time to go home...

about 4.5 hours until our bus is leaving for the airport (4 am st petersburg time). we should arrive in atlanta about 4 p.m. est and i am certainly looking forward to being in the states again. it was one hell of a trip, words can't describe the experience. i've made some lifelong friends and had the opportunity to do things most never dream of doing in a lifetime. i'll miss russia, but the good news is i can always come back. i can't wait to see all of you!

loooong but great weekend. it was our last full weekend in saint petersburg and i certainly made the best of it. friday was spent at the zenit store and the park where pushkin and dantes dueled and pushkin was fatally wounded. i was accompanied by my friends sam and erin and two of our russian peers, both named alia. it was wonderful to get to spend a lot of quality time with them. friday night was "red sails" which is a HUGE party for the 2008 high school graduates from the city. essentially close to a million people come downtown, all the streets are blocked off, there is a great light show with music to go along, and everyone helps the graduates celebrate in style. it was pretty amazing.
saturday was my favorite day of the trip so far. we went to staraya ladoga, an old fortress that was first built 1200 years ago. we toured that and then had a picnic on the bank of the neva with all the russian students that have served as guides and tutors. we got back just in time to change and head to the local pub for the russia/netherlands match. it was definitely russia's best match of the tournament and most would say the most entertaining match out of any. russia won 3-1 in overtime and the city partied the entire night. sadly we had to say goodbye to alia because she left today for her home, almaty, kazakhstan. everyone misses her already.
today we slept late, visited church on spilled blood and church of kazan, and then i did some relaxing at the public beach at peter and paul fortress.
our last field trips are tomorrow, finals are tuesday, and we leave for moscow wednesday evening. we return sunday morning and then have a few days before we return to the home country tuesday. i think about you all often and am looking forward to sharing my experiences with you when i'm home. mark your calendars, july 1!

It has certainly been a great week. Classes end today (not that mine have been hard) so we are all thankful for this. Only finals left on Tuesday and then we are all free until we come home. I went to the political history museum on Wednesday, that was one of the more interesting museums with much to see and learn. It would be much easier if I spoke Russia, however. Wednesday was also Russia's biggest match of Euro2008 and I arranged for three local students here to take me to one of their favorite places to watch the match. The atmosphere was like nothing I've ever seen and the results made it even better, Russia 2 Sweden 0. I even got to sing "We are the Champions" with the rest of the bar after the game even though the win only meant Russia secured a place in the quarterfinals. They plan again Saturday against the mighty Dutch. Netherlands has really been playing well so it will hopefully be a great match. Yesterday I went back to Yusopov Palace to get a more historical tour of the palace. Rasputin was killed inside the palace and so I got to go and see where all of this took place as the guide did her best to make the facts known. There is a lot of mystery and uncertainty about Rasputin's death, but it is known for sure that he was killed in or just outside the palace by Felix Yusopov and his fellow conspirators. Pretty interesting stuff. Today I'll be going to the Zenit store and stadium. I don't know if anyone is going to go with me, but I'm pretty excited about it. Tomorrow we go to Staraya Ladoga where we will tour the castle and have a picnic with our tutors. Should be a good time. Not much longer and I'll be home, go Russia.

It was a great weekend to be in Russia. We had beautiful weather on Saturday for our trip to Peterhof. The palace itself is impressive, but nothing special compared to Pushkin or the Winter Palace. The grounds, however, are spectacular. There are a ton of fountains and statues but the most impressive part is the main fountain that flows down from the palace and directly into a canal that leads directly to the gulf of finland. I would be impressed if I were a foreign dignitary visiting. Then to top of a great day Russia beat Greece 1-0 in a good match to keep their hopes alive to advance to the knockout rounds. They have to beat Sweden on Wednesday so come on Russia. Sunday was wonderful as well. A few of us got up (everyone else went clubbing while we stayed in to watch football and get good sleep) somewhat early and took off for the Seige Museum. It reminded me of the Vietnam Memorial in the U.S.. The Seige of Leningrad (St. Petersburg's former name) lasted 900 days and claimed more lives than the U.S. lost in the whole of WWII. It is a sacred place and does a very good job to show the hardship the citizens of Leningrad faced. We also got to see a very impressive statue of Lenin on the way to the museum. It is one of the few left in Russia and does a great job of displaying the power of the communist party. Afterwards I went out for my first nice dinner and that was completely worth it as well. Monday I had fieldtrips for art history all day. We went first to the Russian Museum of Avant Garde and then to the Russian State Museum. The Avant Garde museum was forgettable but the Russian state museum has the largest collection of Russian art in the world. It was pretty fantastic and the knowledge of my teacher made it even better. We are learning a lot from her, but we also have to write a mid-term paper due Tuesday which isn’t too much fun, especially with soccer on every night. Oh well, life is good and time is flying by. I’ll be home in two weeks from today. See you all soon.

