My exchange experience in Russia

At the beginning it all seemed like a dream, but this dream turned into reality in the course of time. Many of us had never been to Russia.

In April we hosted the Russians in our homes. The first day it was very strange living with them, but day by day things got even better and we became friends.

The day we had been waiting for arrived. It was a long flight to Saint-Petersburg. We left at 6 a.m. from the Venice Airport Marco Polo heading towards our destination. After a long flight, we were warmly welcomed by our Russian friends.

At first it was all weird, but as time went by I got more and more used to it. Their culture is totally different from ours. They don’t have a specific time for meals, for example, if we eat lunch at 1.00 p.m., they eat their lunch at 4.30 or 5.00 p.m. They also drink a lot of very hot tea. I didn’t like their food very much, because their food tastes very strong.

During the morning we were at school, in the afternoon we went to visit the fantastic city. We visited the Hermitage, which is like a Russian Buckingham palace, the summer residence Peterhof, which is like a Russian Versailles. We also visited the Aurora ship and many other famous monuments.

The weekend was free, so my host family decided to take me to the Gulf of Finland. It was very beautiful and at the same time also very cold.

Before we returned home we also had to visit Moscow. In Moscow we visited all the places we had studied in the Russian book. We saw the Red square, the Kremlin, the GUM and the fantastic subways. We also visited the Arbat street and saw the Bolsoj theatre. After all this we had a long journey home.

Nikita Cancellari