It's a bit difficult for someone who's spent the last 24 hours in transit to gain any kind of appreciation for their destination immediately. After sorting out the luggage fiasco we all piled onto a relatively nice bus which would take us to what would be our home for the next 4 months. I think that most of us would have been quite happy with being transported as quickly as possible to the dorm. However, as is often the case, our bus driver was instructed to take a lengthier "more scenic" route so that we could see some of the city. I don't really remember much of that ride, or the sites along its route. I remember Leanne getting excited when we saw our first Lenin statue, but that seems to be the highlight of the trip in my memory. I was mostly just tired (I hadn't slept on any part of the flight) and wasn't overly excited. I think that part of this may have been that it hadn't really hit me that I was really there (I can't really pin down exactly when it did hit me).
Also on the bus, we formalised the room situation. This really wasn't that big a deal as most of us (at least those of us from Dal) had already pretty much figured out what the arrangement was going to be anyways. Steve and I had decided to share a room (each apartment had 2 bedrooms, 2 people to a room) as we had known each other since the year before (2nd year) and got along fine. Ten wanted to room with all guys and so she ended up sharing a room with Jay, while Bill and Rob (who are brothers) took the other bedroom in that apartment. Lori had said before that she'd share the apartment with Steve and me (I've been in classes with her all through university) and she was going to room with Natalie. Normally, mixed sex apartments weren't allowed but I think they let us get away with it because we were all from one group (often, people would end up with sharing an apartment with whoever else needed a room). Denise and Laura had already agreed to room together. Gisella and Ursula shared a room too. This left Leanne and Anne (Bella had arranged an apartment elsewhere in the city for herself, her mother, and her daughter) who got the other room in Denise and Laura's apartment.
On arriving, we started to settle in. Each apartment was equipped with a (very) small kitchen, a toilet (in it's own little "closet"), a bathroom (literally, a room with a bath and sink), and the 2 bedrooms. For some reason, the 2 bedrooms were not of equal size. The smaller bedroom was quite a bit smaller but was still meant for 2 people (the bigger room wasn't exactly huge for 2 people to live in). Much later, we found out that while the smaller bedroom did have 2 beds, it was usually only occupied by a single person (the administration was just being cheap on rooms for us so they cramped us in more). Lori agreed to take the smaller room, leaving the bigger one to Steve and me. This was mainly due to the fact that Natalie (Lori's official roommate) was going to be staying with her boyfriend David (not to be confused with our prof David). We made sure that Natalie was listed as the roommate though so that they wouldn't try to put a fourth person into our apartment. This arrangement was obviously fine with Steve and me as it meant more room for us by getting the bigger room and sharing an apartment with one less person.
My sense of time is a bit weak for this period. Probably due to being not used to the time difference (7 hours later) and because it got dark so quickly. As I only had my carry-on with me, unpacking didn't really involve too much effort (I had a few essentials in my carry-on). Leanne was running around the floor complaining about not having any underwear which was pretty funny. I know I didn't go to sleep right away (even though I wanted to) because I knew it would throw me off too much, it would be better to stay up the extra hours and go to bed a more reasonable schedule. After we had "settled" a bit we decided to head out to the near-by hotel in order to change some money (seeing as we didn't have any roubles). After that, we went to the convenience store in order to get some food. I was far too tired to really make use of my Russian (I quickly became aware that my 2 and half years of studying Russian hadn't really sunk in too well for me) but I managed to get some food. In most stores in Russia you line up to a counter and ask the woman (it's always a woman) for what you want. While this may seem pretty stupid those more used to western-style stores, it's not as bad as the other way stores are operated in Russia: go to the woman and ask for what you want, she gives you a total and writes up a slip for that amount for you, you then go to another line up to pay at a cashier and then finally return with the slip marked as paid to get your stuff.
The other shock of the day was that Natalie had been made our group leader. The argument for her being group leader was that she had been in the city before (she had done a summer program the summer before) and also that she and David (her boyfriend, who had done the program before and had been staying in Petersburg since September) would be able to help us around the city. Now these were all valid points but it hadn't really been mentioned to us before-hand and some of us were a little resentful that the Russian department wasn't really keeping us informed. I believe that Natalie received some small amount of money for being the group leader (another bone of contention), and she got a room on the 5th floor (we were mostly on the 9th) for free (this was a room for the group leader), allowing David to move out of his apartment in favor of the free rent situation.
The rest of the night went by fairly uneventfully as I seem to remember just hanging out for a bit and then finally getting some sleep. The next morning/afternoon (I probably slept in) Natalie came by and asked if we wanted to get out and see the city (this wasn't any organised group tour or anything, Natalie was good friends with Lori and Steve and I just got invited along more or less by default, this was to turn into another bone of contention for some people about Natalie's group-leader status). Anyways, I wasn't going to pass up a chance to look around a bit. We walked to the metro (which was about a 20min walk away but that really depended on the weather) and took it to Nevsky Prospect (the main street in Petersburg). We walked up Nevsky to the winter palace (now part of the Hermitage museum). We could have just walked along Nevsky until we reached the palace square, but instead we headed up a side street which comes to an archway on the opposite side of the palace square. This was a much better way to go, not only because it was shorter, but because you don't really see the winter palace until you're almost right in the square (because of the way that the street turns). So basically, you wind up walking along a (fairly dirty) side street and then all of a sudden, the winter palace is just right on top of you. I seem to remember Steve's words were something sarcastic along the lines of, "gee, that's not dramatic!"
