ne prislonyat'sya (don't bring your elephant)

It was a necessary vacation; as any one of the teachers could tell you, I was beginning to go crazy. Eric, Aaron, and I spent a day in Moscow (shwarma; the Peter the Great / Columbus monstrosity; New Tretyakov Gallery - note to self: Eric Bulatov is astonishingly good; Novodevichi Cemetery, where anyone who's anyone is buried) before taking the night train to Petersburg. We arrived at 6 a.m. and, knowing sunrise was still hours away, set off to see our city in the faint northern glow.



We stayed in a great hostel on Liteinii Prospect, conveniently located above the shwarma place I'd frequented when I was studying abroad (secret ingredient: french fries.) We met a contingent of British students and an Aussie at the hostel, and enjoyed toasting to "people who speak a proper language" and voicing the universal difficulties of living with a khozyaika / babushka. In our three days there, I managed to: visit the Kuntzkamera museum of "curiosities" (deformed fetuses in jars); see the worst play ever (no exaggeration) based on the best novel ever (Master and Margarita); tour the impressive Yusupovskii Palace; climb aboard the Cruiser Aurora, where the first shot of the Revolution was fired (89 years ago to the day); see the city's regal beauty only enhanced by bitter winds and swirling, evening snows; crawl up onto my top bunk and under my blankets, and sleep deeply and soundly as the train carried me gently back across the snowy land and back to Vladimir.