Our big break came when Dr. Jim Clark, Director of Humanities Extention at NC State, invited us to conduct cultural research in Petrozavodsk for his textbook publications. Most of our friends and family, who have limited knowledge of Russian life, questioned our decision. Why would we travel to a country in turmoil for our spring break?

We threw our travel planning into high gear! Our first stop was the local copy shop for passport and visa photos. Russia is one of the few counties that still requires Americans to get a visa. A passport allows travelers to leave their country and travel all over the world. A visa is an additional document required by some countries to monitor the dates of your visit.

Next it was off to the post office to apply for a passport and on to the doctors office for our shots -- tetanus, TB test, and a Hepatitis A vaccine.

It was time to pack for our trip. It might have been springtime in North Carolina but in Russia, we could expect weather like that of northern Canada and Alaska. We would have to carry our own luggage so we packed lightly. We were sure to leave extra room in our suitcases for "thank-you" gifts for our host families.

Three days before our departure, our airline tickets arrived. If the impending trip hadn't seemed real before, it certainly did now.

Can you imagine how excited we were the night before our tip? It's exactly how you feel before the first day of school. We certainly didn't get much sleep and arrived extra early at the airport terminal the next morning. It wasn't long before we were on our way to JFK Airport in New York City where we would catch our flight across the Atlantic Ocean to Helsinki, Finland and then on to St. Petersburg, Russia.