So, this was a great weekend.

Definitely the best weekend yet. Probably partially due to the fact that I had no homework because of our exam on Friday. Damn, I wish I never had homework in Russia. It's not really that necessary in my opinion -- I think I might have learned just as much if not more Russian this weekend without it. I talked in Russian. So much. All the time. ANYWAY. Once again, let's do this entry in parts.

FRIDAY 7/11/08:
When I left you on Friday I was going to the good bye picnic. Well, when I emerged from my room after my nap and after writing that entry, Katya, her boyfriend Stas, her friend Timor and Misha were hanging out in the kitchen and Katya asked if I wanted to join her, Stas and Timor on an excursion to Krestovskii Island to rent a boat, coincidentally the same island where our picnic was taking place. So, the stars aligned perfectly and I went along with Katya & Co.

So, yeah, we went to Krestovskii Island and rented a boat and for whatever reason it was maybe the best time I've had so far in Russia. It was just the four of us dicking around and rowing into trees and the shore and eating little sandwiches and feeding ducks and at one point Timor fell into the water, but I had such a good time and it gave me hope that maybe I'll make friends who are Russian who will still be here even after my current foreigner friends all ditch me after four more weeks. Anyway, it was a great time and I took about 250 pictures.

Then Katya, Stas and Timor helped me find my picnicking people, which wasn't that difficult as it was the huge group of rowdy Americans playing Twister across from the yacht club. They left me with them, and I also had a good time, but in a totally different way -- in the way that you understand everything that people are saying and you get all the cultural jokes and references. So the picnic group was basically everyone in our program not from Bard, plus the tutors, plus Bryan, plus Philipp. We were just hanging out and eating weirdly flavored chips (a tradition at our picnics, apparently) and it was a good time. We were there until, oh, I don't know, 10pm? Time flies when it never gets dark. I took about 200 more pictures at the picnic.

So then our group kind of dispersed in various directions but I ended up going to that café by Kazan with Sasha and Adams and Hart to meet up with Grace who had left the picnic early to hang out with her host sister on her last night out in Petersburg. While there I got a call from Misha who said he was going out to a club with some of his friends and invited me to come along, so Sasha, Adams, Grace and I went -- after a lot of drama regarding our group because some people wanted to go to a different bar and other people just wanted to go home and one of the tutors was freaking out because apparently it is bad luck for groups to break up -- and joined up with Misha and his people. We went to a place called Сочи and I got to meet some of Misha's friends and once again I had that glimmer of hope. So that was all good.

SATURDAY 7/12/08:
I slept a lot and then around 2pm Katya, Stas and I went via metro and then bus (only an hour ride) to a town called Кировск (Kirovsk). This town is on the outskirts of St. Petersburg and Katya described it to me as a "Soviet administrative town." Olga's mom lives in Kirovsk in one of those stereotypical Soviet block apartment buildings. Olga visits her mom every weekend, but this week she went out on Thursday afternoon, so Katya, Stas and I met up with her there.

Olga's mother (whose name I can't remember because it was long and Russian and I now feel like an asshole for forgetting) was extremely sweet and hanging out at her apartment was such a typical-hanging-out-at-grandma's experience. I mean, sometimes I feel like I basically found my family but the Russian version. We drank a lot of tea and ate chocolate and watched television on the "Culture" channel which is all old movies and documentaries on actors and artists. I could have been at 38 Hutchinson Road. Not only that, but Olga's mom also has had her thyroid out -- I noticed her scar today at lunch and asked about it and she said she had a big growth on it so the took it out, but that was when Olga was 2 or 3, oh, 45 years ago at least -- and even old pictures look vaguely like ones in our family..... Katya and I both had the same white-blonde hair with bangs and wore a lot of big sweaters, and at one point Olga even had her hair dyed blonde in an 80s vaguely-Princess-Di-esque cut which looks kind of like Mom did. It blows my mind.

The weather was crappy on Saturday though so we didn't get to go out to the dacha. Their dacha is only a 15/20 minute walk from Olga's mom's apartment, just on the outskirts of Kirovsk, but it was raining like hell. The rain stopped briefly and Katya, Stas and I went for a walk along the Neva but of course the minute we left it started to pour again and the moment we got back it stopped. Of course. So we just sat around a lot and talked and ate and then around 9:30/10 Katya and Stas left to go back to Petersburg -- I hadn't realized that they weren't staying, that they basically had just made sure I got there ok, due to plans being explained in Russian. Of course. I really hope I don't ever misunderstand something really important like, "Watch out, a piano is falling out of that window and is going to kill you momentarily. Oh. Too late."

Anyway, the night wound down with Olga, Olga's mom and I watching "Calendar Girls" and then me sleeping a lot. Some would say that kind of thing was boring -- I personally needed that kind of quiet, restful escape after my busy week.

SUNDAY 7/13/08:
I got more quiet and rest today then at the dacha.

We woke up and it was kind of cloudy and the weather looked skeptical, but we decided to go out anyway. Olga's mom prepared breakfast which consisted of cheese, tomatoes, bread, green peppers, liver pâté, yogurt, ice cream and pineapple. Olga said happily that every Sunday she is a kid again when she has breakfast at her mother's, and it was all delicious. Actually, can we just pause for a brief minute and review the list of foods that I have been eating in the past month and actually thoroughly enjoying -- a list of foods that five years ago I think I would have preferred to die than consume:
1. liver pâté on crackers.
2. salad made of fake crab meat and potatoes covered in mayonnaise.
3. mushroom soup.
4. mushrooms in general.
5. an obscene amount of sausages.
6. green onions.
7. I am sure there are lots of other things that you would be so startled to know I've been eating and enjoying, but hey, I'm in Russia. Different mindset.

Anyway, we packed up some food and met up with Olga's brother, Kolya, and stopped at a hardware store to buy shellac for some murals Olga has been working on at the dacha and on her mom's balcony and then walked out to the dacha. This was my first time at a real, official dacha, though I was having déjà vu of Baikal. Just across the street from the apartment building complex is basically a huge, huge field and all in it are winding dirt roads and small, well-kept gardens and houses, some patched together with things like СССР beer crates. It feels so different from St. Petersburg, all rural and just like Bolshie Koti, but then again, at the same time, you can still see the block apartment buildings in the distance even from the manicured garden.

Of course Olga's dacha was extremely well-kept and had a beautiful garden. They have the dacha which is one room with a bed and a table, a banya which is where the bathroom is and also a sitting area/kitchen, and then a greenhouse. Don't worry, I took about 300 pictures today of my surroundings. Basically, the day was pretty dull to write about in terms of an exciting new blog entry but I did a lot of sitting and writing in my journal and writing postcards and reading and taking pictures. It was calm. And we drank tea and listened to Russian pop music on the radio (all parties agree it is pretty horrible) and the sun came out and then tonight Olga and I came home around 11pm.

On the way back to the apartment, Olga and I did have a nice talk. She said that the Swiss girl they had stay with them last time always stayed in her room and never drank tea or wanted to try to speak Russian and never would have gone out to a club with Misha and left after only one month, so she is very glad that I am here now instead. So, this made me quite happy. And then we came home and Misha and Katya were there and they looked through all my pictures from the weekend and we watched some TV and I took a shower and I called mom and we drank tea and then Katya and I exchanged messages on vkontakte (Russian Facebook) and then I went to bed. Basically, I am starting to feel really comfortable here, which I think is quite a good thing. What I'm trying to say is I'm slowly replacing all of you. JUST KIDDING. Love you.

Anyway....... TIME TO GO TO SCHOOL. Our group now only has about 20 people in it and there are only four of us in my class. WOOHOO.