Moscow to St. Petersburg

The last two weeks of January, I was in St. Petersburg, doing pre-dissertation research. I consider myself lucky that I was able to go there and see dear friends, speak Russian, revisit St. Petersburg, and get a chance to explore and become acquainted with some of the archives in St. Petersburg.

[These first pictures are not of St. Petersburg, however. They are of Moscow in the morning, still alight with New Year's lights.]

[My friends in St. Petersburg joked that Moscow gets all of the lights and then whatever is left over, the government sends to St. Petersburg.]

[The Resurrection Gates in front of Red Square.]

[It was about 8:30 in the morning by this point. So still really dark! But not as dark as Petersburg. It didn't get light until around 9-9:30 there.]

St. Petersburg was cold. Not as cold as Chicago recently, but there were temperatures reaching -10 degrees Farhenheit. So. Cold. I was staying at the top of an old apartment building, and as I walked down the stairs, I could feel the cold just seeping through my jeans and leggings into my legs. Brr.

[The coldest I think I've ever been.]

[View from my window.]

Highlights of the trip included: Getting to celebrate my friend's birthday with her, visiting the Hermitage and Faberge Egg Museums, speaking Russian, and seeing friends that I knew from serving a Latter-day Saint mission in Ukraine.

[Neva under snow.]

[Frosted windows meet classical statuary.]

[The Hermitage]

[The Peacock Clock]

[Serious "Once Upon a December" vibes here.]

[and here, too.]

[Rembrandt's, The Prodigal Son]

[Cathedral of the Savior on Spilled Blood]

[Faberge Museum]

[Oh yeah! I also went to the Dostoevsky Museum and definitely had a moment here.]

[Dostoevsky's Petersburg, about 150 years later.]

The archives themselves were more bureaucratic than those I have experienced thus far in the States or in the UK. Ordering documents takes 3 business days, so in order to get good archival work done, you have to be at the archives for at least two weeks. Also, 19th-century Russian cursive is a nightmare to decipher (but, I got better as I went along).  

[Hello there, microfilm reader.]

Lowlights of the trip included: It's hard to be away from Sam (but he gets back tomorrow! Hooray!), St. Petersburg is dark in the winter and I run on sunlight, and in typical Eastern European misogynistic fashion, I got groped on the way to a friend's birthday party (I am fine, but I am still mad about that. Will continue to be mad about that).  Those are the things that don't make it onto an Instagram story, but they are part of the entire experience. (That, and the random guy sleeping outside the apartment one morning--ohhhh, Eastern Europe.)

[The original StairMaster]

I also had a flight cancelled from Zurich to Newark, but in a stroke of my best worst luck with planes, the airline was very generous and paid for a hotel and a flight for the next day. So, I got to explore Zurich a bit and get home. Hooray.

[Hanging out in Zurich.]

Overall, I'm glad I went. From the beautiful Russian orthodox cathedrals, to being able to be back in a place I love, to drinking Russian juice (seriously so good), to seeing people I love, I feel lucky that I was able to be there for a bit. But next time, hopefully Sam will be able to join me.

And a happy new year

It's interesting, looking at the "archive" list that I have of this blog and seeing the number of posts I have throughout the year. Last year I had a pretty low number of posts. Working on a PhD can definitely do that to you, especially as time starts to become not your own. So many deadlines, so many chunks of reading to do. I'm happy to say that the semester is now over (and has been for about a week or so), and there was SUCH A HUGE BURDEN OFF MY SHOULDERS when I turned in those papers, because I am officially done with coursework for my Phd program. And that feels so good. Now it's just onto general examination time, which is its own beast to face, but it's something different.

So, that brings me to my (what seems to be) monthly update on my life (though, this is a resolution of mine--to be more deliberate about writing on my blog because 1) I like it, and 2) it's the kind of social media sharing that I like the most, even though I know it gets the least amount of traffic).

To close out 2018, Sam and I spent a lot of time with family and friends in Utah and Boston. We also enjoyed getting to be outside a lot (in Utah) and eating at really yummy places (in Boston . . . though unfortunately I got food poisoning at one of those places, so now I'm sadly turned off from lobster rolls. But the rest of the food was really good!).

[Loving those bright blue Utah skies]

[Tubing with the family]

[Sam and I went snowshoeing in Sundance and it was really fun.]

💗

[In the meadow, we can build a snowman]

[Different view of Timp]

We were also able to attend the wedding of our good friends, Bailey and James, while in Boston, and it was so lovely, and very much them.

[The Emmanuel Church in Boston]

[We love Bailey and James!]

[In between the ceremony and the reception, we hung out at the Boston Public Library]

[At the reception. So literary. Very lovely. Much wow.]

[I might have taken two . . .]

[At the Dostoevsky table with all the cool kids]

[Quite the view]

[We also got to see Greer and Nathan, which was so nice.] 

And then, when we got back to Princeton, to ring in the New Year (and to take a break during essay-writing time for me), we were able to go to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where we saw Aida. Princeton has an opera ticket lottery, and I ended up winning tickets, so it made for a nice date night, complete with a very classy dinner at a gyro food truck. (And, honestly, the gyros were really yummy.) We also ran into some Princeton friends, so when the opera ended around 11:30 pm and the next train to Princeton was at 12:45, we had some friends to talk with on the train ride home.

[The Lincoln Center at night--also, New York shows up to the opera.]

[Feeling fancy]

[For the record, we did enjoy the opera, especially the scenery and costumes--the spectacle of it all. It was reallllly long, though, and I didn't know that it would be about 4.5 hours long.]

At the moment, I'm in Russia doing research while Sam is in Uganda for work. Let's just say that we're looking forward to being together again.