hmmm. i've been home for a whole five days and no update on the trip yet... sorry. you're not getting it now, either. ;-)

this blog will be disappearing soon, and i'll be moving on to greener pastures full-time on another server. if you're dying to find out where i'll be, pop me an email [kmt4n@alumni.virginia.edu] and i'll let you know what's up, if i like you enough.

last night was a vivid reminder of why i have always avoided bars in college towns: melissa, her roommate brian, sarah and i went up to towson for the evil, evil ladies $5 all-you-can-drink special at this certain place, and it was so horribly painful. all the fake-tanned sororstitutes in their standard summer uniform of tank top/off-the-shoulder boob shirt, cutesy knee-length skirt, and flip-flops, combined with the frat boys in their abercrombie and nursing their bottles of bud light, made me want to either get really drunk and start a catfight or run away screaming. i, however, chose neither of the above, and instead decided to nurse the glory that is the bourbon and coke until closing time. sleep was good, and long; melissa's cat woke me up around 2 pm by plopping himself across my neck and wailing at me to get up and feed him. it didn't work, so he went over to her and did the exact same thing.

so ca-yute.

mmmmmbedtime.
posted by kat thompson at 12:08 AM

whoa... blogger completely rehauled their... well, everything. sure, wait until i leave to make things better. pbbbllltt!

last day in st petersburg: i didn't get home until 430 this morning, because jess and justin and i were too busy drinking and talking and drinking and talking and watching the sun set and then rise three hours later for me to go home any earlier. i picked up the last real shaverma ever on the way home, and crashed right at 5.

i was not pleased when my body decided at 830 am that i'd had enough sleep and it was time to get up, but i was unable to fall back into hungover bliss, so the rehydration process began. i had some yummy lemon cake and a banana for breakfast, and then set about packing. hmmm... well, it all fits, but any souvenirs i buy in london and ireland are going to have to be very, very small. oh well.

to avoid thinking about a possible repacking, i then went downtown and had a lovely time watching the gypsies rob unknowing tourists, eating ice cream, strolling up and down and all around, and sitting in a garden watching the world go by. today was one of those perfect cloudless days with a slight breeze that simply makes you forget that there's a world outside of what you can see around you, and one that makes you never want to leave where you are.

after this post, i'm sending some emails and then going home to eat, shower, and gather up the last of my stuff. leaving seems surreal, but then, the past ten months in general have been surreal.

i'll be home july 13, and will be back online shortly thereafter. until then, happy july 4th, happy birthday to kim, and pray that mom and i get home in one piece without having started any international incidents.

i'm gonna miss this place. well, um, da svidanya, i guess.

current mood: mellow again
current music: moby/'why does my heart feel so bad?'
posted by kat thompson at 9:48 AM

alas, myishka is no longer in heat and has taken to swatting at my ankles again. which would be fine if i hadn't already torn them up scratching myself. i think she likes hearing someone else howl for a change.

monday i ate at my favorite cafe for the last time; i was alone, and was able to enjoy fully a hot plate of khachapuri (cheesy bread, but better) and a glass of georgian red wine. yesterday was a beautiful day so i spent most of it outside, laughing at the tourists, as well as waiting in line to get into the hermitage - something i've never had to do before. i actually spent more time waiting to get in than i did inside the musuem, since i'd only wanted to see this one exhibit that opened on saturday. as i was waiting, a very obnoxious kid from milwaukee made my acquaintance and bitched at length about the reasons he hates russia. so, i asked, why did you come here if you don't like it? oh, he said, it's one of those things i just thought i should do, you know, how everyone just has to go to europe or some other far-off place at least once in their lives, as he rolled his eyes and gave me that you-know? smile. i shook my head, no, i don't know, i came here to study and learn and drink a little. (heh heh) it's people like him that give american tourists a bad name - why can't they really just stay home?

last night i saw moby at the ice palace. it was almost as cathartic and seminal as seeing pearl jam for the first time, except moby only played for ninety minutes, which left me feeling cheated somehow. it was a good vibe, though, since everyone in the room had been waiting years to see him - i assume this was his first ever show in st petersburg. according to his website, he was duly impressed by the city. yay. his two best songs were 'porcelain' and 'bring back my happiness', although '18' was a close third.

today i got all my certificates and passport and visa stuff picked up and done with, so now all i have to do is buy some vodka, drink some beer with the boys tonight, pack, and clean my room. my last post from the frozen tundra will be tomorrow afternoon, after three out of those four things are done.

current mood: mellow
posted by kat thompson at 7:51 AM

too funny!

dima's kitten, myishka, is now a cat, as she's been in heat since thursday. this is the first time either dima or tanya has been around a cat in heat, and it's rather amusing since they have no idea what to do with her. the following is an approximate transcript of the conversation tanya and i had on thursday evening at dinner:

tanya: you've got cats at home, right?
me: yeah, two, and they both went through heat before we spayed them.
t: how long does this last?
m: depending on the cat, five days to a week, every month or so, sometimes every other month.
t: [jaw drops] a week?! good lord... (yes, she actually did say 'gospodi' here)
m: maybe. this is her first time, so it might be shorter than that...

