From Russia with Love

Russia has been amazing. My Russian family is wonderful! They are being very good to me.

Russia has changed a lot in the last 5 years. The roads are nicer, there are more green areas with nice parks, they are building nice new apartment buildings and shopping centers, and the economy is better. Much to my disappointment, everything is much more expensive now. When I was here 5 years ago it was so cheap. It was easy to buy food and souvenirs and tickets to events because it was pocket change. I was expecting this to be a nice little break after the horrible prices in Europe. But no! It's just as, if not more, expensive than the United States now. :-( Boo. Stinkin US dollar is not worth much around the world these days...

Oh well, I'm over it now. My Russian family is taking such good care of me and we are having such a great time together that it doesn't matter. I am trying to speak as much Russian as I possibly can and I feel like I have learned a lot already! I can almost have a whole conversation with my Russian Mama! But it pretty much only works if she speaks in Russian to me and I fill in the empty spaces with "da, da, harasho, harasho, no ladna, harasho." It seems to work out pretty well this way.

Another thing I have noticed is that the Russian people seem a bit happier. Last time I was here my Russian friends told me that everyone knew I was an American because I was the only person walking around smiling. But this time it seems as if some Russians have joined me. We were just smiling with an incredibly cute little boy and his family in the subway yesterday. So I think things are looking up.

I've added some more pics to the Russia album. Peterhof was amazing. Peter the Great had way too much money. We also went to see Peter's collection of small deformed children. That may sound disturbing, and it was, but that's how my friend described it to me when she asked if I wanted to go see it. Peter used to collect many things and he put them in museums for the Russians to see free of charge. Unfortunately they are not still following Peter's tradition and of course you have to pay to get in now. But it's still pretty amazing. Peter was fascinated with science and really did a lot to encourage Russians to explore science. He collected medical marvels and among them are a bunch of fetus' (feti?) and small babies that died from medical malformation and are preserved in jars for people to view. Some of them were Siamese twins or born without brains or even had only one leg like a mermaid/merman. It was very sad, very interesting, and upset my stomach at the same time. At this same museum we saw the biggest globe in the world. What does this have to do with small deformed children? Nothing. But it's there. I gained more respect for Peter the Great through this tour though. He called scientists to St. Petersburg to meet and discuss science and really did a lot to make St. Petersburg capitol city material.

Yesterday I went on a helicopter ride over St. Petersburg. It was amazing and super fun. I also made an "American" meal for my Russian family. I wanted to make meat loaf because it's very American. They don't even have loaf pans here because they just don't make it. I couldn't find one in the store. There's also the small fact that I don't eat meat. So instead, I made my Auntie Dawn's Cottage Cheese Loaf. It's a vegetarian meatloaf. I also made glazed cooked carrots and mashed potatoes. They really enjoyed everything and couldn't believe the loaf wasn't made of meat. :-) It was fun and really yummy.

Today is my last full day in Russia and I'm going to be very sad to leave my Russian family after all the fun we've had this last week. But I guess that's part of this trip. I have to leave each place and move on to the next one. Hopefully my bag and I both make it to Holland in one piece.