Of Parks and Presidents
This weekend I and a few other students were invited to the home of one of our Professors, located in Noviy Peterhof, a suburb of St. Petersburg. She'd been on a business trip a couple weeks ago and hadn't been able to hold lessons, so this was her way of making it up to us.
Noviy Peterhof was beautiful. I greatly enjoy getting out of the city, and away from tourist zones. Irina Gennadieva took us on a walk around the English Park, and Alexandria Park, and we discussed the history of the different architectural styles of the buildings. Afterwards we went to her wonderful apartment for lunch, followed by lessons.
Apartments outside the city are larger, and hers was VERY nice. It felt very much like being in a small american house. We had borsch and blini for lunch, and she gave us a recipe to make blini, I'm definately making them for people once I come home. :-D So yummy!
Sunday was the presidential election here in Russia. My host family was gone for the entire day. My host-mom works for the district administration and was helping run a polling station, she roped Seryosha, Dima, and Dima's girlfriend Olya into helping her with it. I don't know how she made it through, she left at about 6:30 and didn't make it home again until after 11pm.
As I really had no idea what to do yesterday I spent several hours wandering around St. Petersburg and taking pictures of some of the sights. It was fairly pleasant out no snow or rain, but a bit windy.
As many of you I'm sure now know, Russia's new president is Medvedev, as was expected.
For the most part Russians seem very laid back about this, it was what was expected after all. There is one protest scheduled for later today in St. Petersburg, but it was scheduled as of several weeks ago, so I don't know how much is really in response to the election, and how much is just to have a political protest. In any case most students are planning ways to get home earlier in the day or avoiding that section of town just so we don't get caught up in it. (I'm not terribly concerned as it is not on my way home.)
Also, photos are up in my gallery. :-)
Train station
A big sign encouraging citizens to vote:
Noviy Peterhof was beautiful. I greatly enjoy getting out of the city, and away from tourist zones. Irina Gennadieva took us on a walk around the English Park, and Alexandria Park, and we discussed the history of the different architectural styles of the buildings. Afterwards we went to her wonderful apartment for lunch, followed by lessons.
Apartments outside the city are larger, and hers was VERY nice. It felt very much like being in a small american house. We had borsch and blini for lunch, and she gave us a recipe to make blini, I'm definately making them for people once I come home. :-D So yummy!
Sunday was the presidential election here in Russia. My host family was gone for the entire day. My host-mom works for the district administration and was helping run a polling station, she roped Seryosha, Dima, and Dima's girlfriend Olya into helping her with it. I don't know how she made it through, she left at about 6:30 and didn't make it home again until after 11pm.
As I really had no idea what to do yesterday I spent several hours wandering around St. Petersburg and taking pictures of some of the sights. It was fairly pleasant out no snow or rain, but a bit windy.
As many of you I'm sure now know, Russia's new president is Medvedev, as was expected.
For the most part Russians seem very laid back about this, it was what was expected after all. There is one protest scheduled for later today in St. Petersburg, but it was scheduled as of several weeks ago, so I don't know how much is really in response to the election, and how much is just to have a political protest. In any case most students are planning ways to get home earlier in the day or avoiding that section of town just so we don't get caught up in it. (I'm not terribly concerned as it is not on my way home.)
Also, photos are up in my gallery. :-)
Train station
A big sign encouraging citizens to vote:
posted by gewreinn at 1:51 PM (St Petersburg time)
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