Traveled by Plane now waiting to travel by land

So I have landed in St. Petersburg. The airport leaves much to be desired. It is one of those incredible things that you forget about how different the US is from the rest of the world. So

to recap the trip thus far.

SO packing was a nightmare (you could as my parents). I repacked an insane amount of times to try and make weight limits only to find out when I got to the airport that my carry-on weighed too much. So I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and decided to just check a bag. But the guy checking me in was able to sneak it in without charging me right before I boarded the plane to Paris which was pretty fantastic.

So we waited in Logan for a couple of hours - changed some money because we can change in back to US dollars for free when we return at the airport. I am now the proud holder of 14,000 rubles which is just over 500 USD. It is just going to be insane carrying around so many bills at all times because the ruble does not go that far.

So we boarded the flight. No one got to sit together - which seemed to be the theme of the flight. We were not alone in being separated from our friends on our long flight to Paris. But the plane ride was great. I didn't get to sleep at all because when I was ready to sleep a little they turned the lights up in the cabin - go figure. But I got to sit in the front of a section which was kind of nice because I was near a bathroom and a place to stand up and I had extra leg room. There was a baby next to me which I thought would be a nightmare but it wasn't too bad. The dinner was great lots of parts to it. The breakfast was ok it was still slightly frozen so it was just a muffin like thing to eat.

We arrived in Paris early despite leaving a half hour late due to the thunderstorms in Boston. We then had 3 hours to kill in CDG airport in Paris. We met a Ph.D student named Rubin who was from Brasil originally while we waited. We was at MIT doing a business in engineering program and was on his way to Israel to present in a conference. We had an interesting convo about what he was doing and what we would be doing (which really was a lack of us knowing what we were going to be doing...but thats the general theme of this trip). We then moved on to playing our own version of bananagrams which was more like less competitive version of scrabble. It kept us occupied and by no time we were boarding our flight to St. Petersburg.

This flight not as nice let me tell you. The plane had no movie screens and no nothing very no frills. But at least this time there was a seat open next to me and I was in an aisle seat. I don't remember much of the flight as I spent most of it sleeping. All I really remember is waking up at some point with food in front of me. The food.....not so great. I probably should have and could have eaten more had I need been eating in a nap-coma state. I was told it was chicken...it was fish. So biting into that was a surprise for sure.

So I am now sitting here with Sima and Megan in the St. Petersburg airport. Our driver has arrived as Lori's flight is running late. (He is concerned about the amount of luggage we have but A. We are three girls and B. We are here for 2 months of course we have a lot of stuff - see the picture of Sima with it all!). Megan made the comment earlier that she feels like Tom Hanks in the movie terminal - we can't get on a plane to go home but we can't leave the airport yet. So we are waiting. It is a smallllllllllllll airport.

We are heading to Novgorod once Lori and her family arrives. We have a 4 hour drive ahead of us. But we did find out that the kitchen is actually set up and we have a fridge. So we are going to hit the grocery store before we get there. We are also going to stop at McDonald's for dinner - our driver Eugene's suggestion.

Megan, Sima, and Eugene

It is crazy to here and read all the russian. I am recognizing words and sound and letters but it is a daunting language and we are being thrown in feet first. It is one thing to have class and talk to each other in American-ized russian. But the real thing is interesting.

My goal with the blog is to keep everyone updated on my doing and so I can look back and be like oh yeah I remember doing that. But this is all for now because Lori's flight is here and we are going to be leaving soon.

With love from Russia,

Jess