Как здорово! Россия!

Lots of Stuff Happened That I Don't Have Time/Energy To Write About

2008-01-25T07:18:00.000-08:00

So I sort of ended last time with us getting to Moscow on the train from Piter.

I'm back in Moscow.

But in between those stops in Moscow, lots of stuff happened. I'm not going to write about it though.

Anyways, got on a train in Irkutsk on Monday. Got off in Moscow on Thursday. It was sort of a long time. Mainly I told a lot of different people a lot of lies about myself. It was a good time. One babyshka even believes that am Russian and live in Moscow with my mother and brother in our 2-room apartment. Brilliant!

So now I am in Moscow till my flight back to the U.S. on Monday afternoon.

Today I found an ice rink on the 7th floor of a shopping mall in Moscow. In the middle of the rink is a bar. Not like a bar. But A BAR. Where they serve drinks and shit. I love this country!

Also Red Square is blocked off. I didn't know why. Didn't feel like asking the hordes of policemen everywhere. I just found the answer. Good work google.ru Because there is a costume ball on the ice rink in honor of the final episode of Tatianin Den'.

Nothing else important to say.

часть первая

2008-01-13T21:04:00.000-08:00

So I’m going to go back and try to fill in the blanks/holes/novels worth of stuff that happened that I didn’t have time to write about in amazing Novosibirsk basement internet cafe.

Right now I am sitting in Sonya’s cozy little room on the 7th floor of a stately and majestic apartment building in Irkutsk. Yes. We made it.

So we were in Helsinki with Laurel from January 3-7. Finland is a very orderly place. There is not garbage on the streets. All of the people walk around saying “Hey” to each other because “Hey” means “Hello.” But it is a very short and abrupt “Hey” and it is very strange when there are grandmothers in the grocery store saying “Hey” to each other. Also we got really good at saying “Hey” and so the people at the grocery store would speak to us in Finnish and not English.

Speaking of English, everyone in Finland seems to speak English. I guess if your language only allowed you to communicate with 6 million people, it might be useful to know a second language.

Enough about orderly, stately, and majestic Finland. Back to Russia.

We took an 8 hr. train from Helsinki to Piter. The train was full of Russians rejoicing about the beauty of the motherland once we crossed the border. Then there was a small russian boy who refused to praise the motherland because he was too busy shooting people with the toy pistol and telling everyone that he wanted to eat a sandwich. He was pretty awesome.

Arrival in Saint Petersburg at approximately 2 p.m. Only 23 hours until our train leaves for Moscow! So we walked around for a long time and, actually I don’t really remember what we did. We went to McDonalds and I ate a BigMac. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Later when I was dying of meat poisoning or something, it didn’t seem like such a great idea. So then we bought tickets for the night tour which began at 11:15 and ended at 5:30 a.m. So it’s sort of like a hotel except somehow a narration of St. Petersburg will occur for five hours. Oh man. This was complete misery. Maybe if I hadn’t been completely exhausted and freezing cold the whole time, it would have been enjoyable. But I was cold and sort of drifted in and out of crappy sleep for five hours. The first hour was good. Susanna and I had just eaten blini and drank tea and I had bought chocolate and ice cream. So we were pretty awake. Oh yes. That building IS quite interesting. The tour guide was a little too over the top. Sort of like an auctioneer person who just talks way way way too fast. And on the left...and on the right...and on the left...Pushkin...Pushkin....on the left....Leningrad Blockade...on the right....on the left...Pushkin...etc. Exhausting. Every once in a while she would begin reciting poetry. In a very strange, deep, eerie voice. It was so out of control.

At some point, Susanna and I stopped exiting the bus when it would stop for picture taking opportunities and just slept. Except I would still wake up every once in a while, completely shivering (half of this was due to actual cold, half due to BigMac meat poisoning). Whenever I woke up, we were in the same exact stop we had been in last time. At least that’s what it seemed like. Or else maybe all of the damn buildings and canals look the same at 4 a.m. Also there was a cafe stop at 2 a.m. Susanna took a picture of me drinking my chai. I look like I am about to die. Very flattering. Some of the other tour bus rider people went not for chai, but shots of vodka. We were on the bus for a really long time. The tour guide was CRAZY. Then the tour ended at 5:30 in the morning.

Metro opens at 6. Train leaves at 13:00. Only like 7 hours left. We decided our bar/cafe hopping which we had done the night before before the tour began could not continue. First of all, it’s expensive. Second of all, eating all the time is enjoyable up to a certain point, but after that point just becomes miserable. Especially when you’re eating BigMac’s or cake or other useless food. But we did go to one cafe. And I ate cake. It was good. There were bums hassling the manager because he wouldn’t let them hang out in the cafe or something. This was only the beginning of our growing relationship with the quality Russian bum population. Then we rode the St. Petersburg green line metro from one end to the other. Cold and tiredness to an extreme level. I always thought it was cool when everyone sits there on the metro with their eyes closed until their stop is announced and they open their eyes and gather themselves to carry on with their lives. Oh man. I sat there with my eyes closed because it was essentially physically impossible to open them due to above stated cold and tiredness. It was so miserable. But the whole time it was actually just really funny. In a way that soon, (like now) we will look back and lack at how ridiculous and miserable and funny the whole experience was.

No one really wants to read about Susanna and I being homeless in Piter. Just wait ‘til we’re homeless in Kazan. So quickly, I shall finish up Piter. Then we got off the metro and walked to a grocery store to buy groceries for the trains Piter to Moscow and Moscow to Kazan. While we were walking to the grocery store, there was a huge patch of ice. We both slipped and like hugely fell and landed on the ground on top of each other. Misery. Bought groceries. Went back to train station. Only 3.5 hours before train leaves. Sat in the blini restaurant called “Teaspoon” for a really long time. Drank tea. Peaked in my ailments as a result of BigMac consumption. Extreme shivering and just like coldness to the core. Me being eternally cold might not be related to me eating the BigMac. It could be related to the fact that it is winter in Russia. And thus, cold. Oh well. Not important.

Got on the train to Moscow.

Helsinki-Piter-Moscow-Kazan-Novosibirsk

2008-01-12T02:28:00.000-08:00

Something should be written. This underground internet cafe is full of teenage Russian boys playing Warcraft III and just generally taking over the entire place. I'm in Novosibersk. The past, I don't know how long it's been... Well, we left Helsinki on Monday morning. And now it's Saturday evening.

БЕЗ СЛОВ. As in, even if I had all the time in the world, I would never come up with the right words to explain the past week.

Highlights:

We abandoned the all night internet cafe option in Piter (so I'm sorry for those people I promised long e-mails to and never recieved them). We bought tickets on a 6 hr. night tour of St. Petersburg. Which was originally concieved as a way to see the city during the White Nights of summer (as in it's almost always daylight). Well, winter nights are not really optimable for sight seeing. Especially when you're already exhausted, like EXHAUSTED, like EXHAUSTED. Anyways, we rode on a bus for 6 hours around Piter. I swear every time I woke up we were looking at the same god damn street and the old, but extremely energetic and LOUD tourguide was reciting some ridiculous Pushkin poem.

The bus abandoned us at 5:30. So then it was a rough 7 hours till our train left for Moscow. I don't really remember what we did. At one point, tired of walking from cafe to cafe and drinking endless amounts of tea, we got on the green metro line and rode it from one end to the other. It was miserable.

Train: Piter to Moscow

Train Stations in Moscow: Our train never showed up on the list of departing trains. Like we thought the train didn't exist.

**Intermission: This stately and majestic tall Russian woman in heels and a long shuba is trying to wake up the drunk man asleep at the computer surrounded by empty Baltika beer bottles because she paid for internet on that computer. The man really isn't moving anywhere. I think she found another free computer in the nest of teenage Warcraft players.**

So we ran around the train station asking people if our train existed. And they kept saying it did, but it was still never displayed on the board. Also during this time, while I was buying return train tickets from Irkutsk to Moscow, Susanna befriended some bums.

Then our train really did exist. It was just FULL of school kids. And then this was the greatest train ever because we were going to sleep (IN A BED!!!!!!) for the first time since leaving Helsinki. The train was FULL of school kids. Right. I already said that. And then like an hour into the ride. They all had to change wagons (train cars) so there was an endless marching of children through our wagon. And they all looked at us, as if we were the weirdo's. No. You are members of a freaking endless children's army marching through the train. You are the weirdo's. Also the middle aged Russian woman chaperoning the kids hated us. Most middle aged Russian woman glare at me a lot. I wonder why.

Running out of time.

So then we took the train from Moscow to Kazan and slept in a freaking bed. Then we got to Kazan and it was... -20 Celsius. Which is just plain cold. And we were homeless for like 7 hours until our next train left at 2 a.m.

So we just loitered about for a long time. Susanna and I are really good at this now. It was cold. We went to the Kremlin and the central shopping center place and then to dinner and then bought food for the train and then back to the train station. And then further craziness occured which may or may not be recorded at a later date. And then we got on our train from Kazan to Novgorod.

Kazan to Novosibirsk.

Now we're in Novosibirsk. This morning when we were kicked out of our hotel at 7 a.m. because we didn't want to pay more money it was -28 Celsius. COLD. So now we have wandered about for a long time and spent like 4 hours in the Novosibirsk Regional Studies Museum. And now I think we are going to dinner and probably going to sit there for a VERY LONG TIME. And then our train leaves tonight. And we'll be in Irkutsk Monday morning.

There is a mass migration of all the Russian boys who just finished their Warcraft games. Except a bunch of new boys just showed up. There is so much handshaking occuring amongst them it is ridiculous.

Helsinki, Finland

2008-01-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

Well. I'm not in Russia. I'm in Helsinki, Finland. Susanna and I took a brief break from Russia to meet Laurel who spent the semester studying in Paris. But we're going back to Russia tomorrow. If they let us past the customs control and border guards.

Important Observations About Finland

1. In Finland, they don't speak Russian or English. They speak a crazy language. It is called Finnish. As far as I can tell, every letter begins with H and is like 8 billion letters long and has long streams of a's all joined together. Example of a Finnish word. Haaalaaajkaaaamaaaanjaaaaa

2. I have now ridden on the most northern most metro in the world. Helsinki is the proud owner/location of such a metro. It only has one line. Also the cars are all bright orange. It was awesome.

3. Also this has nothing to do with Helsinki, but if anyone is ever going to be in Piter you need to stay at the Crazy Duck Hostel because that is the GREATEST place EVER. And by greatest, I mean craziest. And I was telling Susanna that they needed to divide the sleeping arrangements organized by insanity level and then we realized they probably did divide the hostel by insanity level and were placed in the crazy room. Crazy.

4. We saw some churches in Helsinki. They were stately and majestic. One of them is called the "rock church" and it is underground awesomeness. There's also a very pretty Russian Orthodox church on top of a hill.

5. We were multiple times mistaken for being both Finnish and even Russian. Some guy in this huge underground mall asked us in russian if we spoke russian. Because we look so russian with our coats and boots and stylish russian-ness. Awesome moment number 1. And then the waitress at the restaurant talked to us for like 3 minutes in Finnish and we all smiled and nodded and then she came back and kept speaking Finnish and then we ordered. And she said "Wow, you don't speak Finnish." And we said "No." And then she said "And I just went on and on speaking in Finnish to you." And we said "Yes." Awesome moment number 2. And then I tried to pronounce some italian pasta dish thing, and Laurel and Susanna laughed at my failure.

6. Also Susanna and I bought ice cream and ate it on the street when it was like negative 1 billion degrees which it always is. Which is like completely only a thing that Russian people do. So that was awesome. And all the hearty Finns looked at us.

7. Susanna likes to remind us that Finns are very hearty. They're also friendly. And very Finnish. But mostly hearty.

8. They also do nordic walking which means they stride about the city with nordic ski poles. Strange. Yes. A hearty, finnish activity. Most definitely.

9. Tomorrow night the Crazy Duck Hostel is full. So Susanna and I have planned our night in Piter to include depositing of luggage in luggage lockers at the train station, then wandering until it gets dark or cold, then going to McDonalds till like 2 a.m., then going to internet cafe from like 2 till 6, then going back to the train station and leaving for Moscow. I wonder what kind of people hang out in a 24 hour internet cafe on Nevski Prospekt at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. I will soon be able to tell you.

Novgorod and Piter

2008-01-01T09:28:00.000-08:00

So last blog entry was lame. I fear the same will be said of this entry. Um. We rode the elektrickha to Novgorod. So it stopped like every approximately half second in the middle of nowhere so that some drunk man or crazy grandmother could get on or off. There were a lot of both drunk men and crazy grandmothers on the elektrichka. One of the crazy grandmothers talked to Susanna. She was crazy. Another of the grandmothers decided she needed to call every single person whose phone number she had and wish them a happy new years in a VERY LOUD VOICE! So then we got to Novgorod. And found our hotel. And I went to buy us water. And I walked past the shaslik cafe which had a disco ball and lots of drunk dancing occurring. I also walked past a store called “The World of Belarusian Cosmetics.” Then on Friday we went and wandered around the Kremlin which is very old and stately and majestic. And there was lots of wind blowing and snow whirling and cold ness occuring. It was pretty cool. Then we went in this church thingy. Susanna says it is properly translated as “The Church of the Holy Wisdom.” It was big and old and had lots of icons and stuff. Wow, this is such descript writing I’m doing. I guess if I knew more about art or icons or religion or really any sort of general cultural knowledge it might have more of an impact on me. But anyways. I don’t know anything about these things.

Then we went to a museum. And Susanna got yelled at for having her nose too close to the display case. This is the most brilliant thing ever. We were just generally frowned at by lots of grandmother/guard women. There was an icon section of the museum. Oh man. I am tired of icons. So I sort of looked at some of them. I also made myself read all of the explanations in Russian so that it would take longer. I also strategically placed myself so that the grandmother/guard women could not see both Susanna and I at the same time. Which caused them to freak out and do their absolute best to reposition themselves so they could see us at the same time or else do some secret code signal thing so that another nearby grandmother/guard women would move her position to be able to watch me and then the first one could concentrate on keeping Susanna at a safe distance from the display cases. Then we went to another church. And we crossed the footbridge over the river in a huge whirling snow storm and it was awesome. And the other church was very old and deserted and had the only remaining icons/paintings/artwork of Theophanes the Greek (Woohoo! I know something!) Anyways. I liked it better. Because it wasn’t trying hard. And it wasn’t full of people. Actually Susanna and I were the only ones there.

Then we tried to find a cafe. Except one cafe had only food and no tea. Another had only drinks and no food. A third had both on the menu but then the women told us they didn’t have tea. Hello. We are in Russia. How do you not have tea? Then a fourth had a coat room guy who I saw when I was halfway through the door and so we immediately abandoned that plan. If there is a coat room at the restaurant, that place is way above our budget. Also sometimes at the really fancy places, the coat room man puts your coat on you. Those places are especially expensive. And especially out of our budget guidelines. Anyways we abandoned fourth cafe with coat man. Then fifth cafe which had everything we wanted except then the waitress told us they didn’t have blini. But we were tired of looking. Plus the only other people in the little cafe was a wedding party of like 8 people. And I really wanted to eat in the cafe with the nevesta. I am obsessed with brides now. It is very strange. One time in Moscow at Victory Park there were 6 of them just wandering around near the statue monument thing. It was so awesome. There is a super secret picture of me taken there with like 3 different brides in the background. Also sometimes they have little mini white shuba (fur coats) that are pretty dang cool.