[a little later on]
tanya: ok, so when your cats were spayed, did they wrap a bandage around their stomachs to help the stitches heal?
me: yeah, when my sister's cat got spayed she got the bandage, but when my cat got spayed she had to wear this collar that looked like a lampshade -
t: a what?
m: a lampshade, so she couldn't turn her head and get to the stitches. do they do that here?
t: i don't know. i hope not. i don't want myishka to wear a lampshade around her neck!
m: but it looks really funny. you could videotape it for later...
[at this point myishka, as if eavesdropping, began a fresh round of caterwauling]

i think my favorite thing she does is stretch herself out in front of the front door with her hind legs splayed out into the air, as if she's saying "come on in, i'm ready!" the poor thing has no idea what's happening to her, and she goes nuts every time dima comes home. sniffing his shoes, curling herself around his legs, etc. etc.

the best part of this, though, is that on friday tanya came back from the store with these pills that they sell for cats and dogs going through heat. she showed them to me, and i was amusingly horrified to see that they were called, literally, anti-sex pills. i know more than a few humans who would benefit from the use of such pills, if they existed for us...

yesterday's summer solstice sunshine total: nineteen hours and fifty-one minutes. thank god the days now get shorter!

current mood: extremely itchy (stupid mosquitoes)
posted by kat thompson at 10:26 AM

i spent my afternoon shopping with a friend and sitting in an outdoor cafe on nevsky prospect, sipping tea and giggling at the tourists. they're so cute. i don't want to go home yet....

as promised, the list of things i will miss about st petersburg:

ice cream - real shaverma - people driving on sidewalks - crazy babushkas - crazy people in general, for that matter - bliny from teremok, the best bliny stand in the world - the low standard of living (ie everything is cheap... beer, CDs, etc) - "ostorozhno, dvyeri zakruvayutsa" ("careful, doors closing") - metro service every 1-2 minutes - taking private taxis - the boys at the computer center - the rumble trams make on the road when they pass - drinking tea at least twice a day - the awful tv show "okna" and its host, dimitry nagiev - sitting in my balcony with my flowers and the window open, watching people pass by below - well-behaved stray dogs - hearing garbage go tumbling down the trash chute - being able to eat and drink on public transportation - the complete and utter lack of open-container laws - the neva, its canals, and all the bridges - extremely slack views towards working more than is absolutely necessary - extraordinarily obvious product placement on tv shows - people with gold teeth - the police - "mozhno poznakomitsa?" ("can we get acquainted?") - yummy soups of all sorts - being called "dyevushka" (literally "girl") - dorm parties - hearing the word "gospodi!" (depending on your source, "good heavens" or "good lord!") - seeing nudity on tv - the sounds of neighbors' "remont" ("repairs") (this word is now permanently a part of my english vocabulary) - walking everywhere - flowers everywhere - people starting conversations... everywhere - old ladies with purple hair - my purple plaid bedsheets - watching people run for buses and trams and such - the babushka mafia (tm) - the ever-changing penciled-in eyebrows of my korean classmate, hee-chung - the weather music on channel one - having no knowledge of cnn and the idiotic news from the west - the blind-person traffic signal sound at the crosswalk near the metro - my daily two-word quota with dima, usually 'good afternoon' or 'good evening' - hanging clothes on the hot pipe

...and the list of things i will not miss: (you may notice some similarities with the former)

eating meat twice a day - crappy sidewalks and roads (yay crumbling infrastructure!) - people driving on sidewalks - people with body odor and/or halitosis - washing clothes in the bathtub - not having a dryer! - being hit on by sleazy russian guys - being stared down by russian women - the pointy witch shoes that seemingly all russian women wear - and, womankind's refusal to cut her collective bangs - garlic, garlic everywhere - it being windy all the time - awful pop and rock music - crazy homeless people - dirt flying everywhere - that smell of fish and stale cabbage - expensive tampons - unhelpful staff - street artists/etc who bark at me unsolicitedly in english - completely arbitrary means of getting things done - extremely slack views towards working more than is absolutely necessary - lack of constant water temperature - dirty looks when trying to break 500- and 1000-ruble notes - paying over a dollar an hour for the internet - rotary telephones - "kak mozhno interpretirovat?" ("how can this be interpreted?", my grammar teacher's favorite saying) - places being closed for lunch - pillow feathers stabbing me in the head - being cold all the time - gypsies - walking on ice and through four-inch-deep puddles - people starting conversations... everywhere - people smelling like meat and/or alcohol, especially at nine o'clock in the morning - old people who stand over you and breathe on you/clear their throats at you on buses/etc - the babushka mafia (tm) - having to check my coat everywhere i go - people smacking their lips constantly - metro molesters - not being able to drink the tap water

yesterday was my last day of class. my time here is running away from me like a horse who's just torn the lead rope out of my hand and has taken off down the hill.

sigh. ::staples hand to back of forehead::

current mood: mischievous
current music: red hot chili peppers/"californication"
posted by kat thompson at 9:52 AM