A brief game of catch-up

As of today I have been outside the United States for three full weeks. And while being cut off from reality while in Russia seemed ideal before I left, I have realized that my mother, along with many others, needs some verification that I am still alive. Thus I am starting this blog to put her mind at ease.

So I will start with just a bit of background. I am studying in St. Petersburg, Russia with a program called The American Institute for Foreign Study (which I am still concerned is involved in the Russian slave trade). The program began with a two day layover in London where we were introduced to others in our program and toured around London. We then flew to St. Petersburg on January 31^st.

I am studying at St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, a renowned university for engineering. Precisely the reason I am taking all history classes. I have roughly 3 full hours of Russian daily while my two history courses, one focusing on the communist era and the other on the contemporary life and politics, meet only once a week. All of my professors are absolutely wonderful; I will just have to resist their attempts to convert me to a commi.

The first few weeks of this trip have gone by extremely fast. We have seen many of the main tourist attractions. These include the Hermitage, Catherine’s Palace in Pushkin, the Church on Spilled Blood and of course, Rasputin’s penis.

Everything I have seen has been absolutely fascinating. Russian history has always enthralled me and now I am just feeding my addiction. Every place in the city is dripping with history, to the point that I feel I have not even scratched the surface.

On the other hand, between moments of complete joy are those moments when I ask myself “how the hell did I end up here?” which are really a daily occurrence. For example today, we had to pile all of our stuff onto our beds so our rooms could be fumigated for cockroaches. I don’t handle cockroaches. Or the fact that my roommates and I are unable to open our freezer door solely because there is a container of rotten, odiferous chicken inside that we have no idea what to do with, so it is literally just chillin’ in the freezer.

Don’t get me wrong, I am loving every single moment here. And to quote one of my professors, “you need to lookout, Russia is very addicting.” I know exactly what she means.