It's Been A While

Hello everyone! It definitely has been too long since my last post. I think it has been almost three weeks. Well don't worry, I'll try to catch you all up with what has been happening in my busy life in Moscow.

Well I left off with the trip to St. Petersburg. It was an amazing trip. I did so much and was quite exhausted at the end of it, but it was well worth it. I saw Catherine the Great's Palace, Dostoevsky's home, Pushkin's place of study, Mariinsky Theater, Hermitage, and of course some old churches. It seems like I can never escape them haha But anyways, I would have to say my favorite place was Dostoevsky's home. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about it just really captivated me. The hostel we stayed at was actually really nice too. The location was great. And of course, people have asked me which city do I like best. St. Petersburg felt different than Moscow, and it is definitely more Western than Moscow. But in all honesty, I don't think I can answer that question. I was in St. Petersburg for about 4 days and I spent those days as a tourist. I didn't actually live in St. Petersburg. It is impossible for me to judge a city like that. If I ever do spend time actually residing in St. Petersburg, then I will definitely know the answer.

Now, onto the next weekend(that's when everything happens). We had an excursion through Chistiye Prudy(Clean Ponds) and went to a quite peculiar museum. It was a museum about the history of lights in Russia. It was interesting because it's something so specific and something I actually have never really thought about. Well, onto the nightlife haha So Pat and I decided to go to a new club that weekend, Tri Obezany(Three Monkeys... yea I don't name these places). So I would call this one an actual club, it has three floors and a huge dance floor which was cool. The other place I mentioned before is more like a bar... like where you can have a few drinks with your friends and listen to music and stuff. It was a fun time and I'll definitely go back. I actually really want to see the Russian drag queen performance. But, highlight of the night haha we got stopped by the Moscow police. We were rushing to the metro because it was about to close so this police car like rolls up and I told Pat "uh.. I'm pretty sure this is for us..." So we stopped and so did the car. Two officers came out and asked for our documents aka Passport + Visa. They like asked us where and what we studied. Then asked if we used and had any drugs, to which of course I replied no. They patted us down then gave back our stuff and let us go. Unfortunately they made us late to the metro so we had to take a taxi home. The taxi driver told us he liked Obama so it was all good haha

And now, this past weekend was pretty good. On Saturday night, the whole group was invited to Pat's house for a performance/party. We also got to meet Amy's parents who were visiting for a few days. They were pretty cool, I liked them. Pat's host father was in the band that played which was really awesome. It was a really good time. I could actually see the band having a good following back in the US like among college students and people of that age group. Overall it was a good time, Pat's host family is really cool and his apartment is actually really nice and big. On Sunday Kim and I made a rough plan for our travels to Europe this Winter. Kara's house in Germany is headquarters, which I'm really excited for.

Ok, so I summed up the past three weeks very briefly. I will definitely go back to my weekly schedule(and will def talk about homegurl Eleonora). So expect another update next Monday :)