Before Pushkin

It is snowing outside. This is glorious, not least because for the past week or so the weather was just wet and gloomy, as all the past snow drifts gradually melted and disappeared, leaving us all wondering if the snow had just been a wonderful dream. But no! It has returned! And just in time for our trip to Pushkin, the old vacation town of the nobility, and Tsarsye Tselo, the imperial palace that contain the famous Amber Room, tomorrow. Although the palace sounds nice, the grounds are meant to be spectacular, even more so than the grounds at Pavlovsk that we visited in the fall. Unfortunately, its hard for anywhere to look good when all there is to see is mud and leafless trees, not that they don’t have their own, different aesthetic appeal. So I have been hoping desperately for snow, and it has finally arrived! With any luck, it will last the night and there will be glorious whiteness all around.

This last week has gone by in a blur, once again. Its impossible to believe that I’ll be leaving Russia in a week. I don’t want to. Some people on the trip blatantly do, to the point of my having been informed of the number of hours to go, but I could really stay much, much longer. Or just have to come back. I know I won’t realize everything I’m going to miss until its gone, but there are some obvious ones; my host mother and her amazing cooking, the canals, the snow (as elusive as its been lately), the metro, the rye bread, the bakeries, the tea…. The list goes on, probably so far as to stretch down the block and around the corner. Oh, Russia!

Still, I’m trying to use the remainder of my time wisely. I’ve visited the Hermitage twice more recently, and I think I’ll time for once more before I leave. I’ve explored more of the city, eaten at every blini chain I think, (oh, the blini! So available and cheap!) although one can never be sure, talked for hours with my host mother. We have our last organized excursion on Thursday to the Jazz Philharmonic Hall, which will hopefully be spectacular. With any luck I’ll have time to wander and see more, visit the Museum of Bread, grab the last needed presents and visit a few more sights while studying for exams, and before my time here is up. It’s the familiar time crunch at the end of every semester, but now worse since there’s so much more to go out and see.