Добро пожаловат в Pоссию!

Welcome to Russia!

So. I got to the airport for my 1:50 flight to Paris to find it was delayed until 3:50, pushing my flight out pf paris back from 10 a.m. to 4:05 p.m. Not too big of a deal, I just had to call my program officials to let them know I was going to be delayed, not arriving in St. Petersburg until about 10:00 p.m. In fact, she told me another student was delayed onto the same flight with me, so that was all comforting.

A filet with quinoa, brie, bread, and a Heiny. Excellent.

After sitting in the airport for a few hours, I finally got on my Air France flight, where I was served complimentary Heineken, and some pretty decent food. After 2 Heinekens and 2 tylenol pms, I thought I was totally ready to conk out for most of this 10 hour flight. When I woke up 2 hours later, I realized that nothing was going to make me sleep well on that packed flight with tiny seats, so I watched a few movies and tried to doze.

I was told that in Paris, most people would speak English in the airport, so finding my next gate would be easy. TheEnglish speakers were evidently not in the part of the airport I was in. All I could do was point to my ticket and look sad and lost. But it worked, I found the gate, and even found 2 fellow program participants to chat with during the 5 hour layover.

Anyways. Enough about my travel. I’m sure it’s terribly interesting, but I’m going to have to move on. I landed in St. Petersburg at 10:00 p.m., and the sun looked as if it was late afternoon. You see, St. Petersburg is in the arctic circle, so for a few weeks around the summer solstice, the sun barely sets. Russians call this the white nights, and they were indeed white. It’s been a little hard to sleep and to tell the time, when 2:30 a.m. looks very much like any other time of day, but it’s also kind of super duper awesome. So, I’ll live.

The view out of our hotel room. At 2:30 a.m.

We were greeted at the airport by the Irina’s, two administrators in the program, who immediately started speaking to us in Russian. John, one of my flightmates, was on the ball with responses. I just smiled and said “da” a few times. Two years out of Russian classes have certainly taken their toll.

Then we were driven to the hotel by a Russian student volunteer in his van with one Irina. There were seat belts, but nowhere to plug them in, so we stayed unbuckled. That was probably the worst car ride in the history of my life to be unbuckled for, and it barely lasted ten minutes. Russians drive like complete maniacs! He passed two cars going 50 mph on a one-lane freeway on ramp. I thought I was going to die. Did I mention that one of those cars was a cop, who didn’t pursue us in the least? Oh, I didn’t? Well. There’s Russia for you.

We got to the hotel, the Park Inn, and after being iintroduced to the other officials, I called home, found my room, and passed out. Keep in mind I’d slept about 2 hours in the past 36. And even then I found it hard to sleep. To say I was a tad bit nervous is the understatement of the year. My roommate and I were both up at 5:30 the next day, and went out to get some bottled water and toiletries at a little shop around the corner. The seattlite in me is a tad ashamed to admit that I did bring and use an umbrella…but when in Rome! Or St. Petersburg. Whatever. You know the phrase.

At 7 we went to a buffet style breakfast, and all day we sat in orientation sessions broken up by more meals like that. All these orientation sessions did was to sufficiently give everyone in the room pretty severe anxiety, but we did learn some useful tips, like how to get rid of a “sketchy Russian dude” at a club after he approaches you because he thought your smile meant that you wanted to get down and dirty with him.

Then we went walking around the city a bit, looked at the metro, bought phones, and all that fun stuff. Today, after more orientations, we get dropped off with our host families. I’m planning on meeting a family of 5, a mother, husband, two teens, an aunt, and a chinchilla! I think I’m most excited for the chinchilla. At any rate, by tomorrow I should have more reliable, or at least frequent access to the internet, so these posts will be more frequent and less drawn out. At any rate, this weekend will be eventful to say the least!