Russia, what a strange place!

Why hello! My grandiose plans of writing an entry every day or so were quickly shot (gulag style) by the fact that internet is hard to come by in Russia. You either have the option of paying out the nose to go to an internet cafe (think going and ordering any drink at Starbucks every time you want to check your email) or by an aircard...unfortunately, to do that, you need to have a passport and for the past week, mine has been in the clutches of the Russian government as they extended my visa. But now all is resolved as I am writing this from my cozy little Russian bedroom, sipping some chai and eating a tasty Russian sandwich.
   So what has happened last since I wrote about packing? First, I ended up having to pay $250 in overweight baggage fees. I expected to be shaken down at some point during the trip, but not so much on American soil. Rage. After that, it was only a short (ahaha) 15 hour plane ride through Frankfort and into Petersburg where we boarded an old, Soviet style bus and rode over to the university dorm. Let me just preface this by saying that Russian dorm does not equal American dorm. The best word I can think of to describe it is...utilitarian. If I feel like being more dramatic, I might say prison like. You check in at the front desk with a surly woman who gives you your key or receipt for your key, if your roommate already has it. There is only one key per room. You walk up the stairs to your floor where you are then accosted by another surly Russian woman who demands to know what you are doing here, looking like a student and holding a room key. If your Russian is anything like mine was after being awake for 24+ hrs, you stare at her with a glazed expression for a moment before muttering something incoherent and darting down the hall. She definitely isn't paid enough to pursue you. My favorite part of the Russian dorm--well, actually, there are two. The first is the bathroom. You walk in to a closet sized room filled with bare, leaking pipes that may or may not douse you with freezing/scalding water at any given point. My advice is not to make eye contact with them. You then proceed to the toilet, which, thankfully, resembles an American toilet, save for when you actually look down at it and realize that the toilet is really just an elaborate covering for a terrifyingly expansive hole into the ground. You tend to find a lot of terrifying holes around Russian dorms. My favorite one is on the third floor near the smoking lounge. There's just this random, gaping hole in the floor, large enough for a person to fall through, that no one has made any effort to point out. Perhaps this is Russian humor. The other great thing about Russian dorms is that you can buy booze in them for about 10-20 rubles. Not that I have, I just like the idea of not having to beat around the bush and sneak stuff in. Of course, that takes all of the fun out of it. Just don't go drinking next to the gaping hole on the third floor.
  Luckily, I only stayed two days in the school dorm. Most of us got picked up last Sunday, like a basket of puppies on the side of the road. It was hilariously awkward to see everyone meet their hosts, present them with flowers, and then just stare at them with a forced smile before being carted off to wherever they were going. I, of course, was in no way awkward at all and totally impressed everyone with my grace, amazing linguistic abilities, and (some may say) regal poise. My home stay situation is really great. I live with two ladies, Tatiana, or Babushka, as she likes me to call her, and her daughter, Irina, as well as their boxer pup, Cheburashka (Chobi). The apartment is small but cozy and I have my own little room filled with books (that are too above my level to read) and all sorts of strange Russian paraphernalia (like the terrifying poodle face hanging on the wall...it is the stuff of nightmares...). I live about 40 minutes out of Nevskii Prospect, the main stretch of the city, in the suburbs. It's definitely more authentically Russian here than living in the center of Petersburg. Seriously, you could film a movie about Soviet Russia here, just by looking at things. The streets are filled with melon cages (I have no other way of explaining this. Seriously. Just cages full of melons), sketchy men selling slippers, and assortments of little fruit stands and such. The fruit stand part would be cool if eating unwashed fruits and vegetables didn't make me horribly ill. Life is beautiful. Because I live so far out, I'm forced to take the metro to get to school. On one hand, it's totally convenient--cheap, fast, and gets you where you're going. On the other hand, it's packed so full that it would be the bane of any claustrophobe . Getting a seat is like playing musical chairs, even at the very end of the line where I am. To even hope for one, you have to be one of the first people in the cart and then make a mad dash for one of the few, prized bench seats along the wall. There is no time for any courtesy if you want one. Very Darwinian.
  The city itself is pretty awesome. I could describe it to you or I could just suffice for telling you to type "St. Petersburg, Russia" into google...which I will, for the time being. This is a long post as it is. There's all sorts of cool stuff to do, none of which I have really taken advantage of because of school. Yes, I do in fact have to go to school here. The university is this absolutely stunningly beautiful piece of architecture...of course, the foreign students don't get to go there. We're a metro stop away in an alley. Seriously. You go through this huge, black steel door, get assaulted by pigeons/and or other street animals, and then, there you are. What to say about classes? We got put into small classes (2-5 people) earlier in the week after taking a test. Of course, as some of you may already know, I'm a terrible test taker so I got put in the group above the lowest group. After having a chat with my group director and on the advice of the teachers, I got placed in one of the advanced groups... after a couple of (painful) days of really, really, basic stuff. The plus was that I seemed like some Russian prodigy. Now that I'm in the group I should be in, the magic has worn off and I'm getting taken down, peg by peg, by terrifying Russian women. As it should be. Grammar class can only be described as a bloodbath and Russian literature is the bane of my existence. The little old woman who teaches it is extremely nice and has this expansive vocabulary. Only two people in the class understand her. The rest of us exchange lots of "oh shit, did you get any of that?!" glances and desperately write down whatever we can pick out. The class usually goes like this. She'll talk for a while than stop and ask us if we understood a certain word she used. One of us will say no. So she'll use a synonym and ask if we understand it. No one does. So she'll use another one...no one understands it, but at that point, everyone just nods their heads with a look of divine revelation and begins a wild search through the nearest dictionary. It's really funny, in a sad sort of way.
 So that's pretty much the general run through of what's been going on here. Now that I have internet, hopefully I'll be able to update every couple days with more detailed accounts of things. For now, I have the apartment to myself as my hosts are somewhere far away in the woods, picking mushrooms for the day, so I'll probably turn on "Pride and Prejudice", the BBC one, in Russian and catch up on the vast amount of homework I missed since changing groups. Poka!