back home

after two weeks of international traveling its finally over!

I sort of get to relax, im still so tired from the trip+graduation+last days of school

it may seem like another lifetime to some people, but i never got the chance to recover fully cause of the tour...

well, the tour itself was AMAZING....at parts GHETTO, but nonetheless amazing

i am so thankful that I got to go, esp. since i didnt have to pay...hehe

=)

lets see if i can remember things and break it down:

RUSSIA:

the freaking motherland....heil stalin! or whatever

the plane ride there was about 15+ hours i believe?....pretty nice because it was on Lufthansa...which is a pretty nice airline even in the economy section....i dont really remember who i sat by...

then it was customs.....we all had to fill out the declaration forms for our instruments which was tiring and annoying....the officials opened up each case and examined the instruments and asked us the worth, maker, etc...EACH TIME!
how unfun, plus when we got there, russians were unbelievably rude....some even spat on the cello cases....

first place we got to stay at was the SDA headquarters in Moscow?i think thats what it was....we stayed in decent dormlike rooms with stoves, sinks, and ORPHAN BEDS...
haha...they were like from oliver twist or something, they were really short and small....my roomies were chris, nic, and mr. arnold....how fun...pretty cool tho cause our room had the lucky ethernet cable so we had access to the internet while there...showers were decent and also the bathroom...had a hard time because not all of us brought power converters so we had to share them....the nights were especially fun because we had shin ramen almost everynight really late....one thing we also noticed was the sunset at like 4 am, and the sun rose at like 5...no joke...pretty weird...

had fun playing at the moscow churches..we played at one church that was on the same campus where we stayed at....we played at the central church which was alot more american friendly and met some cool russian youth......apparently the cuss words i learned were CHORT and BLAH or BLUH...i think....haha...that concert was the HOTTEST concert ive ever played at....it was like 105 on stage...it was horrible....but afterward went outside to meet more youth, college-age....2 black guys and 2 malaysian guys...were very friendly

another place we went to was the SDA university which i forgot the name of.....was a decent campus....ate yum yum BORSCH..which is the staple to them like rice to asians....which is a beet and vegetable soup...delicious really...also ate other things....russians like cucumbers, tomatoes, and potatoes ALOT....played there on campus and was well-liked, one family was thankful because one of their members have not been to church in 20 years and was the first time they came to church just for our concert...=) found some russian people and talked with them for a bit....very friendly...

had some fun days shopping in moscow...went to red square, which has St. Basils Cathedral that you always see pictures of...got to see red square at night as well as day...the cathedral was way smaller in real life tho..cool colors tho...got to see lenin's tomb...looked like a wax figure...then got to go shopping at red square itself....BOUGHT a ton of stuff, and got to show off my bartering skills =)

saw alot of cool things like fur hats and wood items and shot glasses

after that, drove about 11 hours to St. Petersburg for the next part of the tour...
nice city....we stayed at the Hotel Polustrovo..(I REMEMBERED!) and was sad cause internet was about $12 in USD for internet access for 1 hour...GAY...so never had internet there...watched some laker games, ate SLAVE food, walked around and found a atm machine =) overall nice stay...roomate was nic min...was fun because we watched iron man and was late to everything haha

toured st. petersburg and played at several churches...one that was memorable was the lutheran church that used to be a prior factory in WWII...the priest told us that the lenin said "in 5 years, there will be no priests in Russia" meaning that christianity and religion would be obliterated in the communist era......but we proved a point that day that God's presence was still with the church because of our music...

ate everyday at some cafeteria underground place...was actually the highlight of those days when we were in St. petersburg because of the GOOD, homecooked russian food there....of course it was vegetarian, but GOOD....most dinner consisted of:

-some sort of big pot of soup...usually borsch
-rustic bread and butter
-tea and water
-DESSERTS..similar to slightly sweet cinnamon rolls
-vegetable platter with baked vegetables
-vegetable salad

was good!..but got kind of boring after the 3rd time..

one day we ate at a mcdonalds...which they pronounced..."MAKH-duh-nulds" (spit alot)

no joke, ordered: 3 large fries, medium sprite, 5 pies, 1 sundae, 2 fish fillets, 1 chicken nugget...and it was HEAVENLY! took awhile for everyone to order because we had to point to menus to translate cause they spoke little or no english.....was a pretty NICE mcdonalds...was really clean and nicely decorated with american memorabilia....1 cool and 1 bad thing: they had no apple pies but instead had cherry pies and PINEAPPLE AND KIWI pies....which are the BEST!!!!, bad thing tho is you have to pay for ketchup...=P

also went shopping there, found some cool things like shot glasses, lighters, and knives....was WAY more expensive than moscow.....things differed in price from stand to stand even tho it was the same item....tricky russians..wasnt so cool because i spent about 20 mins argueing for a fancy egg that opened...in the end had no time and lost....wanted almost $50 for it or 1400 rubles....HECK NO....my ugly side got a hold of me and i got cussed out by the seller and he told my friends to take me away cause i was crazy...

I <3 russia =)

got to see st. peters cathedral....and got to ride on a hydrofoil to see some GIGANTIC palace but had to sit in the rain forever and was miserable...also saw catherine the great's palace which was also very cool....picture takin was forbidden which was gay.....and also got to view and SLEEPING BEAUTY BALLET, with real russian ballet dancers..was pretty interesting...4 hours long, but still, had decent seats and plus this was the original theatre where the ballet debuted, written by Tchaikovsky..was sad tho, because disney lied to me....THERE IS NO DRAGON!



-------almost done with russia....updates more soon on finland and sweden----------