Not a whole lot to update everyone on. Monday I went on a fieldtrip to Yusopov palace. Tuesday I had 2 lectures, each 2.5 hours a piece but then a large group of us went to a local restaurant and watched the Russia/Spain Euro2008 match. It wasn't a good result for Russia, Spain won 4-1 but it was fun to enjoy the atmosphere of football with fans that are very passionate. Wednesday I visited the Ethnography Museum with my Western Civ professor. He really enjoyed it, I probably won't be going back anytime soon but atleast I can say I have done it. Last night we all stayed in because most people have midterms today. I am lucky to not have any, and I am actually about to go have a class in the Hermitage with my Art History professor. She really knows her stuff so I am looking forward to this. Today is a national holiday, Russia Day, in which Russia celebrates her independence from the Soviet Union (weird because they were the Soviet Union). We will probably go watch fireworks downtown and hang out with locals. We have another tour of the Hermitage tomorrow, Peterhof on Saturday and then a free day Sunday. It should be a good weekend. I miss you all!

it was a good weekend here. the weather was beautiful and for the first time we weren't rushed around the whole time. saturday was a free day so three of us left about noon for st. isaac's where we climbed to the top and took pictures of the city. my camera screen decided to stop working on the way to the church and has continued to not show anything but a few colors since. i can still take pictures but i just have no idea how theylook until i upload them to my computer. needless to say, the view from the top was breathtaking but it also made noticeable the lack of care some buildings received during the soviet regime. lots of rooftops are still damaged and many historical buildings are renovated on the outside but are lacking in the areas tourists don't see. after climbing back down we had to buy a different ticket to go inside the church but it was well worth it. every nook and cranny is decorated in gold or stone or has a beautiful mosaic or painting on it. the church is still active and there were many natives coming in and out to pray and light candles. we spent a good hour in there wondering how people envisioned buildings like this and then actually successfully built them. it was a good experience. after that we found some food and wandered over to the hermitage. we walked in there for a good three hours with no real purpose, we all have lectures that take place there so we took the opportunity to relax and slowly go through some rooms. all that walking got us hungry and we went back to a restaurant off nevsky that has become a favorite of ours. the food is a mix of georgian (the country) and russian and the staff is very nice and very accommodating. after a good dinner we went to a pub to watch the opening match of euro 2008 and then rode the metro back to catch the second half of the second game. it was a good day.
sunday we spent all day at pushkin, the town where catherine's palace is located. the palace is beautiful and the grounds on which it was built are equally beautiful. they have approximately 100 acres to just wander around on and we spent all afternoon doing so. it was also very relaxing but tiring at the same time. thankfully sunday night we went to banya. banya is a russian bath house in which one sits in either a russian dry sauna, a finnish steam sauna, or a traditional sauna for however long they want, and then leaves that to jump in to freezing cold water. also, it is tradition to have someone hit you with birch branches as it is supposed to be good for your circulation. it is a very rejuvenating experience and we all came back to the dorm ready to crash. it should be an eventful week, monday i am going to yusopov's palace with my art class and tuesday i am meeting some locals to watch the russia/spain match in a local bar. it should be a good time and come on russia!

