"When they told me you were my student, they told me you didn't know Chinese. And I thought 'Why are they telling me this?'"

Second day of classes

Went to bed at 4am with a headache, but woke up at 9:30. I had some breakfast, which was bread, ham, and cheese (yum) and some juice. I walked to school for 30 minutes and got there just in the nick of time I guess.

History was okay, I really should read the textbook to supplement our lectures...

We had a half hour break in between class so we went and had snack/lunch at the grocery store again. Got a thing of strawberry/blueberry Nestea and a bag of pretzels.

The Russian Museum class was interesting, Professor Doronchenkov (sp) is a very ideological/theoretical art history professor, who will go on tangents about alien movies in Hollywood and Times Square at midnight while talking about Constantinople and Russia...

I had another 30 minute break in between my class again so I went back to the grocery store to put money onto my cellphone and then walked with Eric and Victoria for a bit and then walked back to the University. Read an old copy of The Saint Petersburg Times (English newspaper) and waited for my Russian language professor to show up. She called me to tell me she was stuck in traffic and would be 10 minutes late. So we started class late but it went well, she's such a nice woman. She teaches English to middle school and high school kids, and lived in Iowa for a semester 13 years ago, and has degrees in elementary school education, so she's really patient and softspoken. She definitely started off really slowly for my benefit, and when I showed her I could read somewhat well, she's going to start picking up the pace now. She seemed legit surprised I could say "hello" in Russian...haha she's a sweet woman. She explained the whole system of "dachas" to me, which is good since my host mother told me recently that she goes to her dacha every weekend and picks mushrooms. I had an apple from a dacha, and it was supposedly pure and free of pesticides and chemicals, so it'll be like nothing I've ever had. I bit into it and....wow that was one fuzzy apple. The insides were definitely...fuzzy and not mushy...lol

I got out of class at 6, and got home at 6:30 to do some grocery shopping. I bought two bags of chips, one being Lays sour cream and mushroom flavor (it's actually pretty good), a cup of ramen, a bag of frosted ginger cookies, and the most hilarious purchase: strawberry champagne cocktail....in an aluminum can. For a dollar. It's called "Amore" and the clincher for me being it was a little inscription on the can in a girly/curly font reading "I am now the girlfriend of a sex god." Yeah. I bought it for the many different levels of the lols.

When I got home I heated up some mushroom soup, had some Russian ramen, which turned out to be pretty good. Had a nice cup of Pepsi and watched some lovely WongFu clips. Now I'm catching up on other videos and doing my Russian homework :O