People Are Strange

Oh, this week is going to be AWFUL. I have two exams on Wednesday and another due Friday, but I know that if I were studying at Conn this semester that wouldn’t seem as ужасно as I’m making it out to be, but considering I really haven’t done that much work here, my capacity to do work and stay motivated academically has diminished at a pitiful rate. Sure, I most definitely have work here. I have assignments due for all my Russian classes, but everything else is... whatevahhh. Senior year, which, if all goes according to plan includes writing an honors thesis, is going to be a rude awakening to say the least when I return to Conn in the fall. 

I hate listening to myself complain (I bet you do too).

So, the past few days have been fairly normal. I’ve been getting back into my routine after Meghan’s visit, and I’ve been enjoying the sun (although it decided to snow for about an hour this afternoon). The week went by quickly, and I went out with some friends on Friday and Saturday night. Yesterday we went out for sushi (thank goodness that craving has been sated), and then we went directly to the Mariinsky theater to see the opera, “Tale of Tsar Sultan.” And on our way there, aboard the 6 bus, there was a man with a mullet sitting on one of the seats with his friggin’ pet falcon, complete with bird-mask-whatever and scary talons and all. I know I learned that staring at people was rude at a young age, but I decided to disregard this and stared with a what-in-the-world-are-you-doing?! look on my face. 

Moving on, if you haven’t heard of the Mariinsky, well, then you really should. I don’t know that much about it, aside from the fact that it’s like the Bolshoi in terms of opera and ballet but in St. Petersburg instead of Moscow. The outside, whose architecture is full of what look like superfluous angles and shapes, is a delicious mint chocolate chip ice cream color, but besides all that, it has a very subtle appearance. I’m not sure I’d know it was the prestigious Mariinsky if I walked past it. Anyway, the inside is something else entirely. First of all, it’s a goddam maze. There are so many corridors and stairs that I was afraid I was going to get lost multiple times, and did a few. When you finally sat down in your seat, after having basically fallen over everybody else who was already sitting in your row in order to get to your seat, you, or at least I, had a hard time believing that I was about to watch an opera in such an extravagant theater. The theater looks like it could have been taken out of any of the palace interiors I’ve visited here in Petersburg. What that means is that there was plenty of gold, intricate paintings on the ceilings, sparkiling chandeliers, and that old-but-charming, royal feeling that only comes with being in some European capital (I want to say, not that I’ve been to more than two). These crappy photos from my iPhone will give you a better idea of what I’m trying to describe. 

Fortunately, the opera had subtitles in English (there was a small screen at the top of the theater), but to be completely honest (I hate what I’m about to write), I began to space out like a champ after the first quarter of the opera. I am so glad I went, and I was really into the costumes and the orchestra, but after the show got done I can safely say that I really had no clue about what I just watched. I tuned back in to the opera every once in a while, but I was just really watching with glazed eyes while my thoughts dipped in and out of all the random corners of my mind. I guess I was tired because I just could not pay attention. As a result, I’m not going to bother with explaining what the opera was about (or what I thought it was about). It was definitely cool though, and if you, my dear reader, are an opera fan and find yourself currently scowling at the computer screen, I would still recommend that you read about the opera and see it if you ever got the chance.  Sorry for all you opera fans out there (I KNOW I WAS A WASTE OF A PERFECTLY GOOD TICKET), but I was very grateful nevertheless to have seen something at the Mariinsky (just around the corner from the Tsar’s box too!). 

Well, I should probably start studying for my exams, but before I quit, I have to tell you that Will, Beryl and I were walking through the usual hoards of people walking along Nevsky the other day when, all of a sudden, a man carrying a raccoon appeared right in front of my face. It took me a few seconds to register what I just witnessed, and by the time I turned my head to say something to Will and Beryl, Beryl had already made her way to the opposite end of the sidewalk, shrieking with disgust. You know, after a while these things here get less weird. A falcon on a bus? A raccoon on Nevsky? Just another day in Russia, apparently...    

                                                             (above = our Ellen-Degeneres-at-the- 2014-oscars selfie) 

Take Back the City

What a week. I’m still exhausted from Meghan’s visit, but it was oh so much fun. I successfully managed to pick her up at the airport (only after waiting for half an hour outside the WRONG metro station for a bus that wouldn't ever come), and when she finally came out of customs, I couldn’t believe that she had actually come all this way.

Unfortunately, since my visa was currently in the final process of being turned into a re-entry visa (it’s complicated), I couldn’t officially check into the hotel that Meghan booked for fear of screwing up my visa process and getting deported. Why, you ask? That’s a good question. I honestly don’t know what the details are, but the point is, I couldn’t stay at the hotel with Meghan until the last night, only after my visa had finally come through and I could show the hotel my official, original documents. 

Meghan got in at 5 pm on Saturday, so after dinner we just walked around Nevsky Prospekt. The hotel is located behind a sketchy metal gate and down an even sketchier alleyway hidden behind one of the vast buildings lining the Moika canal, but on the bright side, the hotel was less than a 10 minute walk from Palace square and the Winter Palace, which, every time you go there, never ever gets old. 

The next day, Sunday, was devoted to the Hermitage. My friend Alicia joined us, and I warned her and Meghan before we got in that it’s practically impossible to see everything in the museum, but if we wanted to see all of the coolest stuff (in my opinion), then we better move at a brisk pace. This went over well with them, and we walked through the Russian culture sections, through the palace interiors, past the Italian section, into a little bit of British art, through some Greek sections, and lastly exiting through the Egyptian section. We were only there for a few hours, and we covered an impressive amount of ground, but as I’ve noted before, museums are DRAINING and we needed to be done. 

After the Hermitage, Meghan and I stopped into a little produkty to get some “lunch.” This turned out to be a loaf of bread, some cheese we didn’t know the name of, and 26 ruble berry jam. Like the trash monster that I am, I put it all together and ate 10x more than Meghan did when we got back to the hotel. She was nice enough to eat some, but she also had the decency to be like, “this smells like feet...” Are we college students or what? 

Later in the day, after the rain had stopped and our clothes had somewhat dried from being soaked during our produkty run, we walked through Palace square and towards the Bronze Horseman and St. Isaac’s Cathedral. After that, we went to dinner and then out to the Decabristov cafe for drinks where Adam and Sean joined Meghan, Alicia and I. We ordered a few drinks and played “turrets” with Alicia’s playing cards. I felt like I got an ab work out afterwards I was laughing so hard. 

