My first ever borsht!!! I love it! :D ^^
Россия!!! (Russia)
This is my first blog post ever so bare with me if it isn’t fabulous. ;) For those who don’t know I am currently in St. Petersburg, Russia teaching kids how to speak English! I arrived at 7pm (St. Pete’s time) yesterday Jan. 26th. I’ve had very little sleep since leaving SLC, Utah but I am doing well! Fantastic even!
Where to begin? Well a quote by Amelia Earhart sounds good to me, “Adventure is worth while.” I thought about this quote several times on the long airplane ride to St. Pete’s as my nerves jumped between excitement and dread for the adventures that awaited me. I’m now longer nervous, in fact I’m absolutely in love with St. Petersburg! It’s such a huge and beautiful city teaming with life and incredibly interesting people! Russian may look tough on the outside but once you start talking to them they are the most friendly and generous people!
A little bit about my host family: Me and my fellow I.L.P. (International Language Progam) volunteer, Nicole, actually got put in the same host family. My family consists of a Papa (Constatine ((the Russian version of this name escapes me at the moment)), and his parents (My Russian babyshka and dedyshka) Galya and Victor. All are extremely friendly, when I met Galya she told Nicole and I that she would treat us like her grandchildren and boy has she! I feel like we’re spoiled to death! She has fed us huge meals of traditional Russian food! More than I can eat haha, - and when I don’t eat it all she scolds me telling me that I hardly eat anything. Yay, babyshka’s! - I have to admit though, that if every meal is as big as the ones I’ve had so far I’m going to be coming back nice and plump haha- or maybe not seeing as I’ll be running around the city all day every day. ;)
As for weather, I actually don’t think that winter here is too much worse than one of the colder winters back home in Utah. At least not so far. But there is definitely A LOT more snow! I love it! And I’m proud to inform you all that I only slipped and fell once today! Which for me is a personal feat considering all the ice and slush everywhere.
Today I got to walk around a large chunk of St. Pete’s and I am exhausted! My brain is definitely full to bursting with all the information given to me today. Not to mention all of my mostly futile attempts at communicating with Russians. My native coordinator likes to tell people that I know how to speak Russian because I had mentioned that I had had classes before. And when people hear that they get excited and assume that I speak a lot of the language and just start talking to me-to which the usual response on my part has been a blank stare and a reply of ne- poneemau. Haha but inspite of that my Russian is improving and quickly. Perhaps one of these days I’ll be able to carry out a decent conversation.
As of today I most heartily agree with Amelia Earhart, adventure is definitely worth while!