Nothing else important happened in Novgorod. We took the train to Piter on Saturday morning. Found the Crazy Duck Hostel. Which has turned out to be like the CRAZIEST place ever. I could literally write a book about the crazy shit that goes down here. Actually now that I try to write, I’m not sure what to say. We are in a room with 8 beds. At least 3 different people are guaranteed to be sleeping at any given time. Which means the room is always not lit. Which means the level of byez poryadok (mess) is completely ridiculous. Like at any given time people are sleeping. It is RIDICULOUS. There are people from Finland who sleep all day and party all night. Except the one snores. Like REALLY loud. Like it is impossible to sleep. IMPOSSIBLE. So you just have to hope that you have gotten enough sleep while he has been out partying and so when he returns at like 8 a.m. and begins to snore it will be okay that it is impossible for you to sleep. Also there are people from Brazil. The boy is ALWAYS in bed. Or in the hostel. I’m not sure if he ever really leaves the hostel. Like seriously. Also there are Ukrainians who are very, very nice and know way more about America then Susanna and I combined. I don’t have a favorite NBA team. I don’t know anything about Sequois National Park. I know little about Mexican immigrants in California. Who is my favorite American actor? I don’t know. Not Tom Cruise. What is my favorite band? Is Nirvana popular in America? What about The Doors? Sometimes we try to ask questions about Ukraine, but I don’t really know enough to form any sort of intelligent question. But they really are very, very nice. Then there are also a large number of completely out of control Australians who are not staying in our room but they just sort of take over the kitchen/rest of the hostel. They are I would say very drunk very a lot of the time. They’re just complete loons. This paragraph has very inadequately conveyed the insanity of this hostel. There are also some other people. The Australians think they are French. I think they are Russian. So we’re not really sure.

In Piter we have...
-wandered around for a long time in the rainy muck looking for internet and grocery stores.
-gone to the Russian Museum which was very big and stately and majestic and full of priceless cultural art masterpieces which I know nothing about. But the palace it is housed in was pretty awesome. Actually I spent most of the time looking at the ceililngs in the different rooms. The rest of the people really were missing out by focusing on the actual art and not the awesome gold ceiling. One of the rooms had really pretty red walls and then the gold ceiling stuff. Also my general rule for appreciation of art is the bigger it is, the better it is. This is a very incorrect appreciation. After all, the small art requires fine hand control and delicate brush technique. But the big art is where it’s at. Go big or go home.
-went to one of the neighboring palaces with the 3 Ukrainians and wandered the grounds for a really long time.
-stood on Nevski Prospekt and listened to Putin’s New Year’s address to the country and was surrounded by like 8 trillion people and fireworks and lots of hooligan-ness. I would say без слов. It was pretty great.
-Today we found the Chijik Pijik statue. And wandered more about Nevskii. And saw the rink on Palace Square. And ate blini.

And tomorrow I think we are going to the Hermitage to further my art education and deep insights about brush technique. And maybe the PeterPaul fortress thingy. And then on Thursday we are leaving for Helsinki. The Finn man (in like the one time in which we were both awake at the same time) told us it is a very expensive city. Woot Woot!

Also Dimitri Medvedev is 5 foot 4. This is very funny. You should laugh.

Neither Stately Nor Majestic

2007-12-31T01:30:00.000-08:00

Um. My interest in blogging has decreased now that I have lost my home. I liked having a home and a life in Russia. Now I'm just a tourist. And while that might seem more interesting to most people. I don't like it. I liked having a place. So yes.

We left Moscow.
We got to Yaroslavl.
We did stuff in Yaroslavl. Margarita made us a chocolate cake for Christmas. We went to a Loko game. We walked along the Volga. We probably did other things which I forgot about.
We left Yaroslavl.
There was a crying baby in our plats-kart compartment of the train.
We got to Piter.
We were in the train station for a long time. Susanna and I don't talk about that day in the train station any more. We wiped it from our memories.
We went to Novgorod.
We survived for two days without tea and eating/drinking condensed milk sometimes with cheese, or apples, or crackers, or with canned corn. Plus Snickers.
Novgorod was very pretty. and cold. and calm. Like alarmingly calm and unchaotic.

Then we did other things in Novgorod. And now we are in Piter. Now we are leaving with some people from the Ukraine to go to one of the huge palaces outside of Piter.

Good bye
Happy New Year to all!

Moscow

2007-12-22T12:48:00.000-08:00

Moscow is .......

big. like huge. like really really really huge.
an eternal traffic jam.
expensive.
way more America/Europe/civilized-ness than the rest of Russia

There are probably other important things to say about Moscow. Mainly I can’t get over how big it is. It’s huge. Something like 14 million people. I don’t know. Highly alarming.

A brief rundown of the past week:
Left Yaroslavl on Monday morning. It was sort of a relief to go. I had just been dreading it so much that it was okay to get in the car and drive away. This ease of leaving was actually because I knew I would be returning to Yaroslavl in like a week. So yes. Then the driver decided that he was going to take a smoking break like approximately every 5 minutes. Not really. But there were lots of smoking breaks. So we were sort of way behind on arrival into Moscow. Which meant I was taken straight to the hostel/ straight to the general area of the hostel where both driver and I carried/pulled/dragged about my suitcases trying to find the mysterious hostel which we eventually did find. This has already become much too long and detailed. Arrived at hostel. Then Susanna got there. Then we went to Red Square. I like Red Square. Then we went to this hipster bar with Eddie and Sarah (from summer school) and tried not to spend all of our money. Mainly we spend all of our time trying not to spend all of our money. Mainly it always fails because Moscow (as listed above) is expensive. Moving on.

Tuesday:
Train tickets to Helsinki for Susanna and I have been purchased. We were helpfully yelled at by many different people. We were in the wrong train station, then we were not at the international ticket counter, then we were at the correct ticket counter but we incorrectly understood that there was only one line which was waiting for two different windows instead of two lines waiting separately for the two windows (there were definitely two different lines), then we were yelled at because other people had gotten tired of standing in line so they were now sitting, but they wanted to make sure we understood that we were actually behind them in line even though they were now sitting, then we were pleaded with by a woman from Belarus because she needed to change her train ticket in an emergency, then we were yelled at by sitting woman because we had let the Belarus woman cut in front of us but not told the Belarus woman that she was actually behind the sitting woman and not the man in line, then we were yelled at by the ticket woman because there are apparently no trains returning from Helsinki to Piter on the 7. I’m not sure if we were actually “yelled” at . I think in the U.S. it might count as yelling. Or at least not very friendly or polite and dismissive commands. But it’s the sort of the thing that is the standard quo in Russia. I like it. It’s just sort of openly brutal. It makes me feel like “me against the world.” So ticket buying to Helsinki was this game that began 3 weeks ago with emailing about buses, and then became attempted purchasing in Yaroslavl (for me successful) purchasing in Irkutsk for Susanna (unsuccessful), and finally culminated in successful purchasing in Moscow. It’s just a big game. If you can’t see it as a big game, you might want to kill yourself with how frustrating the whole process is. But really it’s just a huge challenge. I don’t know how I will deal with life in the U.S. when buying train tickets involves going on the internet and typing in a credit card number and an address where the tickets will be mailed to. It will be so much less climatic. I won’t be allowed to lose sleep for weeks and procrastinate ticket buying because of how scared I am of train stations and then finally go and have to bravely fight for a place in line and etc....Yeh. That got way out of control.

Other things on Tuesday:
Went to the большой театр (Bolshoi Theatr). Is it always translated to english as the Bolshoi or is it translated as the «Big Theatre» because it if is translated as the «Big Theatre», then that is lame. Then we found ridiculous shopping malls full of like 2000 rouble scarves and perfume and the sort of frivolity and excessive money that I sort of forgot about. I guess I didn't forget about it. But I liked that it doesn't really exist in Yaroslavl. Moscow malls are stately and majestic. They have escalators and heat and a general level of classiness and sophistication that doesn't exist in Yaroslavl. We also found the Masaratti and Ferraris store. That was a good success.

Wednesday:
We went to a cemetery. It was stately and majestic. Like most things in Moscow. There was also a nearby pond. It was pretty. Did more wandering about Red Square. Got lost and found the neither stately nor majestic statue of Peter on the river. It is really just alarming. I feel like our time in Moscow has been less dominated by a huge list of necessary museums and more dominated by random riding of the metro to stations which I sort of remember reading about in Lonely Planet and then sort of wandering about looking for something which might be of importance. I mean the museums are important to. But I like the people. I like that life is everywhere and you just get completely caught up in how many people there and ...I don't know where this thought is going, so I'm going to abandon it.

Thursday:
Tretyakovskaya Gallery where I was once again embarassed by my lack of knowledge of really anything about Russia. Not that I really know anything about art in America. I know the Mona Lisa is important. That has nothing to do with America. I remember walking very fast through the Louvre with Emily to find the Mona Lisa. Okay moving on. We went to Sparrow Hills and walked through the forest/park in the evening snow and it was nice. We found the huge staduim that they built for the 1980 Olympics. And this ski tower thing which I think is used for aerial ski jumping or whatever Eric Bergoust does. But I don't understand because it would sort of lauch the skier into either the river or like the roof of the Lijinki stadium building. Then we read the sign and discovered there was lessons on specific days and so that is the most ridiculolus thing ever and so we spent long amounts of time completely not understanding if it was possible for an actual normal person to pay an unspecificied amount of money and fling himself off the huge ski tower jump thing and land in some unspecificed location. So yes.

Friday:
Kremlin. There were churches and icons and a real live yolka except I guess the fact that was cut down means it wasn't «live» but still it was like a complete tree instead of just being patched together on like a steel frame. And then I tried to be the translater for this tourist who was mistakenly buying Chinese post cards. I'm not sure why they sell postcards of Chinese art in the Moscow Kremlin. But they do. And he just looked around hopelessly as the woman yelled at him saying «китайские открытки» And then in his limited english, he told me he wanted to buy the miniature cannon. And then I told the saleswoman. But she didn't have change for his 1000 roubles. Which is sort of understandable. Then we dug through his wallet and found 500 roubles. The cannon cost 150 roubles. Anything over 100 roubles can be paid for with a 500. That is my rule. However saleswoman kept yelling at us that she had no change but that she could take a credit card. Then the poor man thanked me in his sort of english and defeatedly walked away. It was all very sad.

Saturday: (today)
I just realized there are like 800 other important things we did in Moscow. But I don't feel like going back and adding them.

Side note: The host/owner of the hostel is this amazing man. Who just sort of sits around and then engages in fights with young men about the internet or computers. Actually this is like the craziest hostel ever. It is so out of control. It's also very un-understood whether actual tourists stay here or just that the hostel is full of Russians who are somehow employed by the owner/host man. I don't know. It's ridiculous. Also it is somehow afficilated with the most ridiculous mode-ish cafe ever in the history of the world. There's just lots of black and white boxy furniture and tv screens which silently show like artsy slideshows of very strange artsy pictures. It's so weird. Sometimes we go eat breakfast there. The people at the hostel have told us this is allowed. However the people at the restaurant always give us the most exasperated looks whenever we arrive. also sometimes we see the woman who is always cleaning at the restaurant emerge from this secret room in the hostel. It's so ridiculous, I don't even know what to say. So then this morning we went to the restaurant and it was covered in confetti and the server girl just gave us the most pathetic laugh ever and said that they had been busy all night and that we should come back later for breakfast. But instead we ran away and will not be coming back. There is no way anyone will understand how crazy the hostel and the restuarant are. Oh well. Also in the stairway to the restaurant there is the creepiest green faced halloween dummy man and I was scared for my life the first time I saw him. And he is still the most sketchy thing ever.

We went to a museum about Tolstoy. We went to a Gruzincki (Georgian) restaurant. There was some sort of meat item that cost 4,000 roubles. We did not order that. We went to Victory Park and saw a lot of brides walking around. There were 6 of them at one point. I never thought I would need the genetive plural to talk about the шесть невест.

Then we came back and ate dinner and drank tea. We do a lot of tea drinking these days. Mainly because whenever we enter the hostel we are asked by the owner man if we have замерзли (frozen) and instructed to drink lots of tea. But the tea bags are free. So I don't complain.

Tomorrow we are taking the train from Moscow to Yaroslavl. There is sure to be quite a welcoming feast upon our arrival. I can only imagine how excited Margarita will be to have two students who she needs to be feeding. She already asked me if Susanna is big or small. Because if Susanna was big that would mean the extra cot wouldn't be acceptable for a sleeping place and then Susanna and I would have to take over the main room/Margarita's room for sleeping and Margarita would sleep in my room. But thankfully I answered that Susanna is small so I will be allowed to sleep in my bed and Susanna will be given the cot in my room and everything will work out. I don't know what we're doing in Yaroslavl. Going to watch Loko on Monday. I hope. Taking a bus to a nearby town on Tuesday where the Kremlin is really pretty and they films lots of historical movies there. I don't know what Wednesday. Probably eating a lot of food from Margarita before we are then on our way to Piter and back to a diet which consists of Snickers bars, ice cream, pasta which is always very al dente because of the lack of proper cooking stove appliances, and alarming tomato sauce which is actually more tomato paste but we try to pretend that it was a good purchase so we eat it anyways.

An Abby Favorite (List Making)

2007-12-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

Things I will Miss

This is not a serious list. I refuse to make a serious list of things I will miss. But these are things I will miss (well some of them are).

Marshrutkas. They are essentially the greatest thing ever. I think I might take a picture of my favorite #91. However, this will be an undercover picture taking operation. As in I will go make Susanna stand somewhere so that she is located by some sort of famous thing (достопримечательность) and by a marshrutka. And then the people will think I am taking a picture of the girl by the statue but I am actually taking a picture of the marshrutka which is parked on the street next to the girl and the statue. Yes. Brilliant idea. I know.

Russian MTV. At some point, you would think I would recover from my MTV deprived childhood and stop being obsessed with MTV. However that point has never come. I really like Russian MTV. Mainly the music videos. Except not the Britney Spears music video. Or the пятьдесть центов (Fi’ty) and J.T. music video (Ayo Technology). Both of those videos are alarming. Anyways I will miss Russian MTV. Half of the songs are in English anyways. Either because they are actually American or British performers. Or because they are Russian stars trying to make the jump to western celebrity status. Oh Dima!

Related to MTV. My American readers. Is there a song called Destination Unknown that you have ever heard? Because they play that song all the time on Russian MTV. It is in English. It is a very alarming song. And a more alarming music video in which all the women march about in slutty green marching band outfits.

I will miss the fact that the Russian language comes alive in Russia. Oh man. So lame and cliché and like, DUH. But I don’t know. I remember during summer school, how artificial it seemed to force myself not to read in English. I never thought about the fact that in Russia there’s hundreds/thousands/lots of bookstores full of books which are all in Russian. There’s no artificiality in functioning (trying to function) in Russian. They even have crappy tabloid magazines in the kiosks about all the latest Russian celebrity gossip.

I will miss Алла Пугачёва when I return to the U.S. She is so awesome.

