Week 5

Well classes are getting harder in both school. In business class my teacher is crazy and I don't know how I am graded. gave my first presentation on "Cross Cultural Interpretation of Advertisements." It went well but the teacher didn't like the fact that I didn't reference the creator of the concept (even though its more of a strategy that people should just follow) and took off points.

I got so angry about the presentation that I decided to walk in a straight line for an hour or so. It was actually quite relaxing. I took pictures of run down churches and found a cute little children store. Went inside and bought some tiny bed time story books (8 rubles for each). I am planning on reading them and hopefully learning some new vocabulary. After walking for awhile I hit a metro station. How fantastic is that. Walk in a straight line long enough and you can go back home by the metro instead of retracing your steps. Of course it was too early for that so I kept on walking in a straight line and ran into a friend. Also something amazing about St. Pete. It is like the smallest big city ever. You run into people you know all the time! So we decide to talk over tea (well actually he had coke and I didn't drink anything, but that just sounded so much better). Its times like that, that I realize just how stupid getting upset about grades are. If i fail academically I will excel mentally here. Its just a trade-off I am going to have to face soon enough. I mean obviously I won't fail academically because that's impossible for me, I might just care less about my grades. That is quite a step up to what most people are used to.

So anyways Russian classes are getting hard. Well actually they are easy in the sense of vocabulary and concepts but the whole class is in Russian so its like you learn more through the explanation than the work itself. Because I think slow in general I get yelled at here. I am with freaking Chinese people, obviously I am slower than them. So my teachers are always like speeding me up and tell me what to say because I am going so slow. I am thinking about actually talking to them about it. I really don't want to be correct or be told what to say. I want to actually think. I am not going to learn the answers if things are spoon fed to me.

I went to Ikea on Friday. It was my first time. Jessica needed some things for the dorm, now that she had clothes and all. It is quite an interesting place. I don't think there is anything better than finding stuff animals and throwing them at people. I really should not be brought anywhere. I am just too much of a child. I also played with the little kids toys. What else am I going to do, stare at things I can't buy? So instead I played with everything. Even cooler, the bus that takes you to Ikea is free. There is nothing in the world that will brighten up a students day than free transportation.
The weekend was a nice one. On Saturday I went to Kunstkamera Museum. It is actually the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The whole concept is quite interesting. You go through the history of people in all different parts of the world. There are wood cutouts (that are quite realistic) of the people and actual stuff from the culture like jewelry and trinkets. That part of the museum was amazing. The other part was devoted to Peter the Great's collection of oddities. Ok that sounds alright. but what is an oddity? Well apparently it is malformed fetus. Seriously, there are embombed fetuses from 300 years ago. Peter decided that instead of people shunning the malformed they should embrace it. Well I am obviously all for that but to embomb a two headed fetus or the cut head of a fetus or a limbless fetus, is kinda just wrong. The scientist behind all the embombings (Fredrick Ruysch) was so good at it that no one, not even know, can compete against him. Well this also doesn't help the situation. I mean these 300 year old fetuses were so realistic (well obviously because they are) that they didn't looked aged. Not at all, the skin was still the same tint is was 300 years prior, the umbilical cords were all attached, and I think there were still even fingernail. I started to get a headache going through this part of the museum. It might have been because I was surrounded by embombing fluids or embombed bodies. I am not quite sure which one is worse.

Sunday I went to the Hermitage. Sergei gave us a tour of some of the hermitage, and by that I mean that I might have seen 1/1000 of the museum. They do say it will take you 11 years to see every room in the museum. So of course we saw the highlights. I saw some Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Leonardo Da vinci, and some others. Obviously, being me, I wasn't completely taking aback by these panting. I have seen them all before in books. What excited me the more were the ceilings and chandeliers in each room. The actual rooms themselves were just fantastic. There were golden ceiling, three-dimensional ceiling, ceilings with paintings in the middle, and ceilings with sculpture. Each room was a different color, different feeling, different emotion. The throne rooms seemed majestic, while some of the other rooms seemed simple and almost had a carefree-ness to them. In these rooms you could relax and just contemplate your entire existence. Each place you walk into had a different story, weather it was the actual painting telling the story like Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son or the or the room like the big throne room. I felt like I was in a different world and it was amazing.

