so tired...

can they keep us any busier? I don't think I want to find out.

Friday afternoon we went on a tour of the original fort of St. Petersburg and its attached cathedral, and then listened to the Men's Choir there. Absolutely stunning, both the architecture and the music.

Then on Saturday we went to Staraya Ladaga, which is one of the oldest cities in Russia- back to when it was Rus', not Russia. They were having their big festival, and there were hordes of men in armor and furs with pikes and swords and bucklers, running around trying to kill each other. Lara, you would have loved it.

Of course, it was two or three hours away by bus, and the bus was an hour away from my house, so I had to get up at six in the morning on Saturday and trek across town to the university. Turns out, seven in the morning on saturday is wayyyyyy scarier than any other time. The only people out are people who have been drinking all night. I had a very uncomfortable encounter with a talkative, vaguely amorous drunk on a narrow walkway, but I put a quick end to that. (yay self defense classes!) I think I'll stay in until about ten in the morning before going out alone next weekend.

Then, while we were all asleep, the bus driver got lost and we ended up halfway to Murmansk before the director figured out that we weren't where we should be. He drove like a madman, too.

Anyway. Then Sunday we all went to Peterhof, the Versaille of Russia, which was amazingly beautiful. I actually remembered to bring my camera there, unlike Staraya Ladaga, so hopefully I'll upload some pictures soon. And then after that, as if we hadn't already spent eight hours hoofing all over a palace, we loaded onto a bus and took the long delayed tour of St. Petersburg. Josh, I took lots of pictures of interesting architecture just for you.

Then last night I realized I'd had the homework schedule a little wrong, aтв I ended up having to get up wayyy early this morning to get today's done. And then it turned out that no one had told us about the homework for reading this morning. Stiiillll getting the kinks out of this program.

This afternoon is my first english-language lecture with a bunch of Russian students. I signed up for the society/history one, even though I really, really wanted to go to the linguistics one, because I need more cultural stuff. We get linguistics every week, anyhow.

After that there's some sort of reception foк the program that's putting on these lectures (they're in English for Russian students of English from other schools), with champagne and folk dancing and stuff. Then I'm going home to do more homework!

My host looked at all my homework the other day, pronounced it all hard and boring. The next day she bought me a much more interesting book, a simplified Boris Akunin mystery. Very interesting!

Well, I'm very sure that there's more to say, but there's a jam on for computers, aтв I can't think. My Russian is already improving, I'm having a great time, I miss you all.