6/17. Wednesday and meeting with Katya, finally!

We had an early morning class with Tatyana. I told Greg from LA, since he was thinking about switching down to a lower level, that Tatyana was a little bit intense but not to be too worried if he stayed in the class. Everyone gets confused when Tatyana begins the lesson. Usually by the end it’s much better. He tried to switch out but was told he was way too ahead of the other people. So he came back! Hooray! I like Greg, he cracks me up and is just nice to have a conversation with. I was planning on going to the Russian Museum either Thursday or Friday that week and invited him to go with me. He only has two weeks so the man must hit all the major must see spots. The first week usually doesn’t count since you’re getting used to jet lag and pretty disoriented.  Greg is from California so this is literally half way around the world for him. Greg used to be a military pilot but now flies for Cathay Pacific.

A new girl also came to class who is really nice. Her name is Marta, she just graduated from high school, and is from Poland. We sat next to each other and were reprimanded a few times for talking during class. She is only here for two weeks as well so I’ll see if she wants to hang out.

Class was ridiculous. That sums it up. Everyone was so confused and by the end of it, we’d all decided that it was over our heads and we’d worry about it later.

I left class a little early to meet Katya for our Vasilevsky Island tour. I walked outside and was greeted by torrential down pour. We went to the Menshnikov Palace, which is only a 10 minute walk from school, and she took me on a tour of the late Governor’s Palace who was in charge during the Peter the Great times. It used to be much larger than it currently is, but the entire back half of the palace that used to surround the gardens was destroyed during the revolution. Menshnikov, who used to be rather poor, became one of St. Petersburg’s wealthiest people after becoming friends with Peter the Great. He decorated his palace with statues and these little hand painted tiles from Holland. It was very beautiful, as all the palaces here are.

I was not looking forward to more walking all over the island, and Katya picked up on that. She talked about the two churches on the 7 line (a street) that I pass everyday, and the model housing Trezzini had come up with for 3 different groups from 3 different backgrounds of wealth. Then we called it a day, laughed about some random things for 10 minutes, and decided that if it was nice, we would go to Pushkin on Saturday.

I walked to the metro, saw Alejandro and Kavin, who walked me the rest of the way to the metro, and stood in the crazy line to get in. It was quite beautiful in the rain. The umbrella’s people were holding all fell on different levels, making the rain hit the top umbrella and drip onto another umbrella followed by another. It was like a fountain made by billowing umbrellas. I took a mental picture and made my way home J