It of course help that Sergei is brilliant. Each room we went into, each painting we saw, he knew something about it. He analyzed The Return of the Prodigal Son telling us about each and every crevice of the painting. He walked us through rooms and knew stories about the rooms, and each sculptures. Even when I asked questions like "are these frame original?" he had the answer to it and then went back to it when the frames were original. My brain is still overloaded with all the information I got on my 2 hour tour. his knowledge, by far, made my first (and not last) visit to the Hermitage that much better. Best thing about the hermitage: it is free for my to explore. I wonder what I am going to be doing on a cold winter day?

I also took quite a few pictures. It is funny when you go into a museum and you see just how much the workers don't care about their job. They sit in chairs staring aimlessly at nothing. Obviously, no one should be taking a picture of Leonardo Da vinci's work. It is bad for the painting (or at least I have been told that). Poor paintings!

I am getting closer with the host family. The day after I went to the Ikea store, Luda got the 2010 catalog. Random fact: Ikea has been in Russia for 10 years. well anyways she was telling me just how different life is now than in the soviet union. It is really interesting hearing about what the soviet union was like from people that actually have been in it. We also just kinda crack jokes and talk about nothing. I am starting to stay up later with them. The last couple of days I went to my room at 11pm. I am usually with them from 8 till like 11 now. I am definitely understanding more but I still can't explain much. Everyone should be proud of me. I explained what a mortgage was to Igor yesterday AND he understood. Mind you it was in the simplest of terms, but still I explained something confusing in Russian!!!!! I am very proud of myself!

Random fact of the day: the seasons (fall, spring etc.) start of the first of the month not at the end like we have it. So fall didn't start on the 22nd this year but the 1st of September. There are now no arguments about what season you are born in. It is quite nice.

Just alot of nothing

So this is me thinking all the way back to last week. Let me first mention how much I love my host family. Igor went to the Dasha (it is just some random house that all Russians have outside of the main city). He went to go pick flower and mushroom. The flowers were gorgeous. They were these fuchsia lily like things. The mushrooms were delicious. I finally have realized what people mean when the say that Russia has amazing mushroom. I have yet to get tired of them. So for every day this week I had mushroom soup. Nothing is better than some good mushroom soup!

Besides that last week I didn't really do much. I went to class, chillaxed, you know the usual. One Friday I decided to explore around St. Petersburg University. It is nice, a little boring. I bough a cheap umbrella, tried to get used to my surroundings, you know the usual.

Jessica finally got her luggage that has been in storage for 3ish weeks. So the full story: its all corrupt. It all started in Canada where she decided to send, by cargo, her luggage through British Airways. Before going to Russia, she decided to backpack Europe and couldn't lug around all her stuff, especially because she is a goalie in hockey and their equipment is quite heavy and extravagant. In Canada the cargo man told her all she needed to do was pay a little fee and pick up her luggage at the airport. Seems simple enough...well it isn't. The day she arrive in Russia they told her the cargo place was closed and she couldn't pick up anything. Then she went numerous times after that and no one knew where her cargo was. Each person told her to go to a different person and the cargo place told her she couldn't go to them unless she paid but no one knew where to pay. Twice, I went with her to the airport and no one knew anything. Her mother got involved in Canada and called up the original cargo man that mailed it out. He wasn't any help. Also, she involved the consulate in Russia and Canada. They tried to help. We also went to the information office at British Airways in the airport. This is when they first told us that she needs to pay a large lump sum and that she needs to also pay for a customs broker. Jessica knew nothing of this. On top of all this, custom brokers only work with commercial stuff. Her luggage was not commercial, it was her stuff, so no one wanted to help her. So once again for a week she was told to go to one office to the next. She called every possible consulate and then they came up with a explanation. They pretty much told her she had to pay 1500 dollars and pick up her cargo and each day she kept it there she has to pay more money. The issue still stood though: where was her luggage? So finally Sergei came back from his trip and they went to the airport. Things were accomplished. She went to offices she never even heard about and got her luggage and payed a sketch man 1600 dollars (so sketch he wrote out her receipt by hand and drove a BMW). Of course this money was meant for her semester stay in Russia so now she is broke, but isn't cold. What a wonderful payoff. Only in Russia can these things happen.