I played hooky on Monday and continued to show Meghan the sites. In the morning we went to Church on Spilled Blood, where Alexander II was blown up, and then afterwards we went to a little outdoor souvenir shop behind the church. There were a bunch of vendors selling everything from matryoshku dolls, to Soviet pins and knives, to necklaces and scarves. Unfortunately, we were the only ones there, and the salesmen and women were all over us. 

God, I hate business. I don’t like pushing people to buy things, and I don’t like to say no to people. Bartering? Have you met me? I can’t argue or think on my feet to save my life. After the end of 15 minutes, Meghan was practically forced to buy a little matryoshka doll for 450 rubles (which was originally 500, but I had the courage to ask for a whole 50 rubles down! [sarcasm, people]), which was most likely way overpriced. Well, now I know. 

We moved on from the open market to more stable, less bloodthirsty souvenir shops. After a while there, we took to the metro to Gorkovskaya to visit the Peter and Paul Fortress. And THEN, after a few hours of Romanov tombs and prison cells, we took the metro back to where we started, walked towards Church on Spilled Blood again, and then went into the Russian museum. My legs had started to protest at the Peter and Paul Fortress, but Meghan was only here for three full days, so I found my reserve tank and trekked on. 

Dear lord. I am so tired just thinking about how much we saw and did on Monday. We took St. Petersburg BY STORM. As a result, Tuesday was much more low key. One of my language classes which met on Monday was having a 3 hour make up class on Tuesday, and since missing one class is very frowned upon, I decided to drag Meghan to Smolny for a little bit on Tuesday. Luckily, when we finished we still had the afternoon left. We went to look at the Stieglitz Mansion just around the corner from Smolny (Baron von Stieglitz was a famous banker under Nicholas I, and Meghan’s family just happens to be his direct descendants [according to Steppi Mette], so we went to take some photos of the outside [the mansion looked abandoned, unfortunately]), and then afterwards we went to cafe счастье (Happiness) by St. Isaac’s Cathedral to relax for a little bit. After we recharged, we went into St. Isaac’s and then up to the colonnade, where Meghan was able to get panoramic views of the city atop the golden dome of St. Isaac’s. When the cathedral closed, we sat down in the Decembrist park next door and talked until we met Adam for dinner, which was followed by drinks. We went back to the hotel and called it an early night, for we had to get up at 6 the next morning to get to the airport in time. 

All in all, I had the best time touring Meghan around. I had wanted to go back to all the places we went to at least once before my semester ended, and now I don’t have to stress about going to see Nicholas and the fam again. The whole time she was here felt so unreal. There were quite a few times when we just looked at each other and were in complete disbelief that this trip, which we had been planning for almost a year, was finally happening. It was wonderful to be around Meghan, who for me is apart of my family and therefore, a direct piece of home. I’m glad I was able to introduce her to my friends here, although that is always such a weird experience; introducing friends from high school to friends from college, that is. There’s something so strange about seeing those two worlds collide. 

I never really knew how tense (?) I was until Meghan arrived. Tense is clearly the wrong word, but what I think I mean to say is that I noticed how much I completely let loose and relaxed once we were around each other again. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my friends here. I’m confident they all know everything worth knowing about me by now, and I feel comfortable talking with them about anything. But, it’s not the same as being with someone whose been your best friend since you both randomly decided one day at the end of 4th grade that, although we’ve never spent anytime with each other prior to, we should be best friends. Teehee, I get such a tickle out of that story. Anyways, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t know how much I have been behaving like a different person until Meghan got here (or is it more that I have been on my own?). Does that make any sense? Probably not, but in sum, I’m grateful I was able to have a piece of back home around me for a few days. I love how much I can talk with Meghan about normal, stupid Liv stuff, but I love how I can talk about all that stuff without worrying that I'll be judged even more. Most of the time, Meghan gets what I’m trying to say, and even if she doesn't, I know that she’ll still love me. Is that how couples that have been married for a long time feel? I wouldn’t be surprised. 

Throughout Meghan’s time in Russia, our conversations were fueled with statements that more often than not happened to start with: “Remember when we were in [INSERT COUNTRY] and we...” We’ve made memories in Bermuda, Ireland and Paris, and now I’m so happy to say that we can add St. Petersburg to the list! Here’s to more adventures. 

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

This week went by so much faster than the last two. The beginning of the week started out bright and sunny, but when I left Smolny after my classes finally got out at 8 pm on Wednesday, I opened the door to find that I was in the middle of winter again. The snow was coming down at an alarming rate, and once I stepped out onto the sidewalk and closed the door be, I actually shouted "WHAT?!" Within minutes I was covered in snow, straight out of a snow globe. But alas, the sun is out again, and the streets are back to their grubby, spit-globbed, cigarette-littered, dog-pooped selves. Ahh. 

On Thursday I went to go see Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” all by my lonesome (all my friends told me they had a test to study for. Psssh). I decided on the walk to the movie theater Angleterre that me going to the movies by myself is either incredibly independent and praiseworthy, or extremely pathetic and sad. Perhaps it’s a mix of both, but I’ve wanted to see this movie for a really long time. 

Everything went smoothly, until of course, I had to interact with someone. The movie theater is located within the Angleterre Hotel, and when I told them what movie I wanted to see, they responded to me in English, to my surprise. Nevertheless, I responded in Russian, but I should have taken advantage of the available English. When the woman behind the counter gave me my ticket and then told me directions to the screen, I swore I never heard her tell me how much the price of the ticket was, so I pointed behind me and meant to say, “will I pay there?”. I panicked because I don’t know the verb платить (to pay) like I should, and I wanted to say “will I pay there,” hence, future tense, so on a whim I just guessed about the perfective aspect of the verb and said, “я плачу там?”. Well, that got laughs. Oh shit, I thought. Did I just say, “I will cry there?” instead of “I will pay there?”, knowing that the verbs to pay and to cry are somewhat similar. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of my mistakes, so after she told me 300 rubles, I gave them to her and marched on. I didn’t have the nerve to look up to see what the perfective form of платить was until the day later, and when I checked, I realized that I wasn’t far off. And then, I turned the page of my 501 Russian Verbs book and looked at the verb плакать (to cry). In sum, I learned that the phrases “I pay” and “I cry” both look like this: я плачу. They are absolutely identical, with the only thing differentiating them being where the stress is placed. So it turns out I used the imperfective instead of the perfective aspect (therefore, I didn’t use the future tense), and I think I managed to put the stress in the wrong place. I said "ya plAchu" instead of "ya plachU", which means that I said “I cry” instead of “I pay”. Swing and a miss (fuck Russian). 

