Пятница, суббота, воскресенье......

ПЯТНИЦА 10/17/08:

1. Fridays kind of suck. Three classes feel so long on Fridays. Especially until 8 o'clock at night.

2. Lauren and I tried another picnic attempt. We were actually successful despite the overcast nonsense that was the weather -- it only started to rain right when I had to go to class anyway, so that was good. Also, we had really delicious baklava from the market near school. I've been telling everyone I know about this baklava (which I keep referring to as baklazhon by accident.... which is eggplant in Russian.... oops).

3. Hung out with Ilana and her dad on Friday night for one last hurray before he left on Saturday (left WITH your Fulbright letter, Sasha! which he will mail on Monday!). There may or may not have been some dancing involved. Don't worry, Dad, Mr. Tabby has nothing on your dance moves though.

4. A very happy birthday needs to be wished to the now 21 year old ERIK PETERSON (happy birthday! I don't think you ever read this but whatever!). Don't drink too much... more....

СУББОТА 10/18/08:

1. All day printmaking. Well, "all day" = two hours longer than usual. It was supposed to run 10am - 6pm, but Yuri had a gallery opening to go to and Cathy and I were going to the ballet so we actually got out a little after 4pm instead. Five out of six students were there this time and Yuri was our professor and so we did monotypes again but this time using colors and I loved it. It was so much fun -- Puppy, the monotype I did was an attempt to replicate the photo you sent me of yourself (Yuri wanted to know what an "assessor" was) but with the bold, designer-esque colors it ended up looking more like a political cartoon that would be out of the New Yorker.... and you look slightly like Bill Clinton. Oops. I hope your Republican sensibilities are not offended.
The print on the left was made by none other than friend and colleague Lauren "Isn't it great when you go to grab a rag for your work and you realize you're holding a pair of their old underwear??" Abman whose blog you can check out at at samizdat.

2. Cathy and I left printmaking to change out of our grungy art clothes in a bathroom at Чайная Ложка after eating dinner there and continued on to the theatre with Maneka & co. The ballet we saw with the group was "Золушка" (Cinderella) at the Marinsky Theatre. As Elena said, "I thought it would be a bit more classical in style...." but I didn't care. I really, really enjoyed it. As Ilana can tell you, it's a new production that was created in 2002 and so they do some funny things like incorporate modern dance moves into some of the more traditional dances (think: John Travolta, stayin' alive and pulp fiction) and the costumes were modern (Cinderella's "rags" involved pink leg warmers) and the set involved met staircases and cages (Nieves would have loved it). But it was still really beautiful (but also funny) and the last scene was just gorgeous. I thoroughly enjoyed all two hours and fifty minutes of it.

3. And afterwards there was so brief, as usual, chaos and miscommunication involving everyone in the group wanting to hang out together but this never being possible because there are too many people, so a group of us broke off and went to the Irish pub across the street from the Marinsky and had...... quesadillas?? That were.... amazing?! Insane. And we called it a night because we were all tired but on the walk back to the metro I learned some trivia about the St. Petersburg Zoo from the Johns:
a. there are the most polar bears bred in captivity here than any other zoo in the world.
b. the first elephant kept at the zoo died of alcohol poisoning because its keepers were worried about it getting cold in the winter so they fed it a liter of vodka every day and in the spring its liver failed.
c. the first bomb dropped in St. Petersburg in WWII killed an elephant in the zoo.

ВОСКРЕСЕРЬЕ 10/19/08:

1. Today I promised to help Carrie with her photography class homework which is to take 15 portraits. Whenever anyone asks me to be a subject for their photo homework I already feel compelled to return the favor as I exploit so many people all the time in my photographs. We went to the monastery at the Aleksandr Nevsky Lavra but the weather was kind of bad so we didn't get to check out all the famous graves and such because the rain go too heavy. But we ate lunch and then walked all the way back up Nevsky to Ploshad Vosstaniya and took pictures in dvors of interesting graffiti and nonsense. So that was fun, and then we had a little tea party at my house to warm up before Carrie went home and I started homework and nonsense.

2. Another very happy birthday needs to be wished to another now 21 year old who I know DOES read this blog, so hers is going to be a little fancier.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANNA MARIEL HERMAN! (how much does it suck to turn 21 in a country where you can already drink?? can't wait for my turn!)

3. Also, I've realized very recently that the fall people have now been here for eight weeks.... as long as the summer people were here.... that really feels strange to me because it definitely does not feel as though it has been as long between end of August and end of October as it was between middle of June to middle of August. Really weird. And in some ways I still feel more connected to the summer people because we bonded over so much nonsense. Though I do have good friends now. So...... weird.