up divorced from her husband because of the way it changed her.) And in history class we have arrived at 1916, so I’m sure I will gain yet another perspective through our readings and discussions. My Russian language classes are going well too, I have a grammar test on Tuesday that I’m not too worried about, but I will be reviewing all weekend with my host mom anyway!

I’m also fighting off a sinus something-or-other, its been a rollercoaster couple of days, sometimes feeling just wonderful and other times wanting to curl up with tea and soak my feet in hot water. So my level of activity this weekend may be determined by where on the rollercoaster I find myself, I don’t want to miss any class and I want to be absolutely 100% for Moscow, not to mention Berlin. Plenty going on, as always, though. Concert tonight, there is a swing/jazz night at a little jazz club we like tomorrow night and we’re talking about getting Georgian food for dinner before hand! I also want to go to the zoological museum, which apparently is rather like a museum of stuffed animals, and we have to go shopping for some things for our Halloween costumes! Four friends and I are going to be the Spice Girls! It just worked out that there are five of us, and there’s a big party hosted by the university at a club in town which should be a great time! That’s next weekend already, so we’re going shopping this weekend for a few things. My host mom, sister, and I are also going shoe shopping at some point too, just to look of course J Trying to make it to Moscow with as much money as possible!

Thanks so much for reading, I hope all is well in the US and that you actually see the sun in the next week because apparently we aren’t going to! Keep the emails and comments coming, its strange having people reading about my life but its even stranger to feel as though I might be sending my life off into the void of the internet! Much love to all of you, have a wonderful weekend! 

'I'm in Estonia and I don't want to leave!'

Hello from Estonia! (Well, I may not be in Estonia when posting this, but I am in Estonia writing this so hello from Estonia!) We are all definitely enjoying our weekend trip to the European Union, though perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten as excited about the internet as it has only worked briefly for my roommate and I though it has worked just fine for others. It isn’t a big deal, of course, as we pretty much only have time for the internet when we should be sleeping – no comment on what time it is now – since there is so much to see and do here, but I am sorry that I wasn’t able to use the opportunity to talk to some of you online at a more convenient time for you. I’m always sorry to disappoint you all!

Luckily, everything else about our hotel and about this beautiful city of Tallinn has been absolutely wonderful and enthralling – ok, except for the weather. We are in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, European Union member state and former part of the Soviet Union. But I am getting ahead of myself. Hours and hours ahead. You see, in order to get to Tallinn we had to take a bus across the border. We made it to the border on some nice bumpy roads that are what pass for highways in Russia, and then got to have some serious fun at the border for about 3 hours. Russia being Russia, we had to get off the bus with all of our baggage, go through passport control (pretty much what you have probably experienced when flying internationally), scan our luggage through a machine that the border guard wasn’t paying any attention to at all, and get back on the bus to wait for approval to cross the border. At the Estonian border – we were all debating where you actually are when you’re driving between the two, at this particular border the actual defining border I believe is a river – a border guard came on the bus to collect our passports and then they processed the whole stack while we watched a movie on the bus. (State of Play!) So all of this took a rather long time, and then we hit the EU-roads-without-potholes to finish our drive to Tallinn!

The hotel where we stayed in Tallinn was gorgeous, and they let us just drop our bags in the lobby and attack the lunch buffet that was set up for us, even though it was already after 4 pm Tallinn time. Most of us had forgotten that we would gain an hour just by driving across the border. After a wonderful lunch/dinner we headed up to exclaim over our views of the sea and the old town, we switched some rooms around so that Vika and I were rooming together, and then it was time for our walking tour of the old city of Tallinn. Estonia has a very brief independent history, for most of its existence it has been Russian, German, or Swedish territory. So there were clear Western European influences as well as Russian ones, and winding around the old cobblestone streets and ducking down stairways often reminded me of getting to know the streets of Salzburg. There is an upper and a lower part to the old city, built under different ruling powers. Our guide was very funny and entertaining, I went on the all-Russian tour with the girls I wanted to hang out with later and was really excited that I understood almost all of what he was explaining about the city. It was sometimes difficult to remember that we were in a capital city, but we walked past lots of embassies and federal buildings that were small but very beautiful. Estonia has a largely Protestant population, but there is also a prominent Orthodox church in the center of the old town. Tallinn has a very romantic feel as well, aided by all the cobblestones and archways. It was great to start off with a walking tour to get us oriented, it was already getting pretty dark but our guide gave us suggestions about where to shop, what things Tallinn is known for, what kinds of beer to try, and a few fun facts about the Estonian language – which is related to Finnish and Hungarian and sounds and looks incredibly strange sometimes as it has a tendency to use lots of letters with umlauts (those funny little dots on top of letters) right next to each other. We also wandered around quite a bit on our own after the tour, finding a couple of cute cafes and scoping out menus for dinner the next day.

