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.