First Week of School!

Hello everyone!

Matt and I are currently looking back on our first full week of school at IA! Things are certainly different this year for many reasons. Our administration is changing and evolving this year so this is also a year of flux. Matt and I are also teaching all new classes and this is the first year I am with the high school.

Our first day was Bell Day and we didn't actually have classes. First students brought in flags for each of the countries that we have represented in our student body. This year we have a British family so that was a new addition.

Everybody gathered on the third floor.
Each teacher took a different group of students and talked to them about policy, etc. Then we were off for some fun!

Below: The old Singer sewing machine building currently houses Dom Kinigi, a bookstore.

We went with a group of teachers to get food. Then we went with our friends Jarrod and Christina on a boat tour of the city. Since the city is built over water you can see a lot of the major sites of the city by boat. This is something none of us had done before and it was a lot of fun. We found a less touristy area and had the boat almost to ourselves.

Below: A statue that people throw coins onto.
The Venice of the North!
Below: The building with the green roof is a famous school. The men who would go there wore distinct fur hats and there is a well known song about them.
Above and Below: the Anichkov Bridge. Each corner features a man with a horse in various poses. It runs over the Fontanka Canal, a major waterway through the city.
We found that being on the canals really makes it clear that the roads were never intended to be the main way of traffic. The canals are huge and give access to a lot of important things while the roads are narrow and there is next to no parking in the city.

Below: One of my favorite churches in the city. The domes are a deep blue with gold stars. Dostoevsky was married in this church.

above: The St Nicholas Cathedral
Above: This is one of my favorite buildings. It has no significance at all but all the sides are painted in this abstract geometric pattern. Christina told us it is a hostel.
These pictures are of New Holland. It was an old shipyard and the waterway gate here is super impressive!
Below: The Moika Palace. (Warning: the following story is not for the weak of heart) This is where Rasputin was killed. Personally I find this to be one of the creepiest stories I have ever heard. Rasputin was a "religious" figure who rose to power in the early 1900s. He claimed that he could cure Tsar Nicholas's son who had fits. He would threaten that some harm may come to the boy if anything happened to him and so gradually he was able to gain significance in the royal family. There had been attempts on his life before but he always survived. The story goes that finally some princes became worried about his negative control over the royal family and decided to kill him. They tried to poison him but it had no effect at all (his daughter later suggested he may have developed an immunity to it). He was then shot in the back, beaten, shot some more, and then tied and thrown in the river. At the time it was concluded that what killed him was drowning (though now this has been contested). He was one seriously scary guy!

A lovely read bridge. We saw several of many different colors on this. It is funny too because you never notice they are colored when you are going over them.

Yesterday, after school, we went to AgroRus. It was described to us as being like a county fair and it was held literally four blocks away from us.

Below: You place a piece of metal between the two huge pieces and then hit it with a hammer. You get an imprinted coin you made yourself!
Camel and pony rides! The saddle below has a cartoon character on it that Matt and I really like.
We also had the Russian equivalent of fair food. Fried dough with meat and cheese in it.

There were many plant stalls and this lovely rosebud.

This stall is selling samovars which are traditional Russian kettles (of a sort). They vary from smallish to gigantic.

Above: hot corn stands are very common at events and sports. They also sell lollipops shaped like roosters (I have no idea why). :-)
Above: Perogis can be just shaped like buns but more often they are decorated. The full pies can be very elaborate. These are pigs and bears!

Below: One of the ways we started off the school year was with Matthew burning his lip and chin fairly badly. He has a new thermos and we had no idea how hot it would keep things. So he went to take a drink and it burned him badly enough that his lip and chin turned white and then blistered. He's doing a lot better now but here's a picture. :-(

Above: A cafe I must eat at because I think it is so cute!

Below: This is the store we do 90% of our shopping at. There are ones that are a lot closer but this one is much bigger and has a meat counter in it and another next door. We realized as we were walking home that we had never put up a picture of it!

So there is our first week of school! Classes have been going well and we feel confident that this will be a good year. Pray for us and the school as we all have a lot to do and a lot of transitioning!