Still raining.

But it was sunny for the important part -- when I was 101 meters in the air on the roof of St. Isaac's cathedral taking photos of the panoramic view of St. Petersburg. Yeah, that was pretty cool. The rest of St. Isaac's was.... not how I remembered it being in 2005, because I think I mixed up Kazan and St. Isaac's because I was expecting St. Isaac's to be a dark, smoky cathedral full of incense and still in operation -- Nunni, you know the one where you bought a little wooden icon and we lit candles? -- but St. Isaac's is the one that, yes, is right across from the Angleterre Hotel, but inside it is just full of tourists in groups and has a lot of bright mosaics and there is a dove at the very top of the highest dome that looks like it is a life sized dove but because of the perspective or whatnot is actually 2 meters large. Anyway, that was cool.

And then after that Grace, Sasha and I went for a little wander in the sunshine and rain (yes, at the same time) along Gorohovaya St. where we found a little blini and tea place called "Samovar" and we sat there for two hours, drinking chai ("tea") and piva ("beer") and snacking on a few little blini ("pancakes with various things like honey or apples or sour cream") and talking instead of working on our homework like we said we would. Malina called and wanted to meet up with us, but got a little mixed up on her way over, so Grace and I found her on our way back home to the Dostoevskovo/Marata Street area.

Malina then came back to my apartment and got to meet Olga, and we sat and drank more chai while Olga fed me dinner. It was so awesome and kind of bizarre to have this person who is so familiar to me and part of my life in Massachusetts be sitting there, in the kitchen where I've been sitting for a week, in the middle of St. Petersburg, in the middle of Russia, so far from our lives at Wellesley and such. It was nice though. Kind of comforting after so many new things in the past twelve days. Olga, Malina and I talked about the actor who lives upstairs and what Malina wants to do after she graduates and how Malina's name means "raspberry" in Russian and how I'm going to use the phone card to call Nunni tonight because it's her birthday. Which reminds me......

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
TERI ANDERSEN!
I love you and miss you and hope your birthday is going very well! (I'll call soon!)

So, once again it's one of those nights where it is 10:30pm and I've only barely started my homework. Oh well, I went to bed early last night. Every other night is sufficient, right? And, come on. I'm in St. Petersburg. Why do I want to spend all my time sleeping? Pshhh.

Oh, and a couple of observations:

1. On the Metro this morning I saw a white, Russian girl with the craziest hair. She had white and light purple yarn braided into her hair so it was kind of like dreadlocks but lots of tiny braids but by the time her "hair" reached its ponytail it was just all yarn and then she had maybe a foot of yarn hanging down to her shoulders. It was intensely and intricately done and kind of beautiful in a Raggedy-Ann kind of way.

2. The other night when I was having coffee with Sasha we saw a chihuahua wearing a little black and silver track suit with a Mercedes symbol on the back of the sweatshirt that even had a little hood. I need to get Gwen one of those. Maybe one for Gen's baby too -- then they can match.

3. Olga is watching TV now and I was looking down at my computer and I heard "doo--nuuuu--doooo--dooo-dooooo I'm no superman" and I look up and there is the beginning of Scrubs, dubbed in Russian of course. Except that in Russia, Scrubs is called "Клиника" ("Clinic"). I can't get away from it even 8 time zones away.