No snow in Piter...

Happy Advent to all, and Happy 23rd Anniversary (yesterday, 29th) to the best parents a girl could wish for! All is well in St. Petersburg – if unseasonally warm – and I thought I would catch you up a little bit on the goings on here and post another piece on my time in Berlin tomorrow or Wednesday.

Arriving back in Petersburg from Germany was a little difficult. The snow awaiting us on the ground was beautiful, but seemed to only serve to remind me that I was back in the land of the cold and the dark. The woman behind me waiting to go through passport control reminded me that I'm not sure who wrote that the Russians are patient, but I think they may have been severely mistaken. The people in the metro with their stone faces and their pushing and shoving and overall inconsiderate-ness did not exactly make our Sunday night. If I hadn't known that my host mom would be waiting with a smile – and most likely way too much food – I might have headed right back to the airport again. But when I walked in the door I heard a 'is that Beth?' from the kitchen and when I said yes Ira and Pasha came out to welcome me home, Pasha carried my duffel bag and purse to my room and Ira shuffled me into the kitchen for borscht and chicken and tea and cookies. They said they had watched the whole coverage of the Berlin celebrations on TV and looked for me and my umbrella but hadn't seen me. They asked if it was as fun as it looked on TV. It was absolutely great to be back with them and I knew I would get through the initial re-culture-shock just fine.

And I have. Classes have been great, we have had excursions galore and Thanksgiving went incredibly well. Though I haven't read all of Crime and Punishment, I went on a Dostoyevsky walk that proved very interesting. We wandered around the 'most criminal' district of St. Petersburg – its much safer today than it was in his day – and saw the corners, staircases, and bridges where much of the action in in his books takes place. Definitely made sure his books will be on my 'to read over break' list. (Currently reading: Picking Cotton and Atemschaukel and trying to limit myself to a couple articles a day from the German newspapers I brought back.) Then last weekend we went to a one-man play of Dostoyevsky's The Dream of a Ridiculous Man which was truly ridiculous. It took place in a regular apartment, and we sat along the walls as an incredible actor performed Dostoyevsky's work with masterful precision and scary eye contact. It reminded me quite a bit of the one-woman performance of Fräulein Else in Salzburg, very intimate and intense. Though this time the actor did not peel an apple with a knife while running in circles as the actress did in Salzburg, he did climb out of a trunk in the center of the room in the pitch dark while we all freaked out a little. It was a great experience, and reading the play again afterwards made me shiver at the memories of how the actor performed it, tons of thanks to Irina Borisovna for getting us tickets to our own showing.

Last Wednesday some of us headed to the Baltika factory after class – Baltika is one of the most popular beers here, and is brewed right here in St. Petersburg (as well as some other cities in Russia). Beer seems to be pretty standard, didn't learn too much about the process – the Guinness Storehouse experience is definitely going to be difficult to top – but got to see some of the fastest bottling machines in the world and then came the most important part…trying to figure out how we could fit all of the beer in the 3-football-field-size store room into our bags. We failed pretty miserably at that, but we did succeed at the really most important part – the taste testing, or 'digestion' if you're reading the Russian. Plenty of different kinds of beer – both good and terrible – and lots of friends made it a great Wednesday night!

Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving! We had planned out the menu in advance, all making suggestions and then Kelly and Sarah went online on one of their breaks and found recipes to make sure we wouldn't be missing anything. I did some of the shopping earlier in the week so that Vika wouldn't have to carry it all, as we would be cooking at her dad's apartment all day. Kelly and I took the long marshutka (communist taxi) ride out to the apartment and started peeling apples for the apple crisp and potatoes for the mashed potatoes. Kelly and Vika headed to the store across the street to get everything else that we needed while I cut all the vegetables and cheese for our finger-food appetizers. Shortly after they got back from the store, Melissa and Sarah arrived from Smolny after taking their phonetics test. Sarah had her pumpkin pie with her, which had survived multiple types of public transportation and still looked – and tasted – wonderful!! Her parents had brought the supplies to make the pumpkin pie when they came in October, and we were all incredibly grateful. The cooking continued without a hitch, potatoes were boiled and mashed, vegetables and bread were cut for the stuffing, turkey pieces were basted, rubbed down with spices, and put in the oven. There were no sweet potatoes to be found in Russia, and the only green beans we could find we weren't sure we wanted to eat, so we had squash with brown sugar and walnuts and salad with feta and vinagrette instead. The turkey cooked almost perfectly, and Kelly and I successfully made gravy thanks to grandmama's recipe with just some flour and a little bit of milk to thin it out. It was absolutely delicious! (Though next time I hope I get to boil some giblets and use the giblet water!) Every one of our dishes was successful, and we had sung the day away to Christmas music and Love Actually. When it was almost time for the Russian guys to come over (Vika's boyfriend and one of his friends, who we have hung out with before), we found the Macy's parade online! The guys brought plenty of champagne and a rose for each of us, and our wonderful dinner began! We toasted our friendship, Thanksgiving in Russia, and a number of other things. It felt wonderful to be enjoying the traditional American holiday outside of the country, and after I came back home that night I skyped with my family which made the day complete and nearly perfect!

