как долго??

PAVLOVSK so pretty...

HELLO EVERY ONE. It has been years since I updated. I apologize a million sincere apologizes. I have been busy with school, exploring Russia, and getting adjusted. I haven’t done any one spectacular thing recently to share with you so this will be just a cornucopia of fun random stories.

STORY #1. We went to Pavlovsk a week ago. Goodness, I think it was more than a week ago, maybe three weeks? Anyways it was built by Paul I in the 18th century and its really beautiful and amazingly preserved. Sadly, this is not the case for a lot of the old castles and fortresses in Russia because a lot of them were destroyed in various wars, or just kind of left alone to crumble during Soviet times. However, Pavlovsk is really beautiful, there were amazing JADE columns that I was quite fond of as well as probably the most

I told you we got kicked out on the side of the road.

comfortable bed one could dream of. Unfortunately they do not let guests sleep in this amazing bed, which was sad because we all could have used a royal rest. Pavlovsk is also really close to Saint Petersburg so it was a nice little trip. We met at a metro stop kind of far away from the center of the city and then rode the BUS OF DEATH the rest of the way. Thankfully it was not really a bus of death, more a bus of motion sickness. We got into a traffic jam which meant it was stop and go traffic for a long time. There was also a lot of people on the bus, and not very many of us in our group had seats. I was lucky enough

to get one, and after a back tickle from my friend, I felt a LOT better. We were all complaining, and the leader of our group was really stressed because the bus took much longer because of the traffic jam, and now he had 10 kids ready to instapuke all over. We finally got kicked out at the side of the road for unclear reasons, and our leader kept apologizing but we were not even upset because we were so thankful to feel the air, and see real foresty trees and grass. It was a beautiful fall day and after the castle got boring, we made a fall WONDERFUL wedding in the leaves that was so much fun. What a great day.

JAADDDDEEEEEEE This is apprently called 'the green room' I call it 'I LIKE THE COLUMNS'

Hi mom! I'm in a castle surrounded by egyptian statues with blue showercaps on my feet!

It was a beautiful wedding between Alina (who loves leaves) and George (who got bored after 5 seconds)

STORY #2 WE WENT TO AN ICE SKATING EXTRAVAGANZA. So this was a really cool Russian thing to do, that happened because I crush on Johnny Weir. For those of you who are sadly living without knowing about the most amazing human ever, Johnny Weir is a world champion figure skater, he has a reality show, he has the best personality in the world, the best style in the world and the best face in the world. Another fun fact about him is that he is really into Russian culture too. TWINS I KNOW.

JOHNNYNYNYNNYYNYYY

Anyways he skates in Russia all the time, has a russian coach and is really involved with his enormous fan base here. He even has a twitter account in Russian, which I follow and translate for fun. I met him once because I am the luckiest person in the world and we talked about Russia stuff during the few moments my eyes weren’t popping out of my head.

ANYWAYS, I was missing some Johnny in my life, so I posted on his facebook fan page asking him when he was coming to St. Pete. Within minutes I got an answer from one of his Russian fans telling me that he was coming in the middle of october! HORRAY. I booked ticket immediately for me kyle and alina. It was held at the hockey arena which is called ‘the ice palace’ and I think is much bigger than Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena. It was actually an event to honor Tamara Moskvina who is a very famous Russian pairs coach responsible for many olympic wins for Russia and the USSR. What was cool about the event was that all her friends came and performed whatever they wanted, since they weren’t being judged by anyone but the fans. They skated to fun music, and one guy actually came out with a bedazzled jacket with the Justice band logo on it, and he just skated to an amazing medley of Justice songs that would never make it to a competition because they are kind of techno, and I am not sure every old judge would be in favor. I started video taping half way through, but I cannot get videos off of my camera for the life of me so everyone is missing out except us. SADLY two weeks before the show, I woke up one morning and had a feeling in my gut that the one and only Johnny Weir dropped out of the event, and checking the internet confirmed my nightmare. No explanation was given, and me and other SPB fans were sad. But we still love him. JOHNNY

Story #3 I WENT TO THE GYM. As I have been doing lately. MAJOR PAT ON THE BACK. Anyways today was a great day for me at the gym for many reasons. First I got on a treadmill right away, then I ran the first full 5k I have done since highschool. I was a cross country runner in highschool, and back then I pumped out a 5k every 10 minutes. Since I have been working out lately, I have been running about 6k a day, but I usually stop around the 3k mark and walk for a little, but today I busted it out and I am proud. It took ALOT longer than it did in highschool, but at least I have a goal to work towards. Sadly after I ran, I dropped my favorite watch on the ground and it broke . It really is so sad, I got it in TOKYO and it has a map of the world on the face, and the second

This is obviously NOT me at the gym or a saran wrapped woman at the Gym, but I like this picture of me and lindsay chillin.

hand has a little plane that flys around the whole world every minute and it is my favorite thing. I picked up all the pieces and intend on taking it to a watch store to fix, but unfortunately I have only seen expensive watch stores here with pictures of Steve McQueen in the windows, and I hope they are not insulted by my request to fix a watch that is not made of solid diamond. So that is sad.

Anyways, the reason I am even talking about this is because something STRANGE happened at the Gym.  Strange things happen in the gym every day, I really need to blog just about the gym, I mean you should see what the Russians workout in! (SPOILER: Jean shorts, collard shirts, jean pants, pushup bra, NOT anything close to running shoes…) But today when I was in the locker room, I saw something strange, in between the 43254123 constantly naked bodies (I am in Europe where people are freeeee) I saw a woman saran wrapping herself, you know, the clear wrap intended for saving your homemade chicken salad leftovers, she was putting it AROUND HER BODY. She was wrapping her entire torso multiple times. I mean, I haven’t really had a gym membership in the us or europe so I don’t know, maybe everyone knows about this except me. I really feel like someone would have told me about this phenomenon. SO why was this happening? I am pretty confident I figured it out, but you have to guess and I will tell you the next time I post.

JUST KIDDING. Dedicated readers will remember that I did something like this in my third post and never got around to answering it (the answer is hard peanut butter.) So I will talk about it now. So here’s the thing: the woman was slightly pregnant <6months, and was hanging around the tanning bed.  I couldn’t stand and stare at her naked saran wrapped body, to see the conclusion of whatever she was doing but I am pretty sure she went into the tanning bed. I don’t know if she thought this was going to protect the baby from UV rays or what, esp since I have seen plenty of pregnant people (women only) smoking. Maybe she was going to run miles after ward and was using it as a belly bra, but I don’t know why that would be because women don’t even wear sports bras here, they just flop around all the time. Its funny, they will change from one lacy bra to another one before working out, and I am always confused. Once I saw a woman getting out of the tanning bed with small metallic pasties on. If you don’t know what those are, don’t google it, but I was just thinking: “You justified THAT breast related purchase but not a sports bra?” Strange. Every day something new.

This is the closest thing I have seen to a naturally occuring "Spurlock" in the wild. I mean, its a spur and key.