"Russia Forever!"

Day 4

Hello everybody! Man, today was an awesome day! Since today is Saturday, it's excursion day! So that meant we get to hang out with Sveta. Who is the coolest person I have ever met. She has this dance moves where she jumps up and down and screams, "Awesome! Cool! Yeah!", she likes to shake you to get you excited, and she loves to steal your camera and be your designated photographer, which we were all fine with! But really though, we all can't wait until next Saturday when we get to see Sveta again! Anyways, this morning I woke up around 6:30, yeah I know. Jet lag is still being a beeotch. I'm fine with it though! I get to catch up on my blogging, Facebook-photo-putting-upping and all that jazz, so it works out. Hopefully I go home with the same wake up early schedule, I've always wanted to be a morning person. So I woke up at 6:30, did all my business and then got ready so we could leave the apartment by 10:15. We were going to meet Sveta at 11:00 to start our excursion, so we wanted to go to the grocery store beforehand and get some money out! Well, we left by 10:40, which was fine because the grocery store is literally 10 seconds away. We got to the grocery store and saw Sveta getting money out too! Which was good because if she hadn't been there, we probably would have bought a cow with one of the random machines there. I've finally figured out the money, so it didn't give me a heart attack when I withdrew 2000 Rubles. (Roughly 66 bucks) Also, water is kind of hard to come by here because you can't drink it out of the tap, you have to boil it first. So we wanted to buy some water at the grocery store too. And, of course, we bought carbonated water without realizing it. Freakin' language barrier. I bought a coke too, which kind of saved my life. After all that, we left the store and went back to our apartment to pick up everyone else to start our excursion! We went to the Metro and took it all the way to downtown St. Petersburg! Oh man. It was beautiful!! We saw St. Isaac's, the Church of Spilled Blood, the Hermitage (the outside, we haven't gone in yet!), some nice Navy soldiers (who we took a picture with, of course. While we were taking a picture, one of them pumped his fist up into the air and yelled, "Russia Forever!" We loved it.), Palace Square, the Alexander Column, the Bronze Horseman, Admiralty Square, the Mariinksy Palace, and Arts Square! Yeah, we had a full day. Thank goodness for Sveta! After all that, we ate lunch! We had been told about Blinis before arriving in St. Pete's, so we wanted to try those first! Mine were weird... I got a caesar one, which had cabbage, mayonnaise, onions, and barbecue sauce in it. My mouth was not a pleasant place after that. I also got a dessert one! It was called a sweet cream but it actually tasted like laughing cow cheese. I'll have to try the other ones because my first experience was not the best.  After Blinis, we went to the most magical place ever. Miracle Island! It's basically a fair/amusement park. It was SO cool! There were so many rides, places to rent roller blades, food shops,  and characters to pose with (Like Lumiere and Cogsworth and Yoda!). We're definitely going to go back and spend a whole day there! Well, our feet pretty much wanted to murder us after that, so we headed back to the apartment. We did a little bit of training and then sat around, listened to some Anastasia (Rasputin is one freaky dude) and zonked out. Well, I did. I have the worst sleeping schedule. I fall asleep early and wake up early! I guess that isn't that bad actually. :) But I really do love it here. I've caught the traveling bug bad. I'm not at all homesick like I thought it would be. I really feel like this is my home now. Like I am supposed to be here. Well, I have to go shower and wake up my roommates in funny ways so big gulps huh? All right. well, see ya later!

- Кортни (That's my name! Weird, right?)