Author: mbottcher24

Today was my last day in Russia. I made lots of friends and had so much fun. I’d like to thank everyone who helped make this trip possible, as well as the instructors and my classmates who came along on the trip. You guys made it awesome.

The architecture of the Saint Petersburg stadium was really unique. It looked like a UFO had landed right on the island that the stadium was located on. It was also interesting that usually when you are near stadiums you can hear he crowd but this one you couldn’t. The stadium was completely sealed with doors from the sides, with the only opening of the stadium coming from the top. Inside it was a massive display, where every seats was a good seat in the house.

The nights in Saint Petersburg really are “White Nights”. I can’t remember a time where I truly saw the sun go down, nor did I see a time where there were not a lot of people out. The picture above was takin at 1am, yet the sky is still lit and the people of Saint Petersburg are still out and about.

Tonight was the last night at our neighborhood bar. We met a very nice man named Simon who helped us navigate the city, but also gave us several taste tests of foods at the bar. We were there almost every night watching the soccer matches on the projector. Glad we had a neighborhood place so close to our hotel!

Today my friend Kevin introduced me to his animals. He had one monkey and one raccoon! Scary. People pay to take pictures with the animals. My classmate Giuliana got scared when they put the raccoon on her arm. I would be terrified too!

When I first arrived in Moscow I was all alone. I needed to take two metros to arrive at my hotel and I was pretty nervous. I could hardly speak Russian and reading it was even more of a struggle. Through navigating the stations and asking people questions I noticed how beautiful the different stations are. Metro stations had pieces of art, and sometimes marble lined stations displaying different pieces of history. The Moscow Metro opened in 1935, and was originally used to enact propaganda among the Soviet Union, showing a bright future through the murals and busts of Soviet heroes. Each station looked different and I loved taking the metro because it was also very reliable.

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We had the opportunity to visit the Visa hotel in our last full day in Moscow. We walked through and like the Bud hotel, the hotel was completely rebranded to fit Visas mentality. Everywhere you look you could see blue, a trademark of Visa, with the rest of the hotel being very clean and modern. Our guide told us that Visa is in fact a technology company, and hey really showed that off in the hotel. Above is one of my classmates participating in an augmented reality machine. He even scored high enough that he won a replica match ball!

I was honored to have the once in a life time opportunity to attend the Mexico vs Germany match along with Lisa. She was able to secure hospitality VIP tickets through her friend David at Wanda. We were able to attend the hospitality center outside of the stadium where sponsors and partners such as McDonalds, Bud, Wanda and Adidas all had rooms specified for them. We were able to speak with some representatives with Wanda and talk to them about their day to day business along with their duties here in Russia. I also had the opportunity to speak with a few Wanda representatives in German, and talking to them about their background and how they got the job. After mingling for a bit, we went inside and enjoyed the VIP service provided by the stadium, which was really a once in a life time experience. The atmosphere was unlike anything I've ever experienced and I look forward to attending more games in the future.