Mass in Petersburg

To not make my dead Catholic relatives completely roll over in their graves, I finally got my lazy butt out of bed early this past Sunday, and went to the English speaking mass at the Catholic church conveniently located on Nevskii Prospekt. Actually, I don't know why I say conveniently-- it's still a 10 minute walk on icy sidewalks, a 30 minute metro ride with transfers, and another 5 minute walk on icy sidewalks away from my apartment. I guess its convenient for everyone else.

Anyway, overall it was a nice mass. I incorrectly assumed that because it was an English-speaking mass, that there would be a lot of Americans there. False-- I was one of maybe three. The whole choir was composed of African immigrants (who were, as I later found out, near-fluent in Russian), the priest was British, the deacon was Austrian, the lector was Irish, and there were also many Hispanics. It was very interesting to see such a diverse community of Catholic, English- speaking people in St. Petersburg.

And I made a new friend there! His name is Engrishia (or something like that) and is from Uganda. He creepily walked with me and my two friends for two blocks after mass, asked for our numbers, and is set on going out with us after next week's mass.

Yikes. Maybe I'll go to the Russian-speaking mass next week.....

Pics!





Also, I went to Catherine's Palace, located in Pushkin city this weekend. I'll update about that later! Hope all is well in the States :)