My trip and early Russia

Everyone was told to meet at the Detroit Metro Airport at 1pm on Friday the 19th; I got there at 11am. My parents who know everything about traffic suggested, no, demanded, that we leave the house at 9:30. Turns out, they don't know anything about traffic.

My flight to Russia was pretty good considering how I'm terrified of flying. I was lucky enough to get a seat next to someone in our group, Hailey, though. I felt less embarrassed screaming next to someone I know than next to a total stranger. The inflight movie was Freedom Writers, I've seen that movie 3 times but that part where the one dude reads a thing he wrote to the class when they got back from their summer still chokes me up. Hailey didn't see.

From the moment we left the airport, I realized that just getting around the city would be an impressive feat. I complain about traffic in Lansing at rush hour, but here, Russians would consider that "cruisin." There are pretty much no traffic laws besides the traffic lights. That's right, no speed limits (none that I saw). You'd think that would be great, go as fast as you want, but no. You see cars staying put or weaving through and around other cars more often than "cruisin." Made no sense to me at all.

Neither did the hotel actually. I mean, they were a lot nicer than I first expected, but everything was so disproportaionate. The room itself is huge, but the beds are probably 3 feet wide. Get a ruler and see how wide that is, do it. The TV sits on a mini fridge, facing away from the beds, in front on nothing you can sit on. The bathroom was huge as well, but the shower, sink, and toilet were tiny.

Once we all got settled in, we were off to dinner and an opera. We ate in this buffet outside. I didn't care too much for the food and was a little bit dissapointed. The opera isn't what you think. It was actually pretty cool. Ok, the experience isn't as funny without a little background story. When I said that we got time to get settled in after the airport, yeah that was about an hour long. To put that into perspective, we had been traveling for almost a day, and we got one hour to prepare for a whole night, not considering the major jetlag, 8 hour time difference from home. So obviously we were all pretty tired. Ok, back to the opera. The small group I was with, four of us, found seats in the front row. I knew it was bad news when I fell asleep after sitting down for 2 minutes. Luckily, I woke up intime to see a man play a saw, a boot, and some of the smallest acordians I have ever seen; random but rythmatic yelping (loud) from the women performers, and a grown man fight with himself, and win.

I should also suggest not sitting in the back of a bus when driving on Russian roads, I have bruises.

Baboshka's are starting to rival puppies on the cutness scale. There are so many of them just walking around town, by their little lonesomes. You can't help but wonder where they're going or what they think they're doing.

Finally got back to the hotel, around 11. Russia has these things called "White Nights." They're pretty cool actually. This time of year, the sun doesn't set, and it's always light out. America should really look into something like that.

Day two
We woke up, ate breakfast, and met in the lobby at 10am, and weren't planning on getting back until dinner time. We went to St. Peters Palace. That guy is ridiculous. I can't begin to describe that place. Just think of Lebron James' house, now picture it with Russian archetecture, endless fountains, gigantic garden, Gold everywehre, the Gulf of Finland, and a lot bigger...It seriously took us 5 hours to tour that place. The highlight of the trip however, was the start of a mullet watch. I guess mullets are a big thing here in Russia? There were these two gorgeous girls at the garden, and this dude with the craziest mullet I've ever seen comes and takes them both away hand in hand in hand. From then on, some of the guys in the group and I decided itd be fun to take as many pictures of mullets as we can and document them later.
Ate at the same place again for dinner, then off to the ballet.

I don't think ballet is my thing. But I paid attention because it was about this crazy guy named Don Keyoti, and one of the girls in our group decided that would make a good nickname for me. It's stuck. There was another nickname that came up during the play too, involving a certain lovable antarctic bird. Don got into a fight with a windmill, but I guess it was asking for it and Don just let it know what's up. On the way out, me and two other guys, JD and Adam, were bombarded by baboskas. We were about to get out through the door, but they had a different agenda for us. We were humiliated, I don't want to talk about it.

I should also leave a note to myself to try on clothes before I buy them. the dress shirt I bought was way too small, and the shoes were too big.

Our last night at the hotel was a lot of fun.

Day three
Day three involved a lot of walking, almost 10 hours of nonestop walking. It was by far my most favorite day, though. It really hit me that I was in Russia when we were walking down the street, and I look ahead and see giant cathedrals. Turn the corner, another one. They are unbelieavable. Some of the most amazing, gorgeous sights I've ever seen. There's just a certain aura about them, and the fact that they were constructed so long ago is staggering to me. I'm still in awe as I'm typing this.

We ate dinner at one of the nicest resteraunts I've been to to celebrate our last day in St. Petersburg. The city treated us well. Aside from the cathedrals, we got to see statues of horses, in all their naked galloping glory, a man get hit by a car, wandering baboshkas, and of course, mullets.

I am writing this in a train on notepad to put online later. The room is probably 6" x 7" and somehow four of us are going to sleep in here, including our luggage. Its probably the most fun night I've had though, my group is great.

I'm looking at the clock on my computer and its 5:51 pm, I haven't changed the time yet. Here, its 1:51am. I wonder what everyone back home is doing? Prolly being lame somewhere.

I miss you guys.