Russia, here I come!

Good afternoon friends!

We are officially 18 hours away from landing in St. Petersburg and I could not be more excited! It should be an excellent port and we have been receiving a ton of great information about Russian history and culture. Today is a No Class day on the ship and I am planning on attending a basic Russian language class to prepare me for my trip to St. Petersburg.

My itinerary is pretty full for St. Petersburg, at least for the first two days. Tomorrow I have a city tour and a masterpieces of the Hermitage museum scheduled and then the night will be spent at the Mariinsky ballet. I have heard that the ballet will be Don Quixote, which is a classic in the ballet world. Thursday night I will be taking a cruise along the river to see St. Petersburg at night. Currently, Russia is celebrating the "White Nights," as the sun does not set until around 1 AM. So literally, the skies are bright until then. Should be fabulous.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, we departed Bergen on Friday. Our last day in Bergen was actually one of the most fun, as my friends David and Marco had met a local Norwegian while they were out shopping. His name is Ivan and he is a law student at the University of Bergen. Ivan and his girlfriend Charlotte met us in town on Friday and we had lunch at a small cafe. We stayed at the cafe for a good three hours and it just fascinated me how much Norwegians know about the U.S. political system, what's happening with the presidential elections and just basic foreign policy. I was slightly embarrassed at the fact that they were very eager to engage in conversation about some tough topics and to talk about McCain/Obama stances on issues, and I really could not contribute anything. And the fact that Norwegians speak perfect English. For me, it made me intrinsically feel very American-centric in my views. Norwegians are very interested in American politics because they realize that they have a global impact...I challenged myself to think about when was the last time that I stopped to think about another country's (besides Iraq) foreign policy and the ramifications it has for Americans. Just food for thought. And by the way, Norwegians are very, VERY pro-Obama.

Okay, enough for the whimsical ponderings, we had a fabulous time eating lunch and then Ivan showed up some very cute areas of Bergen that we had not seen yet. After walking around for a bit, it was time to head back to the ship for dock duty, in which all of the RDs work the gangway area of the ship as students arrive back. We do a variety of things such as greeting, helping security search bags, crowd control, etc. Everyone needs to be on the ship 2 hours before we set sail; if they are late, they receive what is called "dock time," which means that when we arrive in the next port, they stay on the ship for a set amount of time, which may have ramifications if they signed up for trips through the field office. Everyone was back on time, so no dock time yet. The RDs keep hearing that the most troublesome port will be St. Petersburg due to the vast amounts of open-aired vodka gardens. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it's smooth sailing...no pun intended.

Saturday and Sunday at sea were pretty regular, as students had class. I have been working on getting things ready for the Sea Olympics, which is one of the signature events on the ship and consists of each "sea" competing against each other in a variety of athletic and academic competitions.

Nothing much else to report other than that for now, but I will be writing more as we get to St. Pete. I am so very excited (and very tired--we have lost another 2 hours), so I am hoping to be awakened and refreshed by the time that we arrive. Thanks for reading, hope everyone is doing well and I will send more photos soon!

If you haven't checked out facebook, I have placed a ton of pictures on there. I am having some trouble uploading to blogspot, so check out facebook for some fabulous photos!

Love you!