One of the exciting things about our hotel was the fact that we had free access to the sauna, fitness room, and swimming pool in the morning. So Saturday started at 7 with a workout, a swim, a trip to the sauna, and a wonderful breakfast and we were all ready to go. We had a bus tour to see some areas just outside the city; the new art museum, a monument to the sailors of a ship that sunk on its way to Finland, a beach looking across the Baltic, and the Folk Song Festival grounds where Estonians gathered in 1991 to seek their independence. Then we were free to explore! After our big and delicious breakfast we weren’t in the mood to eat, so we shopped at a couple of markets for handmade goods and then in a Western European-style mall with coffee shops and stores like the Body Shop. Then we decided to wander around the old town and go in some of the churches and buildings. By this point it was raining, and chillier than it had been in the morning on the beach and our bus tour. The Orthodox church was beautiful inside, I am always struck by how dark they seem and how different that makes the paintings and icons appear. The Lutheran church was also very beautiful – it had those old pews that still exist in places like Colonial Williamsburg where families had their own pews that they sat in every week. The walls of the church were covered with different coats of arms, those of families, areas, and countries I would imagine. It also had a gorgeous organ, something that is always missing from Orthodox churches since there is no music during Orthodox services.

After wandering around, visiting the churches, taking plenty of pictures, shopping in the marzipan and medieval stores, and getting a little wet, we headed back to the hotel to warm up and pick up Sarah for dinner, who had gone back to nap earlier. We had made reservations earlier that day for one of the restaurants right off of the square, called the Pepper Sack. When we arrived for dinner we were glad we had made the reservations, as it was completely packed. We were seated in a corner which turned out to be perfect as we could still hear live music and dancing being performed but weren't self-conscious and were able to be completely ourselves, laughing as loud as we wanted. Tallinn is actually known for its use of garlic, so we got a few orders of garlic bread – slightly different from ours, its almost as though the pieces of bread were covered in garlic and then fried in garlic, it was delicious – and we all had cider or beer (or ginger ale, in Sarah's case). Everything was delicious, in fact, I had baked chicken in a cream sauce with rice and mango – which turned out to be more like pineapple – salsa that was simple and hearty and very good. One of the funniest moments was when Kelly suggested that since there were 5 of us we should get one of each of the five desserts on the menu – and we did! Crème brulee, white chocolate truffle ice cream with cherries in rum sauce, house cake that was like chocolate and gingerbread together and delicious, ice cream with fresh fruit, strawberry ice-cream-like cake!!! After dinner I walked back to the hotel with Sarah at like 11:30 while some people went out to a bar in the old city.

Sunday after breakfast it was time to head back to Russia, with a stop in the Estonian border town of Narva for lunch. We were all rather sad to be leaving Estonia, but the castle restaurant where we had lunch was very good and their chicken noodle soup distracted most of us from worrying too much about going back to Russia. After a quick tour of the castle fortress of Narva, which has been under just as many rulers as Tallinn and is even older, we piled back on the double-decker bus to head across the border and back to St. Petersburg. Or, rather, we piled back on the bus to wait for them to tell us that we could try to cross the border. So, we waited for a while, and went through the whole process in reverse, except there was more waiting doing nothing and I think it took even longer. We were all pretty tired and were either napping or trying to. At one point when the bus was off and the driver opened the vents on the roof to keep us from all getting sick and too warm, some of the guys rigged an umbrella opened over the vent and tied to a chair to let air in but keep the rain out. A few times we thought we would be Mary-Poppins-ing back to St. Petersburg! It might have been faster.

