Russia is Hard

Hello Everyone!

I am in Russia and am (sort of) safe. I spent the first few days in orientation in a resort town in Repino, Russia. There I saw the Gulf of Finland.

After that I made it to St. Petersburg to my homestay. I live in a very sad place. There are thousands and thousands of soviet style apartment buildings all over Russia. I live in one of those. The only businesses around are at the bottom of the apartment buildings. There are also not many sidewalks, only dirt and parking lots.

There are a lot of packs of dogs that have ringworm. I am not going to play with the dogs. No one here speaks English. No one. It is very difficult to get by not being able to understand a lot of Russian.

I have asked to move my homestay because it is so far from the city. It is a long ride on the metro and in order to get to school by 9:00 AM I will have to transfer two lines. Also, it is not safe to go home alone if you are a female. No other students live near me and someone tried to accost me the other night. Hopefully I will be in a safer place soon.

Last of all, my camera is broken. Of course. My computer has broken (don't even ask), my camera is broken, and my homestay is not working out. This only makes sense, of course. If I am in Russia, everything needs to not work. This is life. Also, my english has become very poor. After I leave, I will speak broken English and broken Russian. Please do not mind. Two languages (spoken poorly) is better than one. Right?

Until the next post ...