Feet on the Ground

FRIDAY, AUGUST 31

Well, folks, it's been a while since the last entry in this renowned blog, and rightfully so. Had I posted constant updates from day to day about what we were doing and how I was acclimating to all of it, I assure you that you would have been bored, outside of the fact that you would have questioned my sanity (in retrospect, I, too, question my sanity).

After flying off on Friday at 6:00pm eastern standard time, we flew into Munich (my 3^rd time in Germany without stepping out of an airport) and then from Munich flew to St. Petersburg. Our program's resident director would have normally been with us, but due to the fact that the long-standing RD for the Flagship program departed this summer, Tim Dempsey (our new RD) was held up due to the complicated and time consuming Russian visa process. Nevertheless, we successfully made our flights and met up at the airport with Lena Zinkevich, our homestay coordinator. She really picked up a lot of the duties that Tim unfortunately had to miss out on because of the visa debacle. We were eventually picked up by a small bus and dropped off to our respective homestays. I was the last to be dropped off, which basically means that I live the farthest from the city center.

This week was mainly orientation and what I would call a 'sampling' of the classes we're taking. Grammar and Lexicon, Phonetics, Reading, Conversation, and Writing. I won't get into those right now... in fact I'll leave the whole classes thing to another time, when I've had some more time in the trenches.

In terms of acclimation, I'm finally able to realize how nice it is to be back in St. Petersburg. During the first few days I was so horribly jet lagged I didn't know which way was up – I was sleeping during the day, awake at night, and basically miserable. It's amazing how lack of sleep can disrupt one's world.

That's all for now -- when I'm writing, I'm generally writing about what comes to my head at that particular moment. If there's something you'd like to hear about or if you have a suggestion for a blog topic, shoot me an email (jonwebah@gmail.com).