According to the Russian calendar system, the first day of Spring begins on March 1 rather than on the vernal equinox as it does in the United States, so we are technically enjoying spring right now in St. Petersburg. As I look outside and see the mountains of snow that are still with us I have a hard time accepting this, but the temperatures are beginning to get warmer and the amount of sunlight is increasing steadily. Winter has been fine, but I'm sure it will be nice for a change of pace once spring-like weather truly does in fact arrive.
Our lives have been rather busy these past few weeks, which is the main reason that we have not posted anything in a while. One of the most exciting things that happened was that we had our first visitors from the U.S. the week before last! Rachel and Analiese, two friends of ours from college, came and stayed with us for a little over a week. We had a great time showing them the sites of our city, catching up with what has been going on in their lives, and getting the chance to show off our hard-earned knowledge and experience. It really is nice for once to not be the people who know the least Russian:-) We showed them many beautiful churches, some significant graveyards, the apartment of Dostoevsky, the Hermitage, and a stunning variety of forms of public transportation, along with giving them ample opportunities to try different kinds of Russian food. We all had a great time, and we didn't kill each other as four people had to share our rather modestly sized apartment.
While it was wonderful to have friends visit us, it has meant that we have been playing catch-up for this past week and a half as we try to stay on top of everything for school. The end of our third grading quarter approaches rapidly, which means that Amanda and I each have a fair bit of grading to do. I have been working through various essays for my classes this past week. Before sitting down to write this post, I finished writing comments on the first draft of an essay for my 9/10 American History class (topic: identify what you believe to be the single greatest problem facing the United States during the Gilded Age and explain what was done to address it in the Progressive Era and how successful you believe the attempted reforms were. Good stuff:-)).
Happily for the catching up side of things, we have had a long weekend in honor of International Women's Day today. So while we have done quite a bit of school work, we also have had a chance to have some fun as well. We saw a performance of Alice in Wonderland on Ice Sunday afternoon (we had bought the tickets a month ago, but the event was rescheduled to this weekend), and enjoyed a trip to the State Russian Museum to take in significant works of Russian art, including a great new exhibition on the heroes and villains of Russian history in art, yesterday courtesy of some free tickets that another teacher at school gave us.
To make up for the long break in between posts, we have new photos:-) These photos are courtesy of our friend Rachel who took them while she was here.
Amanda teaching social studies in her 6th grade class. Our friends went to school and sat in our classes to see what exactly we do here, and the benefit is that we finally have some photos of us in action in the classroom! Here it is- genuine proof that we do in fact have students and are teaching:-)
Amanda reading aloud to her class.
Click on this to make it bigger: here I am with my 9th and 10th graders, explaining to them about Theodore Roosevelt's views on government and the economy.
Taking attendance in Russian history.
And here is a photo I took: Analiese, Rachel, and Amanda standing out on the Gulf of Finland. We were in the middle of a vicious cold snap when our friends visited, and took advantage of it to go exploring on the frozen water around us.
More ice-walking: this time its Amanda and I in the middle of the Neva, halfway between the end of our island and the Peter and Paul Fortress. We walked about 3/4ths of the way across the river before stopping because an icebreaker had cut a channel through the river.
What better thing to do when in the middle of a frozen river than to write your name in giant letters, which is precisely what Amanda did.
Inside a metro car as it speeds off into the underground worlds of the city.
That's all for now. Thank you to all of you for prayers and support!
-Matt
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