By KMorris117
The moment we’ve all been waiting for-my first post from Russia! The realization that I am finally in St. Petersburg, mixed with the jet lag, has made the past few days incredibly surreal. It was quite the journey to get out here- Chicago to New York to Helsinki to St. Petersburg- but I was lucky enough to avoid delays, lost luggage, or anything else that can go wrong with flights. My plane from Helsinki, Finland to Russia was very small. It consisted of about 10 Russians and 13 other kids from my program.
We all nervously introduced ourselves to one another as we passed through Russian customs, which wasn’t half as intimidating as I expected. We then met up with some of the directors of our program and some other students, and we headed to the hotel for the orientation weekend.
On Friday night, we were able to have dinner all together and get to know one other. The students in my program are from all over the country, and we are quite the eclectic bunch. Although so far we have all been speaking to each other in English, most of the other students know Russian very well. They all thought it was pretty bold of me to come without any previous language experience, but they’ve been incredibly encouraging and helping me along so far.
For example, today we had to fill out LOTS of paperwork to apply for visa extensions. The forms, of course, were all in Russian and needed to be filled out in Russian. Although I know alphabet, my knowledge of vocabulary is still pretty weak. Yet, with some help from my new friends, I was able to fill out all the forms correctly on the first try (& not to brag, but most of the other Russian-speaking students didn’t even do that.)
Earlier today, we also got to take a bus tour through all of St. Petersburg. The hotel we are staying at for orientation is on the outskirts of the city, and they felt we ought to have some sort of introduction to the layout of the city before we start navigating it next week. It was a quick tour, and we drove by many different cathedrals, parks, and museums that we will all have the chance to explore more later on. However, we did stop at the campus where we will all be studying.
It is the Smolny campus for St. Petersburg State University. Named after the Cathedral that sits on campus, Smolny houses the International Affairs, Political Science and Sociology schools. This is also where all international students study, so we won’t be the only non-Russians on campus! It is an absolutely beautiful campus, and I am excited to start classes just so I can walk around it every day.
Tomorrow morning, we have a few more sessions for orientation. But by tomorrow night, we will be all moved in with our host families. I am extremely eager to meet my host mom and siblings, and I’m sure you will all get to read all about them in my upcoming blogs! And thanks for sticking it out with those first two blog posts. I can assure you that all my posts from here on out will be much more exciting!