so for the past few weeks we've been out and about exploring st. petersburg and the surrounding areas on weekends and in school 5 days a week.
as for school. we're about a 10 minute walk from school but regardless continue to be late every day. the classes are quite lax but quite lengthly. each class is 90 minutes and usually without a break. the most calss i have a day is 4 is which is a solid 6 hours of class. i'm taking russian history, russian art history, civilization, grammar and conversation. both the histories overlap a lot and the civilization class overlaps the history with the present state of russia. quite draining. the grammar and conversation classes also overlap a lot but the conversation class is a lot more enjoyable. our professor, michael, is a 6 foot huge muscular russian who is the cheeriest man i have ever met. you say something in russian and he basically applauds you and thinks that what you said was the most creative thing ever. quite reassuring. haha
as for grammar. oh god.
we have this women russian professor who speaks fast and refuses to speak in english so when you don't understand something she just keeps saying the same thing over and over again getting louder. she will sit at the front desk, read off a statement or a question and point or call out someone's name to respond. there is no slacking or not paying attention. our entire class is just exhausted by the end of the 90 min.
outside of school, we have been to novgorod, where we saw a MILLION churches and went on lengthly tours of most of them. this was about a 4 hour bus ride south of st. petersburg to the oldest city in russia. it was nice to get away from the hustle of the city. there we also saw the kremlin and some students opted to go to a russian banya at night where, from what was described they walked around naked getting hit by sticks in a steam room then left and got sprayed or had cold water dumped on them. sounded like quite the experience.
we also went to peterhof which was gorgeous. they still had the fountains running which they are going to shut down soon
we have also been to the russian museum, the zoo (quite depressing. ill load pictures soon) and today we are going to the hermitage!
our host mom showed us where to get "discount" clothes.. although they just seemed to be relatively normal priced. clothes in russia are not cheap. i found a trench like coat for $30 dollars, but any thicker coat was over $150. relatively speaking, half a loaf of bread is 25 cents, small thing of vodka is $1.60, bus is 54 cents, metro is 60 cents. we also went to a nike discount store so maggie could get some tennis shoes for the gym and those set her back $90
our host mom's cooking is still amazing. blinieys are amazing. as is kasha. i eat at least a tomato a day. it seems to be the vegetable of choice. they are finally growing on me.
as for the nightlife we've been to a few different clubs including an old soviet bomb shelter, a live music punk rock place, random little bars. alcoholism is obvious here in russia. walking to school at 10am i pass people drinking gin tonic in a can and beers. the whole stereotype of the cold russian i haven't really agreed with though. the younger population is always laughing and smiling and are super friendly. the few older people i've asked for directions though are quite cold, one babushka acted like she was deaf.
still having a fabulous time and still alive.
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