Night before the first day of school.

Don't expect to hear a lot from me this week. It's going to be a little crazy. I still have my Russian intensive next week, with class from 9:30am - 1pm, and then every day I will be shopping classes in the afternoon/evening, from either 1pm - 4:20pm or 4:40pm - 8pm. And then I am going to come home and pass out. Every night. Can't wait. But at least it is only next week. Once the Russian intensive ends I'll have more time to myself again.

This weekend was full of some nice carefree shenanigans. I'm getting to know the new people -- I hung out with some of them on both Friday and Saturday night. I also hung around with Katya and Stas and their friends on Saturday for a bit -- we ate Georgian food.

Today we had an excursion. Technically we don't need to go on excursions anymore, especially not ones that we already did this summer, and today was a six hour trip to Peterhoff -- the garden with all the fountains -- where we were this summer. But it is kind of expensive to get there on the hydrofoil and the gardens will be closing soon as the weather gets cold, so Ilana and I wanted to go one last time.... when we first got off the hydrofoil and were standing on that weird dock by the park and the wind was insane, Ilana and I were so miserable and sure we had made the dumbest decision of our lives. But then the two of us ditched the tour (as it was the same route from this summer) and went on our own personal wanderings to places we hadn't seen this summer (we even got a little lost at the edge of the park). And then our excursion dissolved into drinking tea and talking when we got too cold. It was nice.

And then after Peterhoff I went back to visit the dorms with Ilana, Lauren, Vicky and Eric. I hung out there and Ilana and I made pasta and I had mushroom soup that Ilana had made and we drank tea and continued our conversation and did homework and it was just a good break. It was kind of like being at Wellesley again for a little bit..... you know, the good part of Wellesley, the sitting around in Claflin and eating macaroni and cheese late at night part of Wellesley. I hadn't realized how much I've missed Western-style dorm life until I was back there tonight. It even made me sad when I had to leave in the cold and dark and take the bus back to my house alone, though I think it was the smell of the cold that really pulled a homesickness trigger.... Petersburg smells just like Boston in the fall, and it made me realize just how long I have been here.... and how much longer I have yet to go. But then on the bus back when we were crossing the Nevsky bridge, fireworks were going off -- either because tomorrow is the first day of school or because Zenit won on Friday night or what -- and it was quite serene.

Now I am a very tired lady and need to get myself to bed, but one last thing before I do....

HAPPY 23RD ANNIVERSARY, PARENTS!
I'm certainly grateful you two got hitched all those years ago. I wouldn't exist otherwise.

Good night.

AHHH FRIDAY BEAUTIFUL.

Yes, things are better simply due to this fact. Excellent.

I'll be sitting in on classes next week. I'm excited to take things that don't just involve only the Russian language.

To make my life more confusing, all my teachers now at Smolny are calling me "Elizabeth" because explaining "E.B." is too damn difficult and "Liza" is sort of..... too affectionate almost for class, kind of. So now my teachers call me Elizabeth, everyone in my house calls me Liza, and all the Americans call me E.B. (CHAOS) Oh, Sasha + Adams, I have Ludmilia Petrovna now for grammar and she has already started calling me "Elizabetchick." Not "Ebiechick," Sasha. Alas.

FRIDAY. YES.

Blah.

Nunni, your comment on my pbase site made me laugh. Thanks.

Yesterday and today were better. Just getting used to things again, I guess. General frustration. They're not moving anyone around in the groups until after the two week intensive. I had a meeting to discuss potential classes today though, and I'm really excited about the idea of taking studio art classes in Russian. I will be such a happier person if I have studio even just once a week.

HELLO to Bryan-"EB, I've-heard-all-about-your-blog!"-Billings.

Some pictures are up.....
....... pictures from the (Wonderful! No, Bryan, really it was great!) boat tour and Sigur Rós.
....... the summer section is finally finished with the last black and white roll of film I shot using the fish eye camera at Hart's apartment.
....... the traveling section is finally finished with the black and white roll I shot with the Holga that actually worked. Thank god.
....... self portraits from the past few days.

Yup.

90% of yesterday was terrible.

I guess this is the slump that I have been anticipating all summer. Everything has been going so well for the past almost three months that I have been waiting for the day that things would get shitty. That was yesterday.

Nothing specifically bad happened. The whole day was just so fucking frustrating. We came to school to find out what groups we had been placed in for our Russian as a Second Language course and, of course, I got placed in the second-to-last group and, yeah, I know, this doesn't matter, what matters is me trying to learn this language at my own pace or whatever, but it just kind of pissed me off so much to have all these new people who show up who have no idea what is going on and have most of them be so much significantly better at Russian than I am. And I have been here for almost three months. When am I supposed to get better? When is that whole thing going to sink in? So clearly at this point yesterday I was feeling like this is never going to happen and being here in general is dumb and it's even dumber to major in this and maybe I just am really bad at learning languages. That's such a great feeling. But even despite my not-as-solid knowledge of complicated grammar like non-real situations and a lack of a lot of vocabulary that teachers love passionately, Katya has been teaching me slang and even swears and in a lot of ways my getting-around-language skills and talking to actual people and understanding how they speak is at a much higher level than all these bookish skills. But at the same time the whole situation made me feel like shit about myself and in my first class of the day the professor speaks in a way that I find difficult to follow and that only made me feel like the whole situation was even more hopeless because maybe I don't know Russian at all and am just never going to learn it ever. And it was raining and it was cold and the weather just sucks already and I was just like this was the dumbest decision I have ever made to be here.

But then by the end of the class day I was frustrated in the exact opposite way, because by the time I got to my conversation section I discovered we are using the same textbook I used this summer ("Speak Russian!") and, not only that, we read the same story I read this summer from it and did the same exercises. This made me feel like Smolny is being idiotic and placed me too low because it is totally pointless and not at all helpful for me to take the same class I did this summer TWICE. Already this summer I felt like things were too easy most of the time and that didn't exactly motivate me to try really hard..... especially as I was learning how to adjust to living in Russia and all that. But now I am culturally adjusted, I need something in class that is actually going to make me work really hard and maybe help me actually, eventually, one day learn this language. So today I have to get to school early and speak with the head of the Russian as a Second Language (RSL) department about what class I should be in. BECAUSE I JUST DON'T KNOW.

So I had to leave Smolny after all that. I couldn't stick around and do my homework there as planned. Instead I went to a café with Matt and Ilana and we did our work there, and that was calming and it was nice, and then we decided to eat some dinner together and went and bought food at a produkti (see, I am not scared to go into produktis anymore or ask for things there. That's something, right?) and had a picnic by one of the fountains on the 7th line near the metro simply because it had stopped raining and it was one of our last chances, even if it was already gray and overcast and chilly. We ate cheese and bread and pickles and it made me feel better about my life. We saw two stray dogs that looked like Gwen. That also cheered me up in a weird sort of way.

And then last night, after our picnic, Ilana and I went on our bonding experience to see the Sigur Rós concert. We had planned to do this at the end of the summer and splurged on the expensive tickets and we went last night together to the concert hall on Petrograd and, man, I am so glad we went last night. I really needed that. Sigur Rós is such a calming band..... but not in the way that they put on a sleepy kind of concert that makes me feel well rested and like I took a nap when I leave. They actually put on a really intense, energetic show. But all of their songs blend together into this one beautiful, pulsing, Icelandic sound that made a warm ball that kind of settled in my chest and made me feel better. Their sound reminds me of the ocean and Orca whales and things that are bigger and more important that RSL classes. The only disappointing thing was that they didn't play "Starálfur" which is my favorite song by them, but maybe that was a good thing, because if they had I am pretty sure I would have burst into tears right then and there after that day I had.

God, this is such a whiny, self-indulgent entry. Sorry about that, guys. But I just had to vent.

I came home after the concert to find Katya and Stas home from the hospital. They said Olga is doing fine but it seems like she is going to be there for a few days at least. I am not sure how bad the break is. It's hard to talk about medical things in Russian. But I'll keep you updated. And then I just passed out in my bed.