Just kidding. I love Russian, and I know it (although I have been slowly realizing how easy English and French appear in comparison. They aren’t kidding when they say Russian is one of the most difficult languages to learn... Jesus). 

Anyways, the movie was an absolute riot. If you have no idea what movie I’m talking about, I suggest you watch this trailer right now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fg5iWmQjwk. I think I was a little disappointed with the plot (I don’t know why, exactly), but the characters made it all so worth it. Ralph Fiennes is the funniest. He is such a cartoon character. He is ridiculous (well, the whole movie is), and is oblivious to it all. Edward Norton, Jude Law, Owen Wilson, Tom Wilkinson, Adrien Brody, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, and Tilda Swinton are all in it too, and Willem Defoe plays the creepiest (yes, I know that’s already a given) hitman you could conjure up. I won’t say anything to spoil the plot, but I sincerely suggest that if you plan on going to the movies anytime soon, that you should see this one. 

I don’t have much more to report, except for the fact that MEGHAN METTE IS ARRIVING IN RUSSIA IN 3 HOURS! My best friend jumped through the numerous flaming hoops that are Russian bureaucracy in order to get a hotel reservation and a travel visa so she could come visit me and stay until Wednesday. As you can imagine, I am ecstatic. Meghan was nice enough to let me visit her when she spent her gap year in Cork, Ireland two spring breaks ago, and I’m excited to return the favor and show her around Petersburg. I warned her that although I’m learning Russian, we’re definitely going to flail and flounder a bit when it comes to communicating. I’m looking forward to introducing her to my friends, and going back to all the must-see sights that I saw when I first arrived here. I’m also just excited to spend time with someone with whom I can just be my complete and utter self. I love my friends here, but they don’t know me like Meghan obviously, and I’m excited to say stupid things (more stupid than usual) without worrying about how I sound, and to talk about things that someone gets without question. SO. EXCITED. 

With that said, I’ll be busy until next week. I’ll try and keep a running lists of all the incorrect things I say, as well as more silly anecdotes to write about next week. Wish us luck (= pray for us)!

Invent It All Again

Screw being gloomy, today I went to the Russian political history museum, AND the guy from the gym who I’ve been drooling over for the past few weeks actually winked at me this morning ;) 

The political history museum may be my favorite museum I’ve been to thus far. This past Saturday, instead of doing my homework I decided to restart Nicholas and Alexandra from the beginning. One of my favorite things about this book is that I feel as if I can open it up at any page and continue on from there, but I wanted to start at the beginning and read all the descriptions of St. Petersburg with a different perspective now that I’ve been here for almost two months (WHAT). I can’t tell you how wonderful a feeling it is to read about a place that you have experienced first hand after having conjured up a thousand different impressions prior to. It’s just so cool to go through every page and to be able to recognize and to put an image to all the streets or monuments that are referenced. Ah! It’s almost as if it’s all some sort of mirage; history, that is. Anyways, I brought this up because as I was reading about Nicholas’ early life in the first few chapters, I made a mental note that I wanted to find Mathilde Kschessinska’s mansion while I was here. Mathilde Kschessinska (can YOU pronounce her name?) was the prima ballerina at the Imperial Ballet, and she and Nicholas were an item before he married Alexandra. It just so happens that one of the buildings of the political history museum is the mansion that used to belong to Mathilde Kschessinska! Ohh how I just LOVE the way the world turns (most of the time). 

The mansion/museum is located right across from the Peter and Paul fortress, and it is exactly a mansion (not a palace, if you can distinguish the two). The museum consists of a bunch of large, open rooms that are each devoted to a certain period in Russian history of particular political importance. The first hall that Jackie and I entered (my faithful museum-goer) was the pre-revolutionary room, and the first thing that caught my eye were photos of the Ipatiev house basement, which is where my favorite Romanovs were shot, beaten, and ahh, bayoneted in July 1918. Next to the photos was the framed description of the murder of the Romanovs by Yakov Yurovsky, the guy in charge of their imprisonment in Ekaterinburg from 1917-1918, and the same asshole who passed on Lenin’s order to have the last royal family shot. I couldn’t believe I was actually looking at his note! It’s moments like these, when I find myself in front of a REALLY important political document, that I wish my Russian was far more advanced than it is now. Forget knowing how to ask for directions to the nearest metro station, I want to know what that decree says word for word! 

Moving on, next to this document was a huge painting of Nicholas himself, but what was extra cool about this painting was that there were long, jagged slashes through the canvas and through Nicholas’ red uniform. Apparently, when revolutionaries stormed the Winter Palace in October 1917, they bayoneted this painting of Nicholas. CHILLS. 

After that I followed the exhibit and into a room on a platform that had a wooden desk with an old chair, and on that desk were a few telegrams written to or from Nicholas, as well as a journal entry or two. What looked like the original abdication document was hanging on the wall above, and to its right were pictures of Alexandra smiling, and that really famous picture of Anastasia and Alexei hugging in a chair. On another wall was a video showing a clip on repeat of Nicholas and Alexandra’s children playing in the water at a beach (at Livadia in the Crimea, I assume?). At one point I realized that I was probably standing in a replica of the room on the train where Nicholas was when he signed the abdication. 

This section of pre-revolutionary Russia contained a range of different documents, photographs, books, models, swords, suitcases, paintings, and diagrams. There was a section on Rasputin and another on the Duma and the October Manifesto, which was really frickin’ awesome to see given the fact that I spent last summer researching the October Manifesto and the creation of the Duma, and now I had the chance to see the original in person (is this how marine biologists feel all the time when they get to swim with the creatures they read about? Or how a surgeon feels when they finally get to operate on a real body after years of studying and practice on cadavers?)! There was another section on Bloody Sunday, and one on revolutionary parties. Next (well, we went back in time), I got to see Alexander II’s Emancipation of the Serfs document (HOW UNREAL). There were also documents from Catherine the Great’s time (the kind of documents I have to write papers on for class), and I read a section of a journal entry from an individual who participated in the 1825 Decembrist uprising, in which, crazy enough, he mentioned Galernaya ulitsa, which is the name of the street where Smolny is located (I walk on Galernaya EVERYDAY, and apparently it was an area of serious revolutionary activity in 1825). Hot damn. 

