This Sunday, exactly three weeks from the day I was supposed to move from the Petersburg dorms into my new home, I actually moved. It's been quite a week. It's hard for me not to think of this era as Alla Round 2, the sequel to my first semester studying abroad in Russia (hence the nickname "Nina Vasilievna: 2 Fast 2 Furious") but Nina is, of course, not Alla. (She is also neither fast, nor furious.) They have similarities though. I realized, when you request to live in a home with as few people as possible and end up living alone with one woman, they likely have volunteered their home because they are lonely and want company. Which is actually the worst situation I could possibly be in, considering that I wanted independence and alone time more than anything.

Nina has a sad story for deciding to start hosting American students, which is that her husband died last December of throat cancer, and she became very lonely. Over the summer she hosted a girl, and it was her first time hosting anyone. I'm her second student, and our time together will be the longest she's ever had someone in her home. I'll be with her during the one year anniversary of her husband's death. She can't even discuss him without beginning to cry. It's brought us closer together, and her strong emotions don't scare me, but I suddenly feel a great sense of responsibility to know that I am helping her get through her husband's death. Because that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm her cure for loneliness, I'm there to listen and to make her life that much brighter. Which is great, because Nina is a really wonderful, sweet and caring person. Her husband, from the sound of it, was also one-of-a-kind, and his death has left her devastated. According to her, they did everything together. Even just to go round the corner for groceries, they would do it together. He had many friends and everyone loved him. Nina has one son, 29 years old, named Alyosha. I met him briefly, and even then I could tell he is an unusually polite and lovely person. Alla was sweet but Nina seems to smile more, be more genuinely happy, sort of a sunnier person in general. She LOVES music, always has the radio on during all meals, and will sing along at various points, reminding me that she's a very modern person with a wide-ranging taste and impressive knowledge of all genres.

Whereas I never socialized with Alla outside of the home, and she never invited me to, Nina wants to go a lot of places with me. If I ever go to the ballet, she told me, I'm required to bring her along. Nina loves the ballet, more than anything else. Alyosha used to be married to a famous ballerina, though Nina didn't volunteer her full name. Nina loved her but they divorced, and now Alyosha is living with a woman that Nina really doesn't get along with. She told me all about it over dinner tonight, and looked very sad. In addition to her health problems, it seems that Nina's having a difficult time with life right now. I guess that's a lot of pressure to keep someone else happy, but apparently I'm already doing a good job. Nina told me tonight she misses me when I'm not home, and she's already become very used to me. She tells everyone that I'm a good person, and we sometimes discuss that we're happy to be living with each other. So I guess it's worked out.

On Saturday evening, we're all boarding an overnight train to Moscow to start our "mid-semester" trip. We'll spend half the day in Moscow, go to Ulyanovsk (where Lenin was born) and then get on a boat from there. The majority of our trip is a cruise down the Volga, stopping by various cities along the way, until our final destination of Astrakhan, which is a city on the Caspian Sea. After Astrakhan, we'll take a 2-night train all the way back to Peter. We're all pretty excited. I probably won't be able to use the internet for the entirety of the trip, but I'll make up for it with what I assume will be great videos after I return. And we'll be back on October 5th.

Anyway, I'm gonna try really hard to get a couple videos up before I leave on the cruise. There's a few in the works and I guess they're reasonably amusing. I'll be online less often in general since I don't have internet at home. Internet is much easier to access in Peter compared to Vladimir, but I just don't need to seek it out every day. I guess that's all I have to say for now so... hope all's well where you are.