Things already feel better this morning, though the weather is once again shit, but I guess I am going to have to get used to that one. Bryan said it's officially fall now and to get used to it raining every day until December. That's when it starts snowing. But I am a New England resident, right? This is old news to me. Whatever.

So, off to the second day of RSL classes. Let's hope it was better than yesterday.

Well the fall is off to quite a start.

This morning at Smolny..... Russian placement test. Learning about how academics work during the semester. Stuff like that. Kind of dull. We were done by 2:30/3pm though which was nice. I didn't go home though.... instead I hung out in the 1st line Stolle for about three hours, bonding with new friend Matt, reading by myself, eating, drinking tea, occasionally leaving to mail letters, inspecting the new black and white photos I picked up today....... and then I walked over to Petrograd to the Baltiskii Dom to see the play version of "Master and Margarita."

I didn't go with anyone. In fact, I felt very much like Puppy on his excursions to the Lexington Flick by himself when Nunni is at chorus. It was really nice and something I think I want to start doing more of..... it was also one of those really satisfying living-in-Russia moments thinking about how I purchased the ticket, figured out where the theatre was, got myself there, watched the whole thing, and got myself home, all by myself. There seems like so much room for error in that situation, but I successfully navigated that one. Good for me. I've got that much on the new kids. So there.

As for the play....... well...... hm...... it was very much like something the American Rep Theatre in Harvard Square would do....... minimalist set, lots of complicated props instead, very modern, lots of red and blue accent lights, projections of both live video feed and prerecorded old footage of wars and such, crazy voice amplification (is that what it is called?)...... there was also no speaking for the first twenty minutes and every now and then there would be a random song and dance number. That kind of threw me for a loop. But in general I think the play captured the kind of crazy surrealist air of that book that I love so much, so that was good. And the actors who played Begemot (the cat) and Voland were exactly as how I imagined they should be when I read the book. And the actor who played Koroviev looked like Hugh Laurie if he came back from the dead as a zombie. And the other thing that was cool was that I could hear all the dramatic rolling of the "r"s that Olga Nikolavna always talked about in phonetics class this summer. So, maybe I did learn something.

The only thing though was that the production was..... oh, a mere four hours long. Started at 7pm and I was walking out of the theatre, texting Katya to tell her I was coming home as she called concerned while I was still watching the play, at 11pm. Gotta love those days when you're out of the house for fourteen hours. But as I was coming home I thought about how it was strange that Katya called to check on me to see where I was because Olga was supposed to get home from the dacha tonight and if Olga is home she would be the one asking me if everything was ok........ and my hunch was right. I came home to have Katya tell me that Olga fell today in her mom's apartment's kitchen and broke her leg and is now in the hospital in Kirovsk. Well, shit I say. No, really, this sucks. Olga is supposed to start teaching art class again on September 1st which is in a week. Timing is everything, right? So we don't know how long she'll be in the hospital yet or how bad it is...... Katya and Stas are going to go out to Kirovsk to see her tomorrow, but I can't go as I have class. Oy. Shit. Oh! And we don't have an elevator in our building! Crap!

Don't be jealous, Sasha.

The boat tour sucked.

Okay, maybe that was harsh.

No, it wasn't. Even for the new people who are bright eyed and bushy tailed and not at all nostalgic for the summer, it sucked. I know, they told me later.

See, it wasn't a boat party this time. It was just a tour. For two hours, in the cold. There was no delicious Stolle perog, there was no champagne, in fact, it was not allowed to have alcohol because it was a "real excursion" and Bryan said he could technically kick me out of the program if we had innocently tried to pop a bottle of champagne into the Neva and toast to our fallen comrades. Everyone sat in awkward rows out on the deck like we were in class and listened to this very dull guide drone on and on and on in Russian that no one except for the two heritage speakers really understood.

What made it worse though is we left from the same docking place, did the same exact route, were on the same exact boat with the same exact crew (though the guy with the awesome Western America themed sweater was not with us tonight).... and all my favorite people were no longer with me. I was with a bunch of people I just met two days ago who I don't know yet and who are all probably going to bond better with each other than with me because they are going through the whole adjusting-figuring-out-getting-"slapped-in-the-face" thing together.... while I already did that with people who are now back in the U.S. being college kids again.

I mean, it wasn't as bad as I am making it sound, but it was just kind of sad. Not fun. I was also just bored out of my mind. And after it all I hung out with a couple of them briefly and that was better. But we were in Fidel, good old Fidel, our faithful bar of the whole summer, and there was no Sasha or Adams or Philipp. How strange.

Well, whatever. Enough whining. I still feel good about the fall, it's just going to be really different I think. That's all.

What was nice though was coming back to my apartment after it and finding Katya and Stas hanging out and watching TV and making macaroni with their friend Ben who we've been hanging out with recently -- Ben is American, studied in Canada, is now here on a Fulbright, and knows Erin Doherty -- and we talked about weird things that celebrities name their poor children. So it was better in the way that I could feel like I have my own life already established and other people who are becoming better friends. That was comforting.

Tomorrow..... Russian language placement tests! Great!

I think...

..... that next June I'm going to hold an awards ceremony for the most committed readers of my blog and viewers of my photos.

Who will it be?!??! Ami Li?? Adams? Amar at work? Why does everyone's names start with A??

Yeah so I'm hanging out at home. It's early. I'm not sure why I am awake. Maybe I'll go back to sleep.......... this is my last day without homework until....... January. God, how depressing.

I better live it up.

Lies.

I said tomorrow, but I just decided to update all my photos now.

New things located in.....
portfolio --> travel photography --> В РОССИИ --> not russia --> film
portfolio --> travel photography --> В РОССИИ --> 365 days
portfolio --> travel photography --> В РОССИИ --> fall --> digital

I have a fall section now (!) ----- how did that happen??? Seasons?!?!

HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN HERE?
HOW LONG AM I GOING TO BE HERE?

No, but things are good.

Huh.

Well, I'm back from the hotel. Back at my apartment.

I'm vaguely overwhelmed..... we didn't really do anything at orientation. Basically Ilana, Emma, Amanda and I only had to go to meals to socialize with people..... I know more names than I think I do right now, but it's kind of weird having all these new people now and they want to know things like what bars are good to hang out at and how to use public transportation and all this nonsense that is "so June." Ha.

But there seem to be some good people. The group has a different vibe than the summer..... more studious, more serious, no Bard kids, less laid back, I think. But then again, this is all the first few awkward weeks where "groups of people hang out who have nothing in common other than they are in the same program" (quote: new friend, Matt from Reed). So we'll see. I'm back in my usual life again though and I think I'm going to hang out with Katya and Misha tonight.

Oh, some unrelated bad news. In between orientation meals I went to pick up more of my film..... well, first of all, only three pictures from the roll of the pinhole are any good because I always overexpose the pinhole film "just in case" because I am dumb and that's basically the opposite of what you're supposed to do. As for the first Supersampler roll, the photo store refused to make prints because the negatives were so dark and they didn't want to ruin their machines (just like Newtonville Camera and those slide film negatives from Providence!). So I have no prints from them. And then, lamest of all, my first roll of color film shot with the Holga was a total disaster. I had a feeling this would be the case as when I opened the back of the Holga after finishing the roll I noticed my camera hadn't wound the film quite tight enough and then I had opened the camera while at the beach which is just kind of dumb in general...... so that was a big old mess. Nothing really came out on that at all, but at least the nice thing is the photo store doesn't charge when you don't have prints made. They feel bad for you if your film is bad and don't make you pay. Adams knows all about this.

So tomorrow I'll put up the pictures I do have that worked.... I still have two more rolls that will be done on Monday, both black and white -- the last roll from the summer program and one from the Holga. Maybe those will turn out ok.

Oh, and tomorrow we have another boat tour! (Jealous, Sasha??) Except this one won't be a fun pie-eating and champagne-drinking excursion in English but a getting-to-know-the-city kind of thing with a tour in Russian that we are supposed to pay attention to. Damn.

