now i am rrreal rrrossian girrrl.

Beginning this post with another yawn. It’s 2:30am in Russia, and I’ll be waking up in just under 5 hours…but since I’m at Kostya’s apartment and he has free internet, and since there will be obviously a very long list of very interesting things to say about Russia over the next week and a half, and since I’m riding a little high on 4 cups of tea today, I figure I’ll take the time to post.

My arrival in Russia was absolutely perfect. After zero trouble from customs (and after a flight I spent in a half-sleeping daze), I walked out into the arrivals area…to be bombarded with two running hugs from Katya and Kostya, who were carrying welcome signs with my photo. I’ll scan them and post them later, they’re worth seeing. I’ve honestly never felt so welcomed in my life; anyone who has the chance to meet these two should take it, they’re something else. I plan to ask them both to marry me at some point. At the airport, they provided me with my very own week-long metropass. After a bus/metro trip to Katya’s apartment (a gorgeous, spacious 2-bedroom
she shares with her sister Sveta), I was greeted by the next part of my welcome: in order to
enter the apartment, I had to cut through a ribbon barring the door which said ‘welcome to Russia’. Inside, on the floor of the living room, lit tea candles spelled out ‘Sarahle’ (my grandfather’s pet name for me), and a long banner underneath said ‘we’re happy you’re here’. There were even balloons in the doorway. The first few hours I was in Russia consisted of all of
us periodically looking at each other and beginning to scream and go crazy. We ate Russian cake, and then they cooked me a dinner of chicken and potatoes, which we ate with Greek salad, kalamari, Tuborg beer and Hungarian wine. When Sveta came home, we all sat together and ate fruit, and she attempted to practice her English on me while I attempted to practice my Russian
on her. I’ve been trying to speak Russian as much as possible here and honestly, it’s going pretty damn well. Not so bad. i finally got to sleep - exhausted, full and slightly tipsy -
around 1am and (get this) slept until 10:30am. *9 and a half hours of sleep*!!!! i haven't felt that good in months. Next Katya showed me around the city centre. St. Petersburg isn't like anywhere I've ever been before...
the buildings are brightly-coloured but old; very majestic. They're short but extremely long. Advertisements and signs everywhere are similar in quality and style to the brightly-coloured and garish signs visible in North America's Chinatowns. Streets are extremely wide
and most cars are extremely old...oh. The metro is interesting. Now, I've been on a number of
different underground trains in a number of cities, and the one thing common to all of them is
the closed and somber silent face everyone wears once on the train. In St-P, imagine the same thing but multiplied by 1000. Katya was even shocked that I was looking
around while on the train; apparently one doesn't look around while in Russia. After the shocking
friendliness of Dublin, the reserved and proud atmosphere of St-P is really something else. In Dublin, I smiled and laughed and greeted strangers. In St-P I hold my head haughtilly, walk with a supermodel stride and if I look at anything it is with feigned disdain. Katya (back in Paris) told me that Russian women only have 3 hair colours: red, peroxide blond, and black - and all of these dyed. It's true. I saw one female all day who didn't have obviously dyed hair. And the sidewalk sounds like high heels. Women of all ages here wear belly tops. (when was the last time we did that in North America? 1999?) Tiny little stores the equivalent of convenience stores are everywhere; they each have a larger selection of alcohol than I knew existed, and a pack of cigarettes costs less than a dollar. People can be seen drinking on the street and in the bus at any time. Ice cream carts are on every street corner or more frequently, and everyone here seems to be eating ice cream bars all the time. I've already had two, neither of which were anything like the stuff at home. Oh, that's the other thing - in Dublin it never got above 12 degrees and was generally cold and rainy. Suddenly I arrive in Russia and it's 25 and sunny. Boiling hot walking around the city, but nice after all that shivering.

In the evening, Katya and I met up with Kostya and we went for bliny (basically blintzes, or stuffed crepes...but greasier than crepes and with a slightly different consistency). I had one filled with chicken and one filled with cherry, and both were delicious - and about a dollar each. Although thus far, neither Katya nor Kostya has allowed me to pay even for a water bottle. If this continues, my plan is simply to leave half my rubles for each of them on Katya's desk just before I leave. After bliny, Kostya's younger sister Yulia met up with us. Katya went home, and we three went to another restaurant and had the Russian version of pierogi - meat-filled pie, in this case. And then we went to, yes, the Russian ballet. We saw Swan Lake. It was quite gorgeous, if 3 and a half hours long. Our seats were in the absolute back row, but honestly the theatre is pretty small so it wasn't that far from the stage. The very back level of the theatre didn't have actual seats, but hard bleachers like in a stadium or something, a sharp contrast from the gilt and cushions below. We had more ice cream during intermission.

After the ballet back to Kostya's apartment, where I met his mother and uncle...who had the time of their lives trying to question me, especially after they realized that I speak some Russian. They found this extremely exciting, and seem to feel that I speak almost without an accent. Mostly they wanted to know about Canada, and Kostya's uncle got out the atlas and marvelled at how Montreal gets as cold as St-P, when Montreal is at the 45th latitude and St-P is at the 60th. Then we ate even more: Russian salad (mayo, egg and fish), bread with cheese, juice, and a layered cake with nuts. This week will likely more than make up for the 1 1/2 meals per day I was eating in Dublin.

Ok, now I really have to sleep - tomorrow we're taking the bus out to Kostya's dacha (something like a country house) and we're getting up early, and maybe we can even convince Dima to get off his lazy ass and hang out with us. I do not in the slightest doubt that there are more adventures to come. My verdict on Russia is basically what I expected: it's fascinating and exciting, but I wouldn't visit it alone.