Music

I remember hearing somewhere that the music that we listened to in high school would be the music we would love for the rest of our lives. After a stressful day of work and a bike ride in the rain, I knew i just wanted a hot shower and to listen to some Jewel- she was one of the first concerts I went to, at red rocks even! I guess I've found this to be true as I have never felt as starstruck as the night my babysitter's friend told me that she had seen jewel play live at a coffee shop while Jewel was still living out of her car.

The music we listened to in high school was the music that would shape the rest of our lives because we listened to this music in our most care-free self-expresive days. Life as an adult gets rough, but when we were in high school with few responsibilities we could get away with the daunting fashion experiments, raging opinions with no anxieties. I guess that's why I've come to love the writings of the Style Rookie, she loves all the films I loved in my angst-filled high school years and has found a way to express those in high fashion- mixing my current ideas of what is stylish with my personal guilty pleasures that still linger. Crushes on Leonardo DeCaprio in Romeo and Juliet, gseeing Garbage in concert, and late night coffee/or ice cream shops with deep conversations with friends. The music that we love the most is that which transports us back to this place.

10 PM

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

This is what 10pm looks like during white nights on a rooftop.

pedalcab

pedalcab, originally uploaded by Patrick Finn.

Adams found this picture of me on Flickr yesterday. What a fun summer that was.

Bodies in Urban Spaces (Pro Arte)

On Friday the St. Petersburg art institute Pro Arte celebrated its tenth anniversary at Peter and Paul fortress. The event included a choir singing soviet-style patriotic songs about Pro Arte, video installations by students and the visiting US artist Billy Viola, and one of the best performance art pieces I've seen: Bodies in Urban Spaces. The performance was exactly what the title implies. Photos below:








(we were incredibly impressed by this girl- she was so compact!):






Drainpipes galore!



These kids added to the performance and yelled "no! we're not part of it" to me when i snapped their picture, just in case i was confused:

And Only a Month Remains... or I (heart) SpB

I pasted hand-drawn calendar pages on my dresser a month ago to make sure I'd get everything done before i leave. Tonight I'll cross off the last day on page one, which means I'm well into white nights, but have little time left in Piter. Leaving in summer is tricky, but the way to go in Russia. Everyone has thawed from winter and is taking full advantage of light past midnight. City walks are warm and the breeze blowing accross the neva carries that refreshing water smell that brought Peter to build this city 306 years ago (yesterday was the celebration of the city's birth, so we're all counting).



Here are some things I've been up to since the weather has gotten nice:

spending time in parks with friends
performing feats of strength



Sasha turned 22 so we had a party for her here at the apartment. We made a bunch of food including some American treats- ants on a log, banana bread, and salsa (to go with recently found tortilla chips!):

The spread:


we bought this pie and then forgot to serve it during the party:
we ate some of it for breakfast the next day, but it was a lot more beautiful than it was delicious, so the guests didn't miss out on too much.

, originally uploaded by laurichka.

way better than any balcony

way better than any balcony, originally uploaded by laurichka.

This afternoon Olga and I climbed through a mess of stairs and sat up on the roof of her school. I love a good view of St. Petersburg rooftops. We enjoyed the sunshine as the threat of rainclouds were collecting on the horizon. I took a lot of pictures today and put them up on my flickr page.