I am alive and everything like that

I've been in Russia for four days now, so there is a lot to write about, but I do not have a lot of time so this will be mostly highlights and little description.

The flight was better than the last summer's, as I did not throw up on the plane and I did not get lost in the airport of a foriegn city and have to go through customs twice. St. Petersburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg) has been unseasonably warm, given how far north the city is (think Alaska-ish). However we are still enjoying the northern benefit of long summer days; the sun rises around five a.m. and does not set until about eleven pm, and it will stay out longer as we go on towards July.

The food so far has been pretty good, although I would have to give a nod to American and Middle Eastern food at present. In Petersburg our group (7 of us this time, and I will be the only one with a blog) ate at a few nice restaurants, toured the city, and toured the Hermitage. The Hermitage Museum is certainly one of the top ten museums in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_Museum), and my personal highlight was seeing a painting that I wrote a report on in tenth grade for english class (http://confidentofthis.com/artwork/humanity_matisse_convers.html).

My host family is very kind. I am actually living and attending clas in Novgorod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novgorod). There is a mother, father, sister, and a brother who has married and lives across the way with his wife and one-year-old boy. My host-mother insists on feeding me more food than I have room for, and she speaks only Russian. The others know enough English that at an impass in my Russian they can try a few words in English until I understand what is being said. Hopefully by the end of the month I can exorcise that crutch.

I found Mirinda at a grocery store; that was the pop that I liked so much in Jordan (http://www.brettisinjordan.blogspot.com/).

That is not enough, but I hope it will suffice for now. At present, my only concern is making sure I can keep track of baseball (Reds and fantasy teams).

If you leave questions under the comments I will try to answer them.

Oh and I have my camera but no means of uploading pictures. You might get some if others in the group figure out how to upload their pictures to facebook.