In the Footsteps of Tsars

St. Petersburg, Russia
28F

I woke up at three AM local time and listened to my iPod for an hour and a half before
finally falling back to sleep. I dreamed about home and taking the 611 Exit that leads to Dublin. When I awoke a second time at about six, I was sweating like you wouldn't believe. You see, the hotel room I am in seems to have a broken thermostat and an abundance of blankets on the bed. The temperature was set at 5 degrees Celsius (very cold) but it felt more like the inside of a greenhouse.

At eight AM, we had breakfast in the hotel dining room. Russians like to feed you... a lot. I have had twelve courses in the past twenty-four hours...all of which have been foreign. Dinner last night was something made out of meat with a whole bunch of sauce, breakfast this morning was sausage as well as some weird quiche like thing, and lunch today was borscht (which was surprisingly good). I have absolutely no appetite anymore... I do not ever want to eat again.

By 8:30 we had to head over to our first day of orientation which was held on the campus. By that time it was still dark outside. The Smolny Campus of St. Petersburg State university is absolutely gorgeous. It consists of all these majestic blue buildings with an absolutely spectacular Cathedral in its center. I have never seen such vivid buildings in my life... pictures really cannot describe how they look in the morning, lit from the ground by enormous flood lights that light up the gold leaf and falling snow like some sort of ornate piece of jewelry.

Most of what everyone says is in Russian, though there is some translation. That is very unnerving. I really hope that once my Russian class starts things will get easier. We spent most of today talking. During the morning we discussed using the metro, safety, clubs and organizations, and the academic program. Then we had a five hundred course lunch, served by a never ending parade of Babushkas with trays of food. My main course was Borscht. I really liked it a lot. Very wholesome. After lunch we discussed home stays.

I am staying with a Mother and her son (who is my age). Their names are Marina and Roman. Our house is located on the largest of St. Petersburg's islands, Vasilyevsky Island. It is about an hour via the metro from the school. Should be very interesting. My home stay family is supposed to have Internet-- I am very excited about that. Very nervous about the metro though. Hopefully it won't be too overwhelming.

This evening was absolutely freezing. I have never felt so cold in my life. My ears really hurt from the wind, and my face was burning. We took a Mashuska (kind of like a little bus) from campus to a weird restaurant. It was like a mix between a McDonald's and an IHOP. I held up the entire line while I tried to figure out what I was doing... even after getting Jarlath, one of our resident directors to translate for me, they still messed up my order. Instead of getting crepes with apricot syrup, I got something with ham and mushrooms. Go figure. I guess those are easily confused. I really miss Diet Pepsi. I have been so thirsty...it is really hard to get something safe to drink when you don't know the language.

Haha. I went the ATM (or as they are called in Russia, Bank-O-Mats) and tried get some cash. It took me forever to find it...but when I did, I made sure to get out 800 Rubles so I wouldn't have to do it again for a while. Unfortunately, as I found out later, that is only about $32. Oh well, looks like I will be making another trip.

Today was minutely better than yesterday. I am still very tired and feeling quite overwhelmed. The culture shock is pretty intense, and I have not even gotten out there yet. I think the next few days are going to be tough, but I am going to try my best to keep calm and focused on my goal.

You can look at more pictures here!

JFK

New York, NY
36F

I am sitting in Terminal B of JFK International airport. My head hurts, I am grumpy, and tired, and looking at an eight hour flight ahead of me. Oh well, it is taking me somewhere spectacular. It hurt more when I left from home than I thought it would. Up until this morning, I knew that I was finally departing, but thought that the difficulty of would leaving would be felt primarily as I adjusted to life in Russia. Boy was I wrong...seeing your family standing around you, tears in their eyes, really drove the message home that I would be gone for some time. That was without a doubt, the worst part of the trip... but it was so important.

I love everyone with all of my heart, and will think of you constantly.

JFK is a very clean airport. I like that. Arriving was relatively painless...so was checking in. Gotta tell you, the LOT people were very nice, but they seemed to be more interested pretending to be pilots than helping their customers. I was, naturally, the first one in line and therefore had the chance to observe the clerks' pre-flight checks. They performed their duties with such an sense of duty it made me wonder if they were preparing for an inspection by the Chief Desk Pilot or something. All the baggage tags were lined up perfectly in a row, the position of the computer monitors were adjusted, and the phones checked at least three times each. Finally when I was helped, the lady informed me that my flight had been delayed one hour....JAW DROPS. Yeah, so we will see how that works out. Hopefully, I won't have to negotiate the fare for a Russian cab to Repino, but if that is what I need to do, then I am sure that I will find a way to make it work.

