Well, well, well.

First off, Russia won its match last night against the Netherlands (3 to 1) and so now they will be playing either Spain or Italy in the semi-finals. That means things are only going to get crazier around here. I can't wait.

Today we had a cultural excursion all day, starting at the ungodly hour of 9:30am. We met by the Neva across from the Hermitage and then all (well, not all, some people valued sleep more) of us boarded a hydrofoil to Petergof.

If you want to know a bit more about Petergof, check out what Wikipedia has to say about the place. Basically though, it was the residence of the czarist dynasty, founded by Peter the Great. The place is a huge series of gardens with small (ha "small") palaces. Today we saw the official royal kitchen and bathouses/banyas and just walked around the grounds. There is something like 200+ different fountains that all run without any pumps or electricity -- they all work simply because of gravity and all that "physics" nonsense. The morning started off kind of overcast and chilly, but then turned into a hot, sunny, gorgeous day. I might have even gotten a minor sunburn on the right side of my face at lunch. Anyway, it's a beautiful place, though kind of disturbing in the way of how it so vividly shows the class divide between the czars and everyone else back in the day. But we surpressed those thoughts and just wandered and enjoyed being outside in Russia. Sasha, Grace and I got ice cream and sat in the grass and looked out at the Gulf of Finland.

Now...... I have to do homework. Because I have school tomorrow. Morning. Oy. It's so hard taking classes in the summer -- my brain has been programmed to turn off this time of year. And, not only that, I have to memorize a poem for tomorrow..... in Russian. Of course. It's by Pushkin, about St. Petersburg, and I really like it just memorizing (especially in a foreign language) is a bitch. The poem is called "Медный всадник" or "The Bronze Horseman" (that statue of Peter the Great in the middle of St. Petersburg).

Люблю тебя, Петра творенье,
Люблю твой строгий, стройный вид,
Невы державное теченье,
Береговой ее гранит,
Твоих оград узор чугунный,
Твоих задумчивых ночей
Прозрачный сумрак, блеск безлунный,
Когда я в комнате моей
Пишу, читаю без лампады,
И ясны спящие громады
Пустынных улиц, и светла
Адмиралтейская игла,
И, не пуская тьму ночную
На золотые небеса,
Одна заря сменить другую
Спешит, дав ночи полчаса.
(poem from this site.)

And here's an English translation from this site:

I love you, Peter’s great creation,
I love your view of stern and grace,
The Neva wave’s regal procession,
The grayish granite – her bank’s dress,
The airy iron-casting fences,
The gentle transparent twilight,
The moonless gleam of your nights restless,
When I so easy read and write
Without a lamp in my room lone,
And seen is each huge buildings’ stone
Of the left streets, and is so bright
The Admiralty spire’s flight,
And when, not letting the night’s darkness
To reach the golden heaven’s height,
The dawn after the sunset hastens –
And a half-hour’s for the night.

So that's what I'll be doing tonight. Though.... I might take one quick break for a minor little social engagement because, you know, MALINA DUMAS IS IN ST. PETERSBURG NOW TOO WOOHOO. And the most amazing thing is that her host family lives two streets over. Seriously.
See???

Anyway, now time to go do that stuff. Or maybe upload pictures from Petergof.

P.S. Can't you tell I just figured out how to add links into my posts?