St. Petersburg
So, I spent the summer on an "Language Study Abroad" in Russia with some kids from my school.
St. Petersburg might have one of the biggest Metro systems in the world (3rd), but there are much more fun--and sometimes quicker--ways to get around the city. Justin (here), Emily, and I all got cheapo Russian rollerblades--pretty much flavored the time here. Got real good at sliding and spinning all around.
Here's Andy, who took almost all these pictures.
Maintaining fitness (sort of a constant concern for me) required more creativity in Russia. Running every morning is well and good, but real gyms were simply too ritzy and expensive in the city. We ended up improvising a pretty effective system out in the park. I got pretty scrawny, because it's not really possible to do any really heavy lifting, just calisthenics and hi-rep sort of things. Could also blame all that watery borsch.
'Lest the old traditions fail' Introduced the Dartmouth games to Russia.
Matt
We also went on a trip to Vologda and Kirillov, little provincial cities about a day away. These were my favorite places--real nature, real Russians:
Swedish fence
Brandon:
Well, I got whole lot better at speaking Russian.
For a while I characterized this whole thing as a bit of a mistake on my part. Speaking Russian is fun for me, but spending so long cooped up in a big city like Petersburg (even with rollerblades), was stifling, no doubt about it. I thought a lot about who and what I was missing this season in Greenland. The credits given by SP Gosudarvstveniy Universitet are pretty worthless (or worse than worthless) for my major, the cost of living is high, and it was a struggle at first to find Russian kids to talk to. After a few months, though, and especially now on the verge of leaving, I feel I've wisened up a bit: I came here to cure my monolingualism and am well on my way with that, made some good friends (other guys from Dartmouth), and I still like Russia and I want to come back.
Well, more than a month till I've got to head back to Dartmouth. Jess and I are meeting up in Iceland in September, but that leaves some time--can't wait to figure out what happens next.
