Leopards and horses and bears. Oh my!

At our first orientation session for the Bard College-Smolny Institute study abroad program, we were asked what comfort item we brought for our trip to St. Petersburg. Without hesitation I thought of my stuffed leopard named, well, Leopard. He is an amur leopard, native of the Russian Far East, so I thought it was fitting for him to make his way back to his true home. He has become the title of my blog mainly for alliteration's sake (St. Petersburg was named Leningrad during Soviet times). While he may not take part in all of my adventures, it is certainly comforting to have a little bit of home with me here in Russia.

Fortunately enough, the first few days in Petersburg have gone quite smoothly. Our group of 29 students arrived on Thursday August 19th and spent the first two days in a hotel in order to not only bond with one another, but also give us some time to adjust. Within our first few hours we decided to take a stroll along the beautiful roads and rivers that make Petersburg such an amazing city. It did not take very long for us to see things that were not an everyday occurrence in the States-well at least not in Glastonbury.

Our first sighting (and letdown that a camera was not ready) was three miniature ponies riding down the streets of the city...ridden by not so miniature full-grown adults. One woman had her hands in the air and was screaming at the pony to go faster. She might as well have been screaming at it to throw her off. Had we seen this spectacle on a later day we probably would have been more impressed by the two horses riding down Nevsky Prospect (the largest street in the city) at 1:30 in the morning. However, it wasn't until we saw the two bear cubs on leashes and wearing muzzles or the chimpanzee in the park that we knew St. Petersburg would have a lot in store for us.

St. Isaac's Cathedral from across the Neva River