I'm on the third floor lobby of my dorm stealing wifi from the hotel across the street, and just ran into three Chinese students trying to do the same. They were having trouble so they approached me to ask how. But they speak basically no English and very little Russian. Their computers were all in Chinese characters. So helping them proved a challenge. But I got at least one of them online. That's the great thing about this dorm, there are students from all over the world studying Russian. Definitely an interesting experience.

We went to school for the first time today. All we had was testing so they can place us in groups according to our level tomorrow. Today I got lucky and my oral assessment went perfectly. I understood everything she said and responded reasonably well.

I have a friend who used to go to GWU named Ben. Ben once introduced me to another student living in his dorm who he knew was studying Russian. Yesterday, as I walked into a meeting with the whole group, I ran into this other student, named Matt. I knew he was in St. Petersburg but still, this was a great surprise. In addition to this, he's already friends with a girl here who I've been spending a lot of time with, named Gina. And finally, Matt, Gina and I all live extremely close to each other. Really right around the corner. At least, when I move into my real home we will. This is great because Matt knows the city very well and is a very advanced Russian speaker. He's studying here on a Fulbright scholarship. Last night he took us around to help Gina find an adapter, and then we went back to his (huge and dirt cheap) apartment with a few drinks. He invited me to attend Yom Kippur services with him and said he could get me into a real Shabbat dinner with some Russians. He also knows cool jazz clubs and pretty much just everything anyone could want to know. It really is weird, the Russian-studying student population in the US is a really small world. The more programs I do, the more I find that I know someone who knows someone else. It's happened several times over the course of orientation.

My phone number is +7 921 794 5379.

This is probably gonna be the least cohesive and uninteresting video I will post here, but I have nothing but time on my hands and wanted to show you what I’ve filmed so far. Some of it’s just us hanging around the dorm. Some of it is on the streets of Peter. Nathan, our resident director, is also shown at about 53 seconds into the video.



Honestly it's a pretty terribly video but I thought it would be fun to see some of the people I'm here with and just generally see where I've been. I promise there's better to come.