Living downtown St. Pete is so bougie. I live right off of Nevsky Prospect- made famous by itself and in a story by Nikolai Gogol. He writes something along the lines of "Nevsky is better than any phone directory one could purchase, someone living on one side of Petersburg will run into an acquaintance they haven't seen in months living on the other side of petersburg." I always find this to be true and last night ran into my darling friend Yana while wandering the streets with my American friend, Vanessa. In this last summer she's become a regular down at Dacha, Fidel and (there's another one, but the name escapes me now. They all blend into one another) and everyone there knows her name. The Produktii* on the corner even sells her and her boyfriend vodka after the curfew of 11.
As for me meeting people- I might have to change my name as it's hard for anyone to understand me. "gloria? Nice to meet you. Gloria! " "No, no, it's Lauren. LOREN, LO- Ren." Maybe I'll just start telling people that I'm another Masha. People either mishear me, or when my Russian friends introduce me they're confused such as Vova last night "Lauren, that's seriously your name. Why did your mother call you that?" "Oh, well, I'm american." "Oh, American? I see."

Yesterday as I walked to the Bobrinsky Palace to meet up with administrators I only knew through emails I saw a stray cat sitting in the entrance of a courtyard. Standing next to the cat was an old man wearing a basball cap with "cat" embroidered on it. It was like walking by the punchline of some kind of joke I'm not sure I understood...

*convenience store