Dorms, money, and Peterhof

My building

The past couple of weeks we've only had Russian language classes as part of an intensive before real classes actually start. I'm meeting with an advisor on Tuesday to pick out my academic classes for the semester. I can't wait to get into a normal routine! So far just getting used to the dorms has been interesting. The Saint Petersburg State University dorms are in a neighborhood with row upon row of huge, grim, Soviet-style apartment buildings. If you don't know the area it's easy to get lost, since number 20, entrance 2 looks a lot like number 20, entrance 3. Even though it might sound unpleasant, it's actually a middle-class area. Lots of the host families for other students are in similar buildings (although I'm sure they're a lot nicer inside than the dorms). My suite has two bedrooms, a kitchenette, a toilet, and a bathroom. I share a triple with two other Americans who are also in Smolny College. Luckily for me, they're both really nice and if I could have chosen, they're the ones I would have chosen to live with anyway. We're also supposed to have two Russians in the other bedroom, but they haven't arrived yet.

Unfortunately, one of the things the dormitory doesn't have is wireless internet, and I had to go to a phone store and buy a USB modem. Russians in general are still very distrustful of credit. Using credit cards is impossible in many places and they hate when you don't have exact change or use a big bill for a small purchases. They don't even use credit for electronics, like cell phone plans in the US. Everyone pays as they go for their cell phones and internet on orange avtomat machines that are all over the place. It's convenient that they only pay for what they use. But it's weird to think that everyone has to carry so much cash around all the time to pay for everything, whether they're buying a bottle of water or a new computer.

On Sunday the school took us to Peterhof, one of Peter the Great's summer palaces. Peter I is usually presented as a very economical tsar. Supposedly he preferred to live in a little 2 room wooden shack that he had built himself. But then again, Peter also competed with the West. He wanted the city of Saint Petersburg to be like Venice and a window for Russia on to the West. When he saw Versailles, he decided he wanted his very own super fancy palace too, and decided to build Peterhof. The palace and other buildings are very pretty on the outside, but people really go there to look at the extravagant fountains, which all have beautiful decoration and gold-plated figurines. Oddly, (or maybe not?) it was FREEZING!! Like 50 degrees and windy! In August!! We were all shivering as we were waiting for the boat to take us back to the city. Hopefully it'll be warm again for at least a little bit before the real winter cold comes.