Related to #4. I have pretty much been functioning under the language pledge for like the past 7 months. Which means my Russian is better (I hope) and my English is bad. The only English language I encounter is my grammer-less blogging and e-mail writing. And sometimes spoken English with my Russian friends who are worse at English than I am at Russian. Like where verb conjugation doesn’t exist. I’m pretty sure I will retain my speaking and reading abilities quickly, but writing papers will be hard. Also during the magic (English) weekend of summer school, even though we were speaking English, I would always just automatically say что? instead of What?. I hope that happens again when I return to the English speaking world. Or I will say чего. I don’t know why I like it so much when people say чего instead of что. Like why is there the need to decline the word into the genitive case. Seriously. It makes me so happy when people say чего!

Today Margarita got a Christmas card from the parents of a student she hosted a long time ago. Enclosed was a picture of the girl, Erin and her husband at their wedding. They were standing next to a Rolls Royce at a castle in England. But that’s not important. It just seems comical how far away that is from the dirty streets of Yaroslavl. (I will miss the dirty streets). So I was enlisted to translate the card to Margarita from English to Russian. So I did that. I felt accomplished. Then Margarita’s friend came over and Margarita shows her the card and picture. And explains that Erin вышла. Which makes sense but there’s a second part of the phrase (замуж= wife) which is apparently optional. It was funny. I can’t explain it. Then the friend looks at photo: «она вышла за НЕГРО?» As in, she married A BLACK PERSON. Also are we allowed to say “negro” in America. It’s only the other n-word that is bad right? But I feel like you’re not really allowed to say “negro” either. So that was funny.

I will miss my fierce independence. I am very proud of my ability to turn what was initially loneliness into so called “fierce independence.” At some point, one of the girls on the basketball team asked if I had come here alone. And I said, “No, there are 7 other American students with me.” And then she asked if I knew any of them before I came. And I said “No.” And then I tried to explain that I had friends who were studying in Irkutsk. Which is true. Susanna and Eddie and Natalie and Ivan are all in Irkutsk. Irkutsk is Russia so that is sort of reassuring. At the same time, Irkutsk is 5 time zones from Yaroslavl. Like, they are far away. 5 time zones is huge. That’s like practically the span of the whole U.S (I think N.Y. to Hawaii is 6 time zones?). And then I realized I was actually pretty far away from people. So yes. I’m glad I turned that potential bad thing, into something that gave me a lot of courage to figure out simple things about Russia (buying hockey tickets, train tickets, hotel reservations) and at the same time figure out lots of things about myself and what I’m supposed to do with my life and what I’m supposed to believe and …

Comment about dubbing. If you’re going to dub the damn film/television show, just completely cut out the first language and replace it with Russian. I hate it when there is English still audible in the background. It’s so confusing to try to make myself listen to the Russian when I can almost hear what they are saying in English. So yes that’s annoying. Also I got over the fact that I used to be annoyed when the mouths didn’t match up with what the people were saying. Probably this is a totally American thing. Like are English speaking countries, the only places where rarely are there shows/ads dubbed in from another language (i.e. it’s all originally produced in English). Actually I don’t know. I know lots of American things are dubbed into Russian. There is also a fair amount of French and German stuff. A while ago there even appeared some television ad for a car dubbed from either Japanese or Chinese. Also there is this new yogurt product called “Beauty.” The whole television ad and product is completely Russian except it’s called “Beauty.” Are more people actually going to buy the product because it’s an English named product? I would buy a yogurt called Красота. In fact, I would buy a yogurt called Красота before I would buy one called “Beauty.” It’s also said in this male, but breathy pronunciation of “Beauty.”

Why do they pick the worst possible American programs to dub into Russian. The more I type “dub,” the stranger a word it seems to me. That’s totally a Russian construction that I subconsciously translated into English! (мне кажется). Anyways, who decided My Sweet Sixteen needed to be broadcast to a Russian audience? Tonight on MTV there was some sort of dating show where the girl was having dinner with her two suitors and the two men got into some heated argument. And you can hear them in both quiet English and loud Russian. Ты меня не знаешь! Что ты сказал! (You don’t know me! What did you say!) And then the men start throwing their drinks at each other. And the girl just sits there in the middle of the chaos. And the camera men start restraining the men from attacking each other as they continue to yell at each other in amazingly translated Russian. It was so brilliant. I will miss that.

Lokomotiv. Oh man. Loko is so awesome. I don’t think I would ever get tired of it. The woman at the ticket office giving her exasperated sigh when I approach the window. Every time she makes sure I still want only one ticket. (Hopefully next week, I will be able to pleasantly surprise her and buy tickets for both Susanna and I). The thrill of the overcrowded marshrutka and the traffic jams getting to the arena. The mass of smoking and drinking hooligans outside the arena. The Russian national anthem (Surreal. Every single time). The hockey. The cheers. And taunting of the officials. I wish I could figure out the actual words they say. Goals. Power plays. Penalty shots. Oh man. It’s so BRILLIANT. I wonder if they would give me a work visa to come back to Russia and drive the zamboni at Arena? And hang out with the 50 yr. old Russian men who drive the zamboni’s. Also I could possibly become one of the cheerleader girls. Although that is on the bottom of the list of possible ways to return to Russia. Also I could become the mascot. He just skates around in a huge costume being a loon. I feel fully qualified for such employment.

I wonder if I have to change how I dress when I come back to Midd. I wonder if when I return to the U.S., I will still want to wear the heeled boots and the puffy coat with fake fur hood thing. At some point (like 4 months ago), I would have considered the clothes I wear now, completely ridiculous. Not all the clothes. Jeans are always practical. But the bright pink sweater. Yes. I now own a bright pink sweater. It is even a turtle-neck. Mainly I was forced into impulse purchasing of said pink sweater because the woman in the рынок/рынке shoved it at me and demanded I try it on and then began loudly saying красовица! (pretty/beautiful girl?) and so I just bought it. But it is actually very warm and comfy. So there needs to be some decision made about the bright pink sweater and its wear-a-bility in the U.S.

I can’t believe it’s almost over. Not really. I still have almost 6 weeks left in Russia. But it will more of a tourist and less of a person living in Russia. I remember when I was leaving the U.S. and I kept reassuring myself that “It’ll only be 4 months and you never have to go back to Russia after that. Just get it over with.” Wow. How much has changed. And I’m glad that I like being here so much and that hopefully I’ll be back in the very near immediate future.

Also I’m trying to formulate some sort of adequate but short answer to the question which is bound to occur like 8 billion times. “How was Russia?” Do I say it/she changed my life? Did it/she actually change my life? (The reason for the it/she construction is that I couldn’t allow myself to call Russia just an “it” and she is the “motherland,” so yes…that reminds me of the e-mail list that circulated called something like “Flying to the Motherland.” That seems like 8 billion years ago when we were buying our plane tickets.) So I don’t know what to say to people. And so I’ll end up saying some lame answer like “It was really cool and I can’t explain it.” That’s true though. I can neither explain Russia nor the impact she had on my life. So it’s not really a cop-out (real word? correct context?) answer. It’s the truth. Are all cultures and countries so different from each other? How hard is it for Americans to understand life in England (same language, similar quality of life)? What about other European countries with a different language? Italy or Spain? What about India or Egypt? Are all of these places equally difficult to explain to someone who has never been there? Is Russia really that hard to explain or am I just searching for some deep level of complexity because I read too much into the country? Does the русская душа (Russian soul/heart/hard to explain concept) really exist? We used to mock it all the time. But now I don’t know. Do I just think that it exists because I want it to exist?

And so I don’t know if Russia is any less explainable than any other country. How do you go about explaining an entire country, culture, language, life? It has to deal with my problems with explaining America to Vacilica. America to her is this complete utopia and she would sacrifice a lot to be able to move to the U.S. She tells me that the streets are clean and that everyone has big houses. The big house comment is drawn from her watching Home Alone. Andrei thinks I am a farmer due to the location of Montana on the U.S. map. I don’t blame him. Pretty much the entire U.S. population thinks everyone in Montana is a farmer. Unless they think the state was sold to Canada. Or confiscated as some sort of nuclear testing zone. (Note: farmer comment, sale to Canada, and nuclear testing zone are all real things I have heard said by other U.S. citizens about Montana.) How America is represented in Russia: President Bush, President Clinton and Lewinsky, Hillary, Paris Hilton, Britney, McDonalds, Big houses, excessive richness, Hollywood, New York, September 11, Iraq, Schwarzeneggar. There’s probably more, but I can’t think of them. Once when I went to play hockey, this girl after the game told me that it probably wasn’t weird that I played hockey at home, because everyone in the U.S. plays hockey. I stared at her. I don’t think that the U.S. as a hockey playing oasis is a wide spread belief in Russia (she may be the only one who thinks that). And for good reason. No one plays hockey in the U.S.

Those earlier mentioned beliefs of America are clearly ridiculous. At the same time, I can’t explain America to Russians. How do you explain an entire country, culture, language, people? You can’t. But I feel that maybe there’s a more cohesive binding together of Russian people than any sort of community in the U.S. Our grammar teacher always talks about the коллектив (collective) as in the sense of community and togetherness that existed longer before the Soviet Union but was only strengthened during the U.S.S.R.

This list has veered far off topic from things I will miss about Russia and my favorite Russian MTV videos. But perhaps these are good closing thoughts as I prepare for initial departure from Yaroslavl. Initial departure in that I’m coming back a week later for 3 days with Susanna. But I’m telling my friends in Yaroslavl that I’m leaving for good on the 17th because it seems simpler and more clear cut and Susanna probably doesn’t want to spend her whole time in Yaroslavl at Vacilica’s flat drinking tea.

Why is the United in USA and the United in UN two different words in Russian? USA United is Cоедённые (which I remember on our Russian final last winter we were supposed to know what CША stood for. And Susanna and I were disgusted by K Moss’s expectation that we know what США actually stands for. I mean, we knew штаты (states) and америки (America) Just not “united”. And the UN United is Объединённых. Also the UN in Russian is the “ООН.” Which is pretty awesome.

Thoughts

2007-12-11T02:51:00.000-08:00

So I've been thinking about this alot. And after I say this I am going to stop discussing politics on this blog. I don't know what I'm supposed to think about politics in Russia. I mean you can read the earlier blog posts where I fairly soundly express my general support for Putin and what he is doing in the country. But I can't seem to reconcile that with the fact that well, lots of people keep telling me that I am wrong. Like smart people that I respect. Maybe the Russian media is not free, and is controlled by Putin, and that is bad. Maybe he really is as bad as he is portrayed in American media and I have been brainstormed by первый канал новости (Channel 1 News) into thinking that Putin is awesome. Maybe there is some sort of inbetween conclusion that needs to be reached where he won't be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but also won't be the worst thing since ... Well you get the analogy.

So mainly I suppose I don't really know what to think. Maybe that's the point. That studying abroad is supposed to challenge your perceptions of the world and how you see both your own country and other countries. Oh man. I am such a great study abroad student.

Also classes end on Friday. And so for all of those interested, these are my not very planned travel plans.

Monday, December 17: Leave Yaroslavl (tear- as in I will cry, not I will rip a piece of paper.)
Meet Susanna in Moscow!!!
Then we are in Moscow until Sunday the 23rd when we take a train to Yaroslavl. And Susanna meets Margarita.
Then we leave Yaroslavl on the 26th and go to Piter. Then we are in Piter/ maybe go to Novgorod for a day or two until January 3.
January 3 we go meet Laurel in Helsinki.
January 7 we return from Helsinki
January 9 board train from Piter to Kazan.
Then we ночевать (sleep over) in Kazan (I think) and some other town along the Trans Siberian.
Then we get to Irkutsk on the 14. I think we're taking the Circumnavigational Train or something like that around Baikal. Well around part of Baikal.
Then I think we're going the rest of the way all the way to Vladivostok.
Then the planned-ness sort of ends and at some point I purchase plane ticket/train ticket back to Moscow and fly back to the U.S.
Arrival in N.Y is (I think) January 28.

Russian Drunk Dialing

2007-12-07T02:19:00.001-08:00

So remember long ago when I wrote about how I went to that Loko game and befriended girl (Anya) and her husband (Sasha). And they asked me if I was married. And how we should go ice skating some time. And the drunk husband wished me a good morning as I got on the marshrytka to go home at 10 p.m. Well, yes. Sasha just drunk dialed me. So that’s fairly ridiculous. Apparently things are “ok” (said in very amazing Russian accent) with him. The amazingness of this phone call was that the first minute, I really had no idea what was going on. And then he started yelling into the phone “Sasha, hockey, hockey, hockey, Sasha.” And I caught on. I don’t really know what else to say…That like made my (undetermined long period of time).
And approximately two hours later receive another drunk dial. I was invited to hang out with him and his brother who is in the army. I unfortunately had to decline. Then he suggested they come over here. I don’t think Margarita would have approved.

Third Blog Entry (the other abandoned ones are available if you scroll down)

2007-12-07T02:17:00.000-08:00

This is now the third WORD document I have open on my computer in hopes of typing a successful blog entry. The first one started out good and turned into me talking about how much I love Russia. Although it’s interesting to type and try to explain my reasoning (there is no reasoning), and I spend a lot of time thinking about this lately, there’s no adequate explanation. Any “normal” American or Russian, in fact, probably any person in the world would want to live in America before they would want to live in Russia. And so it’s pointless trying to have people understand what I like about this country so much. I feel like I’m a puzzle piece and I sort of fit into the America puzzle, but you have to bend the piece (me) in order to get it to fit. But the puzzle piece fits into the Russian puzzle perfectly. I also don’t like my “I like Russia SO much” writing because I’m afraid that the moment I return to America, I will realize how much better America is and then I will have to look back at these blog entries read by lots of people in which I spent all my time talking about how awesome Russia is and I will feel like a fool. But that will not happen. I will always still love Russia. Ahh. We’re back on the “love Russia-ness.” So I abandoned the first WORD document.

Second WORD document. This quickly turned into me talking about how bad reverse culture shock is going to be (returning to the U.S.) which although is not directly saying that I like Russia a lot more than America, that’s pretty much what it’s saying. So I abandoned it.

Third WORD document. This is it. I refuse to allow myself to transition into my poetic thoughts about Russia-ness. So I will objectively explain important events which have occurred in the past days.

I went to basketball on Thursday for the first time in a while. I missed it while I was in Archangelsk, once to go watch a Loko game, once for Thanksgiving dinner… And one of the girls, Masha, asked me when I was leaving. And I had to say “in two weeks.” It always used to be “I don’t know, either in December or in June,” then it was “in six weeks,” “in five weeks.” And suddenly now it’s “two weeks.” Granted I’m not leaving Russia for probably 8 weeks. But I’m leaving Yaroslavl on Dec. 17th. Then I’m coming back for like 3 days with Susanna, but that’s too complicated to explain in Russian. So I just go with the 17th as my final departure date. Then she asked if I thought I had improved a lot in my Russian while I was here. I really don’t like this question. I can’t tell if I’m better. I feel like the more you know and the better you get, maybe the better you realize how little you know. Does that make sense? And so I went with my standby answer of “Well I understand a lot more now.” Then she told me that the first day at basketball, the only word I said was “Da.” So apparently I have improved. But I still share the fear with Natalie that we will return to Midd and people will not believe that we have spent the past what 7/8 months speaking Russian. Like we’re still bad. But then I remember the first days of summer school when like we just never talked (at least I didn’t). And if we did we talked very slowly. Now I talk and at a fairly fast rate, granted the grammar is sort of a nightmare. I don’t know what the point of this story was….

I don’t remember what I did on Saturday. Oh yes. I bought Love Actually in Russian. It cost 4 dollars. And now I watch it. A lot.

