"You Want Vacation? Go to Cabo St. Lucas."

Sorry my blogs have been so few and far between. I know my mom is annoyed particularly by this. This, I promise, will be long and funny, so hopefully it will quench your thirst for Annie.

So, I just got back from St. Petersburg, Russia. Which is ridiculous. I don't know how to even describe it. Since St. Petersburg is the "European" Russian city, (per Peter the Great's wishes) it looks very much like any other European city. And the palaces are like Versailles on crack, because the Czar's had no budget (probably because they didn't care if the common folk had only borscht and potatoes to eat). But aside from aesthetics, Russia is nothing like Western Europe. For example, the first day we got there are guide "welcomed us" with the most fatalistic speech I've ever heard in my life. I couldn't stop laughing. She said, "Welcome to Russia. It is so cold here always, if you get two days of sun in a month, you are lucky. It is always cloudy." And then she gave us a tour of buildings, etc. and pointed out the KGB building and she said, "Here is joke, building is so high you can see Siberia from window." And we're thinking, that's a horrible joke! That's like me saying, want to hear a joke? Aids in Africa. Haha! But anyway... I was doing a Russian accent and embellishing her speech a little with thinks like, "You want vacation?! Go to Cabo St. Lucas. You want potato and cold, you come Russia. It is shit hole. Always, shit and cold." Which I think ending up annoying people around me, but I wouldn't let it die because it was so epically funny to me.

Also, we had a cultural presentation at the University on "Russian Time". Examples of this include stores closed in the middle of the day with a sign that says only "on break". No "back at 10" no "Break 1-2" just "on break". Also the mailboxes have signs that say, "Mail picked up once daily between 9am-5pm". Which is it?! And what if you drop it off at 10am, and they had picked it up already, but the next day they didn't pick it up until 4:30pm? That's two days your mail sat in the box. What if you had to pay a bill?! This isn't a concern apparently, you know I would go insane in this society. Oh and also, the buses are so inefficient, that we walked daily to the University, an hour walk, because the bus literally would take an hour as well. We tried it once, the walkers beat the people on the bus. Can you imagine? If that was the case in New York there would be riots on the street. No wonder the people are so fatalistic... nothing works!

But aside from "Russian time" and general pessimism, I loved Russia. I just couldn't ever spend substantial time there. And as cliche as it sounds, it made me SO glad I was American. We met with students from the Russian University one night and most of them were really cold and unwilling to chat with us, for example, this one kid Leni (who I kept calling Lenin because I thought he said that was his name, which, you know, might not have endeared him to us...) after a painful forced 10 minutes of conversation in an awkward silence says to us, "You know Stalin..." Done. Stick a fork in it, the conversation is officially cooked. And another group of girls had a conversation with me and some other students that went like this, "So you're studying English as a major, have you ever been to America?" "No." "Do you want to go?" "No." "So do you not like American culture?" "No." Ok... But there was one girl who was really interesting and friendly, and I chatted with her for like an hour, which upset all the guys because she was gorgeous and they wanted to chat her up. But she said, for example, that a Russian Car, the Lada, is so bad that she would rather have a 1994 used Opel than a brand new 2010 Lada. That's bad. Also, she said that bribes are common place with police officers. She said that for minor traffic violations they'll say, "Let me see your license" and not give it back unless you pay them the equivalent of about 50 U.S. dollars. She also said that the government arrested a poor rural teacher (teachers, she said, are paid about 200 U.S. dollars a month...NOT enough to live on) for taking a 2$ bribe--when police men take upwards of 5000$ a month. To "set an example". As someone studying to be a teacher she was pretty furious over it.

And it's like that, some people are so warm and friendly, like we met people in bars that bought us rounds, like 6 or 8 of us in a group, when we probably have WAY more money than they do, and wanted to talk with us about everything--and then the students who said basically they hated Americans. It's a weird contrast. But the city itself, is AMAZING. See the pictures of the palaces on my facebook. It's all gold and lapis lazuli and jasper and shit like a golden peacock watch, while peasants starved to death. No wonder there was a revolution. But the palaces weren't the highlight of the trip, that was easily Friday with the ballet and the Baltica beer tasting.

Baltica started in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, so Steve and I kept joking, "well it has to be good, they had, oh, almost 20 whole years to perfect the recipe." You know, in contrast to, since 1884 or whatever you see on most beers. And after a tour of the factory, which was really boring (I asked the guy if it would be like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, which he didn't understand at all and said, "There is a chocolate factory in the city center...") we got to taste the beer. They had three tables, and they split our group of 25 into threes with maybe 20 beers on each table, and gave us an hour to "taste". Our table KILLED the beers. We were all kind of drunk at like 3 in the afternoon. It was awesome. And I knocked over a beer with my boob while I reached for something, and then said, "I don't blame myself" to which Eliza responded, my FAVORITE quote of the trip, "If you kill someone with your boobs, they're still your boobs..." On facebook you can see the laughter that ensued afterwards.

Then to the Russian ballet, which was beautiful and amazing, but it was also really hot in the theatre after being in the cold all day, so even with my badass opera glasses I was pretty ready to go by the time the two hours were up. Then I went out to a club with some IESers and we saw an IMPRESSIVE array of rat tails and wife beaters. Also, I participated in a contest where I had to fill an empty glass squeezed between a guys legs, with a squirt gun from a distance. I won, and we got a HUGE fishbowl full of alcohol. Are you proud, Mom?! Again, pictures on facebook.

So now I am back in Berlin, and moved into my new place, which is huge and lovely. Steve showed me around Shoenenberg, and it is also great. Cafes, bars, shopping, great food, parks, people watching, I wish I would have moved sooner! And my host mom was such a bitch she didn't even bother to say goodbye. She was over at her boyfriend's when I moved out. Which is fine with me, I didn't want her watching me anyway. But seriously, what a bitch! My new host family is awesome, a ten year old boy, a thirteen year old girl, a Swiss student, and the mother. We all had homemade noodles together last night and I spoke only German, it was great! Just like the Lipps and what I wanted. I missed that!

I'm off to Prague to meet up with Andrew from D.C. for Easter, something which I can hardly wait for...I love Andrew! And I also get to go to Leipzig to see the Lipps and then Munich for Spring fest! Thanks Mom and Dad! :-)