Day... 118? What?

Yeah. The 116 days in Russia are over. 9 days until I'm home. The wait is close to done. California in less than 2 weeks.

The rest of May 19th: Played guitar at the park with friends. Afterwards, garage bar! Last poetry night! It was happy and sad and great. I got really cold.

May 20th: After my 2 easy finals, we went to the Mechanical egg (industrial/steampunk kind of cafe) with one of the professors, who told stories while drinking cognac and coffee. Brenna T and I got creme brulee ice cream! Then we went a-wandering around 5ish, sat in the park for a few hours as per the usual, and ended up playing pool later in a mall. We were going to see a movie, but it was too late. So, after she beat me in pool 2 times out of 3 (to be fair, once I was going to win but sunk the 8 ball), we got cheap american food dinner and had to ran to the metro to make it before it closed at midnight.

May 21st: 1 final, oral, took about 6 minutes. Of course, I had to wait a while in line, so it took up more of my time than that. Our closing ceremony was at 1, and around 4 I ran home to drop off my backpack. Then it was time for the boat cruise! We all went out on the canals in this big boat and generally had a fun time, talking, reminiscing, getting mooned by construction workers on a rooftop, the whole shebang. It was pretty awesome and the weather was great!

But, afterwards, it was time to say goodbye. So, we did. Everyone except for my group of friends!

We went to the beach at Primorskaya! Well, most of us. Brenna T and I had stuff to do quick. Brenna wanted a coat and a blanket to sit on, and I was designated the Shaverma-getter. The 24 hour shaverma place was right next to her place conveniently enough, so I bought 6 of them and she got her things. Then, the beach! We were there from about 9pm until very late. Fred and Nadya left around 2:30, and Brenna G and Eve left around 3, leaving only me, Brenna T, and Wes. Now, I was stuck on the island until 6, so my course was pretty much set. We left the beach around 4, and Wes went home, saying his goodbyes. Brenna and I walked around for a long time, and sat on a bench for a long time. We ended up saying goodbye around 6:15. We had been avoiding it I guess. We promised to write each other and everything, and everyone has everyone else's phone numbers. We promised to try to visit each other. Brennas G and T are the easiest for me, since we're all in the midwest. So hopefully I'll get to see them this summer. T will probably will probably get visited first though, since I'm still with G for another 9 days before we're back in the US.

Then, I went home. Arrived at about 6:40. My host mom made me coffee and I finished packing, took a shower, said goodbye and left Russia, in a haze of exhaustion and sadness.

It's been quite a 4 months. I hope I see a lot of these people again.

I'm in Kiev now, and I'll be 22 in 3 days. I go to Amsterdam in 4 days.

It's good, but there are people I miss seeing every day.

-Э

May 15th - Present (Last Week So Far)

Okay, so I'm only in Russia for another 4ish days, and in the last 2 weeks or so I've realized that I don't really feel like leaving yet. Maybe it's better that I leave when I don't really want to.

Let's do a quick day-by-day recap before my next final...

15th: We went to Peterhoff and saw the Fontana! Better yet, we went there on a hydrofoil! It was really really cool and I even got to meet and talk to Irina Borisovna's husband, who is a shipmaker. He knows his way around an ocean breeze.

When we got there, we saw the Fontana right away and it was absolutely amazing! I don't have my pictures up yet, but later today or maybe tomorrow I can defer you to facebook. Anyways we had a tour guide for a while, who basically just showed us fountains and was nice enough to not stop me when I went splashing around. I even ran through the fountain that was a street! My hair got wet and crazy. Later we saw the Tsar's bath houses, which were cool, as they had a big fountain INDOORS that you take a bath in! Sweet.

After the tour, most of us split up or left, but Brenna (Thompson) and I hung out there for a couple more hours before taking a Marshrutka back to Petersburg.

That night, a bunch of us met up to go to the beach at Primorskaya. We were there for a long time, and even made a bonfire out of driftwood. Some Russian girls joined us at one point and we all sang songs together, some Russian, some english. Then they disappeared. It rained for a little while, but instead of leaving we just all huddled together around the fire.

Eventually we headed out and got shaverma. Brenna (T) left, and we took gypsy cabs to Dvortsovaya Ploshad, where we saw the bridges while they were up! Of course, that meant I was on Vasilievsky Ostrov, and couldn't go home until they went down. So, I didn't get back home until about 5:30am. Jeez.

May 16th: I slept until 1! Then studied for my Literature exam! Of course, eventually Brenna (T) text messaged me telling me to come to the beach at Peter and Paul Fortress, so I did. There was live music and it was warm and nice and relaxing. We eventually went on a walk, and ended up getting strawberry milkshakes. Afterwards, we both went our ways, and I studied more.

May 17th: School until 5! Afterwards I met with my conversation partner for the last time. We talked about differences between Russian and American school systems and military. She thought it was amazing that American men aren't required to be in the military.

Then I went home and studied for culture!

May 18th: School again! A really easy final! Afterwards, I went on a walk, and ran into Brenna (T) at the park. How do we keep running into each other? After checking herself for homing devices, she told me to sit down. I did. We sat in the park doing NOTHING for like 4 1/2 hours and it was AWESOME. Relaxing = Great. Then we got pizza on Chernachevskaya, and judged each other's tastes in pizza and waffles.

