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...
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