Hello all!
After a ton of traveling and some minor jetlag, I've arrived in St. Petersburg! It was quite overwhelming at first, but I'm settling in rather nicely now. The city is absolutely gorgeous! It feels similar to New York, but without that underlying tension that I always feel when I'm there. Haven't done a whole lot of traveling just yet - we're holding off on going to museums until we get our student ids which get you in for free or for a discount. I'm staying at the dorms rather than a homestay, and I'm really glad I did. I live LITERALLY right down the road from the Kazan cathedral, which is spectacular. Nevsky Prospekt is only about a 3-5 minute walk away. The building where our classes are held is a little farther - a 35 minute walk, or even shorter if you take the metro (which is insanely cheap by the way - 25 roubles aka under a dollar). We road the metro yesterday for practice and it's so simple. However, I do not envy some of my groupmates staying with Russian families that have to commute over an hour on the metro just to get to class.
I think my roomate and I are going to have some dinner out tonight and maybe buy some groceries. I also want to get some studying in since my Russian is quite rusty. Since we're only allowed to speak Russian on campus, I definitely need the review! I think everyone in my dorm suite is going to switch over to Russian full-time here in a few days. It's hard not to get better at a language when you're using it all the time!
I hope to have more to tell in the coming days!
-Olive
After a ton of traveling and some minor jetlag, I've arrived in St. Petersburg! It was quite overwhelming at first, but I'm settling in rather nicely now. The city is absolutely gorgeous! It feels similar to New York, but without that underlying tension that I always feel when I'm there. Haven't done a whole lot of traveling just yet - we're holding off on going to museums until we get our student ids which get you in for free or for a discount. I'm staying at the dorms rather than a homestay, and I'm really glad I did. I live LITERALLY right down the road from the Kazan cathedral, which is spectacular. Nevsky Prospekt is only about a 3-5 minute walk away. The building where our classes are held is a little farther - a 35 minute walk, or even shorter if you take the metro (which is insanely cheap by the way - 25 roubles aka under a dollar). We road the metro yesterday for practice and it's so simple. However, I do not envy some of my groupmates staying with Russian families that have to commute over an hour on the metro just to get to class.
I think my roomate and I are going to have some dinner out tonight and maybe buy some groceries. I also want to get some studying in since my Russian is quite rusty. Since we're only allowed to speak Russian on campus, I definitely need the review! I think everyone in my dorm suite is going to switch over to Russian full-time here in a few days. It's hard not to get better at a language when you're using it all the time!
I hope to have more to tell in the coming days!
-Olive
Our dorm.
Kazan Cathedral. I live right down the street from this. Be jealous.
Downtown St. Petersburg!
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