Tallinn 1

Tallinn was a beautiful city, I would go back in a heart beat. The Old Town is really small, you could see everything there in two days tops, but it's charming and homey, kind of reminds me of a town called Anhhiardi....but I digress. The Town Hall is the oldest in Europe, and almost every building in the Old Town is a World Heritage site for its age. Some of it was destroyed in World War II, when Estonia was the battleground between Germany and Russia, but almost all has been rebuilt. Since the economy of that area relies on tourism, everyone spoke English to us, but when we were out of the old section I had to talk to people in broken Russian (they all grew up speaking it.) Here are some pictures of the beautiful city:

We had taken an overnight bus to the city and arrived at around 6 am, when it was still dark.

Our first view of the hostel, I'm on the left side. We woke the guy who runs it up, but he was really nice and let us drop our stuff off and freshen up, then some of us took naps and some started exploring. This alley was near our hostel, adorable little thing, I think the arches are holding the walls up. On the left there was a cozy little Italian restaurant, and further down on the right there were big old stones from churches that had been moved to protect them. I'm on the right, Raley is in the orange hoodie, and Pasha (Shelley) in the middle.
This is the wool market, set up in niches in the old town wall. Our hostel was right on the other side of it. We tried to figure out how to walk on top of it but this section (it's not all standing) wasn't open.

The old main gate, you can see the flags of the Three Sisters hotel (built in 1362) through it. Yes, that's me at the bottom, I was leading cause I had the map :P

We were not the only tourists out exploring the beautiful alleys (actually almost half the town is alleys, most of the streets would fit maybe one car, though cars aren't allowed anymore). On the left you see part of the town hall. I loved all the cobblestone...View of the town hall from one of the side streets, which were full of shops and restaurants.

More to come!

St Pete at night

Nevsky Prospekt

Yes, I still have a ton of pics and will keep posting for a while, so keep checking here! I'll also start making plans for my next big trip, knowing me...for now, enjoy the night life.

The main/biggest (and mostly really expensive) mall on Nevsky Prospekt, Bolshoi Gostiny Dvor.Russian National Library

Dom Knigi, or House of Books. Architechture is (if I remember correctly) the Russian version of Neo-Romanticism? It used to be the headquarters of the Singer sewing machine company. I think the books look great in it though :)

The Church on Spilt Blood

The Hermitage, seen across the Neva. The top layer of it froze, then thawed enough for the ice to crack into sections, which started flowing, and basically got in a traffic jam.

New part of town

Welcome to the new part of town, the island of Petrogradskaya. The buildings are older (most from the 1800s), with original facades and architecture, such as gates for horses and carriages to go through. It's beautiful!

New accomodations/New hair

Did I mention that I live on Lenin St now? A block down is this lovely reminder of the first Soviet leader: I think a bird pooped in his eye and no one has bothered to clean it up, lol.....

The apartment is small, but comfortable, and the kitty definitely makes me feel at home! :) The tub is HUGE, and I have my own space.

)

My host mom works at a salon and decided to give me a little more than a trim...So here is me before and after the haircut:

Winter in Russia

It's definitely winter here in St. Petersburg. The Neva and canals are full of chunks of ice. Everyone is walking around more bundled up then ever. The beautiful snow that fell last week is, unfortunately, slushy and muddy. The other day all of it froze and created ice everywhere, we were all tiptoeing down the sidewalks. By some miracle I still haven't fallen on it yet! Slipped quite a few times though.

Teaching is getting easier and harder at the same time. I'm used to planning, but it seems like after the week vacation the kids had, no one wants to pay attention. Still haven't put up pics of the kids I teach, sorry about that, forgot I had some :) These aren't all the kids, usually one or two aren't in class, but you'll get an idea of their personalities I think:

Level 5: Axel, Danya, Stacey, Ilya, Liza

Level 3- Peter, Ilya, Zhenya, Mazim, Vova, and Bogdan

MUN

It was SO AMAZINGLY HARD to leave my old MUN group at the train station today. So awesome to talk to the kids, I knew a couple and recognized a few, about Ramstein. Talking politics and issues and life with my old teacher and his wife. Brought back so many memories. Would have given just about anything to take that open spot on the train.

Moving in St Pete...only me,....

