First day in the motherland

I arrived in Peter (as the natives call it) last night and miraculously my bags arrived with me! The airport here is one of the smallest I've ever seen. Smaller even than the one in Asheville, NC; I can't believe it's international. After getting through passport control (my first Russian line) without mishap I grabbed my bags and went online to reassure my family that I'd gotten here safely.

We took a bus to the dorm and try as i might, I was unable to stay awake on it to view the city. I did, however, wake up to drag my bags first into the dorm (on a snowy/icy sidewalk and up several steps). In order to explain what a difficult task this was, I first need to describe my luggage situation.

Значит так: when packing, I decided to use the largest bag that I could find in my house (I was packing, after all, enough clothes for 4-7 months). The unfortunate thing about this strategy, however, is that my old hockey bag has no wheels on it. Skip ahead to the hotel in DC, where I finally thought of a way to push it around: balancing the 50 pound bag (rounghly 4'x2'x2') on top of my carryon with wheels (2'x1'x1') while also carrying my backpack. Now you may have some idea of both how ridiculous I looked moving my belongings and how challenging it was to get them into the lobby of the dorm/hotel (yes, this place is both--very soviet).

Ok, so once we got our room assignments we were told to go find them: the start of another adventure in soviet engineering. The elevators, though updated since the soviet era, are still the same size as they use to be. The sign said 4 people, but we were barely able to fit 2 of us and our suitcases.  Getting off the elevator, I followed my roommate, both because she was in front of me and because as an academic year student, I assumed she knew where she was going.  Turns out that was a mistake. After I had dragged and she had easily managed our respectives suitcases down probably about 100 yards of hallway, she announced that our room was not there and must be on the other hall. Sighing while steeling myself for more dragging, I turned around. At this point my roommate wisely pointed out that I could just leave it and come back for it once we found the room.

Carry-on in hand and backpack too, I followed her back down the hallway we'd just passed. We then turned onto another hallway (they run along the sides of the very large building) and walked to the end of it (100-200 meters). The next turn brought us into a staircase which was ok with my smaller bags but made me really dread bringing the big one over. Another turn after the third hallway that was just as long as the others finally brought us to our room. At the very end.