The White Nights

Seeing as how the summer solstice was this week, making this weekend the longest of the year, my friends and I decided that it was the perfect Saturday to put our plan into action. Meaning we stayed out all night to experience St. Petersburg "by night." It was gorgeous. You've all heard me talk about how the sun never really goes down. What happens is there is about a four-hour sunset followed pretty much immediately by a four-hour sunrise. So basically it's really pretty for about 8 hours - the 8 hours during which I am usually asleep. Which is why I wanted to go exploring at that time. I never get to see the museum and the cathedrals and the bridges at that time of "night." We even got to see the raising and lowering of the palace bridge. They print the schedule for all the bridges, so that people don't get stuck on a different island.
Anyway, because of this little outting, I didn't really feel like doing much on Sunday. I slept until about noon, then ate some food and checked the email and wandered about some more. Ksusha was supposed to help me shop for a camera, but she missed the early train back to St. Petersburg (she had gone to visit her parents), so she didn't get back to the dorm until late. But I will get the camera eventually (hopefully for a decent price).
This morning I had my first individual Russian lesson. My teacher, Elena Romanovna, was one of the sweetest old ladies I've ever met. It was a lot more fun than class should be. And she was very nice about letting me change our class time for next week - since I won't be getting back from Moscow until 6 am on Tuesday.
That's right - the Moscow trip is on for this weekend. We're taking the night train, but it's a lot nicer than the Prague-Budapest one. And I'm going with the group - there will be eight of us looking out for one another. And Nastya and Katya are going too - so we've got some locals to help us out.
Right now I'm going to look for a book on Russian grammer - I should have gotten one weeks ago. An important purchase. And hopefully I can also find a book on symbols - I need to finish my wood painting :-D.