The weekend wasn't bad. Saturday Jessica and I just walked around doing nothing. I went to McDonalds! I had fries and ice cream (Hannah recommended the 50 cent ice cream so I had to get it). I also got ketchup. Can anyone explain to me the concept of paying for condiments. I don't want to pay 50 cents for ketchup! am I really that pampered in the US? Jessica got free condiments with her chicken fingers. Once again this vegetarian hatred motif arises. She got sweet and sour sauce, or I think it was. I translated to Acid Sweet Sauce. It was delicious.

Sunday we went to Pushkin. Of course I am never notified about anything and thought it actually had something to do with Pushkin, the poet. Well apparently not. It is a town named after him. In this wonderful town, about a 20 minute bus ride from St. Pete, is a castle.

Ok lets start off with the ride there. We took the metro to some part of Russia and then ate at Pizza Hut. I really need to stop telling you people where I eat but I just had to mention that there are Pizza Huts in Russia. It was delicious and cheap. During our (me and Jessica) whole dinner they played crappy English music. I am talking about Hanson and Spice Girls here. No seriously, we walked in and Mmmbop was playing!

So then we take the bus ride there in one of the miniature buses and there were not enough seats so I sat on Jessica's lap. I think i damaged her. During the whole ride I listened to these three Russian boys talk. It was hilarious, at one point this guy started singing Billy Jean and then Sexy Back. I literally think it made my day!

Pushkin is wonderful. It is this small quaint town with a garden in it. Of course in the garden stood the castle. We decide to walk around before looking at the castle. Well this garden is HUGE. I am talking it has a map like the one you get (free) at Epcot. It wasn't as extravagant as Peterhof but it was just wonderful to be in, very green and fresh. It is much greener than Peterhof and the random building are interesting to say the least. There is a Chinese garden apparently where two Chinese like buildings stand. It is weird being in Russia and seeing a red hut like building, especially when at the time you don't know that you are in a place called the Chinese Garden. We then venture back to the castle to find a huge line waiting to get in. Of course the line doesn't move for like 15 minutes so we decided not to go in. Apparently that is where the beauty is though. The infrastructure, painting, sculpture, etc. are actually what attracts an audience. I will go back there and explore the inside.

After exploring the garden we decided to explore the town, find anything worth finding. Of course I see a flee market and decided we should walk through. No such a good idea. Every other stand was a honey stand and there were bees EVERYWHERE. they were on the honey, inside the honey, in the air, on people, etc. It was like death trap for people allergic to bees (ironically Jessica is one of them).

Instead of being cramped up in a bus again we decided to find the train station. So it took us an hour to find it and asking like 20 Russians where it is. This is how Russians explain directions to you: they point in the general direction. I mean if you angle your arm just right I will know exactly where to go...right. So finally we ask the right person and we walk another 15 minutes. God were my legs hurting by then. The train station is not understandable, well it is so confusing that we decided not to even take it. Maybe next time!

Well that was me whole week! Nothing too interesting

Few Notes
-I love my host family more and more each and every day. I still feel bad for them though. I am such an inept American trying trying to learn, but I am getting better. My comprehension is getting fairly better. I think I comprehend my host family more though because I know what they are thinking, listening to my Russian teacher is a little harder. I usually just blankly stare at them. Or I do know what is going on but I am still processing it, and then they explain it in simpler terms because they think I don't understand. I really hate that.

There are like random silent pauses when I don't understand something the host family says. Its like the worse awkward pauses ever and I can't do anything about it because I want to learn. I am also unintentionally teaching them English. How cute is that. I don't know when I helped him, but Igor took out one of his notebooks on English and started to read to me. Its really funny when they try to distinguish the difference between vowels. Beeeech (beach)...Biiiitch. I giggled.

-Did you know that the Canadian consulate in Russia is actually within the Australian consulate. Apparently no Canadians go to Russia for them to have a separate consulate...but isn't is also a commonwealth of England? random I know.