After this, we went to Natalie and David's apartment as they were getting stuff together to move to the dorm. Lori, Steve, and me split up from Natalie after this and we went back to Nevsky Prospect to continue to explore up past Palace Square. Because Lori and Steve had done some work with memorising portions of Pushkin's Bronze Horseman they both wanted to see the actual statue. Unfortunately, none of us had any idea as to where it was in the city. We had a pretty good idea that it was in the downtown area, but that really didn't help us too much. By this time, we had walked acrose the Neva River and we still didn't have any idea as to where the statue was. So, we decided to ask someone. After a quick brain workout we were pretty sure we remembered how to ask for directions in Russia. So we asked someone how to get to the bronze horseman. They looked at us slightly confused for awhile and then gestured past Peter and Paul fortress and told us it was a long way in that direction.
We were already getting a bit tired by this point (not to mention cold), so we decided we'd just head to Peter and Paul fortress and then head home. So we walked over there and explored the grounds for a bit. We were all too tired to really be interested in going into any of the museums (I'm not even sure if they were open either, the place was fairly deserted) so we just bought some souvenirs (you can find people selling Soviet-era things all over the place) and started on the way back. As we were leaving the fortress though, we noticed that there was a tourist map at the entrance. We figured that we'd be able to find out where the Bronze Horseman was and also maybe if there was a closer metro station. There wasn't a closer metro station than the one on Nevsky (the Gostiny Dvor entrance if you're wondering, the Nevsky Prospekt entrance was closed for renovation the entire time I was there and we hadn't discovered the Griboyedov Canal entrance yet) but, we were able to find out where the Bronze Horseman was. It turns out that the problem is that it's not called the Bronze Horseman in Russian (that's just the name of the poem by Pushkin). As it turned out, the statue is way back on the other side of the Neva river just down from Palace Square, so we were almost there when we started thinking about trying to find it (and had then walked 30mins or more away from it). So we started trekking back across the Neva figuring we'd stop by there before getting back to the Metro (we were getting really tired and cold by this point).
Back across the Neva you get to the Admiralty building. Having seen the tourist map we just said, "great, now we just need to walk around this building". Distance is a strange thing in Russia (well at least in Petersburg and Moscow). "Just around this building," is a bit more involved than what you might think. Half an hour later (plus getting stopped by a guy trying to sell water colours of different tourist locations), we got around this building and finally found ourselves at the Bronze Horseman. I'd like to say that we spent a lot of time drinking in this great cultural icon and perhaps even recited a few lines of Pushkin. Don't kid yourself, we were freezing to death and exhausted by this point (jet lag, cold, and walking around for a few hours will do that to you). We stood there for a bit said, "wow cool!", were disgusted by the man with the pet bear (was trying to make money by charging to take a picture of it) and then we left. The walk home was just a tired cold blur.
We got "home" (it was still sinking in that this was going to be home for the next 4 months) and rested. Our luggage showed up that night which was a welcome relief (Leanne was especially happy to have underwear once again). Also, the final 2 members of our group (Lainie and Nathan) showed up. It turns out that they had gotten fogged in (or some other problem) and so they missed their flight.
There were a couple of other new arrivals in the dorm as well. One of them was Jason. He ended up being Nathan's roommate. Jason was another canadian (he was studying at Memorial University in Newfoundland) but he wasn't part of our group. But, since he was another canadian we essentially "adopted" him into our group. The other new arrival was Bligh. He was an american but he was staying on the same floor as us (there was an american group on the floor below us but he wasn't part of that group).
The next few days were much the same, getting settled in, exploring the city, actually getting some groceries, etc. Before our classes started we had been given a test in order to determine our russian ability. This was so that they could split the group into 3 sections which were supposed to place you with people that had roughly the same ability as you. I ended up in group 2 which was the middle group. Also in the group were Laura, Lori, Steve, Anne, and Rob. This made sense because it was all (except for Rob) people in their 3rd year. All of the people in the 1st group had studied for more time and most of the people in the 3rd group had only done 2 years.
There was a general party atmosphere for awhile as we didn't have classes yet (not that it really dropped too much after they started!). The night before classes started we had what was supposed to be one last big party. I went to bed at around 2. At around 3, my roommate Steve stumbled into our room and collapsed into his bed. About 15 mins later he sat bolt upright and threw up all over himself. At first I was really annoyed (because I was tired) that I'd have to be up all night now to make sure he wouldn't choke or anything. Instead, I figured that I'd probably wake up if that happened so I just opened the window (I wasn't going to try to sleep in a warm room that smelt like puke without any air circulation) and went back to sleep (I had an arctic sleeping bag so the cold didn't bother me at all). The next morning Steve didn't even remember throwing up and was quite surprised that he had slept in it all night (it wasn't a pleasant sight). It turns out that he had drunk nearly an entire 1L (for the non-metric, a 40oz bottle is 1.14L) bottle of vodka on his own (straight, not mixed)! Needless to say, he wasn't exactly in the best shape for going to class. He did show up later but I think he missed part (or all) of the first class.