Today started with a pleasant 5 am wakeup call and a very quite ride to the airport. The highlight of which was our ride on a double-decker charter bus complete with 15 foot trailer. This is must be the largest and most difficult to drive street vehicle I have ever encountered, but we made it through to Heathrow and departed to for Russia on time.
The flight was uneventful, 2h 45min mostly flying over the Baltic and North Seas. I did observe that the ground of England and Denmark look oddly the same from 20K feet, but Russia looks very different.
And then….. the moment came. We touched down in at St. Petersburg airport, the die was cast, no turning back now. We shared a collective gasp and realized that we are actually in Russia. The airport was an interesting sight, it’s a huge set of runways (We taxied for 30 min moving the whole time) with very few terminals and old growth birch forest all around. Russian customs was simple, fill out a small form and hand it to the very bored looking boarder guards who do not say a word to anyone. I was officially clear to spend the next 3.5 months here. We met our tour bus and after some delays and traffic made it to my Russian home, the IMOP building.
If you where to picture in your head what a large, soviet era school and dormitory building would look like, I am sitting in it. It stretches for basically a block in either direction f the corner it is located on and has 7 floors and a basement with a white exterior and hundreds of evenly spaced identical windows. All of the people in my group of Americans, at least for now, reside on the third floor of the building. In fact the whole thing is very reminiscent of moving into the dorms 2 years ago. Except, of course, we did not have hardwood floors, ancient bathroom fixtures, steam and electric radiators, hanging lamps or a view of abandoned and rusting power transformers from Valimar (my dorm for freshmen year). The building is old and well used, but it definitely could have been much worse.
A grouped dinner and orientation meeting later, I found myself in great shape. I was unpacked and moved into the rather large built in shelves and closets. I had figured out the buildings location, nearby amenities and access to them. My 3 roommates are all nice guys and it should work out quite well. I took a trip with some of the people here to the 24 hour supermarket across the street to buy water (I will address more on this topic in a later post) and a few other basic supplies. Surprisingly, I remembered quite a bit of Russian while shopping in the store (recognizing labels) and in dealing with the cashiers (my first experience with a Russian who speaks no English), and I certainly fared much better than the people with no prior Russian language experience.
Interestingly they give change down to the kopeck (Russian version of the cent). The current value of the rubble is around 32 USD and there are 100 kopecks to the rubble. This makes the kopeck worth around .03 cents. This could get interesting to have so many small denomination coins to deal with. However, Russian exchange rates mean the things are exceedingly inexpensive. I bought 4 liters of water, plus tea and some other supplies for 150 rubbles, basically 5 dollars, and buying a lot more food would not have cost very much at all.
After that it was quite late and I returned with several other grocery laden fellow students to begin our first night sleeping in Russia.
We tour the city tomorrow to give us the basic layout and feel of the downtown area. I take the language placement test on Monday and all classes will start by the end of the week. I will try to get pictures of both London and St. Petersburg up on either facebook or photobucket soon; however internet access is going to be inconsistent for the next week or so at least.
Russia is quite a different place and it will take a lot of getting used to and figuring out. But for tonight, all is well.
The flight was uneventful, 2h 45min mostly flying over the Baltic and North Seas. I did observe that the ground of England and Denmark look oddly the same from 20K feet, but Russia looks very different.
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| London Spot the Differences!! |
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| Saint Petersburg |
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| Polkova Airport |
If you where to picture in your head what a large, soviet era school and dormitory building would look like, I am sitting in it. It stretches for basically a block in either direction f the corner it is located on and has 7 floors and a basement with a white exterior and hundreds of evenly spaced identical windows. All of the people in my group of Americans, at least for now, reside on the third floor of the building. In fact the whole thing is very reminiscent of moving into the dorms 2 years ago. Except, of course, we did not have hardwood floors, ancient bathroom fixtures, steam and electric radiators, hanging lamps or a view of abandoned and rusting power transformers from Valimar (my dorm for freshmen year). The building is old and well used, but it definitely could have been much worse.
A grouped dinner and orientation meeting later, I found myself in great shape. I was unpacked and moved into the rather large built in shelves and closets. I had figured out the buildings location, nearby amenities and access to them. My 3 roommates are all nice guys and it should work out quite well. I took a trip with some of the people here to the 24 hour supermarket across the street to buy water (I will address more on this topic in a later post) and a few other basic supplies. Surprisingly, I remembered quite a bit of Russian while shopping in the store (recognizing labels) and in dealing with the cashiers (my first experience with a Russian who speaks no English), and I certainly fared much better than the people with no prior Russian language experience.
Interestingly they give change down to the kopeck (Russian version of the cent). The current value of the rubble is around 32 USD and there are 100 kopecks to the rubble. This makes the kopeck worth around .03 cents. This could get interesting to have so many small denomination coins to deal with. However, Russian exchange rates mean the things are exceedingly inexpensive. I bought 4 liters of water, plus tea and some other supplies for 150 rubbles, basically 5 dollars, and buying a lot more food would not have cost very much at all.
After that it was quite late and I returned with several other grocery laden fellow students to begin our first night sleeping in Russia.
We tour the city tomorrow to give us the basic layout and feel of the downtown area. I take the language placement test on Monday and all classes will start by the end of the week. I will try to get pictures of both London and St. Petersburg up on either facebook or photobucket soon; however internet access is going to be inconsistent for the next week or so at least.
Russia is quite a different place and it will take a lot of getting used to and figuring out. But for tonight, all is well.
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