One Day in the Life of Peter Gordonovitch

I'm still here, please don't worry that you havent heard from me for a few days! I will try to make amends...
So here is the story of a routine day in my life as of late:First, I wake up to the cooing of pigeons - apparently they live in some sort of attic space just above me. There's also often a sound of scurrying feet up there that'd I've decided unfortunately isnt pigeons, bleh! Hopping out of bed, I take a quick shower in the micro bathroom (hopefully there's hot water, but not always) and then tuck into a mega breakfast, usually an omelet, bread, yogurt, cheese, kolbassa, bread, kasha, and always tea - they dont drink water, though they assure me it's safe, contrary to the dire warnings of my travel book! From the apartment it's a short 5 min walk along bustling streets to Primorskaya Metro Station. On my way there I cross a bridge over the Smolenka canal from which I can take in the imperious Soviet housing project that stretches all along its bank. It's actually quite impressive, in an extremely ugly way. After going down the steepest escalator ever (even more then the skytrain one at Granville station!) I, and a couple hundred Russians board the metro, which isnt as nice as the palatial Moscow metro, but has some pretty awesome stations I will tell you about later.
It's just one stop and then about a 10 minute walk to the Institute of Philology, which is in a grand old building (a dime a dozen here) right on the Neva River. Class is three hours long, a mixture of fun and terror, as the two profs are merciless in insisting that only Russian is spoken and every question they ask must be answered, no matter how empty my mind has suddenly become! It's a good way to learn tho, shock treatment! I have two friends in the class, Helen from Scotland and Andreas from Munich, through whom I've met most everyone I hang out with.
I'm done class by quarter to one. Usually our group (Poles, Germans, Belgians, and a sole Canadian!) goes for "bizniz lanch" at a restaurant nearby or to the studentskaya stolovnaya, or student caf, which is cheap, has half-decent food, and cool clunky soviet cutlery! Ordering food is a bit of a problem as I dont know the names of Russian dishes, so I do alot of pointing. After lunch, I have the whole afternoon to do whatever, which gives me 5 hours to explore the fascinating city streets or check out one of Saint Petersburg's million and one museums and art galleries. Then it's metro back home for 7 pm dinner. I think Mila's made it her personal mission to fatten me up - there is always a ridiculous amount of food, just for me, with plenty of sour cream and potatoes as you can well imagine! Usually I collapse for a bit and watch the bbc news or puzzle my way through some usually truly bizzarre Russian programming (the soviet era kids cartoons are really incomprehensible!). Somehow I fit in homework and some writing, and that's it! Another day in Russia whizzes by...