We made it back to St. Petersburg eventually – though too late for the metro. As always, though, the program took good care of us and those of us on the island zipped across the bridge just in time (we had already missed one of them) and were dropped off at our doors. I felt bad for the directors having to be out so late dropping us all off (and then waiting for the bridges to go back down again) but we were all very grateful for the door-to-door service and they always put our safety first so it worked out just fine. Today we don't have school, but we did have to drop off our documents to be re-registered now that we have left the country and come back. You always have to do this when you leave and return, it is quite an entertaining system. Great news on that front though, my visa has been extended all the way through next May so I'll be able to do much more travelling spring semester if I want to, because I'll be able to get on trains! Yay! This week I am meeting with my conversation partner to chat over coffee after class, then Wednesday we have a tour of the national library and this weekend Jarlath, one of our directors, is playing again with his band! Then the next weekend is halloween and we're going to the university halloween party at one of the dance clubs here – I know it won't have anything on Athens but it will still be a good time – plus a walk about the history of rock music in St. Petersburg. And after that…Moscow and Berlin. It is insane, but time continues to speed up!! I am still loving being here, though was reminded this weekend of the many differences between Russia and its European neighbors. It was a great weekend with lots of new experiences and great friends – and how many people can say they were in the tallest swimming pool in Tallinn? ☺

Much love to you all, and I'm sorry that the internet didn't work out the way I would have liked this weekend. Hopefully all is going well in the US of A and I'll be able to catch up with you soon ☺ All the best and lots of love from Russia – beth

On the night before Estonia..

Its already here, today is our final day before Estonia! Wednesday evening very late the last passports arrived with their visas inside, largely thanks to Irina Borisovna. We haven’t seen them, though, they are keeping them until tomorrow morning so no one has a chance to lose them. This week has gone really quickly, maybe because we have all been anticipating Estonia and walking extremely quickly outside through the cold and the slush. We have also started to notice the retreating daylight, its become much more difficult to get up in the morning in the dark even at 9 am and last night when we left school at 6:30 it seemed incredibly dark.

Yesterday after classes we had a meeting about the many things coming up – starting with what Jarlath has dubbed ‘enthrallin’ Talinn’ and including a film studio tour and library tour next week and a Halloween Party and a rock walk – and then there was a discussion set up with Russian students in the Political Science faculty about relations between Russia and the West. It was a little disorganized, and my Russian foreign affairs vocabulary is sorely lacking, but it was still incredibly interesting and they are hoping to reorganize it into English and Russian language sessions and smaller groups and make it a weekly or bi-weekly event. We primarily discussed the ‘reset’ in relations between Russia and the US; whether it had taken place in reality, how much the idea has to do with the personalities of the leaders, what challenges remain in the development of the relationship. Many of the students held passionate opinions that were not necessarily what you might expect. I would say that a majority are of the opinion that the because of the higher prominence of the US, we do not always take them seriously in international affairs and that the ‘reset’ claimed by Obama and Medvedev is in reality simply a slight difference in atmosphere rather than a tangible step forward in the relationship between the two nations. Please debate amongst yourselves, and let me know what you think on that point. I know what I think, but I’ll save that for later.

After the very interesting discussion with the Russian students, I got home a little late but my host mom sat down to talk to me while I ate. Russia and Azerbaijan were playing each other in soccer, and one of made the comment that all of the players on both sides would have been teammates 20 years ago. That comment started my host mom off on a speech about how life was better during the Soviet Union. I was torn between being excited that I could understand her and disappointed that I can’t yet ask sophisticated questions in the language. Essentially, she talked about how everyone had an apartment, a job, a great pension, and paid vacations by the government. You might not have had exceptionally beautiful possessions, but then neither did anyone else. She grew up in Kazakhstan, her mother was (and is) an economist, while her father was a professor at a university. She is young enough to have still been studying when the Soviet Union fell, but she remembers her parents talking about how much better everything was before Gorbachev and perestroika, when there was never anything on the shelves in the stores. Their family was given the choice between a 3-room and 4-room apartment, which she said was very nice, and you didn’t have to pay for the apartment or the utilities. Everyone had a job, and went to work in the morning and came home at 5 pm. Today, she says, people have to work 2 or 3 jobs to afford their apartments and utilities, and it is difficult to travel anywhere because it is so expensive. I asked what she wants for Pasha in the future, and she talked for a while about wanting him to do an exchange in America or England to learn English well enough to help him get into a good institute or university and one day work and live abroad, in Europe or the United States, where she of course will follow him. Everything is extremely expensive, so she has been looking at exchange programs where Pasha could go to England, for example, and live with a family who would send one of their children to Russia. It was very interesting to listen to her opinions, it was the first time she has talked for a long time about her views on something and I feel like I got to know her a lot better and can’t wait until I can ask even more questions about it.

