Final post from Russia

Friday, roughly 2:30 am. I just got back from watching Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge go up. (The bridge normally featured on the postcards and the White Nights advertisements is either Palace Bridge or Troitsky Bridge. However, (a) those are both much further from my homestay, (b) I didn’t want to have an hour’s walk back home in the small hours of the morning, and (c) Troitsky Bridge is currently closed for repairs.) Except for a couple of wandering Russians not much older than myself, the embankment was quiet, and almost majestic in the industrial light…which is weird, considering that I’m calling Soviet apartment blocks and a bank ‘majestic.’ The bridge did not rise in its entirety, which is probably good, because it was one of those round latticed bridges and I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to work. Instead, just the center section rose, but it was still amazing to watch. I have once again discovered the difficulties of photography in very little light, but here’s one of my better attempts.

I can’t believe I’m leaving in less than a day. I just can’t. The last two weeks since Victory Day have been an absolute blur of last-minute activities. Visits to museums I hadn’t yet seen, my last orchestra rehearsal, my last session at the Times, evenings with friends, the weekend in Peterhof, finals (oh, yeah, those), souvenir shopping, photo-taking…it’s a wonder I’ve slept. I’ve said goodbye to a few people so far, including Andrei Vladimirovich, who did his best to wish me a wonderful summer in English; my host mom’s best friend Larisa Nikolaevna; and my conversation partner Ilya. But I’m not looking forward to the goodbyes over the next day and a half.

It’s been in the seventies and sunny almost every single day since Victory Day, and I think I may have worn a coat once during the past week and a half (though I have had my shawl with me). Last Saturday, we boarded a hydrofoil (commuter boat for tourists, basically) and journeyed to the summer fantasy land that is Peterhof. I was kind of disappointed at the beginning of the semester when this wasn’t on our list of excursions, but I am sooooooo glad they saved it for when the weather was good. We stepped off the boat into a garden lit by the blazing sun, met a few very enthusiastic tour guides, and set off for a tour of the major landmarks of the gardens, including the big central statue of ‘Samson tearing open the jaws of the lion.’ Incidentally, it’s hard to pick out Sampson’s long hair on that one. Other highlights included trick fountains, which squirt at you if you step on a certain rock, or which only spray once every hour at a particular minute. I got slightly less than soaked (hey, someone had to!) and dried off very pleasantly in the sun and the Baltic breeze. We even toured the tsars’ imperial bath house, where the tour guides even ran one of the ingenious fountain-shower-constructions for us. Finishing the day with some wandering around the parts of the garden we hadn’t visited on the tour, sitting with Brenna and Evan staring out at the Gulf of Finland and making small talk…it was perfect. Simply perfect.

Other highlights of the past week and a half: attending a concert at the Large Philharmonic Hall, for FREE, thanks to Hayley and her host mother; a beach party Saturday night, complete with campfire, songs, and a group of eight Russian girls coming over and joining us in the singing; and losing my ATM card to a machine at the Cherneshevskaya metro (aaaaaaaaaargh) and receiving and activating the new one within three days (hurrah!). I’ve visited at least three museums, too, in between writing papers and cramming my brain full of six cases and perfect verbs. (I understand, at least enough to use them, why the difference between perfect and imperfect verbs exists. What I can’t wrap my head around is why whoever designed the Russian language cared enough to create AN ENTIRE SEPARATE SET OF VERBS WITH ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME MEANING.) And in between it all, Lyudmila Afanasyevna has been doing her best to spoil me with her cooking. I left my bedroom for a quick break from writing my Civilization essay, and when I came back from the bathroom, there was a plate of fresh strawberries sitting on my night table. Just the little things like that make me think…no, okay, I’m not thinking about it anymore. It’s going to be tough to leave on Saturday.

One of the coolest parts of this week was thanks to the folks at the St. Petersburg Times. I’m a published writer now (well, I will be as of tomorrow morning)!!! Toby and Shura approached me last Thursday with the idea of writing a restaurant review, so I invited Erica along to a restaurant on a small side street by the Sportivnaya metro station. I won’t go into too much more detail, but I can invite you to read the review somewhere on the sptimes.ru website. Both editors and Sebastian complimented me on it today, so I think I passed the test. :D

…anyways. I’ve taken well over 1600 photos this semester, and I was tempted to spend tonight putting them in some sort of order, but I really do need to sleep. I’m mostly packed, except for the loads of laundry I’ll be doing tomorrow evening. After the boat ride, I plan to come home and bake something special as a parting thank-you gift for my host mom. I’m thinking chocolate-orange biscotti. :)

My next post will be written in Russia but posted from either Germany or the US. I’m almost home! :)