One Month Down

We've now been to quite a few Cathedrals, all equally as beautiful as the next. It's really weird, having to get used to the fact that you'll walk down the street and you'll see either a Cathedral, or a palace on every corner.

I wandered the heart of St. Pete for a bit on the day we visited St. Issac's and started taking selfies with as many statues as I could find. (We're going to look past that, now.)

St. Isacc's Cathedral.

We've now eaten out twice at a Russian fast-food joint called Teremok. My favorite part of it is the Morc that they serve. It's definitely the best juice that I've found here. 

This is Svieta, the lovely lady who takes us out to fantastic sites on Saturdays and teaches us about the history. 

Necessary picture I took while walking home the day after Valentine's Day.

Watching the closing ceremonies of the Olympics with my family. 

My host-brother showing off his Bilbo action figure.

We walked in to the kindergarten one day and apparently they go all out for birthdays.

Okay! Last Sunday was one of my favorite days in St. Petersburg so far. March first is the Russian spring festival where they decorate everything with suns and burn the "Winter Witch" to welcome the spring. We went to the Peter and Paul fortress for the second time to go and celebrate. 

The first time we went mainly consisted of exploring the prison and doing things like this: 

(Weirdest statue ever, but actually has a lot of symbolism attached to it)

The next time we went (last Sunday) we went for the festival.

It consisted of singers and dancers.

Dancing contests.

Street performers.

Invisible men.

Russian rappers.

Dance circles, which Hannah, Lexi and I crashed. That's right. We wedged our way into Russian dance circles and danced.

I'm having a lot of fun here. Teaching can be rough, but it gets easier every time I do it. I'm really glad that only one month is over with, because I'm not ready to leave yet. :) We're taking a sleeper train to Moscow this weekend and I'll hopefully get a lot of souvenir shopping done. 'Til next time! (Which is who knows when.)