St. Petersburg

Hello All!

I how have semi-reliable internet! I may even be able to upload pictures. I apologize for the delay in stories, as I am now already in Ghana. However, it seems best to just go back and tell them.

The first stories are from St. Petersburg. First, some things about the city:

St. Petersburg was built about 300 years ago. Many of the original buildings are still around. It is also the site of Russia's first conservatory, built in 1862. St. Petersburg has also historically been full of awesome people, such as my hosts, Aaron and Sasha.

Aaron had been studying performance and music composition at the Rimsky-Korsakov conservatory. Informally. (He had also been studying Russian and the art of conversation in non-native tongues.) Sasha, on the other hand, is a native Russian, Aaron's roommate and piano teacher.

I stayed in Aaron's room while we were in St. Petersburg. Sasha was pretty busy while I was in town. (He made sure to take a few photos with Aaron and me, though, and to invite me back for piano and Russian lessons.) While Sasha was out, Aaron and I ... wait for it... took tours of the city with two other conservatory professors.

Hehe. One of the professors was Max, who bought us all ice cream. The other was...(Aaron, I'm blanking on his name again)...never mind. The other spoke excellent English and told us about the modern period in Russian architecture.

I'll tell more about modern period architecture or stories of St. Petersburg on demand. Such demand may appear after viewing photos that I totally am going to put up soon. >.>

In the mean time, I send each of you off by quoting Sasha's final words to us: "Good luck with women!"