Saturday night:

I just found out that I have a new family. They live really far away, on the island with the Peter Paul fortress, which means 40 minutes on the metro plus whatever time it takes to get the bus. But that doesn't really bother me, because I have a home! The part of town that the primary and elementary schools are in (as well as all our apartments) is “newer,” that is, built during the Soviet Union, and honestly, rather ugly. But the part of town I'll be living in now, on Petrogradskiy Island, is one of the first places to be settled when St Petersburg was becoming a city. I'm excited to check out the area I'll be living in! The family has one little boy, Leon, and they have hosted ILP teachers before. Tomorrow morning I'm going to meet them, see their house and everything. Monday morning I'm supposed to move. I'll miss this family, they have been so wonderful, taking care of me when I was sick, helping me with Russian, and feeding me very well. But at the same time, I'm excited to meet new people. Still trying to figure out if it's a good or bad thing that I get to have two families, instead of the one that all the other girls have. Moving is not going to be fun, I still have to pack (which means I get to do that twice) and say goodbyes. The others only have to do that once. And I will definitely be living farther away than anyone else, by a long way! They have agreed to pay for the metro, since I'll have to take it to teach every day now. We'll have to see how things turn out.

Sunday evening:

First, IT SNOWED!!! I woke up today and everything had a thin layer of white on it. The sidewalks were slippery with ice where people had walked. When we were walking from the Metro station to my new apartment there were snow flurries, it was beautiful but freezing. I feel bad for the teachers who are away, they missed the first snow in St. Petersburg. Most of it melted, but there are still patches that will freeze tonight. At least now we have something pretty to show for the cold weather....

My new family is wonderful! They live in a small apartment in the old part of town, on Lenin St actually. Leon, their son, is adorable, I spent some time today playing with him. Alyona, my new mom, is very sweet, she doesn't speak much English (and is really happy that I speak some Russian) but tries very hard and I know she'll take care of me. She is a hairstylist, I might have her trim my hair before I leave :) My dad works in construction, I think more of the architectural side of things, he designed and remade the bathroom and it has a HUGE tub. They also have a kitten, a gray tabby a little bigger than Stalker was, that has tons of energy. She's an indoor cat and has been declawed, so I won't go around looking like I got in a fight with a rose bush. I'm all packed, had my last meals with my Yelena today, she made me borsch because she knows I love it. And I played Uno with her and Igor while drinking our tea after dinner. I just wrote my goodbye note, leaving that and some good Estonian chocolate on the desk after I take my bags away tomorrow evening.

Things I should have posted a long time ago...

I've learned to not watch how people drive, especially on the mashrutkas, or taxi buses. If you pay attention, you'll be convinced that death is less than a foot away. I think the only way they survive is that everyone drives like a maniac, from honking to announce that you're going to run the red light, to having lines of cars in the middle of an intersection waiting to turn, so you have to pay attention more. My driving instructor would have a heart attack seeing how some of them park, let alone watching the buses driven like they were smart cars. They all drive very close to each other, with people pulling out and switching lanes at random. Not to mention that half the cars are the junky old Ladas, and sometimes one will stop in bad places, like at a bus stop or in the middle of the intersection, in which cases everyone has to drive around them, making everything more perilous. I've noticed that the guys are all amateur mechanics, they have to be to keep the cars (and other badly made equipment) running. I've seen cars being jump-started and dragged and pushed. And the pedestrians aren't much better, walking when they feel like it and stopping in the middle of a two lane road if they can't continue across. It's nuts. And Mutti, remember how I'll always look the wrong direction, or not at all? The other girls in my group have told me to stop quite a few times, but they are also a lot more nervous about the roads, I've kind of gotten used to it. I think if any of them came and drove in America, they'd have their license revoked before they got out of town.

A couple weeks ago we had a picture scavenger hunt around the city, it was tons of fun. We looked for Americans, missionaries, cute guys, people who had hair that matched their coat (we see that a lot, purple and red mostly, but some gold and black) and various other things. Mullets are very popular here, so we looked for the most wacky ones: different colors, or really extreme (like the kid who had a buzz cut except for the 6 inches of hair at the nape of his neck). Recorded me talking to a guy in German, as well as me and Jenna singing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” (from Phantom) in the cloakroom of the Hermitage, with a group of Chinese tourists taking our pictures. Definitely all had to step out of our comfort zones for the game! The metro was really crowded on the way home and I ended up with some bruises and a little more respect for the distance between the train and the platform. Could have been worse, I'm counting my blessings.