That is all for now

Weekend Fun

Well my Friday definitely was not a weekend, however I did skip class. Instead I needed to register for my visa extension/multi-entry visa.

Let me explain registration as best I can. Its like making a whole pie in an easy bake oven. Nothing gets accomplished. We 1) you need to say you are registering. This is when you get a spravka (or document paper) saying you are in the process of registering. 2) about two days later you go back to the same people to receive a paper that ironically you filled out to get your spravka. This paper allows you to start your visa extension paperwork. 3) you need to prepare your visa extension paperwork. Now this is painful because each place you go to you are told different things. Some say you need photos, others say you need matted photos, even others say you need 4 or 5. Also, each year St. Petersburg University adds a piece of paper to the list, but this is an invisible list because you don't know about this piece of paper. 4) you give the babooshka's your paperwork and they take your passport. 5) you wait a week to get back your passport and a month to get your visa extension. Ironically enough, if you wait until exactly a month and give them your paperwork they cannot promise you that you will get your visa in time.

So where am I in this mess. on step 2. yes I have been here for 2 weeks and I am on step 2. Why it took me so long? well thats because everything is just so disorganized. The place that you get all this work done changes every like 2 days, it could be buildings it could be rooms. So I got my spravka on Thursday(ish) the week before. I couldn't go on monday to get the paperwork back so I waited till Tuesday. I wait in line (maybe 2 hour) and the babooshkas tell me that they aren't do that paperwork today. Mind you it isn't paperwork, it is receiving a piece of paper you filled out. So i wait till Friday to do it attempt getting this paper again. I wait in the same line for about an hour to be told that I am in the wrong line. So I wait again in another line for an hour and I get everything done. It took all of 5 minutes.

Wish me luck on step 3!



Saturday
Saturday was pretty much amazing. Jessica and I decided to go to Peterhof. It was a bright sunny day, the birds were chirping, the wind was mild, it was just perfect. We decide to take the boat to Peterhof and come across a couple and their children. They are from Wellington, New Zealand (and I am from Wellington, FL, how wonderful). They were just on a 3 week vacay. We tried to help them out a little, tell them what to do and such because they spoke no Russian. But the one thing we were all confused about were the boat tickets. When paying for the ticket there were two prices 350 rubles or 400 rubles. We payed 400 so we thought that meant we payed round trip. But still, we weren't sure....

So Peterhof, gorgeous. I really can't explain it besides showing pictures. It HUGE. Me and Jessica decided not to go inside the building and just tour the outside. We had plans later that day for a hockey game and we knew the inside was going to be packed.

The outside was amazing. I saw swans, squirrels, and flowers galore. The random thing I noticed was the fascination with water. There were a couple of random places that to get by you needed to get wet. I don't understand why anyone doesn't see this as human torture. Yes it is like 60(ish) degrees outside and the sun is shining but there is still a breeze.

I saw a load of weddings as well. I think I finished at counting 7 maybe 8 weddings. I tried to take pictures, but I had to be a stalker so my pictures all came out bad.

This is where I finished the ticket story. So Jessica and I are still under the assumption that our trip is round trip so we wait for the boat starting at 2:30. We need to be at the arena by 4, because her coach (she is on a Woman's Hockey team here) had our tickets. That gave us plenty of time to go across town. Well we were also under the assumption that, like North America, everything came on the half hour or hour. WRONG. so we watch other people go on different boats from different company while we wait for ours. It doesn't show up. It eventually shows up at 3:15 and we wait in line to be told that our ticket was only one way. We waited, and saw, 4 other boats depart to find out we could have been on them. So we buy our tickets and go on a different boat. The boat ride took about a half an hour and we were still needed to take 2 metros, 4 stops to get to the arena. We were screwed.

So Jessica texts her coach (in Russian) to tell him we would be late. It worked out in the end and we wind up meeting up with the coach later. We payed him 100 rubles (or 3 dollars) for professional hockey game tickets. Yes 3 dollars!

