Things still going well.

Last night after I posted, Olga's friend Lydia came over. She is ten years older than Olga and when Olga was 13, Lydia was 23 and taught Olga about Russian literature in school, and then when Misha was 13, Lydia was also his teacher. We sat and watched this Russian modern retelling of Cinderella and talked about Lydia's German Shepard. They offered me a little white wine that comes in a carton that looks much like an over-sized juice box. It was pretty good. And then around 12:30 I finally went to bed, even though it was still as bright out as about 3pm.

This morning I was worried about sleeping in too late, but at 10am I was the first one up. Olga said she prefers to stay up until 2 or 3 and sleep in later, so I don't think she will be seeing me off to school at 8:30am tomorrow. The weather was rainy and overcast and the Smolny picnic and "sports event" was postponed from 2pm until 4pm and then at 4pm still looked like it wasn't going to happen. So I spent most of the morning sitting around with Olga again, eating the kasha (oatmeal) she made me for breakfast while she showed me the paintings she likes to do on Misha's computer using MS Paint and an electronic drawing pad. But around 4pm, Sasha -- the senior from Columbia -- called and asked what I was up to, so I met up with her and two other kids -- Noah from U Chicago and Kaitlyn from Bard -- on Nevsky Prospect and we walked around a bit and got cappuchinos from a little gourmet café. While we were drinking our coffee and discussing the annoying qualities of our home institutions, we found out from Olga -- the director of the cultural program part of the summer language intensive -- that the picnic/sporting was indeed happening, so Sasha, Noah & I went to check out Tavrecheskii Park.

We took the Metro to the park -- my first time on the St. Petersburg metro. It has to be the simplest, most straight forward metro system I have ever ridden on. It's not crazy like New York or London or Moscow, and it's way cheaper than the T: one 17r token (17r is less than a dollar, about 75 cents) and you can ride the whole line all day if you want. Plus, there are only four lines: red, yellow, blue and green. Very primary.

By the time we got to the park the sun was out and the place was full of dogs dressed in clothing (we saw one wearing a yellow t-shirt and matching black track pants with yellow stripes down the sides) and little kids playing with tennis balls in the mud. We couldn't find the group at first, not even sure they were still there as we were two and a half hours late, so we sat on a bench to call some people up. While we were doing this, a pigeon dive bombed over us and pooped on Noah's leg. Too bad those jeans probably won't be washed for two weeks.

We finally called Bryan and he said they were just packing up but would stick around for a bit. We located them in plain sight in a field we had walked past. Oops. So we ate some pretzel sticks and apple juice (the remains of the picnic) and hung out with Bryan, Phillip (the student intern), Vanessa (an American, former Smolny student, I think) and a Russian guy whose name I forget (Vanessa's boyfriend, I think). We threw a frisbee around for a bit and tried horribly to play lacrosse with these small primary colored sticks designed for children, and then all of a sudden it was 8pm. It's easy to lose track of time when it stays light until 1am.

So I headed back to Dostoyevskovo Street, where Olga had prepared a fish and rice pie of sorts. It was very good, and Olga told me that she used a little mayonaise to season the fish and, Dad, of course I thought of you and your blue fish recipe. And then we watched a dramatic Russian film full of guns and money starring an actor who apparently lives in the apartment upstairs.

And that was my second full day in Russia. I can't believe that I have to go to school tomorrow. That's going to put a damper on things. Three hours of homework won't be as much fun as watching the Simpsons dubbed in Russian and wandering around the city. But we'll see. Olga told me about this big park on one of the islands where you can rent canoes and go around this little pond, so maybe if it's nice this weekend I'll check it out with some Smolny kids or Erin Doherty (Hi! Thanks for reading my blog!) if she is free.

P.S. Guess who Sasha, Noah and I might go see on Saturday? THE GO! TEAM.
21 June 2008 - Stereoleto Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia.
This would be so awesome as I had to miss their Boston show due to an Amadeus dress rehearsal.