Flowers for everyone!!
The weather is warming up, the days are getting longer, and THERE IS ACTUALLY SUN IN THE SKY. I have photographic proof of this.
See that thing?? Way up there in the sky?? That is ACTUAL SUN, not the grayish blob that hangs in the sky behind the clouds here. The day is instantly better with sunlight on my face. And the day is warmer with it out too.
So I do more here than eat food and go on adventures to fantastical churches around the city. This week is Maslenitsa, so there's been a lot of eating and wandering and generally hanging out with people. Beyond Maslenitsa, it's just a regular week. And as it's the weekend, I need things to do.
Also procrastination. I have a test on Monday in my culture class, a presentation due on Tuesday for my US-Russian relations class (which is super unclear about what I actually have to do), and a test on Thursday in Grammar. I need things to do to procrastinate. So I spent my Saturday doing two things. Actually buckling down and doing some studying at the piano cafe, with copious amounts of music breaks. And meeting up with my language conversation partner. Because language partners are cool.
So are bowties, but that's beside the point.....
My language partner is a Russian student here in St. Petersburg. Her name is Anastasia.
Do you mean.......??
NO!!
THIS MOVIE RIGHT HERE???
Not the movie. Wrong Anastasia. And it's pronounced differently here. The name in Russian is pronounced "Ann-na-stass-ee-ya", not "Ann-ah-stay-zhia". Yes?? Yes. Moving on.
Anastasia and I went wandering around the city on one of the islands. We started out at the Peter and Paul Fortress, which has its own island here and used to be used as a high end prison. Such illustrious people as Lenin and Dostoevsky have graced the prison with their presence, and indeed, the first prisoner held here was Peter the Great's own son (for high treason). We walked around the little island fortress and just talked. What we like and don't like. Where we're from, what we do at school, what kind of music we listen to. Different stories of America and Russia, told through the eyes of the girls who live there. I had fun. And it was interesting to see the ebb and flow of the languages. Anastasia and I spoke in a mix of Russian and English, sometimes with several sentences in one language, sometimes switching languages mid-sentence. It was interesting, and the weird thing was, it felt so natural. Just to switch languages like it's no big deal. Of course, I was so happy because I was able to talk so much in Russian and I made sense (for the most part). It turns out she lives in a dorm just down the road from me, which is super convenient, and maybe will make for some spur-of-the-moment adventuring.
The second thing today I can thank my mom for. And by thank her, I mean why did you have to mention you were spring cleaning today?!!
WHYYYY
I told my host mom that my mom was doing the whirlwind cleaning things today, and mind you, it was 10pm here when I told her this. And Yulia Georgievna went from wonderful grandmotherly Russian to hurricane in mere seconds. She jumped up, zoomed out of the room, and reappeared with cleaning supplies. Essentially she was like YOUR MOTHER HAS A FANTASTIC IDEA I LIKE THIS WE SHOULD DO WHAT YOUR MOM SAYS IT'S TIME TO CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!!!!!
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She was a one woman force of nature, I swear. Suddenly things in my room were being thrown everywhere to clear the floor as she swept a wet swiffer over the bare wood. And she did it dancing to my Disney music - at the time, it was playing Cruella de Vil (yes, I'm that much of a nerd and a little kid at heart). In the space of that one song, she scrubbed my floor clean, took all the trash and the collection of empty juice cartons out of my room, and remade my bed with clean sheets. It was impressive and frightening at the same time.
Welcome to spring, I guess.
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