Sunday was the elections to the State Duma. So I tagged along with Margarita when she went to vote. After she showed her passport and received her ballot, the guy looked up at me. I just shook my head and backed away from the table. I wonder what would have happened if I had produced my U.S. passport to him. I bought one of the Russian Federation Passport Cover Things for it. So now people are especially surprised when they open that and see the damn American eagle flying about the pages and other general American looniness.

Anyways, Edinaya Rocciya (United/Unified Russia) won like 63 percent of the votes. Then the Communists, then LDPR, then Spravedlivaya Rocciya (Just/Fair Russia) all got the minimum 7% of the votes to make the cut to have seats in the Duma. So now Putin and Единая Россия can do whatever they want since they have a constitutional majority. So probably soon Putin will resign from the presidency, so that he will have the necessary amount of time out of office and be able to run again in the March presidential elections. Except maybe he won’t. But I think he will.

Also today in politics we talked about if the elections were democratic because already huge delegations of election auditor people decided not even to come oversee the elections (I already wrote about this.) They said Russia was making it hard to get visas. Russia said America made them pull out to make Russia look bad. But some big European group/organization/thing that came and oversaw elections just made some announcement that the elections were undemocratic. I don’t really know that much about it. Except today our politics professor was talking about it and said the solution to the problem was for Russia to stop being a member of that organization. That Russia was the largest, richest member of the group and paid the most money to support it, and if they were going to claim our elections were unfair, then we will just not be a part of their organization any longer. That is brilliant. Perhaps I should be appalled at how disrespectful it would be for Russia to pull out of the international organization. Perhaps I should be worried about their claim that Russia’s elections were undemocratic. Actually I feel like Russia is proving a worthy opponent on the world stage. Russia is doing things that only America is allowed to do. It’s brilliant.

I don’t think I like the fact that Единая Россия has that much power. It does seem sort of undemocratic (not the elections) but the fact that they will clearly dominate Duma. But the Communists are old and outdated and LDPR (which translates as the liberal-democratic party of Russia) is well crazy. Jirinovski (their head leader) is essentially the entire party. Margarita told me he is a very brilliant man and that a while ago, he proposed a law allowing Russian men to have more than one wife, because there is a severe imbalance of Russian men and women (as in there are a lot more women than men). I think the fact that he was brilliant and his wedding rule proposal were two separate things in our discussion, but anyways. He’s crazy. And справедливая россия is a really young and relatively weak party and they barely made the 7 % barrier.

I think I would have voted for Edinaya Rocciya. Maybe that’s only because I have spent the past month reading all of their pre election handouts and programs and propaganda and ads and such. But I just think that life in Russia gets better every year. They move further away from the failure of the Soviet Union and closer to the level of European/American lifestyle. Although, Russia will NEVER be Europe or America. Which is a very good thing.

I don’t know why I approve of Putin. Maybe it’s because they always talk about how awesome he is on the television channels. He’s always in a different part of Russia or different countries having some meeting, with leaders of Iran or miners in Kamchatka. They can’t make up the fact that he is having these meetings. He does do a lot of work. Does Bush ever meet with people? Aside from during election season. I guess I never watch the news in the U.S., but I get the feeling that Bush hangs out in the white house or farm/ranch in Texas or various undisclosed locations. Even if Putin’s politics are bad (which I don’t think they are), I feel like you have to admit that he is a good politician. Perhaps the fact that he is a good politician automatically makes his politics questionable. Ah. Now I’ve even confused myself.

Maybe I like Putin because he is making Russia strong. And an equal of America. I feel like America needs some opposition. Otherwise we’ll just go around starting wars with various countries. Today on the news, there was some news item about the U.S. and Iran. And some politician saying (I think) that we (U.S.) need to be careful with the U.S. and Iran, because Bush tricked us all last time into starting the war in Iraq. Are we about to start a war with Iran? Isn’t the world more stable when there are several strong countries than when there is one bully country that just does what they want? I’m tired of thinking about politics.

Sunday I purchased a ticket to the Loko game tomorrow (Wednesday). I have now done this three times. The woman at the ticket office is tired of me. There was an audible sigh when I approached the window on Sunday. Also, buying tickets is really much more than necessarily complicated. First I explained I wanted a ticket for Wednesday for the price of 150 roubles. Then she says, what section of the arena, as there are like 6 different sections of the arena where seats cost 150 roubles. So I said section 13 because I have sat there before. Then she said what row? And I asked what rows were available and she began to read them all of. Does it really matter if I sit in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd row? So I said 3rd row. Then she asked another question. I didn’t understand it, so I went with the go-to answer of “yes.” That was not the right answer. She started listing off more numbers. I heard her say “first” and I immediately said yes. Only after I had agreed to “first,” did I realize she was asking me what seat number I wanted. I actually didn’t want the first seat as it’s on the aisle, but there was no way I was going to change my mind and ask for the 6th seat or something like that. Also during this discussion, she asked me how many tickets I wanted? Two? I was so flattered by her suggestion that I was in fact not only buying a ticket for myself, but also a ticket for some hot, hockey-playing Russian man. But, alas, I answered “no, one.”

But is it really necessary to pick your exact seat? Can’t you just pick the price and they figure out the rest for you? Is there this abundance of choice in the U.S.? Like if I went to buy a ticket to an N.H.L game would I actually get to pick not only the section and the row, but the specific seat. Especially if it was a cheap ticket. Granted a cheap ticket to an N.H.L game is way more than the 150 roubles, 6 bucks to the Loko games. But still. Wouldn’t they just assign you a seat for whatever price you were going to pay. So now I have a ticket to the Loko game tomorrow. Woot Woot! Also, there is a Loko game on Friday, the final one while I am in Yaroslavl. Well, Susanna and I are hopefully returning to Yaroslavl while there is another Loko game so that we can go to it after I “leave” Yaroslavl on the 17th. But that doesn’t count as me being in Yaroslavl as all of my luggage will already be in Moscow (hopefully, must call and order taxi man tomorrow). So essentially this means that probably on Thursday, I will have one of my last chances to buy a Loko ticket. And hopefully I will be able to successfully pick out a section, row, and even seat number and the women will not sigh (too loudly) at me.

Tonight I just returned from my zachyot/ interview/ final exam for my mainstream class. Essentially, this consisted of me having a 5 minute conversation with my professor about the fairy tale Cinderella (Золушка). So if anyone is interested in my character analysis of the various characters in Cinderella or explanation of some of the 31 events that often occur in fairy tales (and which ones can be found in Cinderella), I am well prepared for such discussion.
Then after returning from such exam. I allowed myself to write this blog entry. Well to start three different ones and finally finish this one. And now I have to do my grammer and my phonetics homework. And it is midnight.

Also tonight Margarita gave me this hunk of chicken to eat for dinner. There was lots of redness and bone and skin and just general not acceptable-ness occurring in said meat item. Plus I just don’t like chicken. Perhaps I should be ashamed to reveal this, but I would take a hot dog over chicken hunk any day. So I sort of ate the chicken. Meaning tried to disguise it by eating a piece of chicken followed immediately by large forkful of pasta or gulps of water/apple juice. And then when Margarita went to go turn on the chainik, I skillfully took most of the chicken and wrapped it in a napkin and put it in my lap and hoped that our cat, Vacya, wouldn’t catch on and suddenly start attacking my chair until it was revealed that I was smuggling gross chicken. Then the chicken was successfully thrown away on my way to class. Good story. I know. When I move back to Russia, I will not be eating hunks of chicken. Am I actually allowed to use “hunks” in this context?

Going to do my homework…

Reverse Culture Shock

2007-12-07T02:15:00.000-08:00

…is going to suck. I am already dreading it. I still have at least 8 weeks in Russia. I just know it’s going to suck so bad. I also don’t really know if I ever had “forward” culture shock. I can think of some days in September and October when I was sort of not totally cheery, but there was never a string of days when I just wanted to go home. Also the days when I was sort of miserable where always when it was raining and you are allowed a lot more misery than usual when it is raining. I think I should stop worrying about culture shock into America and enjoy the rest of my time in Russia.

Less than 2 weeks left in Yaroslavl. I have sort of accepted my departure-ness. Also, Margarita and I have lately been getting along like BFF’s (best friend’s forever). I’m not sure if this is because I’m leaving in two weeks or if we actually have sort of figured each other out enough that there is now some level of friendship, acceptance, compatibility-ness.

(This post was also abandoned becuase it was me talking about my new BFF Margarita and I couldn't take myself seriously.)

When you say “I’m moving to Russia for six months,” no one ever says “Well, don’t fall in love.”

2007-12-07T02:10:00.000-08:00

Mainly people say things like “Don’t die,” “It’ll definitely be interesting,” “You can always come home early, if it turns out to be that awful.” Mainly, they say “Don’t die.” I think if you were to look back at facebook wall posts written amongst the Midd kids setting off for Russia at the end of August, the verb умирать (to die- as in “don’t die”) would appear often. If you don’t know what facebook is, you’re clearly not that hip. But that’s not important.

Also before I go on for too long, I would like to clarify that I have not fallen in love with some Russian man named Sergei, Igor, Dima, or Alexander. I predict one person finds that sentence funny. Moving on. I fell in love with just…Russia. Also if you would like to continue to respect me, perhaps you should stop reading before I go into more of my “how awesome Russia is…” and you become more and more convinced that I have lost my mind.

Perhaps I had a more pessimistic view of my time in Russia, than other people do approaching their time in Russia. Like, I was scared. Crazy scared. I thought I was actually going to die. This is not a realistic fear. Realistic fears would be: I won’t have any friends, I won’t ever understand what is occurring, I will be really lonely and bored and unhappy… I think those are realistic fears when leaving for Russia. Fear of death is not a realistic fear. However, I really thought I was going to die. I don’t know why. At any point, I could have said “enough” and flown back to the U.S. I still just thought I was going to die. I definitely didn’t think I would be sitting here, a little over 3 months after my arrival, talking about how much I like this country.

Also, writing this is fairly scary. I feel like I’m going to make a huge fool of myself. Any sane person would look at the choice of America and Russia and well, pick America. Any American would make this choice, any Russian would definitely make this choice. And I feel like maybe when I get back to the U.S., I will realize how much of a fool I was. How much better life in the U.S. is. And then I will have to look back and remember how I went about proclaiming how awesome Russia was.

That’s not going to happen.

(At this point I gave up on this entry...it was too "I love Russia so much.")

такого как путин

2007-11-30T05:28:00.000-08:00

Things I Should Be Doing Right Now:
---Writing спасибо (Thank You) cards to all of our professors and office workers. (This would usually be a good procrastination method from having to do real work. However the fact that said notes have to be in Russian and hopefully have minimal mistakes makes me very much not want to do this. At least Megan said that it isn’t that big of a deal if there are grammar mistakes. The professors would definitely not believe we wrote them if they were completely free of mistakes)
---Doing my phonetics homework.
---Proofreading my politics paper – because no matter how many times I read it and reread it, I will still get it back covered in red ink due to my complete inattention/inability to correctly use case declensions.
---Going to bed, as it is now 1:12 a.m.

Things I Am Not Doing Right Now:
---All of the above.

I finished writing my paper though. It is 20 pages long. Well, like 19 and a half. I’m not really sure how this happened. I guess I sort of have been writing it for a month. But still, it’s 20 pages and it’s in Russian and it’s FULL of mistakes!!! But it’s still done (well sort of). There is lots of footnoting and further proofreading that needs to occur. Then there is some sort of oral presentation/defense which has to happen. Ahh.

I told myself I couldn’t write a blog entry until I finished the paper tonight, because as soon as I start functioning in English to write the blog, it would have been impossible to go back to Russian writing mode. I mean more impossible than Russian writing mode is usually (and Russian writing mode is always very impossible and highly unproductive). However the lesson learned is that many nights of highly unproductive-ness can still result in a high overall level of productivity.

It’s like when you’re in high school and you take 6 months to write the 15 page senior paper and then you get to college and you write 10 page papers in a weekend – or if you are Flora, you write them in like 4 hours.

I calmed down off the “throw everything away/give everything away/leave it all in Russia” bandwagon and now tomorrow shall call cab driver to arrange for me to be driven with baggage to Andrei’s house in Moscow where I can leave my stuff for December and January while we with Sonya travel about the country. Also, I wonder why I brought my Chaco’s to Russia. Did that ever sound like a good idea? But I pretend that my excuse is that I wanted to wear them at Laurel’s house and then they just got brought along to Boston and then to New York and then to Moscow. But it’s still sort of highly ridiculous. Plus they’re heavy. Not that there is any way my luggage will ever be under the weight limit to get back to the U.S.

Things That Actually Relate To Russia

The Loko game on Monday: You’re not going to understand my amazing cleverness unless you speak Russian. Oh well. So I was on the marshrytka along with half of the population of Yaroslavl. Now that it’s actually cold and snowy, the marshrytka’s are almost always FULL of people. But my maneuvering/shoving of people skills to reach the door have greatly improved since that culture moment/getting disastrously lost in Bragino. So whenever you go to a Loko game, like half of the marshrytka gets off at the stop for the arena. But on this marshrytka, there were a lot of шуба (dead animal-fur coat) wearing women. Шуба pronounced “shoo-buh” and so I definitely assumed that they would not be exiting for the hockey game. Oh man, was I wrong. There were so many шубы (много шуб) at the hockey game. This is where my cleverness comes in. A hockey puck is called шайба “shai-buh.” And I came to the conclusion that if I was in charge I would make there be a mandatory decision for every woman between шуба and шайба. It’s clever because the two words sound like each other. Like you can’t have the best of both worlds. You can’t get to go to hockey games and get to wear the dead animal (Margarita thinks she has ridded me of my vegetarian habits-Haha. She has not completely. I still call it a dead animal and not a fur coat.) Every woman has to make a choice. You can pick шайба (puck) or you can pick шуба (animal/coat). I think it was a lot more clever when it only existed in my head. It doesn’t sound very clever at all, now that I have typed it.

Today at basketball practice the girls were talking about how their parents forbid them to play sports when they were young. So they secretly had to go to basketball or football practice (remember that when I say football, I am logically referring to the sport played by such people as David Beckham and Mia Hamm, and not the sport played by such people as OJ Simpson). And then I was glad that I had never taken my hockey stick to basketball practice when we used to play hockey on Monday nights. I don’t think they would have understood/been accepting of the idea of me not only playing ice hockey (Margarita has asked me like 800 times if I have ever tried figure skating. Answer: NO), but playing ice hockey on the boys team all the way through high school, plus playing pick up with the men at Arena. So the fact that they were forbidden from playing sports is so like 1950’s or something or earlier, I don’t know. It’s old. Also, mother, thank you for not forbidding me from playing hockey.

I feel like the blog is recently much less “this is what I did,” and more “this is what I think.” I don’t know how I feel about that.

