I've been bumming around this old town for way too long
My time in Russia is coming to an end here in a few days, and i think it would be a good time to look back and reflect on what this experience has been to me. I have to say that its taken me a FULL 4 months to understand and appriciate the Russian culture. Let me just say that if I never smile and give you blank stares all the time when I get back, don't take it personal.
So, We finished teaching on Wednesday and our Spectacle was on Thursday. All in all things went pretty smooth. Although, I'm now sitting in my apartment wondering why they waited 5 full days after teaching ended to send us home...I'm just want to be home if I'm not teaching because although Russia is fun, I see no purpose in being here if I don't get to teach. I've seen everything I want to see in St. Pete and now I'm in a waiting period. Although, i did find out that there is a TOPSHOP (Megan will be so excited to hear this) like 10 minutes away. I was flabbergasted because I didn't even think russia believed in TOPSHOPs.
The best part about this "waiting period" is that everyday someone has to say "Seriously you guys, we only have 3 days left...weird!" and I say "Yes we do have 3 days left...wow" and then the next day " seriously you guys,....." you get the picture...i'm going to give a dirty look to the next person who states the obvious and then pretends that they're sad about it considering people have been saying this for the last month! Words of the week: WEIRD and SERIOUSLY
Anyway, today was our last sunday in our ward and it was sad. We' have a couple close friends in the ward and it wasn't so fun saying goodbye. If I've learned one thing this year is that goodbyes are just a part of life, and they are never fun. I'm a better person from knowing the members in the St. Petersburg ward and will never forget all the things we've experienced together. HAHA also half the missionaries in our ward are going home within the next 6 months so in case I don't make any friends at utah state...I will have a heap of returned missionaries to hang out with. YAHOO...
What else did I do this week...Oh, I went to the Banya again! Randi and Amanda needed an experienced patron to be their escourt, so of course I volunteered. It is so funny. This time there were two factors that made it even better...1. Anya (sveta brought her and she was so funny) 2. HONEY ( We rubbed it on our faces and arms and it was awesome). We also went our last excursion with our dearest Sveta this weekend. She brought us to the real blockade museum ( Randi and I went to the wrong one) and then to the largest cemetary in the world. This was one of the things that made Russians in general make more sense to me. It was a really cool day.
Well, I think this may be the last blog i will be posting becasue after I go home....unfortunately my traveling days will have to be over for a while(Unless anyone is willing to make an anonomus deposit into my banking account) . Thank you to all who actaully read my humble little blog.
Baca!

RUSSIAN BANYA CRAZINESS
Oh my goodness, I had a true Russian experience last night called the Russian Banya. It all begins with you walking into a normal Sauna. Just a hot room that makes you sweat and that was it. Then sveta led us to "the balcony" which was just a room with open windows that cooled you off. Then back into the Sauna we went to sweat our brains out. Little did we know that we had just experienced the lightest of the whole Banya experience. After a few times in the sauna and out on the balcony we are led into this large wooden room that is very hot and humid and there are nude russians everywhere. Us frightened little Americans are holding tightly to our sheets that are wrapped around us and are slightly disturbed. Although the Russians did not appriciate our modesty they accepted us and even beat a few of us.
In a russian banya you get a bundle of birch branches, dip them in cold water and wip your friend. It's supposed to cleanse you of all the impurities in your body and refresh you. It actually felt kind of good. Then after our first session in the banya I come out and this unclothed russian forces me to jump in this pool of FREEZING cold water and jump around for a minute. After that my heartrate went up and stayed up for about 45 minutes. It was a little intense. Then we would go back in the banya and beat each other. I can truely say that I have experienced Russia in full now, and i will definatly never forget that little experience.

Novgorod

gggggggg
So, we took another little road trip to "the oldest city in Russia" which happens to be about 3 hours outside of St. Pete. Obviously this town is called Novgorod which actually means "new city" in Russian, so that doesn't make much sense does it? Ok so we went with some friends from the ward and it was a party. I don't think everyone else appriciated it as much as I did. I am a sucker for a really old church with awesome domes, and there were like 80 in this little town. So many awesome pictures. We walked around the town for a while and then we went to a monastery and a monk hated us girls because he thought we were trying to break into the monk quarters and "NO FEMALES ARE ALLOWED". Then we visited an outdoor museum of wooden churches...Kizhi was way better but it was ok. So that's pretty much it. Other then that, this week has been registering for classes, getting used to russian time again, thinking about how we only have 5 more teaching days ;( , and just seeing the city more. Randi and I went to the Russian museum and Peter and Paul Fortress so we have been busy heeding the wise words of Lev. Oh, and we went to the Hermitage again today. We have a busy one week and 6 days left here in Russia and although I am excited to go home and sleep in my bed again, I can see myself thinking back on this time and saying "If only life could be like it was when I lived in Russia". So I'm trying to make the most of the little time I have left here.

I flew half way around the world for this, so i thought it was a good idea to post a blog about it...
ok so I'm back in utah..well not for long, I leave in the morning back to St. Pete. But it's been a fun week here in utah. Carolyn and Gabe tied the knot and are now in jackson hole...which is a slight relief because although I'm happy that they love each other so much, I couldn't watch their PDA for another minute. So the wedding turned out beautiful and taught me a few things...like how to be a better dancer. Windsheild wipers, Knees.