The next hall was devoted to Stalin. There were propaganda posters everywhere (Russians do their propaganda posters well), official documents, uniforms (one of a NKVD [pre KGB] agent, another of a gulag prisoner), photographs, old pistols, plates, books, etc... The other halls, which went in chronological order after Stalin, contained all these types of articfacts, of which it would take weeks to read and go through it all. There were replicas of a room in a typical kommunalka apartment, a barrack (a gulag barrack? Jackie and I couldn’t decipher the exact meaning), a typical politboro member’s office, etc... There were models, videos, voice recordings, first drafts of the most celebrated literature (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Dr. Zhivago, etc...), passports, identification documents, more uniforms, a wall dedicated to Yuri Gagarin, etc... Huff, I’m getting exhausted just remembering all the items I saw. 

I think I’ve been to more museums since arriving here in St. Petersburg than I have in my ENTIRE life. I will admit that Russians certainly know how to create a good museum. Similarly, they also know how to make good use of an old palace. Hmm, what should we do with this palace on xx ultisa? I don’t know... Turn it into a museum? Splendid idea! (That is how I imagined most museums were created in this city).

I walked through the exhibitions and, like the Museum of the Leningrad Blockade we visited on Sunday, I wished that I had Sam Murphy by my side to see all the Soviet propaganda and Red Army garb. Actually, I wish I had both Sam and Forest with me too (until they would both gang up on me about some petty nonsense, as usual), because I know that they would have melted if they saw all the different rifles, bullets, shards of planes, bombs, etc... that were present in both the museum of political history and the museum of the blockade. There are too many hammer and sickles for my taste, but I know Sam would have gotten such a kick out of it all (you ignorant, commie-loving stupid boy, you [I love you]). 

Jackie and I were only in the museum for two hours, but by the last exhibit we were speed walking just to make sure that we had seen it all. We were fading fast, but luckily the museum only costed us “Russian students” 30 rubles (hollaaaaa). There is just so much to see it's not even funny. Part of me wonders if Russians just went through their attics and put anything remotely historical they could find behind glass shelves and called it good enough for a museum. You know, I’ve seen so many plates, spoons, medals, pins, maps, books, folders and just a lot of nick-nacks in general in these museums which just had the fortune of belonging to someone who changed history. I’m not complaining whatsoever, but it’s a little bit funny how easy it is in a sense to take whatever you can find from someone famous and put it in a museum. Like I said, Russians know how to do museums well. 

Oh my god. My brain feels melted. Sensory OVERLOAD. I think this warrants some mindless activities... Pintrest? Facebook? House of Cards? All the above ✓

Build Me Up Buttercup

What a weird past few days it’s been. I’ve been undeniably gloomy, and as if the weather heard me brooding, it started to snow again yesterday for the first time in weeks. Before that, it had been sunny and bright for days in a row, and I was truly convinced that spring had arrived. The snow isn’t that heavy though; it’s more wet and gross than anything, but thankfully ice has not reformed on the Neva, and it doesn’t seem like this will last long. 

My patience is dwindling with my Nabokov and Cold War classes. I was so into them at the beginning, but now I dread going to them. I’m the only American in my Nabokov class, which is really nice, but I talk a lot in that class because nobody else does, and I worry that I annoy my classmates. My professor, who I still believe is really smart, tries not to show his disorganization but fails miserably. And if he’s not unorganized, and that what he tells us to do in class are actually what he has been planning in the days leading up to our class, then I seriously question his teaching techniques. I’m learning a lot about Nabokov, but I also thinking I’m learning a lot of really pointless nonsense. On the bright side, it doesn’t seem like my professor cares too much about assignments (knock on wood, all of you!). We had a presentation a few weeks ago, and when asked about the midterm last week my professor thought for a second and then replied that our projects would suffice. I was relieved, but I’m also uneasy. What happens when we actually have to write a paper about Ada or Ardor and we haven’t really discussed much about the plot? The characters? Oh I’m going to grow white hair just thinking about any paper that might be looming in the horizon... 

And then, sigh, there is my Cold War class, which is just a straight up shit show every Wednesday from 4:40 - 8 pm. The class is team taught by a Smolny professor and a retired American professor who comes to class every week via Skype, and that would be cool if technology wasn’t such an issue. To be fair, my academic advisor warned me about everything I’m complaining about now. I’m just bummed because the material is something I really want to learn about and our professors’ lecture styles are kind of all over the place. We don’t have any discussions, and there’s zero incentive to do the readings. I’ll stop because I know I sound spoiled. I’ve been so used to classes taught at such a high caliber in both high school and at Conn, and I guess I have high expectations. 

I think, as I’m realizing this about my classes, that I am also slowly becoming aware of my reality here in Russia. In other words, I think I’m emerging from the honey moon phase, and it’s only been about two months (or should I be happy that it’s taken me this long?). Don’t get me wrong, I still love this place and I don’t want to come home, but I think, for the first time since I’ve arrived here, that I sincerely missed home (or possibly just the states) yesterday. To be fair, I spent the whole day in bed fighting the nausea I induced on myself the night before. My host parents were both out of the house for the whole day, thank god, and I realized that I didn’t speak a word until past 8 pm when I saw my host mom in the hall. I’m just not the kind of person that should be left without social interactions for that long (I sound like my wonderful, needy 13 year old Maltese), and it certainly has its effects on me. 

Getting back to my ending honey moon phase, I think I’m a little palaced and/or museumed out. I love going to museums and palaces and I plan on continuing to knock off items on my to-do list while I’m here, but I’m just having a hard time absorbing it all.   I started to recognize that I wasn’t being as wowed by everything as I normally am earlier this week, and as a result, I’ve been trying to keep myself in check. I’ve still been going to the gym almost everyday, and I’ve noticed that that little place has become a nice, safe-zone in a way for me. I really enjoy unwinding there. The men there still remain scary, but I’ve begun to develop a fuck-it-all attitude about being intimidated and I walk around the place as if I genuinely belong there now. In any case, all the guys there have been nothing but patient and nice with me, and it’s somewhere I know I can go and do my own thing without having to worry about speaking Russian that much or about anybody else for that matter. 

