Cruise and graffiti

  Cruise! Tuesday after class, we met at a distant metro station and walked over to this where this boat was moored. I was lucky enough to get a single room, I guess because I'm old and crotchety and Artemi (the prof) knows that I don't tolerate drunken shenanigans.  And lordy were there drunken shenanigans. Just like the trip to Europe I went on with Morgana, a lot of the kids had never encountered absinthe, and thought it would be the best thing in the world to knock it back like soda. Brilliant. Anyhow.. the cruise started at 8 pm, and we had to wait a bit for a bridge to go up, as the water level is pretty high at the moment, but we kept going during the night, and arrived at Valaam Island, located at 61 degrees N in Lake Ladoga. We got very, very lucky and it was a beautiful day. A touch windy, but no clouds in the sky and probably 63 degrees (F).

   The morning was devoted to a short scenic boat ride to yet another monastery, where this time they required women to have their heads covered and wear long skirts. Fortunately, they had wonderfully stylish skirts provided, which were plenty long for some of the group, but only came to about mid-calf on me. I will admit, though, that when we had to walk up 3 flights of stairs to see the "summer chapel", that skirt was hiked up to completely immodest levels. If my black, extra-long pants are really going to incite someone to lust in the time it takes me to climb massive amounts of stairs... so be it. I refuse to duck-walk for that long.

  "It's just a short walk back to the boat, maybe an hour at a brisk walking pace". Ah, Artemi... you are so misleading. With an hour and 20 minutes left til lunch (and the meals on theboat were amazing- each with at least 2 courses, individually prepared by however-many-stars chefs), I wanted to make it back on time. Apparently people have different ideas of what a "brisk walking pace" is though. These two were ahead of me, myself and another in the middle, and the rest of the group was strung out about 150 yards behind us. If we'd had a map, it would be fine, but at every crossroads, we had to wait for the group to catch up so Artemi could tell us where to go. Good times.

   After an awesome lunch and a brief nap, we went on a "nature hike". Apparently, Valaam Island is a protected area for wildlife and flora- there were beautiful fields of lily-of-the-valley..s? How would you pluralize that? Anyway, they were gorgeous. At the end of the hike (end being subjective, as there was still a 2-mile walk back to the boat) there was a lake where we could swim. Only about half of the group went in, as it was sunny, but chilly and windy, and the water was about the same color as a root beer bottle. I just waded (since there was quite the marsh getting to it, and my feet and shoes were already wet and muddy), and while I was shockingly cold at first, it was very refreshing.

   On the way back from the island, I got this shot of the sunset. As you can see, there's no sight of land (*huge* lake), and this is about as low as the sun gets. This picture was taken at 11:45pm, as I was doing homework and waiting for the party room outside my bunk to close so I could get some sleep. The Northern Lights have indeed seen strange sights. You'd think that a country where this is normal every summer would develop light-blocking curtains, but amazingly, this is not the case. Slept for a bit, made it back to the dock a bit late, and ran to class, which, due to two nights of iffy sleep and massive amounts of hiking, was very surreal.

   As a random side note, I know it's strange but there's some pretty neat graffiti on the way to school. I tried to look more like an avant-garde photographer than a fruitcake tourist while taking pictures, but I did want to get some shots before I left. There's a mix of roman and cyrillic letters to the left of this piece, and I can honestly state I have no idea what they mean, or if they're connected. But I figured I'd show you guys an example of the writing on the wall from halfway around the world. There are also a lot of black and white scenes that look like someone did a cutout of a picture, then spray-painted it to make the shot on the wall. However, it doesn't look like there are any connections to the floating pieces of blackness in the center, so I'm not really sure how they did it. I'll try to get a good shot of one on the way home tonight.

   Tonight, by the way, is grocery shopping time again. I've hit upon hard-boiled eggs as a great source of protein that is fairly hassle-free and can travel, and my peanut butter has come in very useful when combined with apples. Amusingly, I was eating with the German guy who's also staying at my house and his Russian girlfriend (conversations get very interesting, spanning 3 languages), and she had never seen peanut butter before! The German guy and I tried to explain, but just didn't have the vocab- finally I had to go get my bag of mixed nuts and mime making butter out of it. She tried it, and found it interesting, but not her thing. Fair enough, but I had never considered peanut butter an American "thing" before. Who knew? 

   Anyhow, today was the midterm in Razgavor (that's "conversation", by the way), and for the first time ever, I think I did better on the composition than on the regular questions. It was 6 chapters of vocab, and my little brain just can't handle that much! Anyhow, two more weeks and I get to come home! Can't wait to breathe clean air again, and make tacos. Ahhhh tacos, how do I miss you. In any case, I'm off to grammar class now. Cheers!