Well, where to begin? England was pretty interesting. If there was one thing I was most impressed with, it was the cleanliness of the streets. It was amazing. The only bad thing about the city was the cost of everything. It's so expensive and it's quite easy to drop one hundred dollars in a day. I saw many of the famous sites our second day there when our group went on a tour. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of all of the places, but they were all very beautiful. They all look like what you would imagine of England. The historical places are typical medieval looking buildings. It's interesting to look at all of the buildings in London. Everything looks as if it is crammed together. No one has a backyard it seems and you could probably see in your neighbor's home through your window.

A few memorable experiences I've had in London:

1) A friend and I went on a journey by ourselves to find the Tower of London. We walked around for about an hour and a half in order to find it. We stopped many people on the side of the street asking them if they knew how to get to the metro that would take us to our destination?and that was after thirty minutes of figuring out which metro to actually take, let alone how it worked. But we finally made it.

2) When arriving in London, I had to go through customs. The man asked me how many days I was staying in London and I told him I was staying for three days. He said, "Thray?" And I replied, "Three." So he repeated himself again. His accent made him sound like he was saying thirty. I finally had to show him three fingers, but he understood what I was saying all along which resulted in me feeling like an idiot?but it's just interesting to go to another country where they speak your language and have some minor difficulties here and there to understand them.

Overall, I enjoyed London. However, I really wasn't impressed as much as I thought I would be. It's a beautiful city, but in the end?I just felt like I was in a really big and clean Dallas. Of course there are major differences, but that's just how I felt about it.

Onward to Russia.

Arriving in Saint Petersburg made me a little nervous. I started to realize that it wouldn't be anything like London. If I was to get lost in London, I could easily ask directions back home. This would not be the case in Saint Pete for I would need to know Russian to achieve anything.

When I arrived at the airport, I had to go through customs. I handed the lady my migration card and she said something I didn't understand. It came to be that I didn't fill in both sides of my migration card. I only filled in the arrival section and not the departure section, which seemed logical to me. But I figured out the situation and got through.

The ride from the airport to our dorm was absolutely hilarious for me. The bus was so silent you could hear a mouse fart. The expression on everyone's face was priceless. Pardon my French, but everyone had a look of, "What the hell have I done?" But I was excited. I immediately began reading any and everything I saw and seeing what I could understand.

The streets here are totally opposite of London. It's common to throw cigarette butts and anything else you have on the floor. Russians aren't particular about the environment.

The past two days I have made friends with the security guard of our dorm room. He is from Azerbaijan and he is possibly the craziest person I know. I can't understand everything he says, but we can communicate to a degree. He collects foreign money so I gave him a quarter to add to his collection. Every time I see him, he makes a pot of tea and we have it while we talk. He always says in Russian, "In Russia, morning we have tea. Afternoon we have tea. Evening we have tea. Everyday we have tea!"

The meals in Russia are quite interesting?and good! We ate in our dorm the first couple of days. We usually have some kind of meat that has been baked (pork and chicken mainly) with mayonnaise and cheese on top. We have side dishes like rice, peas, corn, potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers. EVERY meal consists of bread. It is the staple of your meal. Breakfast usually consists of cereal, bread and jam, a poached egg, and yogurt. Today I went to a Russian McDonalds for a little taste of home. I ordered everything successfully except I forgot the word for French fries, but I got my point across. My chicken sandwich at McDonalds had cucumbers on it! It was a little weird to see, but everything tasted great?I might say even better than the ones in America. The only thing is that they charge you for ketchup?and I mean a little packet of ketchup.

Tonight some friends and I are going to a Mexican restaurant called "La Cucaracha." So we'll see how well Russians can make Mexican food.

Today I also started my classes. My teachers seem very nice and the classes will help me learn a lot. To be honest, one of my teachers is quite attractive so that may distract me a little bit! We took a placement test to see what group of Russian we would be placed in and I was placed in group 4 out of 6. This means I was placed in the highest level of intermediate Russian?so I'm happy with where I was placed.

The water here is exactly what I read?.dirty. You can actually smell the metallic substances in the water when you take a shower. It smells like rusty water.

But in all honesty, everything here is wonderful and I'm not having any problems whatsoever. All of the people I have met are extremely friendly. I'm really having a good time.