Last Night in Petersburg

On my way home I picked up roses for my host mother (as a goodbye gift type thing) since I knew she loved flowers. I tried to get pretty ones and avoid negative or ill suited colors (like yellow, never give a Russian yellow flowers). I also had saved two little vodka glasses that are dark blue (like the glasses on my window ledge) and have the light houses of Maine etched into them, I also had saved a little thing of Maine maple syrup to give them. Eena really loved the flowers and Joseph thought the glasses were funny because he always jokes with me about how horrible I thought vodka tasted when I first tried it (it still tastes bad). Eena and Joseph gave me a really beautiful teacup from this very nice porcelain store in Petersburg. This is the only porcelain of its type made in the world and is extremely delicate.

Pretty! (I took these later)




Out my window before I headed out:


I then headed to The Idiot, which I got to a little late. But service is so slow that it didn’t really matter. It was nice to go the same restaurant on our last night in Petersburg that we had gone to on our first weekend.

On the way:



Moika




Pretty much everyone was there when I arrived including one of the Russians from the train plus two of his friends showed up, not to mention our usual Teema, and Ohara’s roommate from England, Louise. It was kind of a surprise, but one day the doorbell rang at Ohara’s host mom’s door, and Louise showed up. Louise is on a different program from us, and I guess their host mother had put herself on a list to be a home stay for two different programs. So Louise and Ohara, luckily got along, and both stayed. Louise is in Russia through the fall or something, and Ohara only had another 3 or 4 weeks before she was leaving. They were sharing a room for a while, and then Louise was living in their host mother’s room with her, but then her host mother got sick and was in the hospital for a little while… it’s a long story. So she was there, and has the most hilarious accent (because she goes to school in Scotland now).

Dinner was yummy, but because of the whole no foreign wine and champagne thing there was just vodka and beer.

Pictures:

(blurry)


Our Russians:


Us:


After dinner some people went to this gay club and the rest of us went to go walk around Nevsky and get ice cream. Britt, Lydia, Michelle, Ashley, Alisa, David, and I piled into Teema’s car to get McDonald’s ice cream. YAY!

Me attacking Britt outside the Idiot:


Sunset:


Outside the Idiot on our first weekend:


Same place on our last weekend:


After ice cream, Teema and David went off, Michelle and Ashley headed home, and the rest of us went to walk around. It was a beautiful night again, not too cold and certainly not hot. It felt more fresh than usual, especially compared to how hot Petersburg was when we first got here. I hadn’t really spent much time at night on Nevsky, when it actually started to look like night (unlike the first month we were here when there was almost no such thing as night). People were all in a good mood and it was a really wonderful way to spend our last night.