Knowing that a trip to the gym would help, I went straight to Атлет after my class got out on Friday, and for some strange reason the place was deserted. There was me, two other girls, and what looked like a father son pair there for a while, but I was the last one to leave. As spooky as it was, I was happy to have the place to myself. I could trip and stumble through the machines I had always wanted to try but had been too afraid to do in front of everybody, and when I finished and made my way to the changing room, I stopped in front of the punching bag, which is usually in a crowded area. It only took me a few seconds before I realized that hitting something would probably make me feel a lot better. Nobody else was around, so therefore there would be nobody else to watch my pathetic girl punches. Without further ado, I scrolled down to “Immigrant Song” on my iPod and I started to punch and kick the punching bag. In all honesty, it was probably the best thing I could have done all day, all week even, to blow off some steam (who AM I? A 17 year old teenage boy??). I completely let loose and hit that thing until my knuckles started to bleed (it only took a measly 10 minutes). It didn’t matter though; I felt AWESOME. I left the gym promising myself that I would have to do that more often, empty gym or not, and that I should look for a beginner kick boxing class when I get home. 

After I got home and showered, I decided to go for a walk. I took my camera, packed my documents and my wallet, and I set off for the Winter Palace. I walked along the embankment on Vasilievsky, and passed by a young woman reading on the stairs leading down to the Neva. I took a lot of experimental-like pictures, and I was glad that I was alone to do it so I could take all the time that I needed without feeling any pressure to hurry up. I walked along bridges, and when I made it to Palace Square, I strolled along the cobble stones at a peaceful pace. I was finally able to be there, completely by myself, to soak up the moment, and I, as cheesy as it sounds, took the time to close my eyes a few times, only to catch someone giving me a weird look when I opened them (I’m sorry I appreciate this place more than you will ever imagine, Sir. Keep moving). I left Palace Square and walked through a park filled with statues and busts of Russian authors. It was sunny then, and the sun shone through the branches and trees in a really pretty way. I came out of the part directly behind the Bronze Horseman, and I continued along the English Embankment back home. The wind was SO strong on Friday I think it took me an extra few minutes to make it home, for there were a few times when I thought I was actually going to get blown over into the river. 

That night I went out with friends and had too much fun. Saturday was spent in bed as a result, and my Sunday has somehow already disappeared. We had an excursion to the Siege of Leningrad museum today, and I promise to write about it later. I am drained right now after recording all my petty thoughts above. So, I guess that’s my latest update. As you can tell, I haven’t been up to much. Hopefully I will have something more exciting to write about next time! 

Dancing Queen

Today was BEAUTIFUL. I was so cheery when I walked to Smolny this morning; I had to actually squint it was so bright out! The Neva flowed with barely any ice chunks floating about, and I even walked past a couple who were drinking beer on the embankment with their feet hanging over the river. 

Also, before I get to my weekend, I have to share that I no joke took three small shots of nail polish, disguised as homemade Georgian vodka, with my host parents at dinner this evening, and it was actually really good!

Naht. It was the worst and I think my organs are slowly shutting down as I type. 

On that note, I had an awesome weekend. On Saturday I went to the banya, as you already know, and on Sunday we had an excursion to the Elagin palace, which is a palace that I had never heard of before, and which is located high up on the purple line. We planned to have a 45 minute tour of the palace, followed by a 45 minute ballroom dance lesson, complete with costumes from centuries ago. I had seen a few pictures of the costumes and the ballroom dancing part from a few years ago, and you can only imagine how excited I was. 

I read that the palace was originally a summer residence of Alexander I and his wife Maria Feodorovna, which got passed down the Romanov dynasty, and that it was eventually lent to prime ministers Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin in the late 19th-early 20th century. Like most everything in Russia, the Bolsheviks took it over after the Revolution. In order to get to the palace, you must first walk over a wide-ish bridge and then enter a woodsy park. You walk through the park for about 10 minutes, passing by funky birdhouses, old couples, and young parents with their kids, until you come out to a clearing and you suddenly find yourself in view of the palace, located on the other side of a wide open green field. When I first saw this view, I imagined a bunch of men from the 19th century with fancy hunting outfits skeet shooting with their faithful pointers trotting along at their sides. It definitely gave off a summer air to it, if that makes any sense. 

The palace itself is not as big, for it only had a handful of rooms (at least that’s how many were on display for visitors), but they were all typical palace rooms; that is, filled with gold, sparkly chandeliers, uncomfortable-looking chairs, china, mirrors, etc... It was still cool to check it out though. 

After the tour finished (did you catch anything our tour guide said? yeah, neither did I), we were greeted by a middle aged man who sauntered down the main staircase of the lobby, dressed in a black and white tux (of the 18-19th century, of course), and with a huge smile and optimism in his voice, asked us if we were ready to get our dance on. We were all so stunned by his initial appearance and how cool he looked, that I’m sure he could tell how eager we were to get out of our clothes and into those of centuries past. We followed him up the marble staircase and into a hall that had dancing shoes we needed to grab. After that, we split up into male and female dressing rooms, and I was immediately given a white t-shirt-like undershirt and a huge, white underdress thing that had circular wires so it poofed out (I cannot get more articulate than that, I’m sorry) to put on. I undressed, put on all the necessary underclothes, and then picked out a dress to put on over what I already had on (actually, Jenna picked my dress cause god knows I would have picked the ugliest one there). There was a woman in the fitting room to help zip us up and make us look presentable, and the second she zipped me up I definitely felt my chest tighten (at least it’s not a real corset, I told myself). I couldn’t help but think about the opening scene of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I told whoever was next to me how if I somehow fell into water wearing this dress, I, too, would sink as fast as Keira Knightly did. Oh, the struggles one faces as a princess... 

After I got all situated with my dress I put on white fancy-smancy gloves that went half way up my forearm, and our dance instructor helped me pick out a head piece. We walked down to the lobby one we were all finished, and, I think I speak for all the other girls when I write that you ACTUALLY felt like a princess once you reached the marble staircase. When I made my way down I was greeted with the sight of some of the guys, all dressed in their outfits, sitting and waiting for us to come down. The guys 
all looked like Napoleon (oh so dashing), and it was so funny and wonderful. We all squealed and remarked about how ridiculously awesome we looked. People had their cameras out in no time, and we were taking pictures left and right for at least the next 20 minutes. At one point I made a comment about how all the dresses and picture taking reminded me of prom, and my friend Sean said, “this is better than prom,” to which I agreed wholeheartedly. I loved how much the boys enjoyed themselves just as much, if not more, than the girls did. 