So the learning continues, both in the classroom and outside of it, and this weekend we are headed to a part of the European Union that I have never seen! This experience has been wonderful so far, and I am sure it is just going to get better! I hope time isn’t flying as fast for all of you and you have time to enjoy the fall leaves before the snow starts falling! Much love - Beth

PS we are staying in a 5-star hotel this weekend with a pool and…wireless internet! So I’ll be online a little more often, probably not sleeping as much as I should but it will be worth it so that I can see the city and leave myself online at a time that’s better for talking to all of you lovely people! Just thought I’d let you in on the secret, and you might even get a blog from EU soil! ☺

snowflakes!

Stop the presses and alert the paparazzi. The moccasins have been retired (and are currently enjoying their retirement basking in the heat of the radiator they are sitting under in the hopes that they will dry out in the next few hundred years) and the trench has been relegated to only more formal occasions – which means it is boot, scarf, hat, and winter coat time in St. Petersburg! (A time which is made even more splendid by the fact that my host mom took my red leather boots in to be re-tipped and they came back the same day, with metal grooved heel tips!!! Have I mentioned lately that I love shoes on this side of the Atlantic and everything associated with them?) But what was the impetus for this sudden change of attire, you ask? Sneg. (SNOW!) And even more than the snow that fell today, it was the slush on the sidewalk that made me realize it was about time to go boots-in and put the moccasins in the suitcase next to the flip-flops and Italian leather. So the Dublin-ankle-boots, black-suede boots, Burberry-wellington-boots, Timberline-combat-boots, and awesomely-metal-heeled-red-leather-boots are lined up in the hallway and ready for action. (Yes, all of the afore-mentioned did fit in my suitcase.) And – don’t freak out mom I haven’t bought any yet – my host mom and I discovered a common desire for over-the-knee-black-leather boots this weekend but just couldn’t find the perfect pair in the 4-floor shoe mall right next to our metro (yes, 4 floors of shoes), so we’re going to a different mall of shoes next week after I get back from Estonia. ☺

Well, if you didn’t already know about my shoe fetish/obsession/problem (depending on who you ask), you have now been informed, so we’ll save the discussion on purses for another day. Actually, my first big purchase will in all likelihood be leather gloves, an equally important piece of outerwear here on the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. It started snowing during our first class, and I realized that the weather report I had seen scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen last night must have been for yesterday, NOT for today. So my moccasins got more than a little wet on the way home, but the first-snow-excitement kept me nice and warm until I could get home and change into my boots and winter coat for a walk. This weekend it managed to be beautiful almost the whole time, with a brief interlude of hail on Saturday when Kelly and I were thankfully walking next to a well-placed awning. I love my Russian umbrella, but I’m not sure how it would hold up to dime-sized hail.

We were walking back from the Museum of Political History, which is right by the Peter and Paul Fortress. It houses an absolutely incredible collection of documents, propaganda, photographs (some with ‘enemy of the state’ relatives cut out of them), uniforms and clothing, models, and video and audio presentations. It almost makes you wonder if either they knew that someday information on the Soviet Union would belong in a museum or whether they have just made some of the things up, that’s how many passports, train tickets, ration cards, and other documents from important people are displayed in the museum. The posters of Soviet propaganda were particularly interesting to me, everything from satires of ‘the west’ to a depiction of a how the ‘Soviet Family’ was to look and act in their home. It was also striking how many letters of protest were on display, whether written to Stalin or any number of ministry heads particularly during the height of the Gulag system. There were also exhibits of some of the more incredible things to come out of the Gulag, paintings and sketches done on canvas snuck into the camps in the lids of boxes, and even a chess set supposedly made out of bread by one of the prisoners. There were models of communal apartments and barracks in the work camps, as well as reports on the later visits of Soviet leaders with those in the west. Having largely learned about the Soviet era from the perspective of the Eastern European countries rather than from within the Russian territories, it was a very interesting and enlightening museum. At the end, there is also a room dedicated to First Lady Gorbachev, which was very interesting.