The game was St. Pete Vs Belarus. Of course St. Pete won! ...and of course I wasn't paying attention. I was too busy taking pictures. It is kinda amazing how fast hockey games go. I am so used to (American) football games. They take like 4 hours, the timer stops like 40 times, and there are like a 5 time outs. Nope, none of that in hockey. There are two breaks, the timer rarely stops, and I don't think there are any time outs.

Random things in Russian hockey: Cheerleaders, I don't believe they are in North American hockey. Yes they cheer and have pom-poms. They also look just as skank-a-licious as in American. I would describe them as the winter version of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. They have have short skirts and boots on. There are also random choirs, and by that I mean people that clap together. They start random clapping songs and scream a lot. When i looked at them towards the end of the game I notice that all the men were shirtless. Mind you, professional hockey games here are in heated arenas, but still. Why are there people making up clapping songs and why are they not wearing clothes? Also the player are nicer the each other. There isn't much contact like you see in the movies and they shake hands at the end of the game. I was very impressed.

So after the hockey game we (Jessica Brian and I) had plans to go clubbing. Of course they fell thru, when do they not. The issue was this: the metro closes at 12 and the dorms close at 1. Yes you cannot go in or outside the dorms after 1. You are locked. So what we decided to do was play poker with kopecks in the dorm. I had to sleep over because it was past 1 when we finished.

The dorm...boy am I lucky. How do I explain the dorms. They are disgusting. The beds are such bad quality that they make noises every time you move, and I am not talking about little squeaks. I am talking about like loud obnoxious squeaks that you get woken up every time someone moves. The insulation in the dorms also sucks. The windows look like they are molding and it is always cold. Whereas, in my room it is wonderful. My bed doesn't make noise, I am always warm, and my room isn't molding are forming its own little army of cockroaches. Boy am I happy.

Sunday
I didn't really do much. I went with Jessica to another hockey game. This time is was her team vs. an 11 year old boys team. You see she is on the only woman's hockey team in all of St. Pete so they can only go against men. Why they were 11 is beyond me but boy was it cute. The girl (who were of all different ages) towered over these prepubescent boys. The goalie, i am not kidding you, was like 3 feet.

The sad part was that the girls lost. The boys were heavily funded. The girls team had on all different types of skates, clothes, and their equipment wasn't all that good. The boys were all uniformed and had on nicer stuff. With that in mind they probably also have better coaches and their parents probably ingrain in their heads that they much be the best.

This game, ironically was also longer than the professional one, or it felt that way. It lasted like 2 hours with 2 breaks. You could tell that the girls were getting tired. The goalie was almost dead. She was working a lot harder than anyone else because the puck was always by her. The girls only scored one point whereas the boys scored like 16. I would be dead too!

Jessica also didn't play so we were together talking the whole time. She still doesn't have her equipment because it is still in the cargo area. I will give the whole story once it unravels. But that was my weekend. very fun filled!

What I have notice

Pregnant Women
For a county dealing with underpopulation, there sure are a lot of pregnant woman. Mind you, every single one of them is like 8 or 9 months pregnant. I wonder why. I bet you that more than half of the Russian Population has birthdays in July, August, September, and October.

Driving
Of course driving sucks here, but that is a subject statement. Russian drivers are so bad that they know how to get out of any mess unharmed. In that regards, aren't they the best drivers. I mean just the other day I saw a little tiny car between two buses going into another bus and swerved out of danger. Also drivers here love to drive right in front or behind you. I don't see how they can miss a person every time. There is usually only like inches between. Seriously scary.
You want to know what is scarier: Bus-train things. They are like buses on train track. Of course Russian engineers decided to put these said train tracks on the same path that walkers walk. Of course because these are bus-train thingys they do stop but that is besides the point. When you wait for the light to turn green on the sidewalk you don't want to die because you are on the tracks of a train.

