Getting Tired of Witty Snow Titles, and Snow Itself

And, apparently, so is St. Petersburg. Because for the last few days, we have all been running around without our long underwear and three scarves that we have become accustomed to needing. It has been +1 Celcius here and we are treating it like a serious heat wave, I cannot wait to see what +10 feels like, if we ever get there before its time to head home in May. The warmner temperatures have, however, also turned the streets to absolute slush and sent icicles and piles of snow plummeting off of buildings toward the ground. It is a change from the ice rinks that have occupied most of the streets in the city, and makes me grateful once again for my rain boots – but I'm not entirely sure it’s a positive change. We certainly don't have any control over it, though, so we'll take the positive temperatures while they last.

The past few weeks have been full of studying, volunteering, and spending lots of time with friends. This past Tuesday, February 23rd, was 'Men's Day' in Russia, as it is commonly known, it is officially a holiday to commemorate the mens' 'service to the Fatherland' during the Great Patriotic War but it is extended to honor all men in the country, including young boys and foreign students who use the excuse to receive gifts of chocolate, vodka, and a night out on the town from the girls they hang out with. Russians had a four day holiday weekend, but had to work the following Saturday to make up for the free Monday they were given (a very interesting concept in a country where so many don't really seem to value work very much), whereas we studied on Monday the 22nd and so didn't have to yesterday. My host mom says she almost wishes that was how their work week had gone, she's not very happy that she worked all day yesterday and has to again tomorrow, after only one day off. I'm not at all sure how the students here manage with only one day off every week, as I've said before. We made good use of the holiday, going to one of Brent's hockey games and then out afterwards with some Russian friends, coming home on the metro the next morning and sleeping the holiday away – after catching up with Mary in San Francisco which made the day even better! Women's Day is coming up on March 8th, I'll be sure to let you know if the boys make good on their promise to treat us to a night out and other goodies. I dragged Jay and Irina to Kolobok (my favorite perozhki place that I think I have mentioned before, not far from school) before buying concert tickets on Thursday, and while Jay is used to me dragging him there Irina had never been there before. She raved about it for about the next hour, and we are hoping Jay brings in a box of our favorites to class on Tuesday in honor of Women's Day…but we'll have to see.

The concert tickets were for a solo piano performance of Rachmaninoff on Friday evening, an incredible 2 hours of beautiful music and incredible talent on the part of the artist. Irina, Jay, Jeremy, and I had an incredible time bearing witness to the genius of one of Russia's favorite composers, and it felt great to be immersed in the theater culture of St. Petersburg again. (I'll be going to Mozart's Requiem and The Magic Flute before the month is out, we found good deals on the tickets but I'm still sacrificing a few nights on the town for…well, a different type of night on the town ☺ ) After the concert we headed to a student bar for a beer and were treated to a spontaneous eruption of opera from a few of the students in the bar who apparently just decided to break into song. They were harmonizing and everything, it was incredible and the whole bar broke out in applause when they finished.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been as much for Russians to applaud coming out of Vancouver as they had hoped. The Olympics have been a disappointment for nearly everyone in Russia, those who take it very seriously and those who watch very casually. My host mom, who doesn't really watch the Games at all, was going on about it a few nights ago, how before (in the Soviet Union) the team was so much stronger because of the number of eligible athletes and the strength of the training, and how all these little countries competing is just so silly and makes Russia look even worse against the countries leading the medal count. She's not sure why its so bad, just that the team is not like it used to be. Her hopes for the next Winter Olympics when Russia is the host nation are not very high. She knows that the Russia that is shown in Sochi in 2014 will not look anything like the Russia most people live in everyday, and that the illusion that 'everything is great' will only be perpetuated, while most people are struggling through the economic crisis with no help from their government. The people making the money off of the boom in Sochi are the oligarchs and the mafia, she says (and she's right, from all appearances), and the Russian citizens are not feeling any substantial benefits. I remember when we were studying in Salzburg, which was the candidate city competing with Sochi for the 2014 Winter Games, and they announced that Sochi, Russia would host the 2014 Games and how disappointed we all were. At that moment, I had no idea that I would be studying in Russia, and while my heart still belongs to Salzburg I am definitely very interested to see how an Olympics in Russia is carried off. And how the Russia shown by the Games is the same as or differs from the Russia that I lived in and talked about while studying here. Надо посмотреть…We'll have to see.

The studying is going very well, we have a test and an essay due next week so this week there will be a lot of work going on – a nice coincidence since my play money has been directed to theater tickets! I am surviving in grammar, working very hard to make sure I don't sound like too much of a bumbling idiot, but the teacher continues to be very helpful and make sure I understand the things that are new for me but review for the others. Our group is so much fun I would much rather work harder on my own outside of class than change groups. Our literature class also continues to be very rewarding, my host mom and I have been working on reading Russian poetry out loud to get the right rythym and intonation and accents, I can tell she enjoys it and it’s a pretty typical doing-the-dishes or cleaning up activity. She usually reads the poem out loud while sipping tea and then I try and duplicate her intonation and rythym, sometimes we end up laughing when I butcher a 30 letter word, other times she gets very excited when I get it perfect. I'm very grateful for all the support I get from her, she's always checking on new grammar concepts and making sure I'm understanding and using them as much as possible. Its largely thanks to her that I was able to make the jump all the way to group one, which I try and tell her as often as possible even though she always waves it off.

Tonight is the gold medal game in hockey, USA and Canada. Will probably be at a friends to watch it, after a skype date with my twin and eating dinner at host grandma's. Thank you for sticking around and reading, sorry it has been a little while but I should be back to posting more often now that I've realized going out every day after class is absolutely not a good idea, except for the fact that its fun to spend time with friends outside of class. I hear there's even more snow in Cleveland now, while ours is melting, but hopefully winter will be gone from both continents when my parents head this way in April, if all goes according to plan! Comment so I know you're out there ☺ Much love from the land of falling icicles and endless amounts of blini – beth