Afterwards, studying all night for grammar!

That brings us to today. I'm going to be taking my grammar final in about 10 minutes, and here I am not actually studying for it. Afterwards, I'm done for the day. I'm going to go to the beach with whoever wants, and I have my guitar, so some serenading will be in order.

I'm having a good week! Yes!

-Э

8 minutes before my next final...

I'm actually starting to find that I don't want to leave Russia as much as I thought I did. I kind of wish I had an extra week or two. Crazy. This month has been capital Awesome.

Later I will talk about Peterhoff! After the excursion, Brenna (Thompson, not Garth) and I wandered around Peterhoff more than we had to!

Then we went to the beach!

I will give you more details and also pictures when a convenient time arises.

Day 108

Wow, so, what has happened this month?

As you know or have figured out, my home internet stopped working, and only started up again today, around 2 hours ago. Hopefully it won't go out again.

What else is new?

Last Sunday was Victory Day in Russia, and I went to a parade and saw fireworks and things.

Life ain't crushin' when you're a Russian.

Note how it's not that dark for the fireworks. How early were they? 11pm or so. What's the deal? Well, it kinda doesn't get dark here until past midnight these days. And it's light out again by probably 5:30am. I can't really sleep past 6:3o anymore, because my room contains the 2 hugest windows in the entire world.

How about the future... I think all I've got left is Peterhoff, which is tomorrow and should be pretty much awesome. Might see the bridges go up too, though that's not till 1am. Last meeting with my conversation partner is on Sunday, and I don't know what we're going to do.

Then, finals. Oh boy. I have 7 tests for 5 classes. CRAZY. Then, Kiev.

OH RIGHT. I should update everybody on that too. Thanks to Belarus, and the lack of trains NOT going through it, we are now flying to Kiev instead. And Amsterdam. Oh, and Budapest and Prague? Not so much happening anymore. Money is running out, and train schedules are just too hectic and risky. So, looks like just Kiev (for 6 days) and Amsterdam (for 5). I'll be in Ukraine for my birthday now, but that's cool.

It'll still be fun. 19 days till I'm home, and only 3 weeks and 2 days until California. Just gotta keep moving.

Oh, and there's a pretty sweet picture of me holding a Russian flag in front of the Neva river (with several historical buildings in the background) that I wanted to put here, but it won't upload. Check out facebook.

Have a great day! Yours truly Evan Larkin

Russia:

I hate your internet.

Pskov, etcetera.

Just to get this out of the way immediately, I was getting really frustrated with the length of my hair (it was flipping out way too much) last week, and on thursday afternoon I actually took my pocket knife (which has scissors) to it.

Before:

And After:

Not too bad I hope?

Anyways, Pskov. We left at 7am (ugh) and rode in a double-decker bus forever. Or 6 hours? Still, awful. And bumpy. We visited the Pskov Kremlin, which everyone was too tired to pay full attention to, and then ate lunch at a hotel and hung out outside for a bit. The riverbank outside was awesome, and there were frogs EVERYWHERE. Seriously. I was skipping rocks and a man called me a crazy person. I stopped. Then we found a little frog hanging out inside a hatched robin's egg. How awesome is that? Needless to say, I took a few of pictures of that.

THEN, we went to our actual hotel, which turned out to be another 2 hour drive away. Luckily, when we got there, all we did was eat dinner and then have the night to ourselves. That didn't mean a ton though, simply because we were in an extremely rural town. (Think Dundas. Now shrink it.)

The next day, we toured the area where Pushkin had been exiled to, as well as a little mill area. Jarlath made friends with the mill workers and ended up drinking with them that night.

What's the important thing here?

Oh yeah, banya. I totally FINALLY went to a banya. Took me long enough, right? It was pretty awesome. It even included swimming in the Coldest pool in the world. Coldest.

Also yesterday I went to a castle and drank fresh spring water. And sat in a bus for another 7 or 8 hours.

And today? No school. Unfortunately, due to my Yota breaking (thank you Nadya for SITTING ON IT (while it was plugged into my computer, thus breaking it in half), I probably will not have internet in the evening tonight. Igor's wireless modem works off and on, but 90% of the time it's no good. Such is Russia I guess.

But hey, it's May now! I'm leaving in 19 days, and I'll be home in 30. Update: my flight actually gets into MSP at 6:55, not 8:55. Do we want to start taking bids on who will get me? Also, what will be for dinner? This is important, people.

Evan

Day 90 ohgosh

Yep, 90 days in Russia. I leave in 26. How crazy!

I don't have much to update, but I wanted to say something.

My Trica Team, Team International Affair (Me, Annie, and Danl) got 2nd place in Northfield, which puts us at 4th place nationally and 1st place in both Chile and Russia. Nice!

What else? I went to Gatchina yesterday with my conversation partner. It was beautiful and the weather was great.

I guess I don't really have much more to say right now. My eye is doing okay, which is good. I know! I can include a Trica picture! I don't know the girl.