Intro

Hello everyone,

On January 25th, I will begin my long awaited journey to St. Petersburg, Russia.  Before arriving in St. Petersburg, I will be spending about two night in London, England.  This should be a nice segue into St. Pete.  I am looking forward to this semester, but first, how I came to the decision to study abroad in Russia and some of the ideas of what I hope to do during the semester/expectations.

Originally, I decided that I was going to study abroad in Belgium as a way to work on my French.  However, my advisor challenged to reconsider and look for a country that was not much like the United States.  I reopened my options and narrowed the decision down to two countries: Russia and Qatar.  After some thought, I decided that Russia was going to be my destination.  A recent interest in the Russian Tsars and Communism in Russia led me to make my decision along with that Russia was the safer of the two countries.

My expectations are fairly high for semester because this currently seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I never knew that U.S. citizens would have the opportunity to study in Russia, but I guess that is just me being stuck in Cold War way of thinking while the world continues to change.  However, my lack of knowledge of the Russian language is my main concern.  As of right now, I know about four words (Hello, goodbye, yes, and no).  I am planning on using Rosetta Stone during my plane ride to London.

During the trip, AIFS (American Institute for Foreign Study) has excursions planned to the capital of Estonia (3 days) and the capital of Finland (1 day) during the semester.  Also during spring break, I will get to go to Moscow (4 days, I believe) as another excursion.  While in Moscow, we will tour the Kremlin and Lenin’s Mausoleum (Lenin's preserved body is on display).  I am particularly looking forward to visiting Lenin's Mausoleum because it may be a once in a lifetime chance to get to see the body of the man who ultimately led to the rise of Communism in Russia.  Also, it appears that there will be a good amount of free time in Moscow, so this will provide me with an opportunity to explore the city and work on developing my currently nonexistent Russian skills.

As January 25th quickly approaches, it starts to hit me more and more that I will finally be leaving the United States.  I can only begin to think about what this opportunity will provide me with the ability to do that I would never have had the chance to do in the United States.  I will be spending the semester studying at St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University.  The courses that I hope to take are Russian 101, History of Russian Art, From Kievan Rus to the Revolution, and The Communist Phase.  From my lack of understanding of Russian to the courses and excursions, this should make for an interesting semester.