масленица!

Hola to everyone! Yes, I know I just said something in Spanish instead of Russian… but that’s the way it’s been around here lately. For some reason everyone falls back upon Spanish when they forget a Russian word. Thus, in class my friend Glenn might say (imagine this in Russian): “My wallet was taken by a …. a…. oh what’s the word for hombre?” Immediately, everyone will yell out, “Man/мужчина!” The teachers are getting exasperated with our haphazard Spanish-English-Russian way of speaking.

I will definitely never let so much time go by between posts. However, it is a testament to how exciting Russia has been so far. I’ve been to three museums thus far: Political Museum, Dostoevsky Museum, and Menshikov Palace (I will write about that next time). The Dostoevsky Museum had mostly modern exhibits about his life inside, so the really interesting part was just standing in the square that he walked on every day. Right outside that museum was the Kuznechny Market (кузнечный рынок); this used to be the best market in SPb, although now it’s very expensive. The fresh dairy department was the best I’ve seen so far… there’s luscious sour cream and tvorog (sort of like ricotta cheese).

Dodgy little army/navy store -- the place where I have to get an army knife.

дом книги (Book House) at night.

New entrance to the Dostoevsky Museum

This is where I purchased pickled cucumbers and green tomatoes. I probably got over-charged for it, which may account for her adding on some extra pickles and garlic.

Fresh honey and beeswax

These past few weeks have been wonderful. I’ve been going  to the gym regularly with my friend, Austin. Besides that, I’ve managed to explore Nevsky Prospekt quite a bit more. That's one of the main streets in SPb; I usually go with a friend or two, and we explore side streets, stores and restaurants. The Galleria was interesting, but it reminded me too much of the malls back home -- nothing terribly special or unique in the stores, everything overpriced, and mostly typical American food.

I enjoy going to the predominantly Russian events here. For instance, this entire week is a holiday: масленица. It’s literally a “Pancake Week”… rather, Blini Week. Part of the big celebration is to eat blini, burn an effigy of Santa Claus' daughter, and generally celebrate the first official days of spring. Tonight I went to a Russian Club gathering where we danced, chatted, learned the history of the holiday, and ate enormous quantities of homemade blini with sour cream and freshly made jam. On Sunday we have an excursion to the park and palace in Pavlovsk, where we'll see them burn effigies and do Russian folk dancing. Oh... and did I mention that we get to eat blini?!

One of the most important things was also last week... we went to a hockey game! When I watch the Winter Olympics, I usually end up seeing the hockey matches the most, so I was naturally anticipating the game. I imagined having a good time, but I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did. It was <<CKA>> (SPb's team) against <<Ак Барс>> (Kazan)... CKA won, thank goodness! It was very tense by the end, as it got down to penalty shots, and everybody was chanting, "Питер! Питер!" (Peter! Peter!) throughout.

We had pretty great seats, front row of the second tier.

Stephanie, Taylor and I... we're excited that CKA is winning. Hurrah!

Last but not least, a huge shout out to Jake -- he’s got a wonderfully descriptive and exciting blog. We’re on the same program and you can compare our experiences, especially since he's been posing more frequently than I have.

I have a four day weekend coming up, which will be spent studying for my midterm and exploring the city. We have plans to go salsa dancing soon, so let the sexy salsa dancing commence!