Russian People
Things have changed big time. I am in St. Petersburg and am more European but OMG there are African Americans. Yes, I see one at least once a day. It is quite exciting actually. I still don't know if they are Europeans visiting Russia or Soviet Union mechanics sent from Africa. I will keep you updated once I talk to one.
Also, just the other day I was in the metro and there was quite an interesting group of people. One guy was all goth wearing 4 inch high boots with like a bazillion buckles dressed in all black. Right next him was a ghetto couple. The girl (who was a white Russian) had cornrows and the guy was wearing a do-rag. I am no joking here. Bet you didn't expect that huh?
Also women are much more friendlier with each other. It is really hard to find lesbians in Russia because all women are holding hand. Also, they kiss each other all the time. It is quite interesting really. A culture that we, as Americans, define as tough, serious, and emotionless shows more emotion to each other than even us. There is also a lot of PDA. I mean maybe I just think it is a lot because I have the emotionless stereotype but everywhere I look there are men on top of their woman (maybe it is because Russian men are like the luckiest men when it comes to attractive women). It reminds me of high school with that couple that just can't stop making out in front of your locker.

Random Fact: Russian weather is just like Florida weather. It is raining one day and so sunny your eyes hurt the next. I am starting to get very annoyed when my plans get stalled because of rain!

CLASSES!

Class 1

SO I am still in this I must go to GSOM classes but can't because I haven't registered dilemma. To top it all off I have classes at St. Pete at the same time. I already missed day one because I had to go to that apt. at 10:30, and the school warns you about missing classes. If you miss too many you are departed. I don't want to be departed! So anyways I go to the internet cafe in the morning and find out that I still have no e-mail. I leave completely petrified for my existence and go to straight to Vladim again. Of course it is 30 minutes before class starts and Vladim is in a meeting with someone else. Thankfully someone is waiting for him too. I look at her and smile and she smiles back, instantly I know she isn't Russian so I start to talk to her. Her name is Kikki (I think that is her legit name) and she is from Denmark. AWESOME! Anyways she is in the same predicament as me. About 10 minutes before class starts we both see Vladim and he tells us not to worry and tells me that the IT guy is AWOL and hasn't done anything. So I am allowed in class. YEY!
Class number 1: OMG. GSOM classes are 6 hours, once a week, for like 2 months (and another 2 classes the next 2 months). Yes you heard me correct, SIX hours. That’s like 2 6-9s in a row. I do get 2, 45 minute breaks, but that is like human torture. So we start off class by introducing ourselves. There are 10 maybe 15 Russians in my class. They all speak amazing English; yes my business classes are in English. Then there is also about 7 or so Foreigners. They come from all over the world like Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, etc. Yes, I am the only person in the class whose first language is English. An English class and I’m the only one that is English. How hilarious.
Well class goes well. I learn nothing. Yes 5 hours (because we left early) and I learned nothing about the subject-International Business Strategies. Hmmmmm, let’s hope this doesn't happen again. First he makes us explain Internationalization (which isn't globalization ) and doesn't even define it himself, so now I don't know anything about internationalization but must talk about. Then, after the break, he makes us get into groups of 3 and make an oral presentation about two competing global businesses, and of course he already has decided on these companies. My group gets Caterpillar and Kamatu (construction machine companies). I don't know about you, but does anyone know about Kamatu? Thankfully, the Russian in my group (I am paired with a Finish girl and a Russian boy) worked for Caterpillar for 2 years so he knows everything about them. He, however, doesn't know anything about Kamatu. So He talks for a couple minutes giving us all this information we need and then goes into his own world. And by that I mean he takes little pieces of paper (and there are like 20) and starts making Origami swans. No joke, in like 10 minutes he make 6 swans. So you know I am with some crazy guy. It all goes well, and my group gets out alive.
Unfortunately I didn't get to the best part. With limited internet access, I must give an individual oral presentation about a business strategy, 6 group presentations analyzing cases, and one group project making a 30 page case on a company. Wish me luck.