yesterday was an amazing day. it started out not so good with our bus breaking down on the way to the hermitage. thankfully there was a metro station about a 15 minute walk away and about 9 of us decided to go to the museum anyway. we got to look at the grounds and some of the art of the hermitage (or winter palace if you will) for about 2 or 2.5 hours so i'll definitely be going back atleast two more times. it is a remarkable place, though, and i can't imagine how it must have looked in the eighteenth century. then we went out for some authentic russian food and found a nice little restaurant off nevsky. they were friendly people, the prices weren't bad, and the food was excellent. the big hit of the day/night, however, was the free concert hosted by the city of st. petersburg. the city is hosting the world economic conference at the moment and is also celebrating thewhite nights, so they decided to give a free concert in palace square staring roger waters, the bassist of pink floyd. i would guess there was between 80,000 and 100,000 people in the square which was so cool to see because this is where a lot of history has taken place. revolts started there and a tsar was killed not very far from there so it was cool to be a part of the show. the music was excellent, it was almost all old stuff from pink floyd's glory days, but the message of the show was very much anti-bush. i know russia doesn't support the u.s. war in iraq but it was weird that a state sponsored show was pretty anti-bush. the riot police was all over the place too but everything stayed calm. overall it was a very enjoyable experience. seeing dylan and a member of pink floyd within four days was pretty sweet. russia is pretty sweet.

Yesterday was a long day. I went on a fieldtrip with my western civilization professor and a local student and we toured the Alexander Pushkin musuem (he is Russia's most famous poet). It was interesting though quite a small museum. The weather was beautiful so we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around looking at palace square, the admiralty, the bronze horseman and st. isaac's. lots of walking involved but i don't mind. i've got class again today, i'm not looking forward to that. i miss you guys.

this is a view of the winter palace with the dome of st. isaacs visible in the background

it is taken from across the neva river on the bank of the peter and paul fortress

life is great here in st. petersburg. it's pretty cold all the time actually. definitely not shorts weather. the sun has been shining a lot, yesterday was the first day we got a little rain, so overall the weather has been amazing. classes started today. i'm the only person in my western civilization from a russian perspective class besides my assigned tutor, Allyah. I have art history this afternoon and i believe there are 4 of us in there. it is taught by a native Russian so it should be very interesting and informative. hopefully it isn't too difficult either. i am anxious for class to end today because we have a special activity tonight. those of us who wanted to go bought tickets to see BOB DYLAN at the ice palace here in St. Petersburg for 1100 ruble (roughly 42 dollars). its weird that when i finally get to see him it is in Russia, but it works for me. it should be a great time. i miss all of you very much but am certainly enjoying myself here. i think everyone should do their best to visit this city because it is one of the most beautiful in the world. we get to tour the hermitage this friday and i cannot wait to do that, i am planning on returning on saturday to look at more of the huge art museum. i hope georgia isn't too hot and everyone is having a wonderful summer.

today has been an eventful day. we toured the peter and paul fortress which is located at the fork of the neva river in downtown st petersburg. there's tons of history there and almost all of russian royalty was buried there. next we took a boat tour through all the canals of st pete. seeing everything from the water was pretty awesome. after that a few of us decided to check out the st petersburg gem and mineral expo. it was essentially a glorified flea market and all the vendors were way to intimidating to try and speak english with. the weather has been beautiful, the temperature is in the 60's or 70's and it is quite windy all the time. overall life in russia is pretty wonderful.

On the road...

Well it was a lengthy 28 hour trip from Statesboro to St. Petersburg, including the 5-hour layover in Frankfurt (picture). We are staying in a huge, 9-floor International dorm that is currently being occupied by students from the U.S., Sweden, Germany and France. Life is certainly different here and I haven't gotten to see much of the city, but hopefully tomorrow we will get to do some exploring. I'm hoping to go crash now, however, the sun is just now starting to set and it is 11:45 at night. Until next time

t-minus 2 days and counting...

ok so 2 days until departure. i created this thing so i don't have to correspond with everyone on a one on one basis. i'll update it periodically for those of you who are interested. keep it real.