We were ushered into one of the palace halls that we actually went through in our tour, and we took more pictures in there for a while. Then, when our dance instructor came out with his booming voice, we were commanded to pair up and walk in a line to another open, circular room in which our real lesson was to take place. The next 45 minutes consisted of us giggling and shuffling about the room, trying to follow along with our dance instructor, who, bless him, was patient and took us through the moves step by step (yes, the dance lesson was conducted entirely in Russian). We ended up learning three dances, and it was a great time. We all switched partners and danced with everybody, even our lovely program coordinator Mike, and I’m pretty sure we can all safely say that our friendships with each other have gone up a few notches. Seriously. There’s a serious bond that forms when playing dress up as an adult is involved...

Overall, this excursion may have been my favorite so far. As anyone who has been within a mile radius of me knows, I suck at being a girl and dressing up, and looking pretty is not my forte. Little Liv would not have been excited in the least to dress up like a Russian princess. No way Jose. But this, oh my god this. I was elated, and you could tell that everybody else was too. I wholeheartedly believe that I had a great time because it was so obvious everybody else was too. There was such a positive energy and I don’t think any of us were really that nervous about what uncoordinated dancers we were.  I mean, does it really matter how you dance when you look like you owned a palace? I didn’t think so. 

Hot Hot Hot

Today is Women’s Day in Russia, and it seems to me that it’s turned out to be quite popular and widely celebrated. I bought my host mom some flowers, and she bought me a little box of chocolates. People are selling flowers on the streets, and every other person you pass on the street is carrying flowers. It almost seems that there are more flowers and gift giving on this holiday than on Valentines day. It makes me really happy that this holiday is celebrated as much as it is in this country (GIRL POWER). With that said, I’d like to send all my ladies some nice virtual flowers (and a big hug) from the motherland. <3

To celebrate women’s day (not really, we just kind of planned it randomly), me, Beryl, Fabi and Jackie decided to go to the banya. I’ve never been in any sauna before, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect and how I would react to it. We all wore bathing suits, but we were the only ones (we were going to stick out anyway, as usual). The banya was filled with mostly older, naked women, and at one point Beryl said, “I think I understand more about the human body now than I ever have...” I laughed nervously, agreed, and said that I wish I didn’t know. 

The banya consisted of two major sections: the actual hot room itself, and then another room filled with showers, tables with buckets on them, faucets, and a small pool filled with ice water (minus the ice). When you first walk into the banya (from here on out I will refer to the hot room as the banya), on your left there are wooden stairs/levels where some women were sitting or lying down. To the right there were more levels and a loft, where a flock of old women were beating and whipping each other and themselves with some sort of leafy branches... You could hear the slapping of the leaves and twigs on their bodies, and after a while the leaves accumulated on the wooden floorboards (well, the whole room is wooden). 

Walking into the banya was what I imagine walking into Mordor would be like. I took a few steps in, went up a level or two of left stairs/platform, only to find that it got SO much hotter as you went up, and then the next thing I know my neck felt prickly and stingy. Three seconds later it felt like my neck was being burned. It took me an additional few seconds before I realized, like a frickin’ vampire, that my silver necklace had gotten so hot so quickly that it was singing my neck. I got out of there as fast as I could, and took off my necklace and rings in the locker room. When I returned, we all sat down on the first level on towels, and proceeded to bake, sweat, and swelter. It only took a few minutes before my face must have turned beet red, and beads of sweat accumulated all over my body. It was definitely uncomfortable at first, but after a while you got used to breathing in such hot, somewhat constricting air, and you just kind of dealt with it. That is, until you just couldn’t even do that anymore. 

When you felt like you had sweated enough, you were supposed to go shower off, and if you wanted to after that, pour a bucket of cold water over your head or dunk in the small pool of freezing cold water. I rinsed off in the shower quickly, and then decided to submerge myself in the pool. To be straightforward, this pool was insanely cold. It must be as cold as the water in Maine is right now (after a dunk later on in our banya session as I was underwater for that one second or two my mind couldn’t help but wonder to the scene in the Titanic when Leo and Kate were floating on a raft or whatever... god that would suck). Despite all this, and the fact that I was always told as a kid not to go straight from a hot tub to a normal pool because it would stop my heart, I decided to go ahead with it. I took my weird croc-like sandals off, climbed up the slippery ladder and down a few steps on the other side before I figuratively crossed myself, said here goes nothing, and jumped in. The shock to my system, surprisingly, wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was all so fast and my body temperature was all so screwed up from the banya anyway that it probably didn’t know what to do with itself. Even so, I got out of there as fast as possible, and headed right back into the banya, where I sat down and felt the heat engulf my refreshed, cool skin. 

It’s hard to describe how it feels to repeat that process: sweat until you feel uncomfortable in the banya, rise off in the shower, jump into ice water, and then return back to the banya, but it was undoubtedly nice. There’s something that feels good about suffering in the heat voluntarily... I don’t know. What I can tell you though, is that I feel SO GREAT right now. My skin feels soft and while I am slightly sleepy and lacking energy, I feel pretty rejuvenated. I would definitely do it again (I hope we go back again; it was only like $10 for 2 hours), and the next time I go I will at least know what to expect. 

Okay, when I wrote this post a few days ago I originally had a large segment on how I felt about the events in Ukraine right here, but after thinking things through, I think it might be best to delete that part. 

Wait Till You See My Smile

I just found out that I got an internship at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard for the summer! The administrative director and I have been emailing back and forth since December, and we were finally able to have an interview this evening via Skype, along with two other members of the center, and she got back to me within a few hours saying that they would be happy to have me. My Russian professor Andrea was accepted into their very prestigious and competitive Fellows Program at the Davis Center for the 2013-14 academic year, and I don’t know exactly what she said to whom, but just like my fortune last summer with the UC Berkeley program, I owe another shred of my soul to this woman. Needless to say, I AM SO. HAPPY. There is such a relief that comes with knowing that I no longer have to figure out what to do with my summer. 