Class two.
Yey it’s my first day of Russian language class! I finally go to St. Petersburg University. I have already befriended the Scottish people in my class. Surprisingly one is actually a Brit and one is from Boston. Yes, out of 3 people that go to Edinburgh one is actually from there. Beside that there are like 10 people from Taiwan. They are all nice and apparently speak English.
I have three classes a week, 4 hours each. Tuesday is Conversation, Thursday is Grammar and Friday is Grammar writing and it is all in Russian. My first class was Grammar. Not as bad as I thought, but still quite painful, with my poor vocabulary and all. The teacher, Katya I think, is the cutest teacher ever. She is always smiling, yes shocking again, and pretty much reminds me of a preschool teacher. And with all due respect, I am in preschool again. The whole class is straight repetition. If I don't get something the first time, and trust me I don't, I get it the second time. And by the time the question gets to me I know what is going on. Also I don't have to worry too much about screwing up because everyone does it. I mean I am in a room full of people from Taiwan. Do you want to know how hilarious their Russian accents are? Too cute!
So either Class one day or Class two day, my day are getting screwed up, I went with Jessica to get soy milk. You see she is allergic to milk, not ice cream or cheese, just milk (because it is pure or something like that). Anyways it is very hard to find soy milk in Russia so we have to go to scary faraway places in St. Pete to find it or at least find their lack of it. So there is this one place Carousel that is like a big food market and is in god knows where St. Pete. So we get off at the nearest exist and it is nowhere to be found. We walk, no joke, 30 minutes along the highway to get to it. My legs are dying, or better yet, my ankles are falling apart by the time we reach the market. So we look around for a little bit and find nothing. Turns out they don't have it. Then we go to a store nearby, and again turns out they don't have it. Now Jessica is upset (she has been backpacking Europe for 5 week without soy milk) and I am broken. I mean in the legit term. The next day I find out I have Achilles Tendentious! Boy does my ankle want to kill me!
Random Fact:: Caterpillar has this marketing scheme in which they promise you that if your machine breaks down and you need a part they will ship it to you within 24 hours. So if you break down in Timbuktu you can get a new part in 24 hours. How freaking amazing is that?

Register or DIE

Registration, registration, registration! Have you ever heard someone tell you that Russians make everything impossible and if possible as painful as possible? Well I have been hit with this realization quite hard. Registration at St. Petersburg University is like pulling teeth and I am not just talking about any teeth. I am talking about strong healthy teeth that will not budge. You have to give the same information about 100 times to like 20 different departments and no department knows the information from the other department. Even worse, you have to register with the police department to take classes at the school. Sounds simple enough, sign some papers talk to some people, and that is about it. Well no. the department at St. Pete that does this is open only for two hours a day and about 100 people need to get registered. I know this because Sergei, Jessica and I went and signed up to register and we were number 101 and 102. There is no way that this place, in 2 hours, can see 100 people and you HAVE to sign up to stay in school. Thank god for Sergei! He called up a few people who called up a few more people that made an appointment for us. Our apt. was the next day at 10:30 (making us miss out first day of class). Well that was wonderful but also not the most painful part. The paper you have to give to this said department to register with the police is impossible. You see it is so impossible that SRAS does not even know how to fill it out correctly. Somehow we got lucky again. A wonderful Russian man, some dean of some international department, took the papers from us and typed up all the information.
On top of this dramatic experience, we needed to take a test and sign up for classes. The test wasn't all that bad. It was 101 multiple choice question and we had an hour to do them. The questions were hard, I knew what was going on and what was being asked, it was just remembering the set up and all the rules that got me. I scored average. Jessica scored quite high. And the sad part, Jessica only had a year of Russian and then took a year off to save up enough money to go to Russia. I have had 2 years of Russian back to back. I feel inept. But this is also her third language. She is fluent in French because she is from Canada. I got put into a class with 3 people from Edinburgh, Scotland and like a bizillian people from Korea. Well like 10, but that is like a lot of Koreans.
So we have all the information we need and we go to the appointment at 10:30. No such luck, no one knows what is going on. We ask some nice young looking lady that we were sent here to get paperwork done. She says that we have to wait till 2 (when they start registration for everyone) and we were like no we have an appointment. This was all in English mind you. The lady stares at us and says “I am not an English translator, I am a French translator” and gives us the death stare. We run out of the room in complete and total fear. Mind you Jessica is beyond fluent in French, but we were still scared for our life and were alone. Sergei did not come with us. So we call us Sergei right away and he calls like a thousand people and then calls us back and we get seen. NO it doesn't end there. Now we need to have the correct information that the nice Russian man typed up for us the day beforehand. Nope, epic fail. I had the wrong date on something and Jessica has the wrong last name. Then we leave to redue all the paperwork by hand, and again we messed up on something and had to repeat. Finally, we get everything correct. Registration is complete, at. St. Pete University.
My registration process did not end there. Nope, I had to also register for school number 2, Graduate School of Management (GSOM). I already saw the dean with Sergei the day before (when we started the whole registration process) and was told what to do. He told me to look at my time table (like the hell I know what that is) and see when my classes were later that day. I didn't go back to GSOM because I was stuck at St. Pete dealing with them. So the next day I went back after the 10:30 appt. and talk with Vladim the Dean of exchange students (he speaks English-YEY). I get my student pass, which is an electronic card that I must swipe to get in AND out of the building (why out is beyond me, if you enter the building then obviously you are important enough to exit as well). Well anyways I get that and am told that I must wait for an e-mail telling me my username and password to register for classes and use their FREE computers whenever I want. Well after Jessica and I finish everything we have to do that day, and it is later in the evening, I go to the internet cafe to get my username and password. FAIL. I have NOTHING. I don't know what to do. I have to register that day because my classes start the next day! AHHHHH so I am completely freaking out like I always do and e-mail Vladim. He tells me not to worry, but I must be registered to go to class.
Random Fact: Escalators in Russia are some of the steepest ones in the world. They average 15 stories and they are building a new one that will go down 30 stories. Talk about a long fall!

