Ra-Ra-Rasputin, fajitas, and more

Starting off with an amazing interior of the Hermitage

So last Saturday (I am a little behind, sorry) we went to Yusopov's palace, where Rasputin was killed. About half the tour was concentrated on that fateful night, and they even had recreations of the events. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures, but the palace was beautiful. The second half of the tour was all palace interior and we even got an impromptu a capella performance from four very talented men. They sang to demonstrate the excellent acoustics of that particular room. They would have sounded wonderful in a cardboard box, but the acoustics were in fact wonderful. In the palace was a theater. A legit theater. How cool would it be to have a mini Mariinsky theater in your house. Well, technically palace, but still, I was impressed.
    On Tuesday, Austin, Ester, and I went back to the Hermitage to do part II of our attempt to conquer the entire museum! We made some progress, and saw some amazing art. They have two whole rooms of Picasso paintings and a room of Matisse, and a wall full of Kandinsky! This museum is amazing. More on that in a later post.

One of my favorites

      This week I started experimenting with food, because I am getting tired of what I have been eating, so I made fajitas. I know this sort of undermines my attempt to immerse myself into the Russian culture, but they tasted so good. I also made guacamole, which was inspired by my suitemate, who had made it earlier in the week. The habaneros here are actually pretty spicy, which was a pleasant surprise. 

       On Thursday I went to a special Russian Club event that teaches you about Kyrgyzstan and we got to eat some traditional food, which was delicious. A lot of people went, and I had a great time. Friday, we had a field trip for my St. Petersburg class to the musical instruments museum. It is one of the largest musical instruments museums in the world and has lots of cool exhibits like the largest flute in the world, old Russian horns, the precursor to the piano, and a cool instrument that is essentially a bunch of large wine glasses that turn and dip into water so you can run your fingers along the rims and make music out of 'that wine glass noise.' I hope you all know what I am talking about. Anyways they also have a station where you can hear what all of the instruments sound like. Ok Novgorod  and Hermitage volunteer work next time! 

Out a random window. I love this city.