We left the museum in the late afternoon – and discovered it had become noticeably colder on the street. Our plan was to find a bar to watch the Germany-Russia soccer game in, but we ended up running into a festival for children instead and later discovered that pretty much all the bars were going to be booked up. So we ended up watching the game at my apartment, after my host mom graciously agreed and fussed over whether we had enough tea and things even though it was incredibly last minute and I tried to tell her a million times not to worry about it. (It’s a silly worry anyways, we have an entire cabinet that is always full of tea bags and loose tea!) The game ended well, and I didn’t get beat up for being a Germany fan watching the game in a Russian sports-bar, so the evening probably worked out for the best anyway. Sunday I was up early for church, met Tom, and said hi to the Americans and the choir for a little bit afterwards before meeting up with our group for our excursion to a palace close to Peterhof.

We spent the afternoon with CIEE and our host families (which was great fun!) at Konstantin Palace in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. It was a private palace before the revolution, was of course nationalized by the Soviets and then destroyed during the siege. It had fallen into decay when, in 2000, a letter was written to then-President Putin declaring it a shame on Russia that such a palace (it is quite a landmark, right on the Baltic and the road to Peterhof. It had been intended to be the site of the fountains but they were moved to Peterhof because the geography was better for a gravity-fed system.) had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Putin must have agreed, because he had the palace and the surrounding park renovated and restored in just under a year and a half. In addition, a five-star hotel and more than a dozen cottages were built on the property right on the Gulf of Finland for important guests. The palace was the main site for the G-8 meetings held in St. Petersburg in 2006, and has played host to many other official events. When it is not hosting Medvedev or Putin, it operates as one of the most secure museums in Russia. Metal-detectors and grimace-wearing-militia remind you every few minutes that you’re not visiting just any palace. CIEE invites our host families to come with us because you can only get in by pre-arranging group trips on certain dates so many Russians have never had the opportunity to go inside.

The rooms have mostly been restored to look as they would have in imperial Russia, some of the chandeliers have been restored exactly from 19th century photographs, for example. One exception is the 'Belvedere' room on the top floor in the center of the palace. It was renovated to look like a ship's cabin, and there is a spiral staircase, model staircases, cherry paneling, and curved glass windows in the shape of a sail to add to the effect. It is used for more private meetings – maybe it is where Bush saw Putin's soul – and is absolutely beautiful. It was a great excursion, made even more interesting because it wasn't just another palace but has a more interesting history. It was also very fun to spend the day with my host mom (and her mom), and they liked the palace and the grounds just as much as I did. It was a great end to the weekend, and this week we will only have 4 days of classes because we are headed to Talinn early Friday morning.

This morning I had a skype date with the twin, but I woke up with a strange feeling of chills and a serious migraine. I got almost all ready but was pretty miserable so I texted her but she didn't get it and now I have a reputation for standing people up ☹. I'm feeling better now, though I still have a headache, and the director of the program has given me the name of a supplement that apparently attacks the virus that is currently going around so hopefully that will knock it out. Matthew also called me from his fancy iPhone and its skype application and it was awesome for like 20 minutes but then it made him sound like a robot and I couldn't really tell what he was saying at all so I hope I can catch both him and twin online today or Thursday. Then its off to Talinn for the weekend, we'll get back real late Sunday night. I'll have my computer on Thursday, so if you've been to Talinn or know of something that I absolutely have to make sure I see/buy while I'm there, let me know between now and then and I'll be sure to do/buy it ☺.

Thanks for reading and putting up with my tangents, I'm going to try and watch an episode of House online! ☺ All my love and many snowflakes - beth

To the ballet: Act I. (Hopefully!)