The elections to the State (federal) Dyma are on Sunday. Edinaya Rocciya is going to win. They’re going to get like 60% or more. This is okay with me, I think. Today I decided I wanted to read what English newspapers were saying about the upcoming elections. Oh man. I forgot how much America doesn’t like Putin. Like they just ripped him apart and talked about how its not true democracy and how this European delegation of observers of the voting process (there has to be a better English word to explain this, but I can’t think of it) declined to come because according to them, Russia was being really annoying and only wanted to supply visas for like ¼ of their delegation. But the English-language (i.e. not just British) newspapers wrote that Putin said that the delegation didn’t come because America convinced them not to come so that Russia would look bad and look like we were trying to conduct somehow rigged or unfair elections. And then there were various Putin quotes about Europe and America keeping their noses out of Russia’s business and not meddling in our internal affairs. But the translations were not anything close to something Putin would ever say. He wouldn’t have insulting comments about “America staying out of our business.” I listen to his speeches on the news every day. He doesn’t talk like that. That’s more like Bush quality of speaking. Also I heard Bush’s voice on the news because the dubbing was delayed like 5 seconds after Bush started speaking. And I forgot how much I hate his voice. Like he just sounds like a complete loon. Perhaps even a goon.

So anyways, it was crazy reading what the English-speaking press is saying about the elections on Sunday. Also they keep mentioning the “next president” of Russia which we don’t really talk about in Russia, because everyone just sort of secretly thinks it’s going to be Putin. Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people. I think I agree with them. And since presidential elections are on March 2 (I won’t be here. Ah!!! The misery is overwhelming.) that means he would have to leave the presidency before Dec 23 in order to declare his candidacy. And he is also the only candidate on the Edinaya Rocciya list to the federal Dyma. And elections are on the 2nd (in two days). So there is the possibility that he could then become a deputat in the Dyma for 3 months and then go back to the presidency. But if he does this, he is going to have to resign from the presidency like soon. But he keeps talking about the “next president,” but no one actually believes him. Not that any Russians are really that angry about this. He has a huge popularity rating. I feel like I didn’t know that when I was in the U.S. The population actually incredibly supports him. And there are no other political personality’s in Russia even close to the support that Putin has. So mainly Russians would support him having a third term. I'm pretty sure that didn't make sense that whole thing I just wrote about Putin. But sort of the whole point is that it is really complicated and he might resign really soon in order to be able to have a 3rd term without disrupting the constitution. But he might not. But no one really knows.

Also this is related to earlier comment about the voting observing people from Europe not coming. When we saw this on the news, Margarita had the most awesome comment ever. I don’t actually remember what she said, but it was something that would be translated like “Well, who gives a damn.” Like, if the snotty Europeans and Americans don’t approve of our elections, we don’t really care, at all. And this attitude is awesome. Except of course, Russia gets completely trashed in the international press because of not complying with the election observer people (I really wish I could think of a better word), but America always has the “Fuck the world. We do what we want” attitude. Hey, let’s go invade Afghanistan. And Iraq. And not sign the Kyoto Pollution Treaty Protocol Thing.

Going to write the Thank-You notes. I bet as soon as I have to use some hard case ending, I will think of a really important thing to write about on my blog. I wonder if they’ll know if I write them all the exact same note.

Ugh. There’s 11 cards. I’ve only written 2. Ah. I just used the ты form instead of the вы form.

Also when I was reading about Putin in the U.S. press they referred to the такого как путин song in which the girl sings about how wants a boyfriend like Putin who doesn't drink or run away and is strong. And they used this to show how dominating Putin is and how he brainwashes all of the Russians into being in love with him and not being a true democracy. Except all of the Russians also realize how ridiculous this song is.

выйти из шкафа

2007-11-29T01:27:00.000-08:00

A. Today in phonetics we had to listen to the tape recording of us reading a Pushkin poem in early September right when we arrived. In short, I was appalled by my speaking ability (or lack thereof). I was also appalled by what my voice actually sounds like. But that always happens when I have to hear myself on message machines or such. It doesn’t even sound like Russian when I speak. Then we listened to the recording we just recorded today. And there were differences. So that was good. Apparently I discovered in the past 3 months that there are “soft” letters/sounds in Russian language and so it sounds a little better. But it’s still so atrocious. Maybe I should be optimistic. “Look at the process you made in only three months.” “Recognize your ability to tell the difference between good Russian and bad Russian, because that is the first step to reaching a level of good Russian.” Oh god, but it is so bad.

Б. And I feel like the Russian I speak in the university is like 10 times better than any Russian I speak on the street. Like, I can’t try to conjugate a verb correctly or worry about the soft “l” that I am supposed to be articulating because I am too busy trying to not get hit in traffic. I also just feel like I’ve gotten lazy in Russian. Like I never really study that much anymore. And if I do, I don’t spend my time memorizing vocabulary words. I guess it’s not my vocabulary that limits me so much. It’s just like the more “real” Russian I hear, the more aware I become of the little constructions and nuances that I completely understand but never remember when I am trying to formulate my thoughts. And then I try to defend myself that I have reached a functional level in Russia where I can buy train tickets and buy tickets to hockey games and concerts and theatres and reserve hotel rooms and read the newspaper and come away understanding the basic thoughts and etc. and so maybe I should stop worrying about the grammar and awkward constructions and accent. But it’s still really worrisome. And I don’t really know what the answer is. I guess I should just make myself talk more. I know that the answer is not “Go back to Midd and don’t take a Russian class for the spring.” But that’s what I have to do.

В. What is the difference between when we say “I have” and we say “I have got” because Vacilica’s husband Aleksei refuses to believe me that there is really no difference. And that maybe the only difference is that “I have got” is conversational and I would never write that. Plus I feel like I never actually say “I have got.” But that is what he always says, plus that’s what they teach in the English textbook at School Number 4 where I teach, and I don’t want to ruin their whole “I have got…” construction.

Г. This is still related to me complaining about how bad I am at Russian. So at some point in my study of Russian I realized that they don’t use the construction “Me and Sonya” (shout-out to Sonya!), instead Russians would say “We with Sonya.” So I started using this form. And at first I feel like an imposter, like this is some construction only allowed to be used by people who actually speak the language. But then you get over it and you go about explaining how “We with the babyshka watch ‘Dances on the Ice’ every Sunday night.” And you feel like you cracked this code and it is awesome. And then today in grammar, our professor explained that when foreigners use the construction “Me and Sonya” it sounds to a Russian like I actually involved in said activity and was forced to drag Sonya along as like a suitcase that I was pulling behind me. Like Sonya becomes a very unappreciated and insulted participant in said activity. So apparently I didn’t crack any secret code when I began saying “We with Sonya,” I just made it sound like Sonya was an actual person who was equally involved in such activity and she stopped being some large bulky useless item/person which I dragged along behind me.

Д. Also you can’t say “я голодна” “I’m hungry” because that is automatically a foreigner construction and Russians understand what you are saying, but secretly think you are a weirdo. You are supposed to say some huge long verb which I will now be forced to go look up in a dictionary. Returned. Said verb. Проголодаться (с.в.) So now I will try to remember to say я проголодалась.

Е. Why am I always exhausted when I wake up at like 7:15. But now it is 1:00 a.m. and I am not going to bed and instead typing this blog.

Ё. Every day I involve myself in this huge battle (this battle only occurs in my head) of “stay or go.” Haha. You all thought I had decided weeks ago that I was going back to Midd for the spring. And I did decide. Except now everyday I want to stay here more and more. Not that I ever really wanted to leave that much. It just seemed like a responsible choice to go home and finish college. So then I made the mistake of asking Megan what would happen if I told her now that I actually wanted to stay. And she said “We would figure it out.” This was not the correct answer. The correct answer would have been. “Abby, you already made your choice. You have to leave.” But I am going to leave. And then I will be able to come back. And it will all be okay. But I can’t actually guarantee that I get on my plane leaving Moscow. That sounds like one of the most ridiculous things I have ever thought. After all, the only reason I got on the plane to Frankfurt and Moscow was because I couldn’t abandon Natalie and SpongeBob (disguised in the pea coat) in the New York airport.

Ж. Are you allowed to гулать by yourself or does such activity require you to have companions?
И. Vacilica asked me different English words which mean crazy person and I came up with fool and idiot and then……..LOON. And I didn’t know if I should share with her this gold mine of a word (you’re definitely not allowed to say gold mine of a word…). But then I told her and she totally didn’t understand that I had just revealed to her the best word in the English language. She didn’t understand that she had been let into this secret group of people who know and utilize the word loon in their daily speech. She didn’t understand that she had been revealed a secret English word which will someday sweep the English speaking world and possibly get adopted into Russian and take various case forms so there will be много лунов and people will spend their time talking about сумасшедших лунах.

К. Life is so much easier when I am in my “selfish don’t change the world” mode. But then I get in this “change the world” mode and it’s just so exhausting to be affected by everyone else’s problems. It’s not everyone though. It’s just the kids. Maybe I should feel bad for all of the really poor Russian grandmothers living alone because their husbands already died and barely surviving on their small pension payments. But I don’t really feel that bad for them. This is going to sound really mean, but I feel like I approach them as more of historical relics from the Soviet Union than as real people. Oh man. I am a horrible person. Anyways, the babyshkas don’t tug at my heart strings. Why do I use all of these strange English idioms now? The kids do though. Not all of the kids. The kids at School 4 where I teach English are really cute, but they don’t get to me. They’re all 10 years old and they already have 2 cell phones each. These kids are rich. Well their parents are. As Margarita would say in her disgusted tone “бизнес…” (business). I am ashamed of my cell phone when I enter School Number 4. But it’s the other kids who don’t have money and don’t really have much of a future. Like I walk past the little boys playing hockey on the sidewalk and well mainly I just want to play hockey with them, but I also just want to take care of them.

Л. So now I have to return to Russia to personally take care of all the poor and mistreated Russian children. This is what I felt like when I was in New Orleans. That somebody just needed to do something for these kids. But then the feeling fades and you sort of realize you can’t change the whole world and so maybe it’s not worth spending all your time stressing about it. But I feel like I’ve changed my “change the world itself” life plan to a “change the world one child at a time” life view.

М. Agh. This is completely not about Russia. Also it is 2:10 in the morning and I am still typing this. I am going to not be happy when the alarm on my phone goes into its shrilly, peppy alarm ring tomorrow (today) morning.

Н. Now it is Thursday morning. And I am running out of time to write this. Soon (actually like right now), I have to leave to go to the university so that I can use the internet and then go teach English and then go to basketball practice and then come home and eat dinner and do my homework (write the final 3 pages of my 20 pg. politics paper!).

О. There’s lots of other important things to write about:
-I went to another Loko game. It was awesome, as usual. We won 4-2. And came back from 2-1 losing margin entering the 3rd period.
-If you are wondering how to say a gay person came out of the closet in Russian, you just say выйти из шкафа which translates directly as to walk out of the closet. This is brilliant.
-I’m leaving Yaroslavl on Dec. 17, but then Susanna and I are coming back for 2 days on our way to Piter. But still this is amazingly depressing. And also worrisome because somehow I have to get the multiple like billion pound suitcases to Moscow so that they can stay in my friend’s house there until I return at the end of January to fly to New York. Except I don’t want to have to pay like 3,000 roubles to take a cab to Moscow. But the train would be like extremely atrocious with the suitcases. So I think I am just going to throw everything away, leave it all in Russia. I’m sort of kidding. But I’m sort of not.
Things That Would Not Be Thrown Away:
-hockey skates and gloves
-souvenirs I have bought for people
-my awesome fur hooded winter coat
-possibly 3 pairs of pants and some sweaters
-laptop
-my boots
-the rest could really just be thrown away

П. Ahhhh, now I am late leaving the apartment.

Kitty…
С Днём Рождения!!!
Happy Birthday!!!

Me, Flat Stanley, And The Volga

2007-11-27T03:37:00.000-08:00

Flat Stanley and Paper Napkins

2007-11-26T02:02:00.000-08:00

I thought I lost Flat Stanley today. It would have been a catastrophe.

You may ask who/what is Flat Stanley. And I will answer you. Apparently there is a popular children’s series of books about a character named Flat Stanley who goes on all sorts of adventures around the world. He is flat, as in two dimesional. I am not sure if this is critical to the plot line of the stories. So American children read the Flat Stanley books and then they draw their own “Flat Stanley’s” on pieces of paper and send them on adventures. Like they would give the Flat Stanley to a truck driver and the truck driver would take pictures of Flat Stanley at various locations in the U.S. on his truck route and send the pictures back to the kids. Or they just send the Flat Stanley to relatives living in different spots across the U.S. And the relatives would take pictures of him and send the pictures back to the children. So I received Flat Stanley in an envelope from my mother approximately 2 weeks ago. This Flat Stanley belonged to a family friend, Jessie, who is in 2nd grade in Missoula. So I was instructed to take pictures of Flat Stanley in Russia and send them back to my mom and she would get them to Jessie. Later I was informed that Jessie’s entire class was talking about how Flat Stanley was in Russia.

I’m not big on the whole picture taking thing to begin with. Especially in Russia, where they might put you in jail for taking a picture. But knowing that the hopes of an entire 2nd grade class rested on my shoulders, I decided to suck it up and take Flat Stanley for a photo shoot on the banks of the Volga. So I did that and I sent the pictures off to my mother. Then I thought, I can probably get a picture of Flat Stanley by an onion-dome church without being arrested. So today on my various errands (Margarita thought I was at the library for 5 hours. I was not at the library for one moment.), I stopped by the church. Immediately I noticed two police cars. Churches, however, are one of the things you actually can fairly fearlessly take pictures of. So I pulled out the camera and then I couldn’t find Flat Stanley! He was not stuck in my planner where he was supposed to be. So I just took a picture of myself and the church and returned home. I was sort of relieved. I had begun to worry that the police men were really bored and would try to question me as to why I was taking a picture of this piece of paper with the church in the background. My Russian is not bad. It’s not especially good either. Even if I was completely fluent, the policemen would never have understood my explanation that Flat Stanley is a character from an American book who travels around the world and you are supposed to take pictures of him in different places and send the pictures back to the elementary school kids.
This is the sort of thing that captives people in the U.S. and everybody gets excited about finding the coolest place to take a picture of Flat Stanley. There is no way any Russian would ever understand this concept. Perhaps, they would. But I really don’t think they would. Mostly there would just be scorn at how worry free and trivial minded the Americans are. So I was sort of relieved that I had forgotten Flat Stanley at home and avoided any sort of atrocious conversation with the Russian police. After all, the churches always look better when they are lit up at night, so I figured I could just return tomorrow evening and take a picture when the church would be lit up. Then I got home and I still couldn’t find Flat Stanley. Panic began to occur. The Volga pictures were good. But Flat Stanley really needed to be photographed next to an onion-dome church before his tour of Russia could be done.

So I was freaking out about how I had lost/thrown away the piece of paper that Flat Stanley was drawn on. How the whole second grade class would be betrayed and heartbroken. Then I figured I could probably just draw another one and never tell anyone I had lost the original one. After all, it’s not important what Flat Stanley actually looks like, it’s just important what he’s standing next to in the picture. But then I found him stuck inside of my phonetics book. Thank goodness.

So tomorrow evening I shall take a photo of Flat Stanley next to the lit up церковь ильи пророка (Elijah the Prophet) and send those off to my mother as well.

My mom suggested I take a picture of Flat Stanley on the marshrutka. This is one of the most ridiculous proposals ever (sorry mom) and I refuse to suffer the humiliation of taking a picture of a piece of paper sitting next to me on the marshrutka.

Also, Laurel! Get excited about the fact that Flat Stanley is being sent to Paris! It has been requested that after his tour of Yaroslavl, he be sent on for some photos in Paris before being returned home to Missoula. Susanna, I’m not sure why Irkutsk didn’t make the cut. Sorry.

