Busy week

Just got this coming week's schedule, and we have something literally every day but Friday, including a "cruise" from Tuesday to Thursday. I foresee a very negative attitude coming up.

   Regardless! This past week was fairly nice, despite having to study like mad all day on Sunday for a midterm that's in an hour or so. Friday was the Russian Museum (of Art), which, while an imposing structure, is certainly not laid out in logical lines. Moreover, I managed to come up out of the metro on the wrong side of the street, and wandered about like a fool for a bit before reorienting myself. In the process, though, I stumbled upon this gem: a random statue of Yoda, amidst all the very serious history of St. Petersburg. Why? No idea, but it amused me, so here it is. :)

 This poor gentleman (who I'm sure is a very distinguished something) seemed to sympathize with my feelings. He's been captured for posterity with a lopsided head, uneven ears, looking like he's sucking on a lemon, and none to pleased with the world. The back of his head was either the practice spot for aspiring plastic surgeons of the time, or was not finished. What a horrible way to be remembered! And yet, he struck a chord with me, and I found him interesting, so I suppose there's something to be said for not looking fantastic. 

Moving on, Saturday found us on Yelegin Island, a local park where you can rent rollerblades or rowboats, or just walk around. It also houses a small castle built for one of the royalty (really, I'm on overload here, so all that's retained is generalities) because she couldn't make the distance to the official summer palace. In addition to the most hilarious mis-translations I've seen so far ("there are some tree around here more than one miter thick"), there was a group who had come to take some period photos, and I caught one lady standing near the piano, waiting her turn. It looked so nice that I had to capture it. Très classic, non?

   Since the weather was pretty nice, we rented some rowboats, and took a spin around the ponds that were on the island (irony!). I was feeling lazy, so I didn't speak up when we were asked who was an experienced rower, and had a lovely nap in the prow of our rowboat while Artemi reminisced about bringing his wife out on the boats. I did take a turn on the way back, but I was correct in assuming that a lack of practice, upper-body strength and calluses meant I couldn't keep it up for long. My hands are a little torn up today, but it was worth it.

   We moored the boats on a convenient route and hopped the narrow spit of land between the ponds and the Gulf of Finland. It was huge, and, possibly due to the clouds, felt like the sky was lower here than it is 5280' higher, in Colorado. The wind was also pretty zippy, so we didn't stay long, but it was awesome to see. Stopped for lunch at a local "mall", where, oddly enough, all the store names were in English, but they had a KFC, so I was happy. 

    Sunday was devoted to studying, as there's the aforementioned midterm today in grammar class. I did take a couple breaks to read "L'Étranger" by Camus that a fellow french speaker had brought and loaned to me, but generally it was a day of studying. Worryingly, I ate at McD's at 8:30pm, but still woke up starving at 3am. I'm definitely still losing weight, but not really sure how to counteract it, shy of eating everything in sight at every possible opportunity. I've already taken all stops off my grocery spending here, figuring that it's better to overshoot budget (which I'm way under right now) than starve, but I can't seem to catch up. We'll see. 

   Regardless, exam today, then starting the 2nd half of 2nd year Russian, and a full schedule for this week. Cheers!