I did it!

Yes. I did it. I got a ticket from Berlin to St. Petersburg for the 27. of May. This might be daring my good fortune, but since I will only know in April whether or not my visa will go through in time, and flights then will be extraordinarily expensive, I decided to be a daredevil for once in my life. I have up to now always played it safe, and taken the less risky option – now it is my time to test my luck. It should be fine, really – theoretically, I only need to receive my invitation letter at the beginning of May. Hopefully it will come sooner, though. I am also glad that I got my flights now just for timing’s sake  – the Lufthansa flights all arrive at 11:30 pm in Petersburg, and I would really rather avoid that… Mine will arrive at 5:50pm, which gives me enough time to get to university and my host family before it gets dark. Although, wait, there are the white nights starting then, right? I am getting more and more excited for this trip, but at the same time a little more freaked out – and the terrorist bombings on the Moscow metro today didn’t help. But, you know, it happened in Madrid, it happened in New York, and since it happened now, it’ll hopefully not happen anytime soon in Russia again..? And St. Petersburg is supposed to be a little safer than Moscow, though street crime is widespread.. But so it is in Paris and all big cities for that matter except for maybe Montreal. We live in an oasis of peace… Anyway, I also figured out that there is a branch of my bank in Petersburg, which is super helpful.

Surprisingly, being a Quebec resident has even perks if you want to travel abroad.  For example that I am covered by French health care just like a French citizen (once I sent in all those supporting documents). Or that I can get a trip cancellation insurance for an entire year for not that expensive. You see, I’m a daredevil, but not that much of a daredevil.

And also… I managed to…

…send off all those documents – my scholarship applications – before the deadline, which is in 3 days. Phew! I was still waiting for this one recommendation letter… But now everything is on its way. We shall see whether the good people will help me out with some money money money…

Finally, we also just submitted the letter to our landlord that says to take me off the lease and keep Madeline on. We found this really nice girl who wants to take over my room, she’s in Panama now for a semester and will then probably sublet from Madeline as of July 1st. That was another huge relief for the two of us. Rest to see what happens to my furniture – maybe she will want some of it, or else I’ll just sell it here at the beginning of May. 

Talking of our place, that is definitely one of my favourite things in Montreal and I’m really sad to let it go. It is simply perfect, especially for Indian dinner parties…

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