It was bound to happen eventually.
This love affair of metro rides, 30 ruble beers, snowdrifts and sunflower seed halva I’ve been having lately with St. Petersburg has just been too sweet. (Seriously, have you ever tried halva? It’s what 6 future cavities taste like in the present).
Walking on the frozen Neva, ballet, cheap elektrichka rides up north to see the Bay of Finland – none of it seems entirely real and pretty much all of it seems too sophisticated and classy for my “laps are as good as napkins” self. Everything is exploding with beautiful and when free time rolls around I’m always a little flustered about what to visit. Recently I’ve been to Peter the Great’s “Cabinet of Curiosities” at Kunstkamera (proving, once again, Russia is normal and not creepy), the northern town of Vyborg, ice skating in the park at Pavlovsk, and jumping around at a ramble-rousin’ Maslenitsa celebration by Tsarskoe Selo in Pushkin.
When I said “it was bound to happen” I meant get sick. The water in St. Petersburg is notoriously bad (my host grandparents have this funky system where they collect drops from the bathroom faucet with a funnel, pour it through a filter, then boil it). I woke up this morning, downed my normal kasha* with banana and tea and hopped on the trolleybus to school. Five minutes into my first class I felt the wrath of 100,000 angry gremlins punching at my stomach and knew I wasn’t going to last there. I ended up getting sick and went home. Today I learned that “меня рвало”/”menya rvalo” means I puked! See how much I’m getting out of this experience? (Additionally “я блюю” means something a bit more crude like I’m yuking and is pronounced “ya blew-you.” Thanks, Mom and Dad for these education dollaz.
Anyway, I’m feeling a lot better and am taking this time at home to sleep and catch up on things like bloggin’. I’ve downed some crackers and am waiting for my babushka to come home from her weekly outing to feed me potions from a cauldron or rub mustard on me or something. Apparently that’s a thing.
With love and crackers crumbs,
Izzy
PS. I now have a flickr for loads more Mothaland shots!
*I am planning to do a post entirely devoted to kasha (porridge). Try to contain your excitement.