Other Things Unrelated to Flat Stanley:

I sort of went souvenir shopping today. As I have discussed earlier, souvenir shopping is a difficult task to embark upon for several reasons. I have no idea what anybody would want from Russia. However, whatever I purchase is required to be interesting, Russian, light (very-light), compact, easily packable, un-breakable, and cheap. It is sort of hard to satisfy all of these requirements in one gift. However, I came up with the brilliant idea of paper napkins from макдоналдс. These satisfy essentially all of the above requirement. Except that I think people would be underwhelmed when I return from Russia and proudly give them each a single макдоналдс paper napkin from the макдоналдс in Yaroslavl. So I scrapped that idea. But that is still my backup plan.

Kurt, I bought you the most awesome gift ever today. It is not a napkin from макдоналдс. I don’t think you actually read my blog. But hopefully Aiko will read this and tell you. It is awesome. And if you don’t think it is awesome, then I will just have to keep it for myself. You only have to wait ‘til February to receive it.

For a really long time I wondered what they called hair conditioner in Russia. I was smart enough to not go to a store and ask for кондитионер (conditioner) because then they would think I was requesting an air conditioner. Anyways I went to this small grocery store by our house to buy a bottle of shampoo and even though you get to pick out yourself the stuff, it was still stressful because the saleswomen were staring at me, so I just picked fast and left. And then I returned home and with the help of my trusty English-Russian dictionary which is now held together both with duct tape and black hockey tape realized that I had in fact purchased conditioner. I don’t remember the full word but it is long and starts with an “o”. So then I thought I would just pretend that the conditioner was shampoo and just use it. Except this doesn’t work because now my hair just constantly looks like a grease pot, even after I “wash/conditioner” it. So I went to another store today and actually bought shampoo. Good story. I know.

I can no longer pretend that this blog entry is a productive use of my time.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T04:40:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! My e-mail won't work. At first this was sort of annoying. Now it is really annoying. Then I thought that maybe it would be fixed soon because it is almost 8 a.m. in Vermont, and Middlebury will not be functional without e-mail. In fact they are probably sending out e-mail messages about how they apologize for the inconvenience that e-mail is not working and it will be fixed soon. But then I realized that it is Thanksgiving and so Ron probably doesn't care that e-mail isn't working. But I am still annoyed. So I don't know how long I will sit here waiting for it to start working.

Other things:
Yesterday I bought a winter coat. It was so much of a less tramatic process than I imagined it was going to be. The buying of the coat was undramatic. However after I bought the coat I was supposed to go over to a friend's house and then go to the theater. And I am pretty sure that the friend would have disapproved of how much money I had spent on the coat (which wasn't that much money for me, but would be a LOT of money for her), plus I didn't really want to have the huge plastic bag with me at the theater. So I solved this problem by stuffing the brand new coat into my shoulder bag/purse thing. This was ridiculous. So then I just had this huge overflowing bag which I tried to calmly carry about and ignore the fact that it was essentially exploding and hope that nobody said anything about it. But it all worked out and the friend didn't ask about it. And then we went to the theatre. And I understood very little of the play, but since it was a comedy it meant that at some points the entire audience of Russians were laughing. This was sort of unsettling. But in a very comforting way. It is good to know that Russians can laugh in large groups. I am aware that Russians can laugh with each other in small company, but it was good when the whole audience was laughing. Also on the marshrutka to the theatre, I both got a lucky ticket and lost one of my mittens. (I have to buy new mittens today before Margarita yells at me). So I guess that I was going to have very bad luck and my lucky ticket minimized the damage to only losing a mitten.

Other items of note: Artic Slaughter is no longer in existence as a band. There is some new band, but I forgot what they are called. Sorry, Kit.

E-mail is still not working. This is annoying. Also Margarita is supposed to be at a birthday party all day meaning whenever I decide to go home, the apartment should be empty, which would be AMAZING. But I am worried that she will be there and I will not get to appreciate my rare moments of being alone. This is strange. I am alone almost all the time. But never actually "alone, alone." Like she is always lurking somewhere about the apartment and sometimes you just need to know that no one else is around. Even if she is gone, she has promised to return exactly at 7 p.m. I am not sure why this is necessary. There is no way I am going to eat dinner tonight. I made this clear to her. That the whole point is to eat a large Thanksgiving meal at like 2 p.m. and then not eat for several hours/days. Except I bet she makes me eat dinner anyways. Ugh.

АВАРИЯ!!!

2007-11-22T04:29:00.000-08:00

Tuesday was a day/evening to remember. I have my mainstream class on Tuesday evenings from 8:05 to 9:20 although it usually ends around 9:00. Then I make the 20 minute walk home, usually with my friend Vacilica from class, and then do my homework. Some weeks my mom calls around 11 p.m. my time (1 p.m. her time).

Yesterday as I left for evening class, Margarita was worried that my mom was going to call too early when I was still at class. So she started freaking out about this (*side note: She also freaked out at me last night when I was eating dinner. I had a complete plate covered with potatoes which I was slowly (not really that slowly, but by Margarita’s concerned glares, too slowly for her liking) eating. Then I put down my fork so that I could take a drink of tea. And immediately, like immediately, she asks, “Is something wrong with the potatoes. Are they okay? What’s wrong?” Essentially, I got yelled at for taking a beverage break. I wasn’t even taking a beverage break for a silly beverage such as water, I was drinking the country’s favorite drink/meal, tea. Whatever, I’m over it. Next time I shall keep fork in hand and keep eating the potatoes simultaneously while drinking the tea. Moving on.*)

So then she asked me what she should say if my mother called. I tried to reassure her that my mom would not call 3 hours ahead of our scheduled time. But Margarita was still really worked up about this. Then she suddenly said “Ring late” in English as she had decided this was how she could explain to my mother to “Call back later.” Except she has a very hard to understand accent. I really hope my accent when I speak Russian is more understandable than her accent when she speaks English. Usually when she starts speaking English (which is rare) I don’t understand what is going on. And so I stare at her. And then she repeats the phrase and finally my brain registers that I need to switch to English understanding mode. However, I think that due to earlier referenced “staring period” she thinks I actually don’t know English. Her vocabulary includes such words/phrases as

-butterfly (most Russians know this word. They also know submarine because of The Beatles “Yellow Submarine.” I don’t know if Margarita knows “submarine.”
-“please sit down”
-“good bye”
-“6 o’clock”
-“ring late”

Anyways, I’m getting off topic. So I left for class. And I got to class. And I listened to the lecture. And understood some of it. Then I walked Vacilica to her bus stop. By this time it was 9:30. So I had an hour to get home. If I had walked it probably would have taken me 30 minutes. But I sort of wanted to get some work done before my mom was supposed to call at 10:30. So I got on the 91 marshrutka bus which was supposed to be a 10 minute ride and then a 5 minute walk. And it was what I would call sort of full. There were no seats left (there’s probably seats for 20 people) and maybe like 5 people were already standing in the center aisle way. So I got on and paid my fare and then we kept stopping and collecting more and more and more and more and more and more people. Suddenly I found myself in the middle of the standing people in the middle of the marshrutka far away from either the rear or front doors. So then I tried to move so that I could make my way through the crowd to get to the door to get off at my stop. But no matter how much I tried to move, no one else seemed to notice or to make any room for me to get to the door. So I just stood there.

Sometimes, I get tired of being brave in Russia. Like I probably could have just shoved my way through all these people and made it to the door and pushed my way off at my stop. But I was tired and like I said, I didn’t feel like being brave. So I just stood there squished in the crowd. So then we passed my stop. But I was having a cultural experience of being squished by like 8 billion other people on the marshrutka. I don’t know how to explain how full it was. My best explanation is that at one point, I was having a hard time finding an empty place on the floor to put my foot without stepping on someone else’s foot. If you understand that the space your feet take up on the floor is much less than the space the rest of your body takes up, you will begin to get an idea for how full this marshrutka was. Then we kept collecting more people. The door on the marsrutka has to fold in when it opens. The rear door couldn’t fold in because of the mass of people to open for much of the ride. At any given stop, 5 people would get off (they could only use the front door at this point), 1 of the people would actually be getting off at the stop, then the 4 extra people would climb back in, plus like 3 new passengers.

And then finally we got to almost the end of the route and people started to get off. When I got off there were still lots of people standing in the aisle, but there was at least room to move around and make it to the door. So I got off and I walked to the other side of the street and waited for another 91 coming back into the city to come along. And it was 10:10 by then. So I had given up on getting home in time for the 10:30 phone call from mom. Then a marshrutka never came along. So I stood there for a long time. At this point I began to get sort of worried about my current situation. Not so much that I would miss the phone call. But the whole me being a 30 minute drive away from home at 10:15 at night when the public transportation is starting to shut down. Then Margarita called me on my cell phone. “ABBY! WHERE are you?” I had spent quite a lot of time trying to think of a good excuse for me being like an hour later than I usually am on Tuesday’s after evening class. So I told her that I had to talk to my professor but I was on my way home. I didn’t think she would understand my excuse that the marshrutka was too crowded to get off and plus, I was having my cultural moment of being in a huge crowd of Russian people. Also, no matter how squished we became no one would ever not get on the marshrutka and no one would ever make eye contact or say anything regardless of the fact that any one person was guaranteed to be physically molesting at least like 4 other people. Ah yes, Russia!

So then having successfully lied to Margarita. I continued to wait for the marshrutka. At this point I decided to start walking around the road back towards the center of Yaroslavl. But it would have been impossible for me to actually walk back. As well as the fact that it would have taken like an hour and a half, it is along huge scary large highways. And then no marshrutka’s came. But a sketchy car did pull up next to me. So I kept walking. Then I saw a marshrutka and I took of running across the icy/snowy road/field. But then it turned because it wasn’t going where I needed it to be going. Then I continued walking. There was a high level of panic occurring at this point. A level of panic that is not being adequately conveyed through my writing.

Then I saw another marshrutka. And so I began running again except this time it was actually a real field of snow without a path in it. So I was in my heel boot things running across a snow field at 10:30 p.m. in the Bragino (aka far from my house) part of Yaroslavl. Then my phone rang. And I knew it was going to be Margarita yelling at me again. Except it was Vacilica calling to try to figure out when we could meet again. This was ridiculous. My phone never rings. No one ever calls me. Sometimes I get text messages. So not only was my phone ringing. My phone was ringing during as earlier described sprint across snow field etc…Then I lied to her and said that my mom was supposed to be calling (which was true I just left out the whole part of me being lost in Bragino far from the phone on which my mother would be calling on). So I said I would call her back. Then I slowed to a walk as the marshrutka I had been chasing sped far away from me. Then I got to this other “stop” where people were actually waiting which was a good sign. As the other various places where I had stood waiting had all been without people. Also upon my approach to said kiosk and bus/tram/marshrutka stop there was a large patch of ice on which I sort of did some sort of figure skating stately and majestic twirl except it was neither stately nor majestic.

Then I started to imagine the conversation that was likely occurring between my mother and Margarita.
Margarita: Allyo?
Mother: Abby?
Margarita: Abby no.
Mother: Pajalsta.
Margarita: Ring late.
Mother: Pajalsta? Spasibo? Pajalsta? Spasibo? Abby?
Margarita: No Abby. Ring Late.
Mother: Abby? Pajalsta?

Then I stood at this stop for a long time. Lots of marshrutkas would drive by, except they were empty and done for the day and going to wherever marshrutkas go when they are not being driven. I wonder where they do go? Does every marshrutka driver actually own his marshrutka? Because they all have their very individual curtains and other various decorations. And park it at their apartment? Or is there a huge compound somewhere in Yaroslavl where there are like a billion marshrutka’s, because if there is, I want to go there. I don’t know why I am so intrigued by marshrutkas. They’re just so awesome. I feel like they capture so many different aspects of the whole Russia experience. If I was going to write a thesis, I would write it about marshrutka’s in Russia. This is a если бы construction because 1. I am not going to write a thesis and 2. Middlebury would not allow me to write a thesis about how awesome marshrutkas are. I just typed marshrutka like 6 billion times.

Kept waiting for a marshrutka. Kept waiting for Margarita to call me again and yell at me that she had just had a conversation with my mother. And WHERE WAS I? But she didn’t call. Thank goodness.

Then I asked this woman how to get back to Gigant (my stop) and we waited together for a marshrutka and then got on and then I got off at Gigant. Also this was one of the “small” marshrutka’s which I had never before had reason to ride. These are actually yellow vans, with seats for maybe 10 or 12 people. I think these are the only kind of marshrutkas they have in Irkutsk. So then I got to ride on of the small marshrutka’s which was good because it was on my list of “mandatory things to do before I can leave.” Then I ran through the back alleyways/ courtyard area’s of the various apartment buildings to get home. Courtyard is not the right word. These areas are neither classy nor majestic. Mainly they are dark and sketchy. So then I was sprinting through the back alleyways and it was 11:00 at night and I was very late and there was so much adrenaline. And it was pretty cool. Then I got home. And launched into this over exaggerated monologue about what a кошмар (nightmare/catastrophe/etc…) the whole evening had been. Then I told Margarita that after speaking with my professor I got on a marshrutka but I didn’t read the number correctly and so it didn’t go where I thought it would go. So then I had to get off and wait and take another “correct” one back. Which is sort of true. Except I did actually know the number of the one I got on, there was just the whole “too many people” problem. Then my mom called at 11:30 having actually not called at 10:30, so it all worked out. But oh man, last night was just so ridiculous. I hope that this blog entry conveyed at least a part of how ridiculous the whole evening was.

Вы замужем?

2007-11-18T01:49:00.000-08:00

The Highlights

A
Margarita yelled at me for being a hooligan last night. At the time, it sort of pissed me off, but now I just think it’s funny. She gave me a new clean towel which I am then supposed to go and hang on its hook in the bathroom. But when I went to go hang it up, the old towel was still there. So I didn’t know what to do. So I just put the towel back in my room. And then when I was organizing my room, I laid the towel on the floor near the door, so that I would remember to put it in the bathroom. And then Margarita walked by and saw the towel on the ground and yelled at me for being a hooligan and putting the clean towel on the ground. And then I just sputtered (is that an english word? maybe I mean stuttered. Or stammered.) and tried to make up some excuse that I had accidentally dropped it there. Except she didn’t appreciate this excuse. Whenever I do something wrong, she always says something like “See what a hooligan you are when I am not here to keep you in line.” At least that’s what I think she says. This had earlier applied to my inability to finish all of the food I was left for meals when she was not home to supervise my eating, but has now apparently spread to my delinquent towel dropping activities. And my sub par laundry skills. Apparently I don’t wash out the soap well enough from the clothes or wring out enough of the water before I hang them up to dry.

Б
Wednesday was a big day. I decided that I wanted to go to the локомотив hockey game, since they only have 6 more home games while I will be in Yaroslavl, and I hadn’t been since early September. My first obstacle was purchasing a ticket. So I walked to the building where I thought hockey people had said I could buy a ticket. Except the front of the whole building was blocked off for a remont. I realize that’s not an English word. But remont is so much cooler than remodel. Plus I feel like remodel sort of carries the meaning that it might look new and clean and classy after the remodel. But I feel like there are much lower (and more realistic) expectations of a remont. Anyways, then I found these signs instructing to the secret back entrance. At this point, I successfully entered the building. Which had turned out to be more challenging than I expected. And I was actually fairly content with my entering of the building that I still would have been happy if my ticket buying had failed. This will probably not make sense. Russia, or at least me being in Russia, just sort of lowers my expectations like that. Somehow, I think professors at Midd would be less than impressed if I decided that entering the building was really adequate enough and there was no reason to actually go to class or do any of the work. Then, I asked one of the guard women where I could buy tickets for the game. And apparently I had to exit the building and go to another secret back/side entrance. Once again, this was a successful venture and I purchased the ticket.