But things are good. I think the fall will be good. I have a good feeling.

The fall starts today???

How strange.

I'll be at some hotel starting at 7:30 tonight doing orientation nonsense all over again for the next two days....

Let me practice....

"Yes, my name is Elizabeth but my nickname is E.B. and in Russia a lot of people call me Liza because E.B. is a swear. I go to Wellesley. Yes, I'll be a junior. Yes, I'm here all year. Oh, I'm a Russian language and literature major too. I also study photo. I'm from Massachusetts. GREAT!"

Sigh. I love making friends.

Wait, have I explained to you all yet about how E.B. is kind of a swear in Russian? I don't think I have. Funny story how I picked the one language to study where my nickname is a bad word. So, it goes like this. Last fall in Russian 201, some of my friends in my class call me Liza but they also liked to call me "Е.Б." (pronounced "yeh-beh") which are the two cyrillic letters closest to "E.B." When Professor Weiner heard this though he said they shouldn't call me this because it's too similar to a swear word. In Russian, the phrase "ёб твою мать" means "fuck your mother." "Ёб" is the imperative form of the verb "to fuck" and when my Wellesley friends happily yell out "Е.Б." they are spelling out this form. When I explained to Katya and Misha all about my names and nicknames and such, Katya laughed and said that it would be like her going to America and having the nickname "F.U."

Anyway, that was a tangent. All I came on here to say was that I am working on getting the film pictures up. I got four of the rolls done yesterday -- though the pinhole roll and the first supersampler roll I shot while traveling both don't have prints yet because they are both overexposed and a little fucked up. Pictures from the Fed 5B Olympic Edition are up in the summer film section, and the second roll of the Supersampler I shot in Latvia are up in the not russia film section. I'm still waiting on a roll of 35mm black and white and two rolls from the Holga -- one black and white and my first roll of color shot with the Holga.

Oh, also, the self portrait section is up to date and.... oh, shit. I just realized that I'm going to have to take another one not in my usual place at the hotel tomorrow. LAME. Life wrecking with my artistic vision. What is this.

That's it for now. I'll update again once I'm back from orientation on Saturday.

Back to daily updates?

Though today has nothing exciting to update about.

I'm still in my pajamas. It's 1pm. I've been sleeping and sitting around drinking tea and it's been nice. I think today may be my only day ever in Russia when I have absolutely nothing planned.

So you know what that means?

All my digital pictures are up from my travels! Check them out.

I think my big event of the day will be leaving the house to drop off my five rolls of film from traveling and my two rolls of film from the last part of the summer and buying moisture cream for my sunburn. Woohoo.

ALIVE (once again) IN RUSSIA.

Yes. I'm back in the Motherland.

I am kind of in awe of that fact that Emma and I were successfully able to get out of Russia, travel through three countries, and return to Russia, all without any problems what-so-ever. This seems like quite an impressive feat in general, and then even more so considering that for part of this excursion Russia and the U.S. were on opposing sides of the war in Georgia. Really, no problems. It kind of blows my mind.

That being said, now let me commence the longest blog entry of my life, as I'd like to tell you about all the craziness I've been up to over the last nine days.

So. Where did I leave off?

Oh, yes, I was in the lobby of our hostel in Helsinki waiting for our room to be ready and we were watching the Olympics..... God, that feels like years ago. Anyway, here we go:

HELSINKI:

Immediately after writing that blog entry, Emma and I went to our room and promptly both took six hour naps. We were a little exhausted from the overnight, restless bus journey and also from two months of studying Russian in St. Petersburg. I also was not feeling my finest -- a small detail I may have left out of that last entry as to not worry the general population of my readers (a.k.a. Mom and/or Nunni) -- with a little sore throat and a runny nose. I should have known -- this kind of thing always happens to be at the beginnings of my vacations since I get so little sleep and take such poor care of myself at the end of every semester at school -- why would the end of the summer program be any different? After our six hour nap, Emma and I ate pizza downstairs in the café in the hostel, went back upstairs, watched the news in English so we finally had an idea of what was going on in Georgia (and from a non-Russian perspective) and then fell back asleep for nine hours. Yeah...... we basically slept through Helsinki.

HELSINKI --> TALLINN:

In the morning in Helsinki, Emma and I purchased ferry tickets on the lovely Linda Line express with the bright red ships. I was already feeling much better after my 15 or so hours of sleep and at the idea of getting on a boat. God, I love boats. But still, while walking to the ferry dock I purchased a bunch of orange juice for the trip. The ferry terminal was huge and efficient and clean -- how unusual for us -- and our ferry departed right on time. I was so damn happy to be out on the ocean again. I didn't realize how calming the smell of salt water and autumn air is to me -- perhaps my two favorite smells in the world. I was quite a happy camper on our hour and a half ferry ride across the Baltic Sea.

TALLINN:

Once we got to Tallinn the shitty weather had disappeared and we were welcomed to Estonia with sun and heat. Funny story -- on the boat ride over we were trying to figure out if we were going to need to go through border control and customs and all that stuff again because we weren't sure if Estonia was part of the EU. We read through the Lonely Planet guide book I purchased and it said that at the moment Estonia was still trying hard to gain acceptance to the European Union. Strange, I thought to myself, I was sure that Estonia was part of the EU already..... and then I flip to the front of my guide and realize it was the 2003 edition. Just a mere five years out of date. Typical. Ha. So, of course, when we arrived on the shore of Estonia all we had to do was get off the boat and wander towards the city that was flooded with cars with EU license plates, but from then on for the rest of the trip we learned to add a couple euros/crowns/rubles to the prices the book suggested to take inflation into consideration and check the hours of the museums we wanted to go to.

While figuring out exactly where we were in relation to our hostel in Tallinn, Emma and I climbed the top of this large cement fortress of sorts near the ferry dock where a lot of other backpackers seemed to be doing the same thing. This structure was really interesting to me -- don't worry, I took about 200 pictures of it -- in its large, depressing Soviet design, but also how it seemed like something right out of Doom II or Halo -- you know, abandoned, covered in really crazy graffiti, the kind of structure you should be able to jump all over with your game controller. Alas, we had to walk up and down the many stairs using our own real legs.

When we finally found our hostel (the 16 Euro hostel -- GREAT place, check it out if you are in Tallinn), we loved our room so much and were so pleased to be in this city we decided to spend two nights in Tallinn instead of just our planned one night. We then sorted out the rest of our itinerary, deciding to spend two nights in Tallinn, two nights in Riga, two nights in Jurmala (on the coast of Latvia) and then the last night on the train back to St. Petersburg. Having settled our affairs, we went off to explore Tallinn.

Tallinn, though formerly Soviet Union, has totally thrown all that to the past and seems to want to be as Westernized as possible. They still use their own currency, but everyone speaks English in shops and prefers to use English over Russian. Cars also stop for pedestrians in Tallinn, just like in Helsinki, a fact Emma and I could not get over. Tallinn is very old and has that whole winding, vaguely claustrophobic little cobblestone streets with narrow buildings. The main square looked just liked Bruges -- not that I have ever been to Bruges, I am solely basing this opinion off of the square where the movie "In Bruges" was shot. Anyway. Most of what Emma and I did in Tallinn on the days we were there was get lost in the streets and eat. We ate a lot of really delicious pie -- more fancy cake/tort stuff -- with jelly on top (Dad, you'd love it). The weather got bad again the first night we were there and so Emma and I did not feel guilty going back to the hostel and curling up with books and listening to the rain.

