Today in my exciting adventures in St. Petersburg I did….. Nothing MUCH!
Started the day with laundry and food shopping! While it was done in Russian, they were fairly normal activities conducted in the fashion to which I am accustomed.
Most interestingly today, I went out to buy another sweater at one of our local malls. After finding the very few stores the sell men’s clothes I was able to find quite a nice grey and white woolen Italian one for a price rough comparable to American ones (Clothes in Russia a quite expensive so it evens out with the exchange rate). In order to find it, get the right color and size and to finally buy it I had to communicate all in Russian which I did kind of hesitantly. However my confidence is building every day to be able to carry out this kind of basic operation in Russian.
For lunch I and the kind fellow student (a resident of Wisconsin and expert on actual weather who offered to help me find the proper clothes) went to a Russian fast food chain restaurant offering American food. It was called Mikes (spelled out in Russian of course) and offered quite a good hamburger and fries which very closely resembled In and Out fries at a decent price. It was quite surprisingly good and offers a good option to help resolve homesickness that my crop up in the future.
After lunch I attempted to procure a good pair of gloves and scarf, but I was inconceivably unable to. A combination of the earliness of the season and a lack of men’s clothing for sale in the closest mall must be the explanation. This means next weekend I will once again venture out to find clothing to protect this Socal fish out of water in the frozen north. Thankfully consumerism is taking off in Russian and there are hundreds of stores and dozens of malls a short bus or metro ride away. But I assure you all; I will find good gloves and scarf before the first snow! Next I think I will try the “Grand Canyon” American style mall a few miles away.
I also made quite a good stew for dinner tonight which my suitemates and some friends from the rest of the hall all enjoyed. Amazing what you can do with a hotplate, 400 rubbles and plenty of time in order to feed 7 people. We will continue to eat quite well both with our own cooking and our local restaurants.
Back to class tomorrow and I start my Russian History classes next week as well. Coming this week is a hockey game Thursday and this weekend a tour of the city focusing on the 3 years siege of Leningrad.
I am planning on writing up some sort pieces on interesting aspects of my life here and Russian life in general to fill out blog posts on days like this where little of interest to others happens to here. So far I have plans to discuss of the following weeks Russian money, the food, the water situation, some basic info on St. Petersburg itself, and I would love any of you to email me with ideas or questions you might have that I can address here as well.
My Room:
Started the day with laundry and food shopping! While it was done in Russian, they were fairly normal activities conducted in the fashion to which I am accustomed.
Most interestingly today, I went out to buy another sweater at one of our local malls. After finding the very few stores the sell men’s clothes I was able to find quite a nice grey and white woolen Italian one for a price rough comparable to American ones (Clothes in Russia a quite expensive so it evens out with the exchange rate). In order to find it, get the right color and size and to finally buy it I had to communicate all in Russian which I did kind of hesitantly. However my confidence is building every day to be able to carry out this kind of basic operation in Russian.
For lunch I and the kind fellow student (a resident of Wisconsin and expert on actual weather who offered to help me find the proper clothes) went to a Russian fast food chain restaurant offering American food. It was called Mikes (spelled out in Russian of course) and offered quite a good hamburger and fries which very closely resembled In and Out fries at a decent price. It was quite surprisingly good and offers a good option to help resolve homesickness that my crop up in the future.
After lunch I attempted to procure a good pair of gloves and scarf, but I was inconceivably unable to. A combination of the earliness of the season and a lack of men’s clothing for sale in the closest mall must be the explanation. This means next weekend I will once again venture out to find clothing to protect this Socal fish out of water in the frozen north. Thankfully consumerism is taking off in Russian and there are hundreds of stores and dozens of malls a short bus or metro ride away. But I assure you all; I will find good gloves and scarf before the first snow! Next I think I will try the “Grand Canyon” American style mall a few miles away.
I also made quite a good stew for dinner tonight which my suitemates and some friends from the rest of the hall all enjoyed. Amazing what you can do with a hotplate, 400 rubbles and plenty of time in order to feed 7 people. We will continue to eat quite well both with our own cooking and our local restaurants.
Back to class tomorrow and I start my Russian History classes next week as well. Coming this week is a hockey game Thursday and this weekend a tour of the city focusing on the 3 years siege of Leningrad.
I am planning on writing up some sort pieces on interesting aspects of my life here and Russian life in general to fill out blog posts on days like this where little of interest to others happens to here. So far I have plans to discuss of the following weeks Russian money, the food, the water situation, some basic info on St. Petersburg itself, and I would love any of you to email me with ideas or questions you might have that I can address here as well.
My Room:
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