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!