Россия...Welcome to Russia

So I actually made it to Russia. I can hardly believe it- this time last week I was convinced that I was not going. Last Thursday I found out that UPS had lost my passport with my visa in it. Luckily they were able to locate it after being lost for 4 days but it wasn't going to be delivered until May 3 which was the day I was leaving. After many hours on the phone with UPS my local UPS worker said that he would pick up my passport as soon as it arrived locally and bring it to meet at the airport. It sounds like a story that should be turned into a commercial, haha. Joe (my UPS worker) did as he promised and met me outside the Tom Bradley Terminal and handed me my passport through the window.

Fast forward about 20 hours of travel time and I arrived at St. Petersburg Christian University. Our living arrangements are not like we imagined. The university runs a hostel and that it where we are staying. Stephanie, Evanne and I share a room. Although there is no closet space, we have found a way to manage (even with our wash clothes that are suppose to be our towels). We are all just grateful to have a bed to sleep in and hot water at the end of the day.


Yesterday our tour guide/translator Alexei Belov showed us all around St. Petersburg. I am not sure the names of the churches/buildings/museums we went to because there were so many. We walked non-stop from 10 am to 11 pm at night. It was very cold, rainy and exhausting. The most exciting/interesting part of our day was watching all the military men practicing for the victory parade on Monday. There were probably close to 100 tanks parked along the streets and who even knows how many military men were out marching.

Today we had our first Russian language class and went to Dostoevsky's museum and another church. All I can say is...I'm in trouble. Russian is very hard and our teacher doesn't speak very good English. I also found a kitten who I named Ana after Dostoevsky's second wife. She was filthy so I gave her a bath and she is currently sleeping on a towel that is placed in our small trash bin. She is so cute. I wish we could keep her, but I do not want her to get attached since we are leaving in a month. So just for tonight we are letting her sleep in our nice, warm room so she can get some rest. I am sure we did other things, but the past two days have sort of blended together in my mind.

Tomorrow we have class for 5 hours. Then my roommates and I are going to go shopping for some warmer clothes, do homework, make dinner and watch a movie. Russia itself, the people and the culture are very interesting, but I am looking forward to all the experiences I will have in this next month.