В
Got on the marshrytka (This word is impossible to type. I always try to type it with the Russian letters even when the keyboard is in English.) And I received a lucky ticket! I also recently realized that the Russians call them счастливый билет (which I guess translates to “happy ticket.”) I am not sure if I am actually receiving an abnormal number of lucky tickets or I just didn’t get one for a long time when I got here. I now have 5 of them. I guess this is enough, that I could sacrifice one so that I could eat it, and see if my luck got really good. But I sort of like my collection of them. Then there was a traffic jam for a long time and then me and half of the marshrytka got off at the stop nearest to the rink. And I bought a program and found my seat and it was awesome. Somehow my actual excitement at doing all of this is really not being translated into my writing. So I will skip ahead to the important parts. They played the Russian national anthem, which is still a very strange and surreal moment. I switched seats with this guy so that he could sit by his wife. Then the wife befriended me. I think that the wife was probably younger than I am. Then there was phone numbers exchanged and popcorn shared and a fateful question asking if I could ice skate. And I said yes. And then the wife said she was very bad. And then I decided to say that I was bad too. Somehow it just didn’t seem right to say, “well, actually I play hockey here at this rink every week.” And then the wife, I think I will now refer to her as Anya, which is her actual name, suggested that we should go ice-skating together. I am unsure if this will ever happen. Mainly because I sort of doubt she will ever call me. But it she does call me, it could be a catastrophe. I guess I will just hope that the fact that I will skate in rented ice skates which will probably be figure skates which will probably be very dull and too small for me, will help to disguise my ice skating aptitude (is that a legit use of that word?). Also, since we were sitting on the first level right behind the net, sometimes an off-shot would hit the glass right where we were sitting. And Anya would scream and I would not really know what to do. Also she kept asking her other friend why there were only 4 of our players on the ice or why the goalie was sprinting towards the bench (on a delayed penalty call) or etc…and I would just dumbly pretend I didn’t understand. But I think I was still paying too much attention to the game and not doing enough giggling and screaming when the puck would approach. Then the husband returned from some undisclosed location (where he had consumed lots of alcohol) and the game ended and we left.

Г
Also the title of this entry is one of the questions Anya asked me. “Are you married?” I had never been asked this question before. So that was good. Then the drunk husband tried to speak English to me. His vocabulary consisted of “My name is Alexander” and something about “Little Lily in Italy.” I think this was some poem he had once memorized. He was astonished that I had no idea what he was talking about. Then they walked me to the marshrytka stop and the girls said “Good bye” in English and the husband yelled “Good morning.” Like I said, limited vocabulary.

Д
The deadline to change my mind and stay the year passed yesterday. So now there has been some calm acceptance of my unfortunate and impending departure. I woke up on Tuesday and there was a lot of snow on the ground and it was a winter wonder land. And I filled out the form to stay the year. But then I calmed down and stuck to my guns (can I say that?)

Е
I am in the process of writing a 20+ pg. paper about Edinaya Pocciya (United Russia). It is a fairly atrocious process that often ends in me playing solitaire or free cell on my computer for hours on end. Mostly it’s hard because although the party is “Putin’s party” and has nearly a 60% popularity rating, with the next popular being the Communists with like 15%, I haven’t met anyone who actually really likes Edinaya Rocciya. Most people just like Putin. But then some people hate Putin. And so I don’t know what I am supposed to think. I guess I’m supposed to not like Putin. But I actually do. Also our politics professor today said that she thinks Putin is going to have a third term. Which would be allowed (sort of) because you are only allowed 2 terms in a row, so if he gave up the position for awhile then he could almost immediately reclaim it. Actually he could pretty much do whatever he wants. **Are American presidents only allowed 2 terms total or 2 terms in a row? Because I thought they were allowed 2 terms total, but other people think it is 2 terms in a row? (I’m sort of embarrassed that I’m half a poly sci major and don’t know this). And then the Russians in this conversation kept talking about how Bill Clinton could become president again. Russians really like Bill Clinton. Also, our politics professor is obsessed with Hillary. And how Hillary will be president and how good old Bill used to be president. Etc…**

Ж (Aiko’s favorite letter!)
Also the president of France (is his title president?) was in Moscow today hanging out with Putin and Zybkov. So the entire country of France being dysfunctional as a result of the strikes doesn’t seem to be affecting him that much. He’s just chilling with Putin.

З
I never go to museums in Yaroslavl. Actually, I went to one of the exhibits in the Kremlin area one time. But my Russian friend Vacilica refused to pay the entrance fee at the gate because she wanted to go pay at the other gate where there were pictures of the exhibits to help us choose. So then the guard woman yelled at us and threatened to call the police. So I am scared to go back there. But there are other museums I should be going to. But whenever I say I will go to a museum, I always would much rather just wander about the city or ride random marshrytkas until they kick all of us off at the end of the route, and then wander more, and then hope that somehow I will be able to make it back into the city. So maybe I will go to a museum this weekend, but I probably won’t. Oh well.

И (this whole labeling the points in Cyrillic was a good idea until I got to where I don’t know the order of the alphabet and now I have to go look in the dictionary to find the next letter. Perhaps I should memorize the alphabet this weekend).
Facebook has some special function where you can enter your maiden name so that it will not be displayed on your profile (because that would disrespect your husband???) but your old friends can search for you with your maiden name and still find you. This is ridiculous. If you are married. You are not allowed on facebook. Period. End of discussion. No exceptions. I know it is a difficult choice. Marriage or the ability to poke people. But you can’t have the best of both worlds. Also, facebook is out of control with it’s like 10 trillion different options/functions/junk.

К
I would like to clarify that Artic Slaughter as mentioned in one of my previous posts as being one of Kit’s New Year’s Resolutions (make Artic Slaughter more popular). Artic Slaughter is a band, and not the actual slaughtering of walruses or penguins. Because that would be atrocious and I would not allow that to be one of his New Year’s Resolutions. Also, I think by mentioning Artic Slaughter on this blog, I have done more for their popularity than Kit ever did. Kit, do they still exist? BURN!

Л
The drunk men on the marshrytka this morning approved of my hockey playing-ness.
-Man 1: A girl playing hockey. Нормально. Which I guess translates as “normal” but I feel like it has more of a “good” meaning.
-Man 2: Yes. Нормально.
(5 minutes pass)
-Man 2: How do you know she plays hockey? Maybe she plays basketball or football.
-Man 1: She has a hockey stick.
-Man 2: Oh.

Also I decided that I am going to abandon my use of the word “soccer” because the English game “football” has essentially 0 contact between the foot and the ball, and the game which is all about the foot and the ball we call soccer. So now I will call soccer, football and I will call football, American football.

Drank Vanilla Coke. Haven't drank pop in 6 years. Wrote an endless blog entry.

2007-11-11T00:23:00.000-08:00

I really love New Years Resolutions. And so every year I religiously write down an extra long list of resolutions that I can eventually in November and December look back and laugh at how I didn’t achieve any of them. Actually, that’s not completely true. I guess it mainly captivates me because it seems like I’m on this constant path of becoming “the person I want to be.” I have no idea who that “person” is, but every year I feel like I come closer to being that “person.” I think this has a lot more to do with self acceptance, than with me actually changing a whole lot. Unless the changing is becoming more of a loon. Because that is a fairly constant process.

So I recently looked at the list of resolutions I typed last December/January. It’s also a crazy way to compare your current priorities with your priorities at the time of writing. And the one resolution that really sticks out now as well as the one I remember the most from when I wrote them is #8: become passionate about something. And I realized both then and now how silly it is to decide and put on a list to “become passionate about something.” But I think it was sort of a response to the fact that we’re all so busy at Midd and everyone thinks everything they are doing is really important. And maybe they actually do think what they are doing is really important. Which I guess is good. But I just felt like general busy-ness for no reason or fake passion (which in my cynic point of view is prospering at Middlebury) are lame. If people disagree with me and think that the passion at Middlebury is real and not “fake,” please tell me because that would actually make me very happy. I much prefer apathetic people who don’t really care about anything and are okay with that, than someone who is fakely excited about some cause or movement. I guess I should really be less judgmental. Moving on…

Okay, so back to the “become passionate about something.” I think this is also related to the phase I went through in high school where I decided I needed to develop hobbies. Except the only hobbies I could come up with were various sewing or knitting pursuits. Lame! I wish I could have stuck with the “hobby” problem and not graduated to the much more complex problem of “passion.”

Anyways, I am getting way off topic. I realized recently that my passion is generally Russian-ness. And I am not just referring to vodka. This country has captivated me in a way like nothing I can ever remember. It could just be that this is the first time I have ever lived abroad and so it’s just general infatuation with something so different from the good old U.S.A. But I really feel like if I had decided to go to Germany or Italy or China, it just wouldn’t have captivated me like Russia has. I don’t know why this is. I guess it’s a combination of a lot of different things. The language, the cold and snow and winter-ness, the country’s acceptance of hockey (although there is unfortunately no general acceptance of my female participation in it), the general need for Russians to suffer (I too have been known to make myself miserable for no good reason), the completely crazy-ness that is always occurring (and I say crazy with the most serious respect), the collision of politics and economics and history that still is completely inadequate in explaining this country, the people.

I think especially the people interest me. Like, they’ve all lived through these events and history and political and economic upheaval that completely interest me so much. Tonight at dinner I asked Margarita if she thought life was better during the Soviet Union. The fact that I was able to have that conversation with her absolutely blows my mind. And although she initially said that some things are better and some things are worse, her entire list of examples was how things are worse now…which I guess is sort of what I expected. But coming from a U.S. education, that is not supposed to be the answer. And so that only serves to deepen both my interest in Russia and the developing belief that maybe there really isn’t one “right” answer or one correct political system. I also feel like I am way too affected by the sort of propaganda-esque ness of Putin that occurs everywhere. Well mostly just on the TV stations we watch and on every street corner which is now plastered with “План Путина- Победа России” “Putin’s plan. Russia’s victory.” Also it might be that I have to compare him with our loony Bush. Perhaps in a contest of Putin versus George Washington, Putin would lose. But in a Bush versus Putin contest. Putin is the clear winner, as I see it. Putin speaks three languages. Bush is often unable to speak one. I am going to ignore the fact that Putin only speaks German because of his long KGB work in East Germany.

I also feel that it is sort of unfortunate that the Russian person I spend the most time with is a 70 year old grandmother. I know her current life and life view are probably vastly different from a young or middle aged Russian. One time we were talking about how we all wash our clothes by hand and our conversation teacher was really surprised. So maybe washing machines are more popular than we were led to believe. She was also surprised that none of us had microwaves at our host families. Apparently they might be sort of popular too. So I feel like my time with Margarita is very interesting from a historical standpoint, but maybe not creating the most accurate picture of “modern” Russia. I also wonder where the rich Russians live. Not the really rich ones, but the sort of rich ones. Because there are always Mercedes on the streets. Do they also live in the same apartment buildings like us? What do their apartments look like?

Mostly my deep interest in Russia pleases me so much because I have completely no idea why I began studying Russian. And so this reinforces my life idea that the choices we make are not really that important. That the power we have over our own life is miniscule compared to the power of chance, luck, coincidence, etc. I feel like people could interpret this as me saying that nothing we do ever matters because we have no control over our lives. That’s not at all what I имею виду “mean.” **It also pleases me that even what I am thinking and typing in English, it seems natural to revert to Russian constructions. This is related to what Natasha was talking about with чтобы. I also often want to use бы. Which in 2 letters and you can even shorten it to б for poetic or various other reasons conveys the whole idea of something that could have happened, but it actually didn’t happen and will not happen. But there still was the possibility once of it happening. Or at least in our discussion we are pretending that there was the possibility** Maybe this “our choices don’t matter” life view is my way of convincing myself to worry less about the decisions I make and to just live. But it all works out in the end.

Completely Unrelated Sidenote
**Also why do Russian people always reply to как дела? “how are (your) matters?- i.e. how are you” that things are нормально “normal.” But that всё будет хорошо “everything will be good.” While Americans always when asked “how are you?” say “good.” But we always say “everything will be okay.” Why is everything in Russia only normal in the present but good in the future? And in America everything is good in the present and only okay in the future?

10 Times More Unrelated than Previous Unrelated Sidenote
I am currently listening to a Russian pop/rock song entitled Герпес. Why do Russians sing about STDs? Герпес—Herpes. У тебя СПИД? –Do you have AIDS?

Back on topic:
So Russia has provided me with something about which to be passionate. Is that a legit construction of an English sentence? Oh well. And at some point the question changed from “Can I survive until December?” to “Should I stay for the spring?” This change in outlook surprised me possibly more than it could surprise anyone else. And for approximately a month I have battled with this question every day. Some days the answer was clear, Stay. It’s so much more interesting than Midd. You learn 1,000 new things every day and they’re so much more applicable to life than some political science theory. It’s possibly the one time I will live in Russia. Because playing pick-up hockey at the локомотив rink makes me so happy, in spite of and maybe especially because of all of the strange staring by various Russians. **The staring had actually recently decreased. Everyone who regularly showed up to play on Mondays had become accustomed to the weird girl. Today, we played on Saturday. Some of the same people were there. But there were a lot of new people. The staring, which is actually less staring and sort of just weird prolonged questioning facial expressions, was possibly at an all time high. Also some man started talking to me. I have no idea what he said. I said da. He seemed satisfied with that answer. Also Hug Boy was sadly not present.*** So some days it was clear that I needed to stay.

Other days it was completely clear that I, of course, needed to go home. The most recent example of this day was on Thursday. We don’t have classes on Thursday. And so instead of doing my homework for our classes on Friday. **Russia has also killed my work ethic. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to do work. Perhaps this is why I enjoy this country so much.** So I was bored and trying to fill time until 4:30 basketball practice. So I got on a random marshrootka. Actually it wasn’t random. I have been on this one before. But last time I got off too early and got lost and wandered around for 45 minutes with my hockey stick. So I was sort of trying to redeem myself with a successful riding of the 91st marshrootka. And the entire time I sat there, the inner dialog in my head was “That wouldn’t happen in America. THAT wouldn’t happen in America. THAT wouldn’t happen at home. That WOULD NOT happen in America. That is SO ridiculous and would NEVER happen at home.” Nothing especially annoying or frustrating or even out of the ordinary was occurring. For example we drove past this ugly factory spewing smoke. Except we actually do have huge ugly factories spewing pollution in America. And actually we pollute like, a lot, more than Russia. But I was just completely fed up and so everything became this comparison to the U.S. And invariably Russia ALWAYS (and often unfairly) lost. I can’t explain how strange this was. And at some point I realized that I was doing this. And while I was still frustrated, I was actually just highly amused by the continuous inner dialog of “THAT wouldn’t happen…”

I just realized I have no idea where this blog entry is going. I think when I started writing there was some general idea of what I wanted to say. But somewhere along the way, I lost my thesis statement. Mrs. Williams would not approve.