During our full day in Tallinn the weather was still not so great, but we wandered around nevertheless. All the museums we tried to go to were closed for various reasons -- so we went in a lot of little souvenir shops and both ended up buying these fabulous mittens at the market in the main square. We had tea and pastries at a little tea room called the Matilda Café -- the kind of place Nunni would love with pinky wallpaper and little chandeliers and white tea pots and silver spoons. And then, since the weather was still shitty, we decided to try to catch up on our movie-watching. The receptionist at the hostel helped us find movie times and we decided to shoot for an 8pm showing of "The Dark Knight" at, what we thought was, Kino Soprus. Of course we get to Kino Soprus at about 7:53pm and when Emma asks for a ticket for "The Dark Knight" she has no idea what she is talking about but confusedly sells Emma a ticket for a 9pm showing of some inde movie we haven't heard of as this is clearly an artsy little cinema playing one black and white film. Emma can't return the ticket and we don't think we can make it in time to the other theatre, so we say what the hell and end up watching the movie. It is called "Control," and was actually really, really good. It's about Ian Curtis and the band Joy Division and was fairly depressing but beautifully shot, and it was in this old, funky Soviet movie theatre that was quite an experience in itself. I still recommend you see it, even if you can't in Tallinn, though that would be ideal.

The next morning before we were to leave, I woke up early and went to the only museum in Tallinn I really cared about seeing -- The Estonian Photography Museum. The weather was finally nice again and I enjoyed some tea by myself at a café as I waited for the museum to open. I think the three old women who work there were surprised to have someone come to the museum in general, let alone right upon its opening at 10:30AM. But there I was. The museum is a little hole-in-the-wall place, the kind that Sasha would love, that is in the former town prison. It's all in winding little rooms and I almost hit my head on the ceiling multiple times going up and down this steep staircases, but the place was full of old Estonian cameras and pictures of Tallinn back in the day -- Estonian daguerreotypes, the full spiel. I was quite content with myself, and then I went back to the hostel to meet up with Emma to continue our journey.

Other observations about Tallinn: fewer smokers than St. Petersburg, no drinking on the street, way more pregnant ladies and children running around, they accept credit cards, don't care if you don't have exact change, no litter in the streets, and so, so, so, so many tourists and tour groups and Americans. Additionally, I quietly celebrated two birthdays while sitting in Tallinn on August 14th....
HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAYS CHAD BARTELS & TONY DISARCINA!

TALLINN --> RIGA:

Bus is the way to go apparently from getting between Estonia and Latvia. These four Italian guys who had also been staying at the 16 Euro hostel in Tallinn were on the same bus as us, and then they ended up being in the same hostel as us in Riga as well -- at least not also in the same room. That would have been ridiculous. Across the aisle from us on the bus were these two Russian guys who loved using their cell phones and drank four beers each during the ride and kept going into the little bathroom on the bus to smoke cigarettes. They were entertaining, if anything, especially their phone calls. I decided they were calling all the girls they knew in Riga to find a place to stay for the weekend because there conversations usually went something like, "Heyyyy..... what??? You don't want to talk to me anymore? Come on, hey...." I wonder where they ended up.

RIGA:

We got to Riga around 6pm at the bus station immediately next to this large mall, complete with a huge, commercial movie theatre. Emma and I decided to keep up our movie-watching efforts and checked in at the Argonaut Hostel (a totally badass little place, clean, funky, artsy, full of cool people who I was too intimidated and anti-social to talk to) and went to see, yes, drum roll please, get this -- "THE DARK KNIGHT." In English!!!! With Russian and Latvian subtitles!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This might have been one of the more exciting nights of my vacation. No, I'm sorry, it was the most exciting night of my vacation. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for ages -- I actually remember being UPSET when I got into the Smolny summer program knowing it meant I would be in Russia when "The Dark Knight" came out in the U.S. in July. But I finally saw it! I was not disappointed! The only horrible thing about the movie is the fact that Heath Ledger is not alive to act in any more films. But, in my opinion, damn did he go out on top. It was beautiful. Yes, Rosie, I got to hear his voice. It was great. So, so, so great.

Not only that, but in the same mall complex (Stockmann's) there was also a great grocery store, almost like Whole Foods, that had all kinds of exotic imported items we can't find in Russia such as..... Pepperidge Farm Cookies?!? Seriously, best night of my life this summer. I bought myself a bag of the dark chocolate crispy Nantucket variety and will be hoarding them and enjoying them for the next week.

During our full day in Riga, Emma and I felt unfairly biased towards liking Riga more simply on the fact the weather was vastly better. It was easier to wander around without caring where we were going when we didn't have to struggle with umbrellas and maps at the same time. Riga is a lot like Tallinn -- cobblestone, churches, squares -- but has wider streets and a younger, slightly hipper, artsier vibe. The first thing we did in Riga, clearly, was hit up the Latvian Photography Museum. This museum was oddly similar to the Estonian Photography Museum -- three old women working, only two rooms, maybe five other names signed in the guest book -- but took place on two floors of a less former-jail-esque building. They had some old pictures of Riga in the 1920s, before Nazi and Soviet occupation, and also a special exhibit by a French photographer, Marc Célérier, that I liked a lot. We wandered a bit after that, looked in some shops, I ate an ice cream sandwich (!!! impossible to find in St. Petersburg even though they have every other type of ice cream bar available), and we went to the Occupation Museum. It's a fairly new museum as Soviet occupation only ended in 1991, so the museum is fifteen years old, but is a somber and dark tribute to the many Latvians that were sent to camps during both the Nazi and Soviet occupations. We wandered more and finally decided to have a repeat of our previous night, hitting a life record for the both of us -- going to the movies three nights in a row. This time though we saw "Wall-E" which you have to not have a soul to enjoy. That movie is the definition of heartwarming -- and it has an environmental message! Too bad the movie theatre didn't have recycling!

RIGA --> JURMALA:

We left Riga early on Saturday morning for our final destination, the strip of beach towns known as Jurmala. Jurmala is about a half an hour outside of Riga via a commuter rail kind of train that cost $1.30 to ride. The weather didn't seem the best though and we were concerned as we chugged along towards the real vacation part of our "vacation."

JURMALA:

After we took a local bus to our hotel (because Jurmala is fairly spread out along its several-mile-long beach), we didn't have much hope in the weather, but decided to check out the beach anyway..... and then, as if everything in the world suddenly aligned for one moment, just as Emma and I exited the woodsy path to see the white dunes and the reeds and the board walk and the blue, blue Baltic Sea, the sun came out of nowhere and angels were singing somewhere. It was a movie kind of moment. It was simply beautiful.

Once we went to the beach, we barely left. Emma and I went swimming on both Saturday afternoon, Sunday and then I even sucked it up and braved one last freezing plunge before we left on Monday morning during fairly overcast rainy gloom (the best kind of weather when one has to leave the beach though -- makes you feel better about your life). Oh god, I never realized exactly what a beach and ocean person I am from growing up in New England. For Emma, native of Laramie, Wyoming, going to the beach is a once or twice a year treat for her, so everything for her was just exciting and fun. For me though.... I felt like I finally got the summer I had to give up to be here. The part of the beach our hotel was near was not as crowded as the main part near the center of the main town and for all purposes it could be Isabella Beach, without the rocks. The water was sharp and cold and when I was swimming it gave me the kind of reviving punch in the guts I needed, you know the feeling when you remember you have muscles in every part of your body and the water both seems to make you short for breath but also breath harder and more fully. God, I felt so good.

We spent literally all day Sunday at the beach -- a solid six hours. It made me so happy. Yes, I got a little sunburned, of course (Meri! This time it wasn't your fault! You're not the bad influence!), but definitely look and feel healthier now after spending the whole summer in a humid classroom in a dirty city. The beach was the best decision Emma and I ever made, and it worked out perfectly as the best weather we had on our whole trip was the two days we were in Jurmala. The main differences about the Baltic coast and the New England coast involve a complete lack of rocks and boulders -- just silky dunes at the edge of a forest of narrow pines -- and the finest sand in the world (so fine it stuck to everything in the world and was impossible to brush off, even with dry hands. I think I exfoliated every part of my body by accident.) and the water itself -- there were thousands of small children all over the Jurmala beach because the water stays obscenely shallow, maybe six inches deep, for meters and meters and meters out. When Emma and I went swimming, to be in water that was up to my belly button it seemed we were about a half a mile away from the beach. People were out much, much further than us and the water wasn't even up to their shoulders. Thus little kids have a blast sitting in an ocean perfectly sized for their short statures.