New family

I had to move. My babushka's father had a stroke and needed to be taken care of, so a new host family was found for me. They live in the old part of town, the first part to be settled in the 1700s. It takes 30 minutes on the metro to get to the part of town I teach in, but it's ok with me, my new family is awesome. Alyona, my mom, wants so bad to learn English, so we're always helping each other and learning new things. And I have to get pictures with my new 5 year old brother, he's really cute! We've had a little bit of snow in the last week, just a sprinkling really, but it's exciting. I'm getting pictures from someone else of our trip to Tallinn, here's a teaser, the group eating at the Medieval-themed restaurant Olde Hansa:

Lately

Halloween: a nice break from the normal teaching, we got to dress up and play games. I was kind of a gypsy, the shirt is a traditional. Trisha, another teacher, was Spiderman, and one of my students, Liza (she's really cute and sweet) was a gypsy too.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I've learned to not watch how people drive, especially on the mashrutkas, or taxi buses. If you pay attention, you'll be convinced that death is less than a foot away. I think the only way they survive is that everyone drives like a maniac, from honking to announce that you're going to run the red light, to having lines of cars in the middle of an intersection waiting to turn, so you have to pay attention more. My driving instructor would have a heart attack seeing how some of them park, let alone watching the buses driven like they were smart cars. They all drive very close to each other, with people pulling out and switching lanes at random. Not to mention that half the cars are the junky old Ladas, and sometimes one will stop in bad places, like at a bus stop or in the middle of the intersection, in which cases everyone has to drive around them, making everything more perilous. I've noticed that the guys are all amateur mechanics, they have to be to keep the cars (and other badly made equipment) running. I've seen cars being jump-started and dragged and pushed. And the pedestrians aren't much better, walking when they feel like it and stopping in the middle of a two lane road if they can't continue across. It's nuts. And Mutti, remember how I'll always look the wrong direction, or not at all? The other girls in my group have told me to stop quite a few times, but they are also a lot more nervous about the roads, I've kind of gotten used to it. I think if any of them came and drove in America, they'd have their license revoked before they got out of town.

The other day we had a picture scavenger hunt around the city, it was tons of fun. We looked for Americans, missionaries, cute guys, people who had hair that matched their coat (we see that a lot, purple and red mostly, but some gold and black) and various other things. Mullets are very popular here, so we looked for the most wacky ones: different colors, or really extreme (like the kid who had a buzz cut except for the 6 inches of hair at the nape of his neck). Recorded me talking to a guy in German, as well as me and Jenna singing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” (from Phantom) in the cloakroom of the Hermitage, with a group of Chinese tourists taking our pictures. Definitely all had to step out of our comfort zones for the game! The metro was really crowded on the way home and I ended up with some bruises and a little more respect for the distance between the train and the platform. Could have been worse, I'm counting my blessings.

My Host Family

The family, with puppy :) And yes, I couldn't get my host dad to smile, he doesn't do it often and doesn't believe in looking happy in pictures.
Me and my AWESOME babushka.
The women :)
Me, my babushka, and Igor.
Me, Mom, Igor

Igor, my host brother-doesn't he have a great smile?
Me and Igor.

More pictures

A walk through my day....

These are the keys I use to get into my apartment. The black one is some kind of magnet that opens the formidable red door to the hall I live in, then the other two get me in our front door.
Walking to the primary school.

The almost perpetual puddle in front of my building. If it has rained in the past 5 days, there is water there. It varies in size. The playground at the primary school.

Outside of the primary school.

The kitchen at the primary school. They feed as many of us as are there every school day. Lunch consists of bread, water, soup, some kind of meat, and sometimes potatoes or beets or apples.
The road by the primary school, which I walk by to get home. This is 5 minutes from my house, but I don't teach here.

This is Bolshivikov, the street the Head Teacher lives on, and the one I walk down to get to the Metro at least every other day.
Walking down Bolshivikov more....
The Head Teacher's apartment building. Everyone in the cities lives in apartment buildings, but many have dachas, or summer homes, outside of the city.
More Bolshivikov.....

In my home airport, Frankfurt...I think Lufthansa is the best airline... And the view of Portland from the plane when I took off...