Take my Breath Away

Today we had breakfast and class as usual. After lunch the whole group got together to go on a tour of the Hermitage, guided by Masha. We got to take a bus there (thank God! Some relief from the insanity of public transportation here!). But, unfortunately, the bus was kind of scary itself. It kept grinding as it changed gears and it could hardly make it over the trolley tracks.

Anyway, we finally got to the Hermitage. It was beautiful and windy and crisp and cold out and my eyes kept blurring. Masha took us through all of the different rooms and it was the most breathtaking museum I have ever seen. I saw the Winter Garden, fabulously beautiful paintings and an absolutely majestic palace. The only thing that sucked was that there were a lot of tour groups from cruise ships there. We were there until around 5:00 PM.

Katherine, Ally and I had opera tickets so we had to find somewhere to eat fast. The closest, quickest and easiest thing was Pizza Hut so we did that again. After dinner we headed back up the Moika and to the Mussorgsky Theater.

I had to change into heels because I wore my sandals to the Hermitage. Anyway, we bought programs and went into the theater. I was sitting next to some weird German guy and his wife. The opera was absolutely amazing. I was not bored for a single second, even without any titles. And the singing was phenomenal. I almost wanted to cry at all of ti.

The opera ended really early-- at like 10:30 because they only did one intermission instead of two.

On the way back when were were getting on the psycho subway escalator, I noticed some guy put his arm around Katherine's waist to guide her on. I looked at her strangely, but none of us knew what to do because we were stuck next to him on the escalator.

When we got off the escalator, he started to follow us and when we stopped, he stopped. Even waiting for the trolley, he followed us and was staring at us. We were all scared he would follow us home, so I hailed a cab and we all jumped in. When we got home, everyone was hanging out in Daniel's room, drinking beer and watching soccer so we hung out there for a while. Finally, at around 2:00 AM we went to bed.

PS: The world cup is huge everywhere else in the world.
PPS: Katherine said that they guy probably followed us because I was singing Bon Jovi on the subway. (Talk about not blending in).