In summary, Jurmala was the best decision.

JURMALA --> RIGA --> ST. PETERSBURG:

To get back though we then had to do a fair amount of traveling involving a bus and two trains. Monday morning after my final dunk in the ocean, followed by a warm shower, Emma and I took the bus back to the Jurmala train station and then the train back to Riga where we hung out for several hours waiting for our overnight train from Riga back to St. Petersburg.

It was nice to get a couple more hours in Riga. Even though the weather was overcast, Emma and I walked around the more Northern part of the old city that we hadn't explored earlier and sat in a couple different parks and ate ice cream and then went back to the Stockmann's mall to look around once last time and, good thing we did, because you will all be quite relieved to know I finally purchased a REAL WINTER COAT. Emma actually found it, but there it was, a nice wool black pea jacket on sale for the equivalent of..... forty dollars?!? So, don't worry. I won't be freezing to death in the next few months. I still might hit up that army/navy store to find something really intense if the weather gets out of control, but if global warming helps me out at all I think I should be set.

At 7:00pm we boarded our overnight train and at 7:30pm we left. Emma was quite excited to travel via train in Eastern Europe for the first time, but I felt like an old pro after my 50 hours last summer on the Trans-Siberian. This time though, as I wasn't working with Wellesley College's funds, we didn't have our own private, four person cabins. Instead Emma and I opted for the middle range "open sleeping" choice -- this is between private, closed sleeping cabins and just having a seat to sit in on the train all night. Instead it is all the same bunks as in the cabins, just without walls and all connected. We were in wagon #10 with about thirty other people, and it was great because I got to shamelessly people watch all night while curled up in my bunk. Just my style.

As predicted just as Emma and I had exhausted conversation and I was tired of my book and ready to sleep, about 12am (Riga time) or 1am (St. Petersburg time) we hit the border. First the Latvians had to let us out of the EU and friendly young men in uniforms came onto the trains and stamped our passport and a chocolate lab that looked too damn happy to be a drug-sniffing dog ran through our train. We then had about another forty minutes of travel (I always wonder what exactly is in this no man's land kind of area...?) and then we hit the Russian border. Clearly, of course, that was going to be more of a pain in the ass. Even the Russian drug dog was a much more serious and attentive German shepherd. But everything was fine, our visas cleared without a hitch, and finally around 2am (St. Petersburg time) we were able to sleep for about five hours before the women who work on the train wanted to take our linens and give us tea and wake us up before hitting the city.

And then.... we were back. And we got on the metro and life returned to normal and I came back to my street and used my key to get into the apartment building and have been drinking tea and watching the Olympics and eating the chocolates I brought back as a present with Olga, Misha, Katya and Stas. They asked about where I'd been and what I've been up to and Misha told me where he had been in Italy and all that, and then Olga asked, "So. Who are you going to hang out with now that Sasha is gone?" I shrugged. Katya replied, "With me!" So that was a good sign. I really am not as alone in this city as I think. Besides, fresh meat comes on Thursday. We'll see what these newbies are all about.

THE FINAL COUNT:

Seven buses, three trains, one ferry and one tram that we didn't pay for.

And, throughout all of this, I took 900+ digital pictures and shot 5 rolls of film. I finally got up the rest of the digital pictures from the summer, but I'll be working on this now for the next few days until FALL PROGRAM ORIENTATION BEGINS ON THURSDAY NIGHT.

ALIVE IN FINLAND.

And the weather blows. That's why I am taking the time to update my blog on the internet at the hostel in Helsinki.

Interesting how Emma and I did not realize that Helsinki is an hour behind St. Petersburg, so when we thought we only had a half an hour left until our room was ready we actually had an hour and a half. So now we're sitting in the lobby on hard wooden benches watching the Olympics (so far we've seen men's synchronized diving and men's team fencing) and waiting for our room because we both need to nap so so so badly.

We met up across the street from Ploshad Vosstanaya last night at 8:30pm to look for a bus to take us to Helsinki. This was easy as there are about five billion options all hanging out there, basically begging us to choose them for our trip. We picked one, kind of at random, but it turned out to be a good one -- the played Legally Blonde 2 (which is not a very good movie) in black and white on the bus, which kind of loses some of the very pink affect of the film. We were able to sleep a little, at least I was, but we definitely spent more time stopping and getting on and off the bus than actually traveling, in my opinion.

The border crossing took us forever, of course, but not as long as it did the time I crossed with Mom, Nunni & Puppy in 2005 as we didn't have to wait our turn in line as long because we crossed at 1 in the morning instead of 1 in the afternoon. We did cross at the same exact location though as we did last time. At first I was certain that all of these stations must look the same and I was probably just going crazy from sleep deprivation, but then I confirmed the stamps in my passport and felt better about my memory still being fully functional.

Throughout the whole ride there were these two funny guys sitting behind us speaking in English together that clearly was not either of their first languages. My favorite thing that one of the guys said was, "If you're laughing in Finland it means you are drunk, American or an idiot. Or maybe all three." Also, during one of our many passport/visa checks when a Finn or Russian official would get on the bus and walk down the aisle, I commented that the guy didn't even actually look at our passports, and the man behind me said, "It's not the looking that's important. It's the following of procedure." He was more entertaining than Legally Blonde 2.

We got to Helsinki at 5:30am -- well, what we thought was 5:30am -- and got off the bus to a murky sunrise wondering when stores would actually open. When we were looking into the windows of a recently closed McDonald's to see what their hours are, an older Finnish woman approached us to ask if we knew why there was so much trash all over the ground. Our replying that we didn't know turned into an hour long conversation. I am still not sure if this woman was completely right in the head -- she was wearing a headscarf covered in a design of realistic puppies and a huge trench coat -- and she told us she had just spent all night at the Grand Casino observing "anthropology, ethnography, linguistics, art history and sociology because a casino is the ultimate place for that." She told us the casino closed at 4am but if we wanted to go later to observe -- "And only observe! Don't lose your money!" -- she gave us vouchers she had to gain free admittance. She then suggested we eat cheesecake at this fancy restaurant near by. She was actually really helpful though and told us all about the tram systems and where the ferry terminal was and even offered to walk us to our hostel though we declined this offer as politely as we could; she clearly just wanted some company to talk to. Emma and I were just in total culture shock though that someone on the street a) spoke English, b) spoke English flawlessly, c) wanted to speak to us at all and d) was helpful.

Our culture shock continued when we saw a little truck come by to clean up the trash on the street and wash down the sidewalk instead of a 95 year old hunch-backed babushka with a straw broom. And then we went to a cafe in the train station because it was the only thing open at that hour and could not believe our eyes to see that they had out large pitchers of cold, still water that you could take for free...... ?!? What is this place?? I see why Americans in Russia love to come to Scandinavia for little vacations, while the Russians typically think Helsinki is boring. Everything here is almost too clean and too easy and too polite. It blows my mind. One of my favorite features of this beautiful, clean city is all the cobblestone and the fact that the crosswalks are not usually made of white paint on black asphalt, but of black and white cobblestones in alternating stripes. I love the details of work like that.

We checked in at our hostel but our room wasn't ready yet, so we spent some time wandering. Emma and I found the church that Mom, Nunni, Puppy & I had our picture taken in front of at the end of our Scandinavian Capitals tour in 2005. We also went to the Museum of the History of Helsinki, though we couldn't understand why it was closed when we got there right when it opened at "9:00am." We had a snack and then returned and wandered around a museum that, for once, had a logical flow and an artistic lay out and wasn't full of taxidermied animals covered in dust in florescent lights. We also went to the arts and craftsy little market by the shore and I made some purchases of things I really don't have enough of such as bags and jewelry. What was amazing though was at this market I found the VERY SAME MAN from whom I purchased that carved wooden Sagittarius pendant in 2005 that I love so much and wear so much that I actually brought it with me to Russia and it is sitting in my room right now. I wish I had worn it on the trip (I almost did!) and then could have showed this man and told him about how I bought it three years ago and wear it all the time ever since. What I did do though was buy another two pendants from him -- another wooden carved one of a face and a long one of reindeer antler carved with Finnish symbols. It seemed appropriate after a fate like kind of moment.