The Friday after Thanksgiving we left after class for a 'retreat' with some of the students from the political science faculty at St. Petersburg State. We weren't really sure what to expect, and after a few hours on a bus driving through the dark woods, we arrived at what looked very much like summer camp! One building was the cafeteria, another the sports center, and then a few more were dorm-like buildings. They were nothing special to look at, but that was ok because what you really wanted to be looking at were the woods by which you were surrounded! Though not too far from the road by which we had arrived, we were definitely looking forward to walking around in the wilderness for the weekend, and Irina Borisovna mentioned that there was also a lake a little ways back in the woods. Needless to say, we dumped our bags in our room (and pushed our beds together like little girls at camp with new friends), had a round of introductions and fun conversations with the Russian students, and headed off to explore the woods with Sarah's 'rape-light' in hand. (Pepper spray is illegal in DC where she goes to school, so I think her dad found her this flashlight that will temporary blind someone if you turn it on high and shine it into their eyes. It worked great in the woods, too. Though didn't see any animals we needed to blind.) It was great to just wander around in the woods, climbing hills! (We have none in Piter, unfortunately.) We found a sand dune and what looked like a tree farm, and walked back to the 'campsite' singing Moulin Rouge, Abba, and Disney songs. It made me smile, because it was Friday night for me and I knew the girls would be getting together back home soon and I almost laughed out loud remembering how annoying we were at Disney World when we decided we had to sing Little Mermaid songs all the way down Space Mountain. So now I've sung those songs wandering through the Russian fields too. We kind of all had the sense that this was how most of Russia probably is, away from the big cities and all of the people. The lakes and the forests just felt like they belonged.

We were up until about two, and were up at nine to head to breakfast at nine thirty before discussion club at 11. We got back into our groups from the night before, my group was a great mix of Americans and Russians, and everyone was very laid back but had interesting things to contribute. Saturday morning was informal discussion, and we spent most of the time talking about national holidays in Russia and the US and sports in both countries. My reaction was that many more American holidays center around celebrating with family and neighbors, and that there are definite differences in 'state' holidays. They celebrate international women's day, but not mother's day, and men's day but not father's day. There is a day for children, and every profession has a day dedicated to it. Most cities and regions also have their 'day', and then there are plenty of holidays that no one is really sure why they are there. So it was a very entertaining discussion, and I really liked getting to know some more students better. After discussions and lunch we went for another gorgeous hike, this time in the daylight, and came back and I played basketball and ping-pong for a long time! That night there was a disco, which was fun until some very drunk Russians tried to pull Kelly and I into slow-dancing with them, so we headed out and hung out in the dorm until pretty late.

Sunday's discussion club was a little more formal; we broke up into 'countries' and discussed the issues surrounding the Arctic Shelf and Ocean. I was on 'Canada' and it was actually an incredibly interesting discussion. I realized I know almost nothing about the issue, and also that it could (and probably will) become a very serious issue as the ice continues to melt and the international boundaries continue to be disputed. As everyone was role-playing, we didn't really talk about our own opinions beyond discussing whether we thought it was a big and important issue at the present time. It was still very interesting, and I learned quite a bit for a Sunday morning. We headed back to Piter in the early afternoon – Irina Borisovna organized a bus for those of us who had stayed the whole time so we didn't have to go wait for a marshutka.

It has been an incredible few weeks here in Piter, I can't believe it has already been such a long time since Berlin. And in less than three weeks I will be at home! Skyping with my family has been so wonderful, we even got Grandma in on it for a few minutes! I love being here and I am so grateful to my host mom for making me feel so at home, but I also can't wait to be lounging and causing trouble with the brother, cooking with mom, and teaching dad not to be afraid of the WiiFit anymore ☺ These next few weeks are going to fly by, we are going to Pushkin's Flat Museum on Wednesday, Thursday night is movie night at our director's apartment, and either this Friday or next Friday we are going on a walk about the history of Russian rock and roll in St. Petersburg! So I'll definitely have a lot to keep you updated on! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and don't forget to break out the Advent calendars! I bought a little book at a market in Berlin that has a picture and a quote for each day of Advent, I'm very excited to start looking at it tomorrow! Much love to all, and send some snow this way!