St. Petersburg

We finally made it to St. Petersburg!

We came in this morning after a 16 hour train ride. Today we had a bus tour of the city so we saw The Hermitage and a bunch of really cool cathedrals and parks it was great. I love this city! It has so much personality and the people are so colorful and happy and the architecture is gorgeous! There are also all the canals of course which makes it even more cool. It reminds me a lot of Venice but just a bigger version. Tomorrow we will go to the Hermitage and spend the whole day there and during the week we'll go inside some of the palaces and cathedrals and to the circus and the ballet and lots of other cool junk. I love this city but I am soooo excited to come home! 1 more week...

P.s. the picture is from today in one of the main parks. You can see the main river in the background that splits off into the canals that weave through the whole city.

Almost done!

I'm almost done with school!

I only have 3 weeks left of school and then off to St. Petersburg. Kazan was great, lots of monasteries and mosques and cathedrals. It was really interesting and fun. There was a dog that followed us around the whole city during the tour it was pretty funny. Next week we're going to the circus in Nizhnii and then we have finals week after that.

I am working on my final research paper right now on Russian fairy tales. It's probably one of the most fun research papers I have ever written. I chose the topic haha. Ok well not much has been happening other than homeowork and just hanging out in Russia being cool.

p.s. sorry no picture today

Later.

Host family!

I moved into my host family this weekend!

They are so awesome! I have a really cool sister named Leera who knows pretty good english, a mama who hangs out in her robe all day long being a "domohozecka" / housewife, and a goofy dad who is always just cracking up at me trying to speak Russian. I also have a hairless cat named Vasya that LOVES me for some reason. He always jumps up on my lap when we're at dinner, drinking tea, doing homework, all day long he jumps on my lap and just looks at me like oh please massage my wrinkly skin. He's absolutely disgusting but in a really cute hilarious way. As you can see in the picture to your right. Him laying on me while I'm trying to do something, classic. The book I'm holding is my journal that I actually got at Powell's haha.

Basically my host family is super cool and this weekend we're going to Kazhan and I'm sad I won't get to hang out with the fam. Kazhan should be fun cause we're staying in a hotel again and hopefully there will be no screens on the windows so we can chuck squishy food out of them again and watch them splat on the pavement.

Maybe I'll update this blog again soon, If you cross your fingers maybe your dreams will come true...

Vladimir and Suzdal

This weekend we went to Vladimir and Suzdal!

Suzdal is this small town between Nizhnii and Moscow that has 150 churches crammed in it; my favorite place we have been so far. The churches are so cool and the whole town is so small and cute. There was one church we had to walk 2 miles in the snow to get to... up hill both ways haha just kidding. But it really was 2 miles in the snow across a giant field which is pretty far in deep snow with freezing wind. We were all skipping and being retarded though so it was fun.

The hotel we stayed in had windows without screens and we stayed on the 14th floor. The first night a girl was brushing her teeth on the window sill and randomly spit the toothpaste out the window and we watched it sail all the way down and explode on the ground. We were like ahhh that was awesome! So then at every meal we would sneak some squishy food up to the room and chuck it out the window and watch it splat it was so awesome. The picture is Crystal and I spitting toothpaste out the window.

This weekend is the big Valentines Day party on campus, can't wait to see what goes down. I'll update about that next!

Snowboarding in Nizhnii

This past weekend we all went snowboarding!

The first day we went to a park right down the road from school which was so much fun. There was only one run though and no chair lift haha. Ghetto. The second day we went to a bigger park with more runs and a chair lift, it was so cool! The park was right next to the river (which is completely frozen over with ice fisherman on it all the time). Crystal and I ran out onto the river for a second so we could say we stood on the frozen Volga River.

This weekend we're going to Vladimir, a small town between Moscow and Nizhnii with a famous church or statue or something. I'm more excited about the mugs though! They have these awesome tea mugs with animals as the handles, they're so cool! Some of the locals have them so we're all excited to get new tea mugs this weekend. The church/ statue or whatever will probably be cool too haha.

Nizhnii Novgorod

I am in Nizhnii!

