Sorry for a lack of updating. Been pretty busy here, with classes and touring (I spent an entire day touring the Russian musuem) and just meeting new people.
I took a well needed break from Russia last weekend to go visit the absolutely beautiful city of Tallinn, in the small Baltic country of Estonia. For those who don't know, I have some Estonian heritage and thus going back there was a big event.
Estonia is an amazing place. A country of only about 1.5 million people (about 40% of which live in Tallinn), they are a fiercely independent young population that are taking the rest of the world by storm, bringing consumers around the world new innovation in technology (these folks brought you Skype and Kazaa). Definitely one of the most forward thinking former Soviet republics. It was a nice change from the grey dirty feeling of Russia. People were young, happy, nice, and everything was rather clean, and well, rather western. Wonderful times.
Other than that, I am probably going to start working through the university as a English teacher for advanced Russian students. Basically all I do is sit at the front of the class and talk for three hours, and get paid the princely sum of 1600 rubles ($65 roughly) per session. It sounds nice. And on top of that, it rather easy for Westerners to get such jobs. They actually actively seek out American students because for some reason American English is preferable to the Queen's English. No idea why. But some people actually make a living off of this. One fellow I met while here will be living here for a year, teaching English for corporate businesses and students, and is able to live in a brand new apartment near the center and still pocket around $200 a week, for teaching English maybe 25 hours a week. Its a nice job for when you are young, I suppose.
New Western things that have arrived in Russia: Carl's Jr. has decided to open up four restaurants all throughout St. Petersburg, looking like if it just got transplanted from Santa Barbara (I go there to get change for my 1000 ruble notes because they dont yell at me like everywhere else). Also they have an equivalent to Costco here, called Lenta. Its open 24 hours, and sells everything imaginable. You buy a card for 1000 rubles (or just "borrow" one from whoever is behind you in the checkout line) and get the freshest products for the lowest price. Apparantly food products here first go to Lenta and other big stores, then once they pass a certain shelf date, they get sold to the second level supermarkets, and then after their shelf date expires, what is left is sold to the ubiquitous food kiosks all around the city. So most people try to avoid the kiosks for food, what you get is twice as expensive and probably at best two/three months old.
Football fever is here in Russia as well. The Euro 2008 qualifiers was held in Moscow, with Russia against England playing last night, and by some divine intervention, Russia won 2-1. Russia went absolutely nuts, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of people called in sick today to nurse their hangovers (not me! I went to school!) Also Zenit, the local side, is in prime position to win the Russian League cup, and are now playing in the second round of the UEFA cup against strong teams like Nuremburg and Everton. I'm hoping to make the match against Nuremburg, and probably the last regular season game. Pictures will be forthcoming. Its very hard to upload pictures here due to spotty internet connection, so I'll do what I can at an actual internet cafe.
Its strangely staying warm here, with temperatures hovering around 10 degrees celsius, and I am not bothered by the weather here too much at all.
This is a rather scattered post, but I'll make sure to make the next one a little more coherent and write it out beforehand. I have quite a few rants to post.
Until later this week or Monday...
Alex
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