9 days left....

Hi y'all,

Well the busy part of my Wales trip has begun! Just came back from a weekend of caving which was wonderful, but left me realizing how much more out of shape I am compared to the last time I was in Wales. My arms are dead! Not that my arms have ever been that strong, but now they are ridiculously weak.

Last week we went to quite a few castles and roman ruins. We stayed mostly in South East Wales, a part of Wales that I really had not seen until then. The landscape was fairly different and it felt weird to be far from the sea.

Tomorrow we are heading off for a 6 day tour of North England. I am pretty excited! of course, my muscles are so sore right now I bet that in the long car ride tomorrow they will just about seize up.

A week from tomorrow (Monday) will be my morning of packing up and then I will be taking a bus into London that afternoon/evening to get ready for my early flight Tuesday. So yeah, after my 3 months of voyaging I am almost hommmme!!!

Will eventually get around to posting some pictures. I have yet to sort through mine to see what good ones I've got.

Next post from me might be written at home!

Home at Last! (Kind of. In a Wales sort of way.)

Well, Istanbul was amazing. Photos to come soon!

I spent the first few days sweating like a pig in the heat, and seeing some amazing palaces. The Sultans really had it going for them. There were lots of cushion covers that were covered in emeralds, rubies and lots of gold. Absolutely ridiculous. There were also a few giant diamonds on display. One was not all that smaller than the size of my hand.

Saw some religious artifacts too that made me wonder if they were real, but if they are that is super cool. There were pieces of the Prophet Mohammed!

I had some of the best food of my life in Turkey. Sooooo good. The last half of the trip was spent at the house as everyone was at work/school and I was sick. So that worked out quite well.

I had a decent flight to London, met a really cool Italian girl on the train, and made it safe and sound to Swansea where my uncle and my cousin met me.

We drove to their town and as soon as I stepped into the door, I was hit with memories. I had not realized that their house smelled a certain way, but as soon I walked into the entrance hallway I thought "Oh! I remember this smell!"

The older of my two cousins, H, has gotten so tall since my last visit. He is now about 2 inches taller than me! His younger brother, R, has not grown much but has grown up a bit.

Its so nice to be back. I have missed Wales and it felt a bit like coming home when I walked up the front drive.

Nothing too exciting has happened yet; mostly just family stuff and some walks. But that has been just fine with me. I have gotten a bit tired out of constant travel, travel, travel.

Istanbul! Constantinople! Its been a long time gone...

Well, I have had the Istanbul/Constantinople song stuck in my head for awhile now. But hey! I am in Istanbul!

My flights were great. No idea why my airline had a 1.6/10 rating! Seats were really comfy AND I got a small meal on both flights. No delays to be seen.

I got to practice a lot of my Russian too. At the St Petersburg airport, I spent a decent amount of time with this old Russian woman. She was also heading to Kiev. I made an awkward social blunder though; I asked her if she was going to Kiev for vacation and she almost started to cry. Her mother had just died the day before and she was going to Kiev to prepare all of the funeral things. Oops.

She was very nice and patient with me, and we were able to have a complete conversation. The things I did not understand so well, we were still able to figure out with some hand motions and more questions. Her mother turned 100 four months, and apparently was in great health so her dying came as a big shock.

Her daughter was in France at a dog competition. I am not exactly sure what kind of dog it is, but I do know that its very small and very fluffy. I am guessing a Pomeranian.

We talked some more about her dogs. They have four, and from the breeds mentioned, I think that they show all of them. She said that she has a backyard for the dogs and lets them run free. We then started talking about the problems of having dogs in St Petersburg and having them stuck in the apartments.


Then in Kiev, I met a Ukrainian woman around my age, I think a bit older who was also heading to Istanbul. We met in line for the bathroom, the best place to meet someone because there is so much time to talk hee hee. Our flight was boarding but there were several of us in line waiting for the bathroom.

We started talking because a girl tried to cut the line even though most of us had been waiting for 15 min. Her excuse: oh but my flight to Istanbul is boarding! The woman who was at the front of the line said that she was also on that flight. And so did the woman behind her, and behind her, and so on.

The woman in front of me had given a snort at the other girl and from that we started talking (in Russian!). We talked about what she thought of Kiev compared to St Petersburg and Istanbul, and just general information about ourselves like what I study, what I was doing in St Petersburg and what I will be doing in Istanbul. It was lovely.

Then on the way to the plane (we have to take a little bus from the boarding gate that takes us to the door of plane) I met a Canadian. He had a Northface backpack and a shirt that said Vancouver on it. We talked for a bit.

I landed alright in Istanbul, got my visa and did all of that customs/passport control stuff. And things got a little nerve wracking for me. Well, I knew that we were supposed to meet at the exit Garanti Bank, but I had misread, or assumed incorrectly where at the exit we were supposed to meet. And since my friend Efe had not mentioned how he was getting to the airport, for some reason I had assumed a car.

So I was outside for almost three hours, slowly growing more panicked. Efe was going to pick me after his work, and he said that he would be there at 6:30. I was outside ready to go by 5:45.