Getting to Know you, getting to feel free and easy

St. Petersburg is not like the US. Although we have historical cities, like Washington DC and parts of New York, we do not have HISTORY. St. Petersburg has stories of kings and queens, war and peace, communistic rule and democratic (?) rule. In the heart of St. Pete it feels like you are frozen in time (ironically due to the Soviet Union ignoring the city for many years). I cannot begin to explain the beauty. Sergei, my amazing tour guide, walked me and another girl in the SRAS program, Jessica, through most of St. Pete today. Sergei is a teacher (I believe) from Russia that speaks perfect English. He also is amazingly knowledgeable about the city. Unfortunately, it was raining all day and was very gloomy out.
During our amazing tour we didn't go inside many building. As soon as me and Jessica get our student cards we can go to most places for free or for very little. Because of this Sergei just told us to wait a little before visiting the tourist attractions. We did, however, walk into one church. So I go inside this church and am completely awestruck. The building was just magnificent. There was marble everywhere, high ceilings, a balcony where the chorus sings, and painting galore. According to Sergei, the church is best known for have a famous prince/general buried there, or something like that. So while my mouth is agape and I can't even think straight I look to my left and there is a wedding going on. We walked into a wedding, what better way for me to start off my Russian experience with my favorite thing in the world. So we go outside after listening to the chorus and stumble upon two more couples that just got married. Am I lucky or what? The cutest thing of this whole experience was when Jessica, and Sergei, and I were looking at the Church of Spilt Blood. As we were just staring at its magnificence I see these people dressed up in the corner of my eye and just have to look at what is going on. One of the weddings we stumbled upon was getting their picture taking. It is Russian tradition to have a newly married couple go all over town and take pictures in front of famous monuments. I was just so happy to witness these strangers wedding and after-wedding bliss.
Of course I eventually have to have my first human interaction in Russia. What better way to do that then at a drugstore. So Jessica decides she needs Vitamin C. So anyways we get the pills rather fast. It isn't really hard to find an orange box that say "vitamin C" in cyrillic letters. The funny part happens at the counter. Russians (a note to anyone potentially going to Russia) hate to break bills. They LOVE exact change. Jessica only has big bills because she went to the ATM and ironically they only give you big bills. Where you break these bills I don't know. SO anyways this lady is yelling at us. We barely know what is going on and refuses to take the money or give us the pills. So this worker near by points to some candy and Jessica picks one out at random. Finally we get the Vitamin C! yey! The candy tasted like a pez, a large circular pez. Not a bad choice for not knowing what was going on I must admit.
Random fact of the day: The Church of Spilt blood, in all its glory, is a copy. Not because there is an identical one somewhere else in the world, but because it was made to impersonate St. Basils in Moscow. St. Basils was built in the 17th century, and because St. Petersburg loved it so much, they replicated the style it in the 19th century.