I am camped out next to an outlet with burn marks all around it (haha...wonder how that happened) and beneath a very smudgy window that overlooks the control tower. With only three hours until the plane is set to begin boarding, I have decided to unpack and call this home for a bit. This plug is mine... all the circling businessmen will need to find somewhere else to charge their laptops.

Warsaw

Warsaw, Poland
Cold


I got my first glimpse of Europe just after sunrise. The ground was white and dotted with little red roofed houses. Warsaw is a city that has clearly grown horizontally much quicker than it has vertically. My flight out of JFK landed exactly at the same time that my flight to St. Petersburg began boarding. I literally fought my way through the crowds of people to the transit desk were I was met by several uniformed, and very young, polish soldiers. Then I ran to the other end of the airport and was corralled into a tiny room with fifty other people and a metal detector. The female soldier who was manning the XRay machine barked at me in polish for putting my bag in one of the buckets (I only did what all the other people were doing) while the male soldier at the metal detector gave me a very through frisking. Mind you, I was frisked by the secret service on multiple occasions, but this was a lot more invasive.

Finally, and in a record time of fifteen minutes, I made it to my gate where I was given a green card with the number 9 on it and directed down a long corridor that ended with an exit to the tarmac. After a short (and brisk) bus ride to the plane, I found my seat. We took off five minutes later and my Warsaw visit saw its end.

Russia

Saint Petersburg, Russia
35F

Well, somehow I made it! Russia is exactly the way I thought it would be. Brimming with character, gnarled by history, and speckled with contradictions. It's all here, every last bit of it... just the way everything looked in my head. All objects that can be covered by snow, are covered by snow. The architecture and infrastructure all look as though they had been frozen in 1975. The people seem tested and resolute. It is absolutely amazing.

CIEE picked up the first bus load of students at around 4pm. While we were chauffeured off to our hotel for the first two nights, Dr. Vergonona (who seems as lively and animated as they come) stayed behind to gather late arrivals. Traffic in St. Petersburg is terrible. Pulkovo International Airport is situated way off on the northern most outskirts of the city, meaning that as the drive progressed traffic got much denser. To drive what in Abington traffic would have taken ten minutes took us over an hour.

The hotel we are staying at is very nice. It is right across the street from the place where I will go to school. We will be here for the first two nights in St. Petersburg, after that, we will be living with our Russian families. Dinner was served at 7pm by the hotel staff...everything looked edible, but I didn't really have an appetite. Hopefully I will be feeling better in time for breakfast.

The first meeting of the CIEE group was incredibly intimidating for me. Even though there are four students who have virtually no experienced with the language, Dr. Longan spoke primarily in Russian. He was very accommodating though, and frequently made sure that I understood what he was saying (I did not). Most of the other students in the program have extensive language experience so everything they say sounds beautiful. Hopefully, I will speak like that one day. Overall, I am feeling very overwhelmed...as expected. I have had to heavily edit everything I have written because I am in a very negative mood. I realize that I am likely to feel this way for a while longer, but I just need to keep cool. I am overtired and a little shell shocked after the past 24 hours. Everything will work itself out in time...

Perkasie, PA
16F

Well, I did it. I made it through the weekend, I packed, I set my heading for St. Petersburg, Russia and I pulled up the anchor. At this time tomorrow night I will be 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

...And I am okay with that. I have been preparing myself for this day for quite some time now. St. Petersburg is going to be the adventure of a lifetime. Yes, I am anxious, but I think that is mainly about my initial departure. I am certain that after landing, I'll be so excited about my surroundings, any remaining nervousness will fade away. I am going to see so many incredible places, meet scores of fascinating people, and experience life in a completely new manner. Outside of politics, my passion is learning... and I just know that I will get one heck of an education over the next few weeks.

Haha. The first lesson came this morning: How to pack four months worth of winter clothing into one bag without exceeding a fifty pound weight limit. After several hours of creative maneuvering, I have a huge yellow Land's End bag (with wheels...much to my delight) that now, after being filled, looks like some sort of life raft. This thing is so absolutely jammed with books, clothes, electronics... you name it, I've got it... that it is going to take a structural engineer to get it closed again once I open it in Russia. Surprisingly though, when all was said and done, it came in under the weight limit. Go figure. I just can't wait to see the looks on the faces of my Russian family when I roll it through the door.

For just about the past month I have been changing the away message in Gmail Chat each day to reflect how long until I leave. I remember getting so excited when it rolled over from the twenty's into the ten's. Even more excitement came the week that my days left in the United States dropped into the single digits. In a little less than an hour I will change it one last time. Although I am somber about leaving home, I am ready for the exciting challenges awaiting me 4337 miles away. The big day is upon us! Next time I post, I will be writing from Russia.