Anyway, then Emma and I got caught in a downpour after drinking some hot chocolate at the market and decided to head back to the hostel because it was almost time for our room to be ready.... but not quite.... and so here we are now.

I think tonight is going to be low key because we don't feel like going out really. I just want to curl up in bed with a book and read and sleep because, hey, this is my vacation after all.

Maybe I'll update again sometime along the trip, but just thought I'd let you all know I am alive.

And then there were three. Ten Little Indians, anyone?

So now only Ilana, Emma and I are left from our program in this city. Everyone else I have grown to know and cherish in Russia is off somewhere else now, and soon Ilana will be off in Moscow with her mom for a few days and Emma and I are leaving even sooner (tonight!) for our traveling adventures for the ten days in between our programs. Mass exodus of Americans.

The internet at home is down -- it seems to go down when it rains a lot, which I don't really understand, but it seems to be true. So I am at a little internet cafe behind my house that isn't outrageously expensive, 60r/hour, but I am so glad I have internet at home because that would add up considering how much time I spend uploading photos and such nonsense. Anyway, I thought I'd make the effort to go out in the rain and use the internet one last time before I get on a bus tonight to Helsinki as I am very, very behind in telling you all the details of my life and am not taking my computer with me while traveling, so you might not hear from me again until August 20th. Brace yourselves, it will be difficult, I know, but we'll get through it.

So last you heard from me I was going nuts around the time of the boat trip. That was on Wednesday. Damn that was ages ago. So, yeah. We had a boat trip. Technically I guess it was a tour where we were supposed to look at and learn about all the buildings along the shores of the city, but all we did was drink champagne and eat perog from Stolle and watch this one crazy Russian guy swimming in the middle of the Neva and almost get run over by boats.

Thursday afternoon Adams and I made up our own cultural excursion. We tried to go to this museum that is the history of photography but it is closed until September 2nd, so I'll have to go later on my own. We checked out the Botanical Gardens on Petrograd that were right near the museum though -- a place that Adams has been wanting to go to forever -- and were not disappointed. The sun came out in full force as we walked along the entire perimeter of the garden looking for the entrance to the place. By the time we got there the greenhouse with the ancient tropical plants and such was already closed, but we wandered the grounds and listened to a rowdy wedding reception and found a ruined old building in the place and took a lot of pictures. Dad, I took over 100 pictures of flowers just for you.

Thursday night Poetry Club had our final party -- me, Sasha, Adams, Ilana and our fearless leader Philipp, hanging out at Adams's apartment on Petrograd, drinking champagne and reading Mayakovsky out loud while Philipp fawned over the hairless cat that lives with Adams. We also then did a photo shoot by the abandoned library next to Adams's apartment, Dead Poets Society meets St. Petersburg style. Basically it was the most pretentiously intellectual thing I have done in a while, that whole evening, but shit it was a lot of fun.

Friday I had my final exam and once that nonsense was over my brain nearly exploded trying to comprehend how I was already done with the summer program. What is happening to my life. All of a sudden I am going to be 90 years old. Anyway, that's not the point. Friday afternoon I had a Cool! English meeting with William (we did more podcasts, they should be up soon) and then Friday evening there was a small party in my apartment for Olga's birthday. Friday morning before school I gave Olga her birthday present which she liked and I was glad about -- I had prints made of the black and white Holga photos I took at the dacha, those six, and framed my favorite one. Then around 6pm on Friday, Katya, Katya's friend Olga, Olga's friend from Moscow who is visiting, Lydia Vitalvnaya (Olga's friend who gave me and Abby the tour of the city) and Katya's godmother all came over and we had a party that Olga referred to as our "женский коллектив" (women's collective). We drank champagne (my god, so much champagne in my life this week) and ate ice cream with fruit and toasted to Olga's health amongst other things. It was funny because the whole party reminded me so much of my life at home -- Olga even bought fun crazy straws and straws with paper fruits on them and it all seemed like the kind of birthday party Mom and Nunni would throw. Once again, how did I get placed with the family that is so similar to my family at home? Ridiculous.

Post-женский коллектив, Friday night was everyone's last night in Petersburg, so Hart had a party at his apartment. I took it upon myself to DJ which felt pretty good as I hadn't done it in a while and it took some skill considering Hart's very eclectic assortment of music. But it was a good time. There was even some dancing briefly.

Saturday was my last day to hang out with everyone, so Sasha, Adams and I (along with Philipp, Hart, Hart's friend and Jonah) finally got out act together to go to Udelnaya. The weather was shitty at first and it looked like we were going to fail one final time, but we said what the hell and went anyway and by the time we got there it wasn't raining anymore and the sun even appeared briefly. Anyway, this was my second time at Udelnaya but the last time I went it was during the week so only the stands with all the clothes and nonsense near the metro were out. The good part, the part where people literally sell items off of blankets in the mud (I totally thought Carly was exaggerating when she told me she bought everything in Russia off of a blanket in the mud. No, seriously. Blankets in the mud. And there was so much mud because of the rain.) is only out during the weekend. So we went and browsed through a lot of shit -- things that I can't even figure out why people are trying to sell them, like a pair of broken scissors for 10r or what have you -- but found some treasures. Adams and I, of course, spent all our time hunting for old cameras and we both ended up finding one. For 100r ($4) he got a little plastic guy of some Soviet model that I now forget. And I could not control myself and splurged on a 500r ($20) Fed 5B camera in really good condition. The coolest thing about this camera is that it is the 1980 Moscow Olympic edition, which seems all to appropriate that I bought it on the first real day of the 2008 Olympic games. Adams went home and did a little research after Udelnaya, turns out his camera goes for $90 in the States and mine for $150. Good job, us. So now we have a new career opportunity involving exporting Russian cameras. Excellent.

On Saturday I also figured out how to use Theatre Kassa and buy tickets to concerts and plays and such. It's actually not complicated at all, just one of those other things I'm glad I now know how to do. Makes me feel that much more ahead of the kids that will show up soon for the fall. Anyway, now the week after I get back from traveling Ilana and I are going to see Sigur Ros and I am also going to go see a play version of The Master and Margarita that is being put on as part of a theatre festival. I can't wait.

Saturday night was everyone's real last night in Russia, as the group flight was leaving at 6:15am on Sunday morning. Because of the fact that the bridges go up around 1am, the bus had to pick everyone up earlier, starting around 10pm, and then took the group to a cafe to eat blini and hang out briefly before going to the airport. A bunch of us who were not going on the flight -- Ilana, Emma, me and four of the tutors: Liza, Vika, Kristina and Tanya -- all tagged along on the "party bus." We drank more champagne (Everyone's final night! Come on!) and Jonah played his banjo on the bus and there were sing-a-longs and then it was 3am and we were eating blini and then it was 4:30am and we had to leave everyone at the airport. It was actually pretty upsetting. Some of the tutors actually cried on the bus when we had to say good bye to everyone. I think that might be one of the hardest things about being here all year is going to be getting attached to people and having them leave, and then getting attached to new people, and having to see them leave too, and then at the end of it all having to be the one to leave everyone. Hopefully all this will be worth the heartache.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Today I just slept all day and packed and tried to fix the internet but failed miserably and am now here. Emma and I are leaving around 9pm tonight and will arrive in Helsinki tomorrow. Don't worry, our travel plans do not involve going anywhere near Georgia. For those of you who are not great with geography, do not fear. I am not going to get involved in war conflict by accident.

