I'm back!

Everything is just as I remember.

I opened my eyes as though through glue or molasses to the outskirts of St. Petersburg, dirty streets and neon signs and used-car dealers. I'd slept most of the 6 hour drive from Helsinki, where I'd touched down the night before, waking up only when the van stopped and at the border-- to pass through customs meekly and without comment. The woman behind the glass had thrust my passport back at me and gestured, unimpressed, towards the swinging metal barrier. I pressed through it--and just like that, I was back in the FUSSR.

It seemed easy.

So I slept on, slept off days of constant traveling and the 9 hour time difference between Spokane and Helsinki. I slept what I didn't get to sleep on the airplane from Minnesota to Amsterdam, slept off my 5-hour layover in Amsterdam, spent walking up and down alleyways with my shoulder-bag and violin, past shops opening up with bartenders taking chairs down off the counter and barbers sweeping their floors in preparation for the day. I slept off the confusion of the two-hour darkness that makes up night in this northern tip of the continent.

In Amsterdam at 6:30 AM I left the plane and made my mind up immediately not to spend my five hours in the airport, biding time. I caught a train to the centre of the city, where the shops were all shut tight against the morning and the shivering rain, and my leather jacket shrunk against my skin as I searched for a coffeeshop or cafe to dry off and collect my thoughts. By 8:30 I'd found only one cafe, so I sat and drank an Americano--only it's not called an Americano in Amsterdam; it's a cup of coffee. I read some from As I Lay Dying.

I knew the difference between a coffeeshop and a cafe, and for nearly an hour I passed by closed coffeeshops with hesitation, wanting and unsure, and then a few open ones with even more trepidation and not enough courage to go inside. But in the end no one was policing me but myself, and I steeled myself to step inside when the next doorway opened up. It was "Any Day" Coffeeshop, and the man behind the counter was kind and didn't scoff at my bashful and incredulous questions: "Can I smoke it anywhere, or just here?" I felt like such a country bumpkin, but he showed me the 'menu' and I chose a pre-rolled '100% pure reefer' joint for convenience, and I smoked while strolling along the canal past groggy Dutch men and women hurrying to work. I fairly floated back to the airport, high on THC and my own daring, still nervous that I might miss my flight. I dozed while waiting at the gate and finally let my breath out when I sank into my seat on the last leg of my journey (almost).

I was late for my meeting with Atte because I'd fallen asleep in the cafe-bar at the Helsinki train station. He stood in the lobby waiting for me, tall and slim and beautiful with a guitar on his back and his halting, uncertain English. I was grateful for his understanding when all I wanted to do was sleep, again, and he left me in his apartment with directions and a plan to meet two hours later at a bar near the metro station--to which I was late, again, and I felt awful for putting him in such a position. Still, we got along well, and after a drink with his friend Kira we walked all evening, speaking of our plans and our responsibilities toward the world and our places within it.

And now I was sleeping again: dreaming of deja vu and places I've been as I returned to one of them. The van stopped outside the Mayakovskaya metro station, and I sleepily bought a token, shouldered my 50 lb pack and ducked inside to get out of the rain. Katey was at the door when I rang our doorbell. I climbed the five flights to our top-floor apartment with bated breath (although how much I can attribute to anticipation, and how much to the weight on my back and in my hands, I cannot say). The stairwell smelled like cat piss, and there were broken windows chalked with swastikas and profanity leaning against the wall on one landing. This is it, this is Russia, this is my home in Russia, this is Russia and my home both I thought with each step between the turquoise walls. And then: I was THERE.

My apartment: it is beautiful and colorful! The floor in the hallway is parquet painted the same turquoise as the walls in the stairwell, and the bathroom walls are painted sunny-side-up yellow. The kitchen is tiled in green and pink and cream, which matches the tabletop. The windows face east and there are beautiful potted plants on my windowsill. It's huge and so airy and bright, and my window overlooks the rooftops of the city. Sennaya Ploschad'--the metro, the grocery store and the market--is two minutes from here. This is perfect, I could not ask for a better place to live. It's mere luck that Katey and I came across this perfect apartment; our classmates Ben and Noah rented it in the spring and returned to America just in time for us to take over their lease, and we almost didn't because of the boys' questionable track record. For example, one day Ben came to school with the showerhead in hand, and my memories of Noah consist mostly of recklessness and hostility.

St. Petersburg is almost exactly how I left it, almost eerily so. A few shops closed and a few opened up elsewhere, but a 300-year-old city doesn't change drastically over five months. The difference is me, and what I'm doing here. My schedule is wide-open to a dizzying degree. Right now I have no schedule: the Center of Contemporary Art hasn't contacted me yet, and Yuri is out of town at a festival in Perm for the weekend. The whole country is celebrating right now; today is День России, akin to a Russian independence day (though Russia has been independent for a milennium or so), so my first few days here are a well-needed break.

Everything is just as I remember alright, including the bureaucracy and complications at every step of the way. It starts simply: every person living in Russia must be registered with the government. When you arrive in any city with the intention of staying for more than three days, you must register your location. If you don't register, you can be fined exorbitant fees (up to $100,000 I believe) and they can refuse to let you leave the country, or put you in prison. Simple enough, right? But wait: you can't register yourself; you have to have your landlord or host organization register you. Okay, okay--but my landlord is out of town, and as I mentioned it's a national holiday, so the bank that's involved in the registration process is closed until Tuesday.

Well, fuck.

Despite the fact that the bank is closed, I highly doubt that the Russian Federation will accept a national holiday as an excuse for not being registered, which leaves me with the ugly truth that I absolutely must be registered by Monday and can't register with my landlords until they return to town, on Monday. Perfect, right? It's like Russia is welcoming me back with a nice big "Fuck you!"

There is one other way to register, in general, although with the closing of the bank it might not work. Hostels will generally register their guests as a matter of course, so all I have to do is stay one night in a hostel and I'll be registered in St. Petersburg for the rest of my time here. Katey and I set off across town to the Graffiti Hostel, a big square building painted to look like a Mondrian composition, but even here we ran into problems. I'm not the only one who wants to be in St. Petersburg right now; in fact, June is the height of the White Nights and thus also tourist season. We tried several hostels, then went home to try telephone numbers instead--and every hostel in the city is full. FULL. There are no vacancies anywhere. St. Pete is at capacity. I finally made a reservation for tomorrow night. Fingers crossed that there's no 24-hour time-limit...

In the meantime, I will make dinner and sort out my budget, which is already woefully in shambles and in need of an overhaul because of the unexpected visa fees and super-expensive plane ticket. I'll go shopping for essentials (you know, like a towel. And an accordion.) and I'll enjoy these beautiful days in this beautiful city.