Давайте начнем...

Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start.

I'm a 22-year-old mama jama participating in the CIEE Study Abroad Language Program in St. Petersburg, Russia. My journey began January 30 in Chicago. Well. Really it began the day before when I dropped my dog off at my mom's house. Possibly the hardest part of the trip so far. Say what you will about snuggles from ya boo, unconditional doggy live wins every time. Anyway. With all the teary goodbyes and positive assurances that I would kick ass and take names, I was about ready to yak by the time I made it to security. Luckily my dad eats tears for breakfast, so it wasn't a messy affair. And honestly, as soon as he walked away it was as if all my anxiety melted away. I couldn't remember what I had been afraid of. CIEE would be holding our hands for the next three days. If I needed to worry, I didn't need to do it yet.

So there I am in Chicago, la la-la la-la, wait three hours, get on a plane, wait some more, but WHAT? Four seats to myself on a 7-hour overnight flight? I'll take it! So I make it to my connecting flight in Shhhhhveeeeden, where, by the way, everyone is blonde and toothy and the newspapers all look like tabloids. Beautiful. It's a short layover, but I find six other people from my first flight who are in my program. They, like everyone else I've met through CIEE so far, were all ridiculously easy to talk to and pretty cool people. (Sidenote: it's like a crime not to have an industrial [upper ear piercing, mom] in this program. I've seen like 20 so far.) So we wait. And we board. Again. Eventually......

We made it! You know all those things you've heard about how terrible Russian winters are? I have yet to experience them. It's like 20 degrees (F) here with little wind chill. What the balls! NOT complaining. A hat is barely necessary. Hell yes. Anyway.

They proceed to trap us in the hotel for three days. I can't tell you how much sitting I've done, but I've gotten super good at it. Seriously, though, I feel like I have growing pains in my legs. Here is what our schedule has been like: force feed brekkie, sit, force feed lunch, sit, force feed dinner, sit, go sit at the bar in exhaustion from all the other sitting you've been doing, get ready to do it again tomorrow. However, aside from all the complaining, we learned useful and terrifying things in orientation. So terrifying that I'm not sure I will ever leave my apartment. Very tragic and unspeakable things have happened to people who have in the past participated in this program. I won't list them (you're welcome, mom), but I feel safer driving down MLK Boulevard in DC with the doors unlocked, windows open, blasting country on the radio, and a bumper sticker of the confederate flag that says "Heritage, NOT HATE".

Anyway. They take us to the Russian Wal-Mart, Lenta, and we buy pay-as-you-go phones, then go back to the hotel to sit. Whatever.

Then today comes. Shit happens! We take a bus tour around St. Pete. There's a lot of beauty mixed with "holy shit das racist." Also, forget being a Jew here. Just don't do it, how dare you. So we see a lot of cool, historical nonsense (that actually gives me a raging learning boner), and the Neva, which is so frozen you can WALK ACROSS IT?

Fuck yeah! Also ^ these bitches, Anya and Katya, are red heads like myself, hate most women, and are completely adorable. BFFz. So after some more driving around and some practicing our metro faces, as to appear fierce and slightly annoyed:

They take us to our school! Which is......

Completely beautiful. It used to be a convent, turned school for girls, turned PARTY MANSION just kidding, but what a waste, turned school for errybody.

Finally we return to the hotel where we eat and sit some more, have a few more moments of orientation and then it's time to meet our host families. I'm one of the first people to have their name called. Let me flippin tell you. This was the most nerve racking experience of the trip so far. What if she hates me! Oh god I should push my nose ring up into my nose! She's going to try to feed me and I'm already stuffed! I seriously have to get into a car while a Russian drives?! But then Marina Vasilievna appears, and she is a beautiful angel. (And she totally did feed me until I thought I would vomit.) So we have brief hellos, and off we go onto the automotive-ly dangerous streets of Piter. Anyway, as I'm writing my will out in my head, because I'm not sure anyone in Russia should be allowed to drive (seriously, though, they drive as recklessly as I do when I'm playing Mario Kart), the nerves slowly fade away and all seems right with the world. We get home, and HALLELUJAH they have internet. And I have my own tv! Kick ass!

I proceeded to take a six hour nap, and now it's one in the morning and I'm wide awake. Perhaps a midnight stroll... NEVER. EVER. GOD. And now, even though there are a jillion little Russian quirks I want to write about, meh. I'll do it later. ;)