The speed with which October is passing me by is becoming rather frightening. I put some things into my iPod calendar today and was already writing things down for late October and November and it just felt extremely strange. (Examples of things I was putting in my calendar, since I know you will ask, are: a violin concert this coming Thursday that I was given a ticket to because I play the violin J, times of travel to Berlin for travel week, and a one-man play by Dostoyevsky that some of us are going to on the 21st of November.) We are headed to Estonia this upcoming weekend, well Friday morning at 7 am to be precise, and then we get back so late on Sunday that we don't have class Monday which will just serve to make the time pass even more quickly.

This week went by so fast. Classes are still going very well, I am enjoying doing some academic reading for my class on ethnic studies, and in grammar I feel like I'm remembering things much more quickly than I was even at the beginning of this semester. And my host mom tells me my pronunciation and conversation is much better than when I got here, she's still really great about helping me use new vocab all the time and explaining things that we're watching on TV or that I see on the street. Her cooking has gotten even better, we are now making eclairs all the time to practice making the dough just right and she's discovered that I love chicken and peppers and cucumbers – but not tomatoes so we laugh about that sometimes. She also got some fresh apples a couple of days ago so I think we're going to make an apple pastry tonight! If we're done early enough I'll go out dancing with some of the students, but if we keep up our tradition we won't be done making and trying out new types of tea until after the metro closes!

Apart from cooking, baking, visiting a couple of cafes, and doing homework in the evenings, we also went to the ballet this week! Wednesday after class, choir, and interning at the Hermitage (where we worked mainly on an article about an 18th century table clock with a 'musical mechanism'), Kelly and I headed to the Michaelovsky Theater on Arts Square next to the Russian Museum. It was pouring, so both of us stayed in our black boots rather than changing into our heels. We met Vika and Melissa at the theater and headed up to our seats, Sarah made it just in time no thanks to the trolley-bus and the incredible traffic on Nevsky! But she made it, and found us up in the top circle of the theater. It reminded me a little of the theaters in London, nice and tall but small enough that everyone in the building has a good view of the stage. It was great to be able to see not just the dancing but the spacing too, and we rented a pair of 'opera-glasses' to share when you wanted to see the intense amount of mascara and make-up on the dancers' faces up close. The ballet was Tschaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, and it was absolutely exquisite to watch. Even though I know nothing about the formal terminology or training involved in ballet, I could still appreciate the incredible talent and beautiful work of all of the dancers and the many more people who I'm sure were required behind the scenes to make everything look as amazing as it did. We could also see into the pit orchestra from where we were sitting, and that made me smile – though it was just shy of being a full symphony, it seemed, and they were definitely in much more comfortable conditions than we ever were!! The music was awesome as well, as would be expected! I hope this was the first of at least a few trips to the ballet!

The final act of the ballet is probably the best known, it is the wedding of Sleeping Beauty and the Prince and there are all sorts of characters who show up to take part. The famous Bluebird step, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood are some of the pieces that make up the final act. It was a wonderful experience, and it is a long ballet so we had just enough time to get dessert in a café and make the metro before it closed! (We had opted not to get tiramisu or red caviar at the buffet on dress-circle level at the theater, though we were especially tempted by the strawberries and champagne!) I had stratiatella ice cream and thought of Salzburg and Rome while eating it out of a cone with my little spoon! Kelly filled us in on some more details about the ballet and we talked about our different experiences with the performing arts for a while, it was a great evening with great friends – despite the not-so-great rain!

And now I've moved from school to a café to skype with dear Kathleen – though unfortunately we were too gorgeous for the internet and it cut us off after a few minutes so we are currently chatting it up old school while I finish this up. The last few days of this week have been pretty typical, though its been sunny which has been a little strange. You can definitely tell that it is getting darker, the sun is just barely peeking over the Winter Palace when we drive over Palace Bridge at 9 am on the trolley bus now. This weekend is the big Germany-Russia soccer match, and I think we'll be at Vika's Saturday night before our excursion on Sunday to a palace just outside town. Time is flying by, and I'm working my way through Team of Rivals pretty quickly now! Keep the book suggestions coming, and comment or email so I know you're reading and can thank you accordingly! I hope fall is treating all of you well! Love and as much sunshine as I can send while it lasts - beth

 

PS – On a rather unrelated note, we got all giddy at the ballet talking about our Thanksgiving plans when we realized that thanks to the time difference we can plan our dinner to come out of the oven at the same time the Macy's parade starts and watch it online (hopefully someone streams it!) at Vika's where we're hoping to make dinner! So the time difference is good for something! J

Of books and poodles..