My university where I am taking Russian classes and living in the dorms is in an awesome city called Nizhnii Novgorod. I have been in the city for a week now and I love it! The people here are much more friendly than in Moscow and I love living in the dorms. The picture on the right is of me and another girl in the program Crystal in my dorm room wearing our "house coats" that some previous exchange students left behind. We adopted these house coats and we wear them all the time.

We started our classes last week; language and history. Language is really hard but the locals who are living in the dorms help us with our homework. We start doing homework and then the locals come in with music to have dance parties. That happens pretty much every night.

Yesterday we went to a Russian version of a sana called the banya. It was so much fun and we decided that we are going to banya every weekend. They have an ice cold pool in the banya to jump in and birch branches that you hit each other with to "beat out the evil spirits".

I also went cross country skiing yesterday! It was my first time so I fell down a lot but by the end I could stay standing for a few minutes. Next weekend we're going snowboarding I'm so excited!

Everyone's running around right now cause it's dinner time and they can't wait to eat borsch.

Babushka

...means grandma in Russian.

Me and my friend Crystal from the group have been trying to find the best Russian babushka in Moscow. Babushkas are who keep this country alive, ya know "The Motherland". Anyway, we grade them on a scale of 1 - 10 depending on how much fur their coat has, if they have glasses or a cane and how big and squishy they are. The babushka on the left is like a 9.5. She would be a 10 if she had a cane. Crystal and I can't wait to be big babushkas.

The next picture is a picture of the whole group in front of the Church of Christ the Savior which is right downtown next to the river. The church is so awesome inside, lots of giant paintings and gold. Oh and incense, lots of incense. Incense is one of the best parts of the Orthodox churches. That and the babushkas.

We're leaving Moscow tomorrow to go to Nizhnii where we'll start school next week. I won't have access to the internet for about a week while we're settling in there but I'll update as soon as I can.

P.s. it was -5 degrees today!

9 degrees in Russia

It's 9 degrees right now in Moscow and we're all freezing!

The past few days we have gone to museums, galleries and cathedrals. We went inside St. Basil's which was even prettier inside than outside. We went to a Russian history museum that had a lot of artifacts from the soviet era and a gallery with giant paintings that were up to 20 feet tall.

Today we went to a bazaar by the hotel that is the biggest market for souvenirs in Russia. I got a bunch of Russian nesting dolls, my favorite being one that is a family of pandas. I also got some fur socks that will hopefully keep my feet warmer than they have been lately.

The locals are so serious! On the metro they just stare straight ahead and don't look at anyone. The picture on the right is of me on the metro with another one of the girls in my group, Tavia. I have the biggest jacket I have seen yet. They also don't say anything, it's always dead silent in public. It's only when you're with them one on one that they open up and laugh. They are all very well dressed and love mullets. Even some of the women have these really sleek mullets. Some how they all pull it off though.

Tonight we are going to the theater to see "Swan Lake", whatever that is.

I'm in Russia!

Hi friends!

I am officially in Moscow! We got here late last night after 24 hours of traveling.

Today we went to downtown Moscow to see Red Square, St. Basil's cathedral and Lenin's tomb. Lenin's body was the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. The body is in a glass case and it looks plastic from all of the embalming of the past 90 years since his death. St. Basil's was great and Red Square was really pretty. We also rode the metro around and stopped at all of the big stations in downtown. Lenin wanted to have the prettiest metro system in the world when it was made so it is quite extravagant.

The group is great, there are 14 of us. 12 girls and 2 boys from all over the U.S. 2 of our girls are also Canadian. Monica, Beverly and I are the 3 representing Biola. Then there's our 2 directors Harley and Debbie who know the city very well and are really nice and helpful. Tomorrow we are going to the market next to the hotel to probably buy a bunch of Russian nesting dolls so I am looking forward to that. I will update again soon and I hope you are all doing well in the states.

Riley

My new blog!

This is my new blog!

I will be posting news and pictures from my Russia trip starting next week. I will be arriving in Russia on the 13th, so be expecting pictures and blogs about Russia soon after. Thanks for being interested in my trip and I look forward to seeing you all when I get back!

Riley