Добро пожаловать ...

... and welcome to St Petersburg! Sun set an hour ago at around 10 pm (not quite like during the famous white nights, but still much later than in Munich) and I‘ve settled down enough here in the south of the city to share some first thoughts.

The trip was okay, we experienced some turbulences, but that‘s what you have Kwells for, no? Besides, I happened to sit next to a girl doing the same programme as me, so the flight was definitely not boring. Waiting for our driver to pick us up was, though. The woman from the language school was fussing around from the very moment we met here and at first wouldn‘t even let us get cash some 10 metres away (Pulkovo must be one of the smallest airports in a big city - there‘s virtually nothing except for ATMs and a dingy little café) because our driver would arrive in 10 minutes. Turned out it was more like one and a half hour later ... without the slightest excuse from her side. Not exactly good service if you ask me.

Well, I finally made it to my host family‘s flat and hadn‘t the other girl who already came to St Petersburg last year warned me I would have definitely been scared by the looks of the door and staircase ... maybe it‘s just that I‘ve got used to them, but not even Chinese apartment blocks look that bad! Very tattered, veeeery dodgy ... but inside the flat is quite modern und pretty clean. My room is comfortable enough, only lacking an internet connection - I‘ll probably try to get a 3G modem tomorrow because walking over to my host mum‘s room for every mail is not really an option.

Good point: my host mum and host sister. They seem to be quite nice, with a lot of experience in hosting students. We chatted over a cup of tea that turned out to be dinner (I refused bread and cheese, but am not hungry, anyway) and that was very good practice for listening comprehension. Oh yes and I do have to admit that Youren was right about why Chinese is so utterly difficult - my Russian is much more limited than my Chinese was when I first went to China, but understanding what they are saying (when they are talking to me, that is) is much easier because there is a fair amount of words similar to English or German that always get you back on track. In terms of speaking there‘s still a long way to got, but after my first experiences here in the family I am confident that at the end of the three weeks I will at least be able to use everything I‘ve learned so far in a more natural way.

Not talking about outside though - been here for less than seven hours and have already lived two incidents which show that the average Russian is not very considerate when it comes to foreigners learning Russian. The first one happened when I had just entered the aircraft - of course there were lots of Russians on the flight, but I would still doubt that my „Excuse me, please“ makes me sound like a Native speaker. The stewardess whom I had adressed, though, immediately replied in very fast Russian - it was only from my flight experiences that I gathered she wanted me to put my bag in the compartment since I was sitting next to the emergency exit. A similar thing happened when I wanted to buy a bottle of water at the airport. I bet I always look very puzzled, but they don‘t even make an effort to speak more slowly or anything ... but maybe my reaction will get better in a couple of days ;-).

Well, tomorrow‘s my first day at school and we will leave early in order to get me a ticket for the Metro, so спокойной ночи!