As for photos, I have been taking a lot. I didn't get to finish uploading all of the new ones, but I got partially through the botanical gardens. I also added polaroids that I took on the boat tour, and, of course, as always, my self-portraits. It's going to be interesting though how I'm going to keep up the self-portrait thing while traveling. It bothers me in an OCD kind of way that the pictures of myself from the next ten days will not be in the same location as all the others, not even the same location as each other, and that annoys me at an aesthetic level. But I am going to try to recreate my scene as best as possible -- same height of the camera, sitting on a bed, same depressed serious look you all love to complain about. So we'll see how it goes. Adams suggested I can always photoshop myself into a picture of my room if I really want to.

And if any of you who just left me are reading this...... SASHA, ADAMS, LOUIS, PHILIPP, HART, AMBER, ERIKA, JONAH, NATHAN, LAUREN, BECKY, STEPHEN, EMILY, BETHANY, AMANDA, TESS, MEAGHAN -- I hope you all made it home okay.

Get ready for an even longer entry and about a thousand billion pictures when I come back in ten days.

CRAZY LAST WEEK.

Last night we were on a boat eating perog and drinking champagne as our final cultural excursion! Tonight we have Poetry Club party! Friday I have an exam! Saturday is everyone's final day! Sunday I leave on adventures! AHHH!

Last Monday of the summer program.*

*How the hell did that happen?

First, before I tell you about my ordinary life, let's recognize an extraordinary person. I am watching the Russian news right now and learned that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one of my favorite Russian writers, died on Sunday at 89 years old. It seems fitting that I would be in Russia when this happened, and was kind of proud of the fact that I could understand what they were saying in the news story. I like to think that he would have appreciated that. Anyway, if you haven't read anything by this man yet you should. I recommend One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich.

RIP, Aleksandr Isayevich.
December 11th, 1918 - August 3, 2008.

Anyway.

Every morning when eating breakfast before school Olga asks me what my plans are for the day, and if it is a day when I don't have a cultural excursion I usually say, "Oh, well, I have class but I'm kind of tired so I think maybe I'll just come home early and relax and sleep." I am surprised that Olga doesn't laugh in my face when I say this now, because I need to realize that I am absolutely incapable of coming home immediately after school when I have a whole city to explore.

Today "right after school" turned out to be 8pm. After the last meeting of Poetry Club with Philipp (though we are going to have a Poetry Club party on Thursday night that involves reciting Fet and Block and all the other guys we have read while drinking academic beverages such as Vermouth), Adams and I went for a walk.

We stopped to do a couple of errands as I had to buy a new umbrella. I forgot to mention this but on Friday night, RIP, when I went out in the wind and rain, my 100r yellow/black/red umbrella couldn't handle itself anymore and blew in and out so many times that seven out of the eight spokes holding its fabric up were broken. Alas, I had to abandon it in a trashcan on Saturday after the night it had. I felt you all should know this tragedy since you know the immense amount of effort it took for me to find that umbrella in the first place. This time though I went back to the same store and got another one, a blue, bandana-print model. You may think that this was not a wise move and maybe I should upgrade to a higher end version, but I still am hesitant to spend 1,000r on an umbrella. After I go through ten 100r umbrellas I might think otherwise.

Our walk began with the purpose though of Adams showing me this great army/navy store on Petrograd with a large metal bullet on its sign hanging outside and window displays of soldier mannequins fighting robotic rhinoceroses. (Don't worry, I'll take a picture of the window display next time I go by). The place is kind of ridiculous because you go in and the front cases are just full of weapons -- not just guns but strange knives and swords and stuff -- and the back room has taxidermied foxes and such. You go upstairs though and they have a whole room of fishing supplies such as reels and waterproof backpacks, and then in the other room upstairs they have army/navy clothes. Adams took me to the store to show me this room as they have a large supply of warm winter coats and I have been on the lookout as I feel like the minute I come back from my travels for the fall semester it is going to be about 20 degrees F. I didn't buy anything there today, but I liked some of the coats and they look super warm and I will probably go back there. Ironically the two coats that appealed to me most were made in Germany and in Atlanta, Georgia.

Adams and I walked all around Petrograd some more, for about an hour or so, and it was fun seeing a place I have yet to explore. Each of the neighborhoods in St. Petersburg really have their own special feel and Petrograd has narrower streets and feels more neighborhoody for whatever reason because it is mostly all old little apartment buildings with courtyards. We ended this adventure with a snack by the metro. I had a beer that was called, I think you all will appreciate this, Белый Медведь ("White Bear" i.e. polar bear) and a shwarma. Shwarma is another one of those foods that should be added to my list of things I never thought I would eat and enjoy so thoroughly. A pita full of some kind of meat and cucumbers covered in mayonaisse? Oh, yes, more please. It's not even a Russian food, but for whatever reason shwarma is super popular in Russia and is one of my favorite snacks here. You guys aren't even going to recognize me when I come back.

I then took the metro to Nevskii Prospect and had a little alone time wandering around. I finally went to the two famous English language bookstores that are along the Fontanka Canal, not too far from my house: Anglia and John Parsons. I never understand how stores catering to the same exact crowd of people can operate directly next to or across from each other, but it happens so frequently that it must work. Anglia and John Parsons are located in the same building, across the hall from each other, and I walked back and forth between the two three times while browsing. I guess their system works out because people essentially treat the two like the same store and when one doesn't have something the other does. It was so, so, so amazing to be in a bookstore like that again. It might have been the first time I felt completely relaxed since coming to Russia. I felt so at home. They had all English language copies of White Teeth by Zadie Smith, all of David Sedaris's books, How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers...... it was like seeing old friends again. But old friends that had purchased new clothes because often the copies were beautiful British editions with matte covers and classy, simple designs. I already know that the first moment I get really homesick, I am going to go there and sit and read books there for hours. I have to sit there and read because I can't really afford anything in the store. As all English language books in Russia are imported they are fairly expensive (just like trying to buy Russian language books in the U.S.) -- your average paperback book that would be maybe $12.95 in the States can be anywhere from 400r (approx. $16) to 1,000r ($40). So I did a lot of looking, just looking, oh god it was so hard, and I almost made it out of there with my wallet intact, bu finally caved at the end. I bought two little books that were on sale in Anglia -- each book is one short story by a modern British author and is about 4 square inches and green and turquoise in color. I think I mostly bought them because of how aesthetically pleasing they are. And then, in John Parsons, I completely caved and broke down and spent an embarrassingly large sum of money that I will not mention here on the Lonely Planet guide to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as it will be extremely helpful next week in my adventures with Emma inbetween our programs.

After this I told myself I really needed to go home because somehow it was already 7pm, but my attention was caught by a little hole-in-the-wall shoe repair store right off of Nevsky (St. Petersburg has more shoe stores than anything else in this city, so therefore there are also a lot of shoe repair shops around. St. Petersburg residents seem to take their footwear very seriously though not very comfortably). The reason why the store caught my eye was because the whole entire window was just filled with hundreds and hundreds of pairs of shoe laces. A whole forest of shoe laces of different colors. Talk about aesthetically pleasing. So I couldn't resist and figured that my shoe laces on my No Sweat Apparel Convereses are almost shot to hell (you would not believe how filthy my shoes get from walking around -- these sneakers were brand new when I left for Russia in June), so I picked out a pair of pink, black and white shoelaces in a pleasant cross-stitch pattern. While paying for the shoe laces, the man working there asked me if I was from Norway. This kind of thing always flatters me, because I always prefer to be thought of as a European foreigner than an American foreigner once people realize I am not from Russia. This makes me feel kind of bad for my country as the highest compliment I feel I can get in Russia is when people think I am German or Scandinavian. Anyway, I smiled and said I was from America and left, but I kind of want to learn a few words in Norwegian so next time I can say yes. I mean, I am at least 1/16th Norwegian -- right, Puppy?

Anyway. That's it for Monday. Tomorrow I have to give a presentation about my city in class, so that means I will be on Wikipedia all night reading about Massachusetts.

Weekend shenanigans.

