In a bit of a rut.

The initial shock, I'm pleased to say, has entirely worn off. I'm entirely comfortable wandering around town, bumbling my way through interactions with shopkeepers and cafe employees, and I even managed to get myself a haircut. I'm still a bit shy of walking into restaurants without checking them out in the SPb InYourPocket or online first, but that's just because I really don't know enough food words to reliably navigate a Russian menu. On the other hand, I did manage to eat lunch without an English menu at a pleasant little cafe, Супвино, today; French onion soup and pasta with meat sauce were not difficult to puzzle out.

The other side of this, though, is that I'm starting to get a bit complacent. Restaurants are the one place where I can regularly find English-speaking staff, or at least an English menu; yesterday at Teplo, I had no need to utter so much as a word of Russian after saying hello. If I do need to speak Russian, it's generally limited to 'give me this, this and that,' which doesn't really get me very far outside of a restaurant or shop. And it's easy for me to just go to class, come home and doodle around on the internet through the evening, with really very little Russian passing my lips or ears throughout the day.

I can't claim to having a sure fire solution to this. But I did recently find the English Communication Club, which is devoted to Russians who want to practice English. I'm an American who wants to practice Russian, but I'm happy to make it a two-way street. There's a meeting tonight that I may or may not make it to; if I don't make that meeting, I'm definitely going to hit another one soon. Even if I don't get a lot of opportunities to practice Russian, maybe I can make a few friends. One of the things this trip has taught me is that this lone wolf thing that's my normal style is hopelessly flawed. I don't necessarily have an answer for that, either, but I'm definitely aware of it. To my friends and family back home, and my handful of friends here (should they happen to be reading this), I'm more in your debt for the support you've given me over the last couple of months than I can probably effectively express.

A couple of stray comments: Glintwein is my new favorite thing here. Mulled, sweetened wine, with or without fruit. It's incredibly delicious. Honestly, the possibility of glintwein may well do more to get me into random cafes than anything else over the next several months till the weather changes.

Came home today to find a small Christmas (New Year's?) ornament hung on my desk. It's a nice thought, even if it made a lousy picture. See below.

The river is covered with ice, though patches of open water keep showing up and its apparently still at least somewhat navigable. It took about two days for the nearly the entire surface to be iced over--from chunks of ice floating downstream on the first truly cold day after the recent warm period to what you see in the pictures below.

This week is the last of classes before a two week break for the holidays. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing for lunch over those two weeks, but I hope it's not McDonald's every day. (Or even McD's alternating with Teremok.)

Winter in SPb