Even though I love America more then anything, I have been having Baby russian withdrawals and i'm excited to get back and finish out the semester. This is a short blog but I don't have much time left in utah and I need to make the most of my day. And I need to practice my dance

"The Hardest Part is Yet To Come"


LONG VACATION
So,after months of looking forward to getting out of russia for 3 seconds, our long vacation came!
We left at midnight on the 3rd and made our way to the bus station. Kristin and I had taken some intense cough syrup that my mom sent me so we didn't really know what was going on but that was one blissful night. The tour we were on was actually a russian tour so we couldn 't understand anything that our tour guide, Vladimeer, said. He did however speak a bit of english which is a blessing because we would have been lost day one. After a night on the bus, we arrived in Helsinki. We visited the big white cathedral, a monument built for a famous finnish composer, and a church made out of boulders..imagine that. Then we had some free time and we just walked around and shopped. That night we met our group back at the bus and drove to Turku. Turku is a city about 3 hours west of Helsinki and it was such a fun drive. It was snowing like crazy and the finnish landscapes are freaking amazing. So we got to Turku, took a little look around and got on our cruise ship bound for Stockholm.

After a good nights sleep we arrived in Stockholm early. Stockholm has some wonderfully wonderful arcitecture my friend. The First day consisted of us being sucked into souvenir shops...and thats about it. We probably spent 5 hours just looking at souvenirs. The Second day we went on a little tour of the city on a boat and there was some CRAZY french men that kept distracting me. I also strayed from the group a bit and went to the National Museum and got a little lesson on swedish history and got to participate in my favorite thing ever which is Art pondering. The rest of the night consisted of meeting our tour bus and getting on yet another cruise ship bound back to Helsinki.

I don't know why but I always seem to find something in Helsinki that keeps me entertained and thrills to the point where I am obsessed with Helsinki. Some of the people in our group might not agree but that's just because they didn't go "moose huntin'" with Randi and I. We decided that stickin' around the city was getting old so we went to our old friend bus station and jumped on some random bus (Bus 106) and ended up in the "wilderness". It had been snowing really hard all day so everything was covered with whiteness and it was so fun. Randi kept falling on the ice though so that a party. We then got back on the bus and went to the shore of some lake. I'm never let down by things in Finland and i wasn't let down there either. So, our tour bus left us in Helsinki and they proceeded back to St. Pete (with one lady that was very happy that she had 2 seets to herself). That night we got on a very shaky boat headed to Tallinn, Estonia. It took about 3 hours to get there and until we discovered that you could go on top, the ride was very sickening.

When we got into Tallinn we checked into our hotel and went to bed. We stayed in Tallinn 3 full days and it was really neat. Tallinn is an extremely old city in a very old country that has a lot of really cool history. While we were there we attended the Estonian History Museum and learned all about the awesomeness of this freaking accient city. Randi and I took a trip to the ZOO. It was a party mostly because of the seals and the chimps that flew into the window. We also did a lot of simple sight seeing by foot. They have a palace and parks and sea shores that kept us busy for a lot of the time and I appriciated having some quiet time in such a beautiful place.

"What the Helsinki ?!"
So, for our 2nd long weekend we headed up north to the land of the Fins. Let me tell you that Finland was unreal. The second we crossed the border from Russia to Finland I could all of a sudden feel my life getting one million times better. Everything is clean and beautiful and all the people are wonderful AND THEY ALL SPEAK ENGLISH. We hitched a ride to Finland with a couple from our ward, Brian and Christine. From the previous experieces with brian, we already knew he could talk you to death, but we knew nothing of his wife. Basically she turned out to be the craziest/funniest person on this earth and I'm glad we invited ourselves in their car because now we have our adoptive mother who buys us too much finnish candy and just about anything else we want. I'm so glad we are not fat Americans. On the way to Helsinki we stopped in a small town named...well I forgot the name...something like rampinlaantii or tarinlaaanitteee. We stepped out of the car and made eye contact with the H & M and the rest is history.
The soul purpose of going to Finland was to attend the Helsinki temple dedication...And we did. They had a fireside slash "cultural event" on saturday full of crazy european dancers doing their thang. I had a slight distraction whilst at this "cultural event" so I probably coudln't focus on what the crap these dancers where trying to show but that is not their faults. SO much anxiety slash apostisizing. I heart life. SO after that little event we went down to the beautiful city center in Helsinki and checked out all the awesomeness that is Helsinki. It was amazing...we didn't feel like our lives were in jepardy even once...and it was like 11:00 pm. No strange plastered men even approached us at all. Like we didn't even SEE one. Heaven in real and it is in Finland.
The next day we got up so incredibly early and went to the temple. We got to see the prophet cement the corner stone in and it was way cool. We then got to go inside and see the temple get dedicated...in russian. Mission accomplished (No pun intended). I have to say that it was a very successful weekend. Not only did we get to experience like 309.78 awesome things, but we got to hang out in a place that is dangerously similar to America. They even have Dr. Pepper and I think I overdosed. So anyways, we loved Finland and we can't wait to go back for our long vacation in a week!!!!!!!!

KIZHI/ PETROSOVODSK AWESOMENESS!
Hello to all! I don't have much time for this but I just have to say that I have been to the coolest place ever. Last thursday night, kristin, amanda, cavan, A.j. and I took off on our beloved sleeping train 8 hours north of st. pete to a town called Petrozovodsk. The town itself wasn't anything special but we decided to take a little trip to the island right off petro called kizhi. This tiny island is known for it's 16th century church made of wood. it's doesn't sound that special but it was. The island was so quiet and nice and beautiful. it was what I like to call "a feast for the senses" -Rita Francos Aunt (4th grade). So it was a whole lotta fun! After the long weekend we felt like we hadn't taught forever and it was fun to see the kids again! I might have gone on a shopping spree and that is was the following pics are. MOM: This is the pic of the "father frost" I got you! and I aslo have a pic of my collection of matroyska dolls and so on and so forth! Also last week I had a sleep over with one of the girls in my group and i was only slightly tramatized. Russians are intresting people but I really like it! Thanks randi/ lev. Also we fed the missionaries last sunday and it was a party!