The taxi drivers were beginning to recognize me from their constant loops of the pick up point. Yeah, it was awkward. He had given me his phone number, but when I checked my email in Kiev, I saw that he had sent a message telling me that his phone was dying, and probably wouldn't work. He gave his friend's number just in case. Of course, he did not know that his friend had run out of credit on his phone that morning.


So of course when I tried to call either number, I was just directed to voice mail. I did not know where he lives, any of his friend's names and numbers, where I could stay (had not done any back up research) and had no idea what I would do when night came. And as I was no longer in St Petersburg, the sun was already starting to set.

At 8:20, my name came on over the speakers, asking me to come to the information desk. Which is good, because the police had come over and started to ask me why I was still there. And their English was not very good, so it involved lots of staring and hand gestures.

While I had been waiting outside, protectively hovering over my things, Efe was going crazy inside. We were probably 100 meters away from each other the entire time. He had checked outside, but since I was a bit further out from the door (because I was waiting in the lane for pick-ups, not just taxis and hotel buses) he did not see me.

He had asked the police about me and all of these other things, but because of security reasons they could not tell him if I had passed through security of not. So finally he went to the Information Desk, and they called my name on the speakers. I had been hoping that he would do that.

I do not know if I have ever been so relieved to see somebody. We took the metro, two buses and a ferry to get to where we are staying. We are staying at Efe's friend's house. There are two couches, so its pretty comfy.

One of the coolest things about Istanbul is that it is in both Europe and Asia. Currently I am in Asia. I have crossed from Europe to Asia a few times already.

I have also been mistaken for being Turkish a few times already. I was definitely never mistaken for being Russian, so this is a nice change.

Heading to a palace today. Have not taken too many photos yet because I have mainly only walked around at night.

More should be coming soon!

Питер Wrap-Up Post.

Different ways that I can show you how much my Russian has improved (and how I have been able to tell too)

1. First day on the Metro and I could not understand a word that the announcer said

1a. Two weeks later, I could understand some of it. I knew that they said something about doors, passengers, children and women. I was also able to understand the different stop names, something that had been really hard for me at first.

1b. Six weeks after I had first rode the Metro, I could recite the warning alongside the announcer. “Dear passengers, doors are closing. ….(and then I always forget the next part)..... the seats marked are for children, women and injured...(and then when they got to my stop, which is the end of the line) this is the last stop. So that was not the best recitation ever, but my memory is pretty short hee hee.

2. First day of class, my teacher asked me a few basic questions. I could barely understand a word she said.

2a. Two weeks later, I was able to mostly follow along. Most of the class was taught in Russian, with some English thrown in to help us.

2b. Four weeks later, I was able to start asking questions about the material we were learning in Russian.

2c. Six weeks later, I could follow along without having to translate in my head what my teacher was saying. Also finally figured out most of the cases. And, could now understand explanations in Russian of unknown terms. Realized that I was completely loosing my ability to speak/write English. (Still struggling with that hee hee)

2d. Last two days of class, eight weeks after I first arrived, and my teacher only speaks in Russian (fairly fast too). We discuss current events and cultural differences between Canada/USA and Russia. I understand basically everything.

3. I made a Russian friend online (yes I know kind of sketchy), and we met for coffee. This was a week and a half after I arrived. He (Pavel) is fluent in Spanish and English and had offered to help me with my Russian and my Spanish. The first time we met, we spoke mostly in Spanish and English. I tried to speak Russian with him, but I really could not speak outside of a classroom setting. My vocabulary was too small, and focused only on very specific things.

3a. Two coffees later, I brought a friend along who is much more fluent in Russian than I. That night, we also met a bunch of Pavel's friends. Most could speak some English and even a little bit of Spanish. I felt a bit left out because everyone was able to speak Russian around me, and I could not contribute at all.

3b. Five weeks in, I realized that I was understanding most of the conversations that were going on around me. Usually they would ask me if I understood, and I would always say no. That time, I surprised them and said yes.

3c. Last night, we had a good bye dinner/coffee/snack. It went on for a few hours. I contributed to the conversation in Russian, I understood what was going on, and I could even understand Stella, Pavel's girlfriend. She speaks so fast that sometimes even her friends ask her to repeat herself.

In other words, my Russian has improved immensely. It is still not very good, and I can understand much more than I can speak, but the changes in my ability surprises me. The first two weeks I learned quite a bit, but I was also pretty sure that I really would not get much better. In the last week that I have been here, I have improved even more. Of course, its when I am really getting into the swing of things that I am leaving. Currently in the airport in Kiev, waiting for my flight to Istanbul.

I will really try to keep up with this blog better. I think that it will be easier when I am doing exciting new things everyday. In St Petersburg, as I have previously mentioned, I quickly entered a routine so I felt like I did not have much to share.

I do need to write a post or two on the touristy things I did in the last two weeks. But that will have to wait.

Lots of love, and I cannot wait to get back to Minneapolis. Less than a month now!