In other Russian news, I went to the Institution of Russian Literature (Pushkin’s House) on Tuesday with Jackie. The museum really only consists of 3 large rooms (a fourth was under renovation), and we were the only ones there. The rooms contained a nice combination of historical furniture, paintings, photographs, drafts/manuscripts, some sculptures, and a bunch of cool personal items from Russia’s most famous writers. For example, I saw Turgenev’s pen (and a lock of his hair), Dostoevsky’s coin pouch, Tolstoy’s boots and shirt, and there were even death masks of Pushkin and Tolstoy... Crazy! We also saw some drafts of War and Peace and Anna Karenina with Tolstoy’s markings in the margins. How unreal. 

Yesterday, on the walk to Smolny (the days are getting longer; the sun didn’t set until past 7 today I want to say...) I heard a helicopter fly over my head. No big deal, right? I’ve seen a few here before, but after watching it for a while, I noticed that the helicopter started to descend and eventually land on the English embankment right in front of the Bronze Horseman statue (I had a clear view from the bridge). I was beyond curious as to what the helicopter’s purpose for being there was, but by the time I crossed the English embankment myself, the helicopter took off again. I continued on my way to classes, perplexed and intrigued. 

Even though we have been advised to avoid any sort of crowd or protest here, my first reaction when I saw the helicopter land was whether or not I should walk to it and be late to class. You know how the Discovery, National Geographic, or Weather channels always show videos of freak storms? Usually tornados and hurricanes? And how there are always a few idiots who completely ignore all the evacuation warnings and decide to film what it’s like inside the eye of the storm? Well, that’s sort of how I feel about watching any form of political unrest here in Russia. Of course, I have no doubt in my mind that if I saw any form of trouble I would take off in the other direction, possibly screaming, as fast as I could, but what I REALLY want to do is get in the middle of it and take pictures. Let’s just hope I never have to be presented with such a situation... 

Kalinka

So, Maselnitsa. I don’t know too much about this traditional holiday, but what I do know is that it has pagan roots and that it's supposed to mark the end of winter. Maselnitsa, or Butter Week, also involves the mass consumption of blini, and during the weekend, there are carnival, fair-like celebrations all over the country. 

My host mom had been making blini all week, and I’ve been eating said blini all week, so I guess I’d technically been celebrating it even before we went to the carnival on Sunday.  We heard that there were some festivities going on at the Peter and Paul Fortress, so we met up there after lunch. After we left the metro station Gorkovskaya, we were met with crowds of people walking through the park, both on their way and heading back from the carnival. We passed by people of all ages, but there were a ton of kids. Once we got into the fortress, which is more or less filled with open courtyards, we could see different touristy booths and blini stands. But besides that though, there wasn’t a whole lot actually, which was disappointing. People crowded the lines from blini enough to dissuade me from wanting any, and the touristy booths had cheaper looking souvenirs. There were a few puppet shows going on, and a bunch of weird clowns on stilts walking around. There was also a small band of men and women dressed in traditional clothing, and they appeared to be providing the music for some old folk dance going on in the center of a crowd on a makeshift stage. I took a few pictures and watched the various families and people with what looked like caramelized fruit on a stick walk past me. 

We continued to stroll along the fortress, and not before long I found myself in a crowd in front of a big stage where 6-7 women, dressed in bright yellow and orange colors and caked in bad makeup, danced and sang traditional Russian songs. The beat was catchy, so I found a spot in the concert and watched. People all around me were clearly having a ball. When the group of women got done they were replaced by another group of men and women dressed in more traditional Russian clothing. The men wore tall, black fur hats and bouncy Aladin-looking pants with funky shoes, and the women wore dresses. They squated down to a level that made my knees ache and did some of those classic Russian kicking moves. At this point, my friends had fallen behind (or forward, I had lost them a while ago), and it was just me in the crowd. To my left a few groups of women had linked hands and started dancing. There was another random man bouncing up and down next to them with the jolliest look on his face. More people had linked hands and formed a dancing circle, and everybody was laughing and having a good time. I took pictures, enjoyed the music, and couldn’t help but laugh myself. Am I really in Russia? How did I get here? This is going to sound cheesy, but while I watched the concert and observed the people around me, I had one of those, how do I put this, “they’re-just-like-us!” moments. They have their silly dances. They have their traditional folk songs. They all celebrate things and they are raised knowing that grabbing some stranger’s hand to make a random dance circle is the thing to do on Maselnitsa. I couldn’t help but think about everything that is going on in Ukraine right know as I watched these people; the potential for a civil war is brewing not too far away from here and meanwhile, Russians are dancing and singing and celebrating their culture. It was all so... innocent, and as twisted as it was, it made me happy too. It made me wonder how we could hate or discriminate against a group of people, or declare war on them or treat Russia as the west has done over the centuries (it was all probably mostly deserved though, I will say), after you see these people in their element. I don’t know. Do I sound like John Smith from Pocahontas? Or Jake Sully from Avatar? I don’t mean to sound so naive or wise or whatever it is that I’m coming off as. I just, in as few words as possible, felt overwhelmed by how simple, in a way, people are and that war is stupid. That people who don’t consider people’s culture when they go to war are stupid. That there are so many obvious reasons why we should NOT be fighting each other. My god. 

That was beyond cheesy, I’m so sorry (but not really).

After watching the concert for a while, I found my friends. We all watched the concert for a little bit longer, and before we knew it, the people on stage worked their way through the crowd and started skipping around the crowd, grabbing random people’s hands to join in on the dance circle. Somehow, I got swept up into it all, and I found myself hand in hand with some random Russian women dressed as if she were straight out of a fairytale. The circle broke and another began, and this time I had a little girl with pink gloves hold my hand. She was blond, blue eyed, and she looked radiant. At one point I asked myself what in the world I was doing here. How did I end up here? At the beginning of March dancing in a circle with a bunch of Russians to celebrate some pagan holiday? It was mind boggling, but at many points during that dance I turned to my friends and said, “I’m so into this!” 

Okay, I gotta go. I’m off to a Pushkin museum, and I need to leave soonish, so I don’t have time to really edit this. Forgive my typos! 

A Lack of Colour

This is going to sound spoiled, but I hadn’t been to a museum or something along those lines in a while (at least it felt like it), so I decided that I wanted to try to go to Peterhof on Saturday. My week was stressful, and the idea of leaving the city, even if it was just to the suburbs of Petersburg, became increasingly more appealing as the week neared its end. Three guys from my program wanted to come too, so we all met around 10 am on Saturday at the metro to begin our journey to Peterhof. 

