getting my feet wet

The past two days have been horribly cold, windy, and rainy. I realized too late that 4 pairs of shoes is just not enough - especially when none of them are waterproof. The children's uniform throughout the city today has been raincoat, rainpants, and wellies. I have not seen one kid without it. On the walk back from the metro, one little tyke was running through the neighborhood pathway jumping in puddles and yelling whatever it is that russian kids yell. An older boy started to puddlejump with him, but his mother called him back. Even though I was uncomfortably windblown and cold and not sure how to spend my time in this weather, it made me feel more at home to see such an adorable, everyday scene.

Today at the institute we had two back-to-back "grammatika" classes. We have three classes a day (two on Wed & Fri), 1.5 hours each. So I had 3 hours straight of Russian grammar. I definitely did not realize what I was getting myself into with this program! Every Thursday we'll have 2 grammar classes - which consists of endless worksheets, providing answers out loud, and occasionally some entertaining antecdotes from Marina Oleevna. She's really a great teacher, and speaks English very well - so when needed, she can give us the meaning of words we don't know. Today she commented that we were all very tired (true, it was the first night I stayed up past 11pm) and went on to explain why SHE was tired as well. She spent a good ten minutes telling us in the most entertaining Russian/English-mixed way that she took a sleeping pill last night but didn't take it early enough, and she was struggling to stay awake this morning. The only reason she didn't fall asleep on the metro is because a girl with very curly hair stood in front of her, so if she began to nod off and let her head fall forward, the girl's hair would wake her up! It makes class a lot more fun when your teacher is a good story teller.

Our other classes should be rather painless as well - we have phonetics, which is a lot of repeating words until we get the awkward vowels right. Reading/literature is with a fun young teacher who gauges our comprehension level well. We haven't had gazeta (newspaper) class yet, but I assume it's reading the newspaper and talking about current events. Conversation is the most practical, which addresses everyday language problems we might have throughout the city in the metro, at restaurants, in shops, etc. And finally we have a Russian film class, which is a nice break. Right now we're watching Piter FM, which I spent all last semester studying in my Russian class, so I've got a bit of a head start.

All in all, it's going to be an excellent summer. I haven't even been here a full week yet, but there's so much to do and to think about and to see that it feels like I've been here for much longer. I've pretty much settled in and figured out how to spend my time, and I cannot wait for this weekend! We get out early on Fridays (1 instead of 3) which gives us much more time to get around the city. We're going as a group to a Georgian restaurant Friday night, which is supposed to be amazing cuisine. We don't have Georgian anywhere near home. After that I hope to check out a show or a club, there are lots of things going on on a Friday night. Then I'm going to see either Romeo and Juliet or Swan Lake at the Mariinsky Theater! I hope to begin my exploration of the Hermitage Saturday afternoon.

But for now, I'm headed off to the Dvortsovaya Ploshad (Palace Square) to see a free Duran Duran show right outside of the Hermitage. I don't care how cold it is, who could give up the opportunity to see Duran Duran in the same proximity as one of the greatest art museums in the world??