At this moment it is9:25am in St. Petersburg, -16 degrees Celsius (3 Fahrenheit), and the sun has yet to rise. I am lying in bed in Virginia, where the weather is +8 (46F), 4 and a half days before my trip to that dark and frozen land and I am absolutely terrified! Or at least very nervous about my winter break trip. Even though this will be my second trip to Russia, it is going to be very different than last time when I spent 3.5 days attempting to sightsee in freezing rain and a borrowed jacket over my light sweater which clearly indicated that Russia and I have very different ideas of "spring". This trip will be two weeks with my boyfriend and his family in St. Petersburg= two weeks of below freezing temperatures and barely seven hours of sunlight daily, two weeks of putting my Russian language skills to the ultimate test, two weeks of total immersion, two weeks of getting to know and attempting to impress strangers with whom I don't even have language in common...but I'm also excited! The romance of a Russian winter complete with horse drawn sleighs, a trip to the Mariinsky for the opera, women swathed in furs gliding gracefully across icy streets in stilettos while I totter behind them in my snow boots, snow flakes the size of nickels balancing on my eyelids. It really has the potential to be a magical trip if I do it right, and I feel like I kind of have something to prove to everyone who scoffs at and disapproves of my choice of how to spend my winter vacation. So here I go, off once again into the unknown! I hope I like the food)))
Note: I'm just now posting this, but it was written just after midnight on the 23rd
