Just Landed in Petersburg

So the flight here was straight*. Met up with a couple of girls from Brown that are in the program and we got aquatinted. Landed and everything looked like it was just liberated from Soviet Times. Even this house I'm staying in...

We got through customs and passport check really easily... No hassle. No searches. Just in and out. Waiting on us at pickup was the lady from Nevsky Institute. She immediately knew I was "James" and greeted me multiple times and sort of ignored the rest of the group... I have a feeling that my teacher told her that "James will be the tallest Black person at the airport and wearing a Yankees hat" Which was true. In France there were so many Black people. Working at the airport. Traveling. Living there. Here, it looks like it's just me.

Yo!* When we stepped outside! It was cold! It was cloudy and I was so happy that I bought a jacket. It wasn't FREEZING but it was cooler than Autumn weather. For those curious St. Petersburg isn't like New York or Boston in terms of location in the world it's actually more like Anchorage, Alaska. And in stereotypical fashion everyone outside started smoking cigarets.

We got into our Taxi provided to us by the Nevsky and left with our guide Nastya and some Harvard students and everything was all good. We talked. They were really cool.

As a side note right now I'm feeling kind of lightheaded... I don't know what it is... I'm kind of zoning out... I'll lay down after I finish this.

So the Harvard peoples were cool. This one chick from Harvard (her last name is Austin) lives up the street from me.

MY HOST FAMILY! I'm living with this very nice elderly Jewish Lady in a "nice" neighborhood and her granddaughter who is roughly the same age as me. The granddaughter speaks English. My room is straight. I have wireless. This building has a very Soviet type vibe to it though... It's actually kind of how I imagined it. I'll post pics later.

Everything was cool until their reasonably good sized black dog ran up on me! The dog has a muzzle on right now but if it wasn't wearing one he would have bit my hand off! And now he's outside barking... That dog better have a muzzle on at all times! I'm not trying to die this summer! They also have a cat a turtle that walks around on the floor and two rats? yeah... pet rats...

All of this happened ridiculously fast. The airport. The ride here. The family. All within an hour.

And that was my host mom... That I guess stays here too? She just invited me to come get dinner so I'm going to get on that. Dosvidanya!

Stay Tuned.