This weekend

This past weekend was rather relaxed. Friday night, I stayed home and watched “Mean Girls” in Russian with Katherine. Saturday, I did a ton of reading. Right now, I am signed up for this class entitled “Can Russia be a Nation-State.” In Russian school systems, you don’t have to buy books, but instead get a “reader” at the beginning of the semester, which includes all the readings you have to do. The reader for this class is literally 5 inches thick, and they ran out, so I’ve been doing my reading on the computer, which is very hard. For Tuesday I have about 50 pages to read in Russian, and I’ve read 12 thus far. Oh well.

Saturday night, there was a party for people in our program that was held at the apartment of two of the girls. If you stay the whole year, you can rent an apartment the second semester, and they found an absolutely gorgeous one. The biggest living space I’ve seen in Russia thus far (other than the palaces of course). The party was really fun; it was great to get to meet some of the people from last semester. Also, Katherine and I took a gypsy cab home that had the best Russian driver we had ever encountered – he drove like a safe, American driver! The weather was getting pretty bad, so that was much appreciated.

It finally snowed a substantial amount, and is starting to get colder. Still, though, it’s not anything abnormal. Although, today I talked to a girl from Siberia, who told me about her -50 degree Celsius temperatures at home last year. Today, we trekked out in the snow to Dostoevsky’s last apartment. The tour was actually incredibly fascinating – the best tour guide we’ve had so far. It was interesting to see his apartment and hear about his life, especially since I’m reading “Crime and Punishment” right now. My goal is to finish it this semester and take the famed, but tourist-y “Crime and Punishment” tour in St. Petersburg.

After the museum, we had bliny at a restaurant. Bliny are like Russian crepes. But, they are absolutely everywhere – my host mother made them today and yesterday for breakfast, and then I had them again at this restaurant. Since the bliny overdose, I’ve been reading some more and getting ready for my second week of classes. It’s still shopping period, but once I’m sure of my classes, I’ll let you know about them.

Oh, a week or so ago I opened up the refrigerator and saw a coconut, which I thought was a little bizarre. Tonight, I was sitting in my room on the phone when I heard hammering for 5 minutes or so. My host mother opened my door and told me to come to the kitchen to eat coconut. Strangely enough, my first experience eating fresh coconut was in Russia. It’s a really interesting texture, but tasty. I didn’t know that people really just cut up coconut and ate it, though.

Ok, hope people are surviving the winter back home!