Another week is beginning in St. Petersburg, and while the rumored snow never quite materialized this weekend it is now consistently cold and wet on the streets of the imperial capital. And we are starting to notice the dark skies in the morning and earlier in the evening, a hint of what’s to come. Fortunately, most of our group haven’t been deterred by the weather and have continued our excursions – though now usually accompanied by a hat and gloves, even if they’re not wool or fur just yet. (aside: Angela Lansbury is on the TV just now, miraculously speaking Russian, in Murder She Wrote and its making me wish I had gotten to see her in Blithe Spirit this summer!) For those of you who don’t tweet, apparently traveling to a foreign country has little effect on your fundamental nature – referring of course to that part of my fundamental nature which requires that I lose at least one umbrella every two months. In true form, I left my umbrella in the university cafeteria on Friday as far as I can tell. So, I will soon be the owner of a Russian umbrella, hopefully for less than $10 though it would be much easier to find one costing more than $50 or $100.

Last week ended rather uneventfully, classes are still going very well and I survived my first tests in grammar and ethnic studies. Friday evening a few of us met at Jay's apartment to watch a movie and have a relaxing night, complete with microwave popcorn from Adam's care package! We walked around afterwards, buying snacks and drinks in one of the million 24-hour 'producti' stores. We eventually wandered our way towards my apartment building (where Adam also lives) so we opted to pack it in about 1:30. It was a nice evening with friends, popcorn, and an old Brad Pitt heist movie. Saturday I went to the Kunstkamer Museum, essentially a natural history museum with incredible collections of clothing, jewelry, and other artifacts from the American Plains to Yemen, India, and Japan. With the added feature of Peter I's collection of malformed, deformed, and otherwise strange animals, skeletons, fetuses, and infants. While perhaps scientifically interesting and relevant, it was an almost haunting room for me and I moved through it quickly. I didn't feel disgusted or excited, but somewhere uncomfortably in limbo. I was grateful that the antechamber to the next room contained photos largely of Machu Picchu and the villages of Peru, I have never been to Peru but the cobblestones, jungle waterfalls, and smiling faces under baseball hats reminded me of my little part of paradise that it was a breath of comfort and fresh air. I know many people visit that particular museum just for those collections but it was the carvings of tusks done by African tribes, exquisite hand-painted shells from Japan, and the ivory-ebony jewelry box from India that left the greatest impression. After a day at the museum, however, it was off to a night at the circus.

The Circus on the Fontanke is something of an institution in St. Petersburg. It is its own building and has been around for decades at the very least. My host mom has gone every time it has been performed since she has been in St. Petersburg. I met my host mom, grandmother, brother, and cousin on Nevsky Prospect (survived my first set of phone conversations in Russian!) and we walked the short distance to the circus arm in arm. Before the show started, the live orchestra played in the ring and seemingly every child in the building successfully persuaded their guardian to buy them a glow-in-the-dark-twirling-spinning-flashing toy or a giant balloon in the shape of a flower. I remember a similar experience (was it at the colluseum in Cleveland, oh parents?) and so when the young boy next to me lit up his giant sword and blinded me I just smiled and laughed with my host mom. The show was set to run 6-8:30, and by 6:05 the impatient crowd began to clap, which my host mom explained was meant to help get the show on the road! When the lights went out it was completely dark except for the toys, there really is nothing like that moment at the circus.

During the show itself I was torn between awe and guilt – the human performers were incredible but honestly the animal acts were more sad than anything. Yes the horses were glitzed to the max, and the dogs did actually appear to be enjoying themselves, but the chimps (and I suspected their was also a gorilla) were physically tethered and the horses were obviously hit a few times with the whip meant only to compel. So it was an interesting exercise in deciphering my own emotions. But the acrobatics were truly incredible – though maybe sad in their own way, since there are no such things as safety nets or life-wires in the circuses here. My host mom called it 'performing without insurance' which is an interesting way to put it. I'm just not sure trapeze jumping in a dark stadium lit only by blacklights is a good idea without some sort of safety net. But, I'll never be a circus performer. In all honesty, I had thought the 2 ½ hours would seem like an age but when they brought everyone back out for a curtain call, I was astonished that it was the final curtain call, it was already 8:40! Maybe worrying makes the time pass faster. Overall it was a great cultural experience and a lot of fun to spend the evening with my extended host family!

