Russia Day

This week we found the actual apartment where the old pawnbroker lived in Crime and Punishment. Yup, that is a picture of James and me outside her apartment door. As we walked in the building, we could see place where the painters were playing as Raskolnikov left the building. We also walked the "730 steps" back to Raskolnikov's own apartment (where Dostoevsky actually lived). While we weren't able to enter the building, there was a nice monument outside that I photographed. For those of you who are not yet familiar with Crime and Punishment, I highly recommend that you get a copy and read it.

We had class off yesterday, because today is a national holiday: Russia Day! It's probably better described as Russian Independence Day, but "Russia Day" suits me well. I figure that way it sounds more all-inclusive. In fact, you can celebrate Russia Day in America, if you want. Anyway, we spent our free time yesterday exploring another river island here in Petersburg. There were many old beautiful mansions and I even found this little sandy beach (pictured at right). It reminded me of home, so I decided to lie down and rest for a while. It was a nice spot and we (3 other students who I was spending the day with) decided that we will come back another day and have a picnic there. The beach-ette was so endearing that I even took another picture so you could see the mansion across the river.
Later, we decided to stay up until 1:00am and watch them raise the many bridges that span the Neva. We watched the them opening from Vasilievsky Island- where you can see almost all of them at once. The only problem was that we don't live on Vasilievsky Island, so once the bridge to our home went up we were stuck. The good news is that they lowered our bridge again 3:00 am and we daintily crossed back over and went home. I crawled into bed at about 3:30 am, and right after my head hit the pillow, it was 7:30 am and time for me to get up and volunteer at the hospital. I have included a picture of one of the smaller bridges for your enjoyment.
See you next week!