I'm going to give the weather here a solid "basically fall" rating. When I was walking to the Russian Museum on Saturday morning for our second-to-last cultural excursion, it smelled like the first day of school. All that crisp, refreshing air. This is my favorite kind of weather. I feel the most awake when I'm outside in the autumn.

The Russian Museum was awesome. So very awesome. I liked it much more than the Hermitage because even though it is still fairly large, it is of a much more manageable size, and I really like how everything is organized -- chronologically with about one or two artists to a room. It also seems to be the way a museum should be, celebrating the art of its own country. I still find it kind of strange that in order to see one of Leonardo DaVinici's most famous works you have to come to a palace in St. Petersburg.

Going to the Russian Museum was also really exciting for me personally because of all of my spring classes at Wellesley. In my Virgin Mary religion class, my final research paper was about Russian icons of the Mother and Child, and right when you walk into the museum, the first thing you see, the very beginning room, is all of ancient icons, and right in the middle of it isone of the ones I wrote about -- The Virgin of Belozersk. So it was a little thrill to see something I had studied in person. And then, further along in the museum, in the contemporary modern art section, there are a couple of paintings by Aleksandr Rodchenko. I wrote my final research paper for History of Photograph on Rodechenko's Constructivist, abstract photographs, but here I got to see some of his earlier paintings before he switched to photography, such as "Black on Black." I'm such a fangirl of Rodchenko that I was excited to be standing in front of something he had worked on with his own two hands. And then, just in general, as the Russian Museum is entirely made up of paintings (some drawings, some sculptures, but no photography, no mixed media), my Painting Techniques class really once again made me actually appreciate the things I was looking at. Even if I was bored by the subject matter, say just another still life, now I can look at the brush strokes and wonder how many layers they had to do to make the fabric look that dimensional. Thanks, Professor Spatz. Damn, I loved that class.

After the Russian Museum, Sasha and I went to yet another strange museum together. Earlier in the day she had walked past the National Museum of Hygiene and clearly this was a place we had to go together. The Hygiene Museum wins for the strangest museum I have ever been to in my whole life. I'm not sure what I was expecting from it, maybe the history of tooth brushes or something, but it was not cases of plastic models of different kind of infections in flesh wounds or a uterus in formaldehyde or posters reminiscent of a 9th grade science fair about TB and AIDS. There were also various displays of taxidermied rodents in their environments (???) and a whole case of different kinds of retainers. They also had this rotating stand with different birth control methods, including dried out condoms with an expiration date of 12/1998. Besides all this, the museum is located in this beautiful mansion, right in the middle of the city, right near Nevskii Prospect, ideal real estate, and it is full of plastic body parts. It was one of those old, nice mansions with chandeliers and parque floors. We even had to wear little blue shoe covers while walking around. Plus there were way more people working there than necessary -- at least three babushkas -- as we were the only people in the museum. All the lights were off in the rooms, and as we approached different cases, occasionally the babushka, if she could be torn away from her crossword puzzle, would get up and switch on the light in the case for us to see the jars of different common parasites more clearly. One woman in the last room was particularly aggressive about interacting with us. She seemed to tell Sasha that she wasn't allowed to take pictures in the museum, but then later it seemed she had actually meant she didn't understand why Sasha was taking a picture of a fetus in a jar of formaldehyde and instead basically forced us to take our photographs next to an enormous blue and red plastic model of a heart. As soon as Sasha posts those, I'll put them on here. They are super awkward and hilarious. Moral of the story: I cannot comprehend why this museum is not in my Lonely Planet guide to St. Petersburg and you have to go to the Museum of Hygiene if you are ever in this city.

Once we had our fill of hygiene, Sasha and I joined up with a group of people who were having a picnic to celebrate Liza's, one of our fabulous Russian tutors, birthday. Getting to Kristovskii Island and then the park itself was a little crazy as yesterday was National Paratrooper Day. Yes. National Paratrooper Day. While this may sound like some obscure little holiday that no one celebrates, it is actually kind of a big insane deal. All these Russians who are paratroopers -- or who at least claim to be -- dress up in the macho national garb which makes them look vaguely like they should work in a French café: striped blue and white tank tops with little berets. These guys then wander around the city all day, carrying their official paratrooper flag which reads "Никто кроме нас!" the translation of which is "No one except us!" which I think could have multiple meanings, and they get completely plastered and yell and sing and roam in groups and when they run into other groups they have conversations along the lines of "HLKKASDLK!!" and then "KASDLKAJSDKLASDKL?!?!" garble garble garble drunken yelling excitement. Hart said he witnessed some good fights last summer on National Paratrooper Day, but no such luck this year. Examples of what exactly I am talking about that Adams found on the internet: here and here.

Our picnic was calm though. We ate little sandwiches and grapes and had champagne in miniature plastic cups that someone found somewhere. There was this great stray dog hanging around our picnic the whole time. She was just a puppy and had the happiest disposition for any stray dog I have ever seen. Adams and I were immediately in love with this creature as she tried to catch a duck in the water and as she fetched sticks. I also learned that the term for a stray dog in Russian literally translates to mean a "common dog." We fed her a cucumber (because we had ran out of everything else) and after a while she got bored and left. I then fell asleep in the sun for about an hour and woke up to both Sasha and Adams gently stroking my feet with leaves. Creeps.

As for today...... I did absolutely nothing.

No, really, absolutely nothing.

It was beautiful.

Those of you who know me know how I am incapable of slowing down and need to fit in as many activities as possible into one day (example: did you just read about my Saturday?) and today I was supposed to go to the flea market at Udelnaya with Sasha and Adams, but the weather was shitty and we gave up and instead I just slept. I was so tired from my busy week and the upcoming week promises to be even crazier as it is everyone's last week here, and I finally just stopped. And slept. And I feel great now. I was supposed to go out tonight too to celebrate Liza's birthday again, but now Liza herself is tired and instead I'm going to just put my wonderful fleece pants (THANKS, MELISSA!) back on and curl up. Maybe I'll watch The Royal Tenenbaums. And go to sleep again. Lazy Sunday.

Though I did make time during all the nothingness to put up photos from this weekend.

Also --

I've hit the 5 page mark on my digital summer photo gallery.

Tomorrow will be my 50th self portrait.

And today at 2pm I saw a solar eclipse. I forgot. That was neat.

Happy August.

This is the third month I've now been in Russia for. Strange. I really can't figure out where this summer went. I get so confused when the weather is cooler now and it smells like leaves and autumn because it feels like it should still only be around the 4th of July. Weird.

Today I almost saw a rollerblader get run over by a car. The guy was crossing the street on his rollerblades and a wheel caught on one of the metal grooves in the road that is for the trams and he tripped and fell, nearly in front of a black Jeep that was making a right on red. It was terrifying, but luckily the car was too fast and he fell in its wake instead of in its path. Oy.

I went to the post office again today under the impression that I had yet another package because I was given a third package slip at school yesterday. This was a delusion though as when I got there the woman said it was a reminder slip about the package I picked up on Monday. This was the same woman though who reprimanded me on Monday for using green pen, and naturally she remembered me because of this incident but also because how many foreigners get three package slips in ten days? Before she realized there was no third package though she approved of my serious black ink on this form, but then explained to me the other thing she had been mad about on Monday but I hadn't been able to understand -- apparently I have been signing all of the package slips on the wrong line and this is a big deal in the beauracratic Russian postal system. But she was nice about it saying, "Twice now! Next time!" I guess if this rate of mail keeps up I am going to be visiting this woman a lot, so I should try to stop screwing up the package slips.

This weekend promises to be busy as it is the last full weekend for everyone who isn't staying for the fall...... so everyone except for four of us. Sunday is also the birthday of my friend Liza, who is one of the Russian Smolny students who is a tutor for the program, so I think we will be picnicking and such.

p.s. As I never wrote a journal entry on Tuesday 7/29/08, I did not get to include a HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY, GENNY! message. So, there it is. Belated.