My thoughts as they come to me

I am tired today. It is snowing and wet here in St Petersburg. Tonight we will see the Inspector General by Gogol. In class today we learned about Gogol and how he was a horrible professor for as long as that lasted. I think he had a nice haircut.

I am sad that it is our last play of the trip. I came on this trip primarily because I love Russia, but over the last couple of weeks I have found that I also love Russian theater. I am still not very good at articulating what I love about it, which Marc will attest to after reading all my journals.

I wonder if I can get through customs with a kilo of those Alyonka chocolates. I just really want to share those with everyone I know (because I don't want to feel guilty about eating a whole kilo by myself).

I need to spend all of this money Marc keeps giving us. And probably I shouldn't spend it on more scarves.

Tomorrow we will have a master class. We are all a bit apprehensive about it because none of us really know what is going to happen. After that we will have a great big Azerbaijani meal as a farewell dinner. I am excited to eat my first Hachapuri (spelling?).

Last night we went to a play called something like "The Butterflies are Free," written by Leonard Gershe (an American author) in the sixties. It was strange to see our first American play as interpreted by Russians. We were supposed to see Scapin, but one of the actors in that broke his leg or something. THEN we were supposed to see something about hunters which would have had raining on the stage, as I remember. However, we we got there this is what was presented. The ticket lady handed each person entering a little program about the show calling it a "прекрасный спектакль." It was about a blind man who gets to know the woman living in the apartment next to him, and about his mother who can't let go because she is worried about him living on his own. "It all spirals out from there."
It was not the best show we've seen, but it was interesting to see how they interpreted an American play and changed it to appeal to a Russian audience (i.e. the ending which in the original play is a normal happy ending,but in the play we saw what actually happens and what it means is open to interpretation).

Well that's all for now. See you soon.