We took the metro down the red line, almost to the bottom, and from there we took a marshrutka, or minibus, to Peterhof. The drive took 50 minutes, but it went surprisingly well. Marshrutka drivers don’t have the best reputations for their smooth style, and after getting really car sick the day before, I freaked out more than I would have normally when I realized I left my dramamine in my other backpack. The marshrutka wasn’t that packed, however, and the seats faced forward this time, so thankfully I didn’t get nauseous at all. 

Unfortunately I don’t know that much about Peterhof, so you are spared 3 lengthy paragraphs filled with probably-pretty-boring information from me. What I do know is that it was a summer residence of the Tsars (the earlier ones in particular I believe), and it was built during Peter the Great’s time. A bunch of my other friends wanted to go to Peterhof too, but they wanted to wait until later in the spring when the trees were all in bloom and the famous fountains were working. I thought about how that would probably be the better option, but I really just wanted an excursion right then and there. 

The drive to Peterhof was nice and... eye opening. Smolny is located pretty much in the city center, and I’m lucky to live right on the Neva at a diagonal from Winter Palace. My point is that most of the time I’ve spent here in Petersburg has been mainly in the really nice areas. It’s not to say that the areas outside the city aren’t nice, but you could definitely tell, even once we left the metro, that less attention has been paid to the surrounding areas of the city. I will mention that Saturday was cloudy and grey, so that definitely added to the whole gloom of it all, but lets just say I felt relieved to make it back home, to familiar places with all the lights and palaces and cobblestone streets and cafes and bars everywhere. 

There were houses spread out throughout the drive, but the buildings we passed on the way there along the highways were usually giant apartment buildings. Some buildings looked random and out of place next to each other (an attempt by some architect or engineer to spice up the edge of the city perhaps?), but I still appreciated seeing what other parts of Russia looked like. There were also lots of Lenin/other communist related statues/monuments (hammer and sickles galore). 

One last thing I will say about the suburbs - at one point during the drive I wondered what all this looked like before communism in Russia. Was it all forest? The occasional wooden house in the middle of the field? These apartment complexes don’t look THAT old... I don’t know, it amazes me to think about how much was accomplished during the Soviet Union (ohhh it hurts to commend “communism”). Oh communism, you may have starved and murdered millions of people, but you weren’t messing around. You have a lot to show for it! 

Enough of that madness. When we first walked onto the Peterhof grounds, it felt like a ghost town. The naked trees were all planted in symmetrical, geometric patterns on the sides, and the fountains looked lifeless and sad without any water, but boards and tubing instead twisting about in the pools. The palace, a long, light yellow rectangle, stood straight ahead with white church like towers on either end. There were golden onion domes, of course, with golden double headed eagles to complete them. We walked up to the fountains and past the rows of trees before we ended up at the back of the palace. 

The back of the palace, which faces out to the Gulf of Finland, is actually more like the front of the palace. The back of the palace is still grand and impressive, but the back is so much more Tsar-like. You realize once you get behind the palace that it is located at the top of a hill. You walk along the back patio and overlook a forest with a long canal running right up through the middle. There are so many stairs and steps you have to walk down to get to the woods, but it doesn’t take long. It kind of made me feel like I was walking down the steps of a Greek amphitheater, but the view of the trees and of the gardens are still really pretty, despite it being only the beginning of March. We saw more people as the day went on, but for the most part it was not busy at Peterhof. We walked past the fountains and took pictures of the golden statues, which stand out and shine brightly, for the contrast between the gold and the grey winter colors everywhere else is striking. 

We continued to walk along the canal, through the trees and over the small bridges, until we reached the ocean. We walked off the path and onto the “beach” there, where we walked onto the ice and skidded and slid around in our boots for a little bit. The view out onto the Finnish Gulf is vast and sort of uninteresting, seeing that it was just one giant eye-full of grey fog. It made me a little claustraphobic, in a way, to look out into the Gulf. There was nothing but a big cargo ship out in the distance; you couldn’t see anything else. It felt like the world might as well have ended at that point. Looking out into the distance was yet another reminder that I’m a LONG way away from home, and at this point, that realization still makes a strong impression. 

We all started to get cold shortly after, so we headed back towards the palace. We walked along some paths, took more pictures of random fountains and garden structures, and then had a fun run-in with a squirrel that had really large, tall, cone-like ears. I have never seen a squirrel like that before, and boy did this little guy have a personality. He came right up to us, and he definitely knew that we were enjoying him. He started climbing up a nearby tree, showing off, and at one point I swore he was going to jump onto my friend Will’s jacket when Will walked up to the branch the squirrel was on with his hand extended. 

Ohh, nature. It was really nice to walk through trees and see grass, even though it was pretty brown and lackluster. When we walked back up the stairs to the palace, we bought tickets to go inside. Just like all the other palaces I’ve been to here, this one was covered in gold. More naked statues. More religious depictions on the ceilings. But it was still very cool. This palace was a lot smaller than the other one’s I’ve visited thus far, but there were some unique rooms. There was one full of mirrors, and because the room was a little smaller in size and the lights were slightly dimmed, the reflections of the gold totally electrified the room. 

There was room where the walls were made up of identically-sized portraits. They were of both men and women, and they kind of all looked the same. They looked like they were painted by Johannes Vermeer, the guy who did the Girl with the Pearl Earring. And then there was another room that had the comfiest looking, light blue L-shaped bed. Needless to say, I WANT ONE. 

We continued to walk past more rooms filled with fancy china, a few rooms with Chinese themes, a Tsar’s study with a german-made alarm clock from the 18th century, and more bedrooms and other empty rooms that make you wonder what they’re function was when people actually lived in the palace for real. When we had seen it all, we said that we’d probably come back here during the spring, and decided to head back home. I was back at the apartment (my host parents were at the dacha) eating my lunch by 3:45 pm. 

Because I had a good chunk of the afternoon left, I decided to go to the gym. And then my food coma set in, so then I decided to take a nap instead. And then instead of taking a nap, I decided to watch some House of Cards, and so on and so forth. Before I knew it, it was time to go out. A few of us went to a bar not too far from Smolny and played the card game called “President.” It was fun and relaxing, but I was dog tired from everything going on in these past few days that I made it home before midnight. 

Speaking of fatigue, I need to try and go to bed early tonight. I didn’t even get to write about what I did today for Maselnitsa, but I will write about that soon! Until next time.