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.