1-21-06

I’m back. I just returned from actually posting my last post at the café with WiFi. I didn’t really have the opportunity to make a new post there, as Marina accompanied me to the café and was just sitting across from me reading a newspaper. It was kind of awkward. You see, the café is a little over a block away from our apartment. So I didn’t really need any help finding it. But she seems to be unsure about letting me just leave on my own. Add to that the fact that she has yet to give me an actual key to our apartment (Though I do know the code to get into the building) and I’m less independent than I’d like to be. I suppose it makes sense for now, I know she has a key for me because she keeps telling me that she’s going to show me how to use it. Once I have that, I think she’ll be okay with me leaving on my own. The neighborhood is safe and the Metro is super super close.

Tomorrow she’s going to see me off to school. This is kind of embarrassing but I’ll get over it. Plus, everyone’s host mothers will likely be accompanying them on the first day. Anyway, I’ll be taking the bus to the campus at Smolny. Campus=Smolny because the Smolny Cathedral is at the center of our facilities. Once there, I’ll have placement tests for 2 1/2 hours, then lunch. Then I’ll go get a cheap used phone and new SIM card. Then I will be even more connected! It’s a nice feeling, I’ll admit. I’ve gotten so used to just thinking computer=internet, that it’s kind of a little shock every time I turn this thing on and think, “Oh, I’ll check the weather for tomorrow,” or, “Wonder if anyone’s responded to my email?” The latter is especially frustrating because the email I precomposed to Elyse and Julia in Word didn’t get sent til, like, an hour ago, so there’s no possible way that they could’ve responded because it never left my computer. Yeah, I think I will be frequenting that café often. That’s probably where I’ll post this tomorrow after the phone purchase.

The scariest thing about tomorrow morning is that the all-Russian rule takes effect. Eek! I suppose by the time I’m posting this I’ll have survived my first day, so maybe when I’m at the café I’ll write a short post about how testing and all that went. This is such a weird way to communicate, but prewriting these things really helps me get my thoughts out while they’re still fresh, plus it gives me something to do, as I’m not really interested in the Russian soap operas Marina likes.

Speaking of Marina, she told me that last night she was going to take me for a walk just to see the neighborhood. This little walk around the neighborhood was nothing of the sort. In fact, we walked all the way down to Peter and Paul Fortress on the Neva. If you have a map of St. Petersburg handy (you know you do), look at Petrogradskaya Island, probably called “Petrograd Side” in an American map, and look for the place where the two main roads (One going north-south and one going east-west) intersect (Kamenoostravskaya and Bolshoi, respectively). That’s roughly where I am. Now look to the south for Peter and Paul Fortress. Yeah, it’s half the island.

But it’s great to look across the river, with its chunks of ice slowly floating by in the dark, over to the city, all lit up. You can see the Hermitage and the Admiralty and the Church on Spilt Blood. It was nice. Then I slept through the night for the first time since I got here.

Woke up, had a nice shower, and a filling breakfast. Marina’s really making sure I eat enough. We went together on the Metro over to the other island, Vasilevsky and met with everyone else. Actually, first we met with Claire and her host mother (or her host family’s housekeeper). Turns out, Claire and I actually live really close so they had us exchange numbers, and arranged for us to meet at the bus stop tomorrow.

The bus tour took us past all the big sights of the city. I had forgotten my camera, but it really wasn’t too big of a deal, because these are all things I’ll visit again. It’s really cold, though. After that, we went for our HIV tests. I’ve had a lot of blood drawn in my time, and I must say this was probably the best I’ve ever had! I honestly didn’t feel the needle go in or out. After that, we all went to get blini. Blini are kind of like pancakes that can be either savory or sweet, depending on what filling you choose to have the pancake fold over. I chose ham and cheese, because at this point it was like 2 and I was hungry. After that, a bunch of people went to get phones, but since I didn’t have the rubles and had forgotten my ATM card, she and I just wandered around a bookstore for a bit and then met up with everyone else while they were all exchanging numbers.

Since Andrey, Claire, and I all live close, we took the metro back together, which was nice. Then I had pelmeni with Marina and asked her about the internet café her host daughter went to last semester. The way she was speaking about it made it seem like it was a more traditional internet café that had public computers. So I tried to explain the concept of wireless internet to her in Russian. Yeah, that was tough. But she says she’ll take me, and at that point, I’m just like, “Whatever, I’ll go, I should really email home.” Of course, then she takes me to the café I had seen with Claire that’s two blocks away and has WiFi. I’m definitely going to be spending lots of time there, although it’s a little smoky sometimes.

I should probably think about going to bed now. First, though, I’m going to lay out all of the things I plan on taking tomorrow in my backpack: Laptop (So I can go to the café right after school without Marina being there), Wallet, Pocket Dictionary, Pencils, Charmin-to-go.