Sunday I went to Mass and caught up with a few of the ex-pats before heading to an internet café so Tom could use his laptop. A couple other people keep saying that they will come to Mass but not coming, so its nice to see Tom and get to know my friends in the choir a little bit better. It was a pretty cold and rainy day, so I headed home to get some work done and start reading for class. I must have fallen asleep for a little bit at some point, and woke up to eclairs with my host mom beating fresh cream at the kitchen table! They were delicious – of course! Mom called that evening (congratulations on the new car!!) so I had a nice break from the reading. This week is going to be quite busy. Wednesday evening we are going to the ballet Sleeping Beauty after interning at the Hermitage after choir practice, Thursday we may be going to a hockey game, Friday Vika has a choir concert so some of us are going to that, and Saturday we are hoping to all go out to Vika's dad's apartment for the night (long story short, he is Russian and has an apartment here but also spends time in Finland) where we will cook and watch movies and relax! Sunday we have an excursion in the afternoon to a palace in the city. And then it will be next week, and next weekend we will be in Estonia! Quite crazy, how time flies! In the meantime, it has of course continued to get colder though I still haven't seen many fur coats. Guess that just means there is more to come.

All my love to all of you back home, I miss you all and hope fall is treating you well. I'm devouring books on the trolleyrides to and from school so if you have any good suggestions that we could get on the kindle/my ipod post them here or email, tweet, facebook me about them! Reading on the bus helps pass the time – but this morning on the bus the image of reading curled up on my couch at home with hot chocolate and mom's apple pie made me want to smile and cry at the same time. So eat lots of apple pie for me and I'll be eating it with you before you know it! All my love from this beautiful city – bee

'October has come'

Well, October has arrived in St. Petersburg! And it has brought significantly colder wind with it – my most mom says it may even snow on Sunday!! I have only seen one fur coat so far though, on the escalator in the metro. Plenty of earmuffs, though – earmuffs in September! In St. Petersburg, where they are supposed to be experienced at this whole living with the cold thing. The kids are kind of cute though, all bundled up. I really can’t wait until the crazy fur coats start showing up all over the streets, its supposed to be quite incredible. The gas turned on in our apartment last night (30th of September). Apparently, you have no control over when that happens or over your thermostat. The radiators made strange noises for about twenty minutes and then it started getting warm in my room! I ended up opening my window a little because it got so warm. The tapochki we bought this week have definitely proved their worth already, my feet are cold when I’m not wearing them despite the hardwood floors. Still loving the apartment, been cooking up a storm with the host mom and we’re still talking about going to the circus this weekend, or a sauna if that doesn’t work out. So we’ll just have to see!

Currently we’re watching the daily show on Brian’s computer at school. Oh how I’ve missed Mr. Stewart. Its funny to watch satire of the events going on back home when we feel rather disconnected from all of that. I’ve been watching videos of Merkel’s victory in Germany, too, and catching up on news about the new version of the missile shield and the healthcare debate. I booked my hostel for Berlin today – WOMBATS! Didn’t know they had a wombats but as soon as I saw it I had to check it out. It has a kitchen, which helped to set it apart. Since I’ll be there for a week I definitely want to be able to do some grocery shopping so Tom and I will check it out when we get there. That’s a month and a week from now, somehow that seems both far away and very soon. At that point I will have been to Tallinn, Moscow, and hopefully Helsinki. To say nothing of the ballet we’re going to next week (Sleeping Beauty) and all of our cultural experiences and excursions. Which means a whirlwind is coming! Thankfully I’ve worked out a routine to make sure I’m working a lot on my grammar and vocab at home as well as at school so the language is still definitely going great and I’m picking it up even faster now that I’ve been here a little while. Learning slang from students is a good time, too.

Random post will have to come later, still need to put it all together! Sorry for the thrown-together nature of these last few posts, its been a little crazy this week and I think I’m finally over the cold that’s been after me for the past little while. So much more to come from the land of the freezing rain, I hope it is warmer wherever you are!