Okay, I remembered what I was trying to say. So I spent approximately a month battling with, what I lovingly nicknamed, the “stay or go” problem. And I made a lost of lists. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was really no correct answer to the problem. That really they are both the “correct” answers in their own ways. I have no idea if this whole entry of “Abby’s crazy inner dialogue” is going to interest my readers. I wonder how many people will actually read this. I always like to imagine that lots of people read about my ridiculous adventures. I bet not that many people read this at all. Oh well…

So I came to the conclusion that although I will count Russia as my new found passion, I need to go home for the spring. There are lots of reasons. Most of those reasons aren’t important now that I have finally just made the damn decision.

Possibly the most obvious reasons to go home are that I want to leave while I am still enamored with the country. I want to leave being excited about coming back. I also am leaving because I feel like if I stayed there is the possibility of liking it too much. So much that going back to finish the often oppressive but always comfortable and safe Middlebury bubble would suck. So I am going back to finish college and then who knows…

However, if there is some sort of large violent overthrow of the government with the presidential elections in March, I may never forgive myself for leaving.

Various Other Items of Interest That Are Probably Much More Interesting Than Abby’s Obsession With Russia;

I asked Andrei if he had ever seen a male conductor on the marshrootka. The conductor is the person who walks around and stares at you until you hand her your fare and then she hands you your ticket and you spend a long time adding up the numbers hoping it is a lucky ticket. I think it especially takes me a long time because I always try to do the math in Russian and then I have to give up and start over and do the whole addition in English. He said one time he saw a male conductor on the marshrootka. But he thinks it was a friend of the driver. Then I asked him if he had ever seen a female driver of a marshrootka. And he just laughed at me. But there are often female drivers of the trams. Perhaps this is only allowed because the tram is strictly confined to its tracks.
Also there is this completely strange phenomenon of hand shaking that occurs in Russia. Like men are constantly shaking each other’s hands. As far as I can tell, whenever you meet another man you are required to shake his hand. But only if you know them. If you don’t know them you are just supposed to walk by and completely ignore their existence. So then they shake hands. And sometimes if they are walking in different directions, all they do is shake hands and nod their heads to each other and continue on their way. Also you are required to shake hands whenever you leave a group of other men. One time at the train station 2 guys approached 2 other guys. They all did the appropriate hand shaking. Talked for like 1 minute. Then 3 of the guys left and the other guy stayed behind. And they all had to shake each other’s hands upon departure. And even they realized how ridiculous this was. I think this would be more acceptable behavior if it was only adults who did this. But also little boys do this. Like one day when I was at the elementary school there was this probably 7 year old boy who walked past another boy and he paused just long enough to shake the other boys hand. And then he continued on his path. Also I have seen teenage boys do the strange hand shaking and head nodding and continuing on their way on the street. Also one time when I went to the Lokomotiv hockey game, Andrei had to stop like every 2 seconds to shake some other guy’s hand. But at least sometimes he would stop and talk to them for a few seconds. But then today while we were waiting for them to let us into the rink, these other guys kept showing up and then they would shake Andrei’s hand and then we would all stand there in silence. Some of these guys I have seen multiple times before other times we play hockey. I wonder if they will ever shake my hand. (Maybe I skipped straight to the hug level.) Or if hand shaking only occurs between two men. I don’t know what the equivalent is when women meet each other on the street. I wonder why they just shake each other’s hands and never say anything. How close of a relationship do you have to have to be on hand shaking basis? Like are you required to know the other person’s name? Or is it enough that you show up to play hockey on a weekly basis and so you shake each other’s hands. Also, once again, I want to know if I am on the verge of being on hand shaking status with anyone. Or if it requires true friendship. Or if because I am a woman I am completely forbidden from the hand shaking. Or if it is enough that I play hockey with all of the men that I can join in the hand shaking. Maybe I will just try to shake Andrei’s hand next time we play hockey. He will think I have lost my mind. Also, perhaps the most annoying part about this is that I can’t ask anyone about this. No Russian person would think it was strange and so they completely wouldn’t understand my question. And an American or other foreigner is probably just as baffled as I am by this hand shaking phenomenon. Actually maybe I am the only person who spends so much thinking it. Oh man, I have just written like an entire page about the hand shaking occurring in Russia.
I went to the post office on Friday. Actually I went there on Thursday but there was a really long line, so I left. So I went back on Friday. The one other time I tried to mail letters I showed up during the lunch break. Except the lunch break is like 2 hours in the middle of the day. I feel like lunch is when most people with jobs try to go mail letters. But the post office was closed from like 11:30 to 1:30. Anyways, I wandered around for a while and then returned and everyone stood outside the front door and then they let us and I waited not that long and mailed my letters. My most recent trip to the post office was much more eventful. On Friday there was still a really long line. But I just decided to wait. So we all stood there. But no one said anything to each other. Then I tried to think if we were standing in a long line in the U.S., if people would talk to each other. I couldn’t really remember. Then there were these cases of goods that you could buy. Like there were sort of acceptable things like greeting cards or lottery tickets. Then there were also displays of children’s books, soap, shampoo, lotion, toilet paper, drawing notebooks, pencils, pens, rulers. Who goes to the post office to buy TOILET PAPER. Or LAUNDRY DETERGENT. Clearly no one actually says “Oh we need toilet paper, I should go buy it at the post office.” Mainly because there would probably be a really long line or it would be lunch break. But then I don’t think that anyone gets to the post office, stands in line to mail their letter, and then decides to buy some toilet paper. So we stood there for a really long time and it was completely ridiculous. And fairly often somebody would enter and just skip the whole line and go to the front and ask the one lady working some question. I guess it would be unfair if they had to stand in line to just ask one question. But it seemed unfair that they got to skip all of us. Then this one lady came in with her daughter and went to the front and asked a question. And suddenly the worker lady disappeared for like 5 minutes. Then she reappeared. And she proceeded to unlock one of the cupboards and the little girl had to spend a long time picking which book she wanted. Who the hell goes to the post office to buy a children’s book? And why did that lady get to skip the whole line? I was only consoled by the fact that everybody else in the line started muttering and scowling at the lady while she paid for the book. Also people would get to the front of the line and just be completely clueless. As if they had never mailed a letter before. This other lady was mailing some important letter so she had to put insurance on it or have notification when the letter arrived at its destination. But she was completely incompetent at filling out the forms. So that took forever. Perhaps an American would also have been completely incompetent at filling out a similar form in the U.S. I’m not sure. But I feel like if you are a Russian person, living your entire life in Russia, speaking Russian, probably often using the postal system, you should not be completely confused by some dumb form. This is also related to my surprise when Russian people don’t know what bus or marshrootka numbers to take. Like they’ve lived in Yarosavl their entire lives! One of my friends was trying to get to her new apartment in one of the other parts of the city after we went to a museum and drank tea one day. And she had no idea what number of bus to take. How does she not know how to get to the other part of the city? So I told her that I only knew that 91 went to that part because I have to ride that one to play hockey. Then I am fairly sure she didn’t believe me. So we stood at the stop for a really long time. Then somebody she knew came along. And she asked him. And he told her to get on 91. Ha. I was right. And then we waited and then she got on. And I actually I just remembered this, but she shook my hand right when she was getting on the marshrootka. So perhaps women or at least young women can shake each other’s hands. But it was more like a hand grasp instead of a true organized hand shake. I shall continue to observe and report back on the hand shaking…
*Also I wonder what people who have never been to Russia think a marshrootka is. Because they are awesome and I wish they were in America. It’s like a pulic transportation bus. But it’s more often van-sized. And essentially you just try to fit as many people in at one time as possible. Usually this is fairly entertaining. Unless I have the hockey stick and bag. In which case everyone just stares at frowns at me. And I end up hitting everyone with the bag. I try to keep a closer watch on the hockey stick as I feel like being hit by the bag is more forgivable than being hit by the stick.
Oh man. This thing is so long. I bet if I spent more of my time reading or thinking or talking in Russian, and less of it writing blogs in English, I wouldn’t still be so bad at this language.

There were other important or not so important things that I was going to write about. I don’t remember what they were.

The high heeled winter boots have been so far a fairly successful venture. Except now my left foot is swollen because I got hit by a puck today. So now the boot is tight. And I have this awkward limp that is occurring.
Also I am going to take this opportunity to remind my family members of some of their New Years Resolutions, which I required them all to make.

So, Kit: You are supposed to be brushing your teeth every day (yeah right) and be able to tombstone Stonewall. Also you are supposed to be promoting Artic Slaughter.

Stonewall: I feel like you might have succeeded at some of your resolutions. As opposed to Kit’s completely ridiculous list. So, Stonewall: You are supposed to be visiting and applying to colleges (Good Work!-If I can I would like to suggest a college in a different time zone from Missoula, because it would be pretty lame if 3 of the 4 clocks were on the same time and mine was only two hours ahead. I feel like mine being 10 hours ahead right now sort of compensates for the lameness of 3 being the same time), have a single digit handicap by the end of the summer, and be coaching a squirt or peewee hockey team this winter.

Mama Mayer: You are supposed to have planned the trip to Vermont (which I think I sort of planned), but we’ll give you credit for that. You need to have gotten proposal signatures (Succesful!) Sign up for ski lessons this winter and hiking to the M once a week.

I thought this would get posted on Laurel's birthday. But I got bored of sitting at the apartment so I came to the internet club. I think the people who work here hate me. I am always here. I wonder if I actually do come that often, of if it is just normal and I feel like I am always coming . Regardless.

This would have been posted on Laurel’s birthday. So 20th happy birthday, my dear!!! I wish we could sleep in a tent like we did on my 20th. But we will have to save that for this spring.

The Rest of Archangelsk

2007-11-08T03:52:00.000-08:00

Thursday Afternoon
So I left the hotel at around 5 p.m. after my delicious nap. But before I was also to leave the hotel I had to make it back to the front desk/lobby area. And therein lies the problem. I had just followed the doorman to my room and I was sort of still dazed so I hadn’t really paid attention to where we were going. I only knew that it was confusing because I was staying in the 2nd (cheap) campus of the hotel and I needed to make it back to the expensive lobby 1st campus. So then I left my room and took the elevator to the first floor. And there were lots of confusing hallways and doors but no clear exit to the lobby. So then I decided maybe they connected on the -1 floor. So then I took the elevator there. And the workmen sort of stared at me when the elevator door opened. So they got on. And then we returned to the 1st floor. And they disappeared into some door. And then some other people appeared. And they weren’t workmen. So I started to follow them (at a safe distance, so they didn’t know I was actually following them). But then they went into this office. So then I decided to just sit down on one of the chairs and hope that eventually somebody else would come along and I would be able to follow them. And then as I was turning in a circle to go back to the chair, this guy came up and asked if I needed something. And I asked where the lobby was. And he sort of laughed at me. And then he said something about how I was right that it was a labyrinth. And then he led me to some door and we followed this hallway to the lobby. So that was good.

So once I successfully exited the hotel, it was already dark, so I just walked around on the main streets (Sunday and Trotskii) for like an hour. And then I found this large shopping mall complex which I wandered around for a while. And then I went and bought bottled water at one of the kiosks and I found the information center (which was already closed) which was located very close to the hotel (Good Work Paper Map!). And then I went back and carefully paid attention to the correct hallway and doors I went through to get to my room. And then I went to bed.

Friday
So first thing, I went to the information center. And the woman there was very helpful. And she gave me all sorts of pamphlets and phone numbers to call. And she told me about this famous museum that is 45 minutes south of Archangelsk which is just this huge complex of really old wooden buildings that they collected from all parts of northern Russia and moved together into this one complex. So I decided that I would do that on Saturday.
So for the rest of Friday, I wandered around and found two different museums. One with an exhibit about the history of Archangelsk during Soviet times which was really interesting and then this really sad and depressing part about all of the soldiers from Archangelsk who had died in Afghanistan. And then I realized that the same exhibit could be made for all of the U.S. soldiers who died/are dying in Afghanistan right now. And it just seems so DUMB! That is my very ineloquent response to what seems to be a general trend of Afghanistan invasion.
Then I went and walked along the banks of the sea again. For a really long time. And I came upon another random museum. So I went in there. And I saw a lot of old portraits of old people. Which were displayed in this apartment that used to be the apartment of rich/possibly royalty who lived in Archangelsk. And then there was another display of handmade dolls. And the woman just talked to/at me for a very long time about all of the different dolls. And then I just kept walking along the banks. Then I found the central market. Which is always an essential part of any Russian city. Then I found a grocery story and bought food. And went back to the hotel and planned my Saturday trip to the wooden building museum and went to bed.

Saturday
Got on the marshrootka which had on its list of stops that it was going to the train station/bus station. Except it was actually coming from those places. So then we drove across this huge bridge and into this other part of Archangelsk. But I just decided I would wait until the end of the route and look at all of the Soviet apartment buildings. And then I would get on another one actually headed to the bus station. So then I got off and walked to another nearby stop. It was my hope that this way I would be able to avoid getting back on the same exact marshrootka headed the other direction. So I did not get back on the same marshrootka, but that one did pass me while I was standing at the stop. And I’m not sure if the conductor lady realized. Anyways, I got on the next one headed to the bus station. And I got a lucky ticket! Which was awesome because it is always a good sign to get lucky tickets and it is even better when you get them by accident because you were a loon and got sort of lost.

Then I got on the bus headed to Malie Karelie (museum) and I asked the conductor to tell me when my stop was. And she kindly obliged. ***This is a good point to insert my commentary about the general niceness of Archangelsk residents. It’s not that people in Yaroslavl are actually mean. But people in Archangelsk seemed actually nice. Like the cars stopped at crosswalks!!! Unbelievable, I know. And one time this conductor woman on the marshrootka leaned out of the door and explained where they were going and tried to convince members of the crowd to get on. And also you don’t have to wave for the marshrootka’s to stop. They just do!*** Okay, anyways. So the lady told me when to get off. So I paid for entry to the museum. And I successfully paid only 30 roubles for a student instead of the 200 for a foreigner. And then I just wandered around for like 3 hours looking at the sweet old wooden houses, barns, churches, water pumps, windmills, etc…And it was nice to not be in the city. I always forget how nice it is to be surrounded by trees instead of people and cars. Then I went to another gift shop/souvenir store. This is mainly because I recently realized I better start buying gifts for people. I have no idea what is an appropriate souvenir from Russia. However, my gift buying is constricted by the fact that all of my purchases must be both compact (easily packable), light (I’m deathly scared my suitcases will be over the weight limit), and not fragile (because they will have to share the suitcase with among other things hockey skates). But the woman in this store was also not satisfied with my just aimlessly looking at the souvenirs. So then I went to the bus station and took the next bus back to Archangelsk. And on this trip back I received 2 lucky tickets!!! This was the craziest thing ever. So now my collection of luck transport tickets is up to 4.

Then I wandered around for a long time both in the city center and along the sea. And then I had to find the concert hall because on Friday I had gone to buy a ticket to the organ and violin concert which was the 16th annual opening concert of some international musical concert in Archangelsk. So then I went to the concert and the building was beautiful, both inside and out. I think it was built in the 17th century. And it was nice to just sit there and sort of still be in this “wow-I can’t believe I’m doing this right now” mode which sort of existed the whole weekend. And when the organ guy (whose last name was Stroganof- which is awesome) was playing his back was to the audience. But whenever he would finish a composition he would do this overdramatic swinging of his legs over the top of the bench and hop to his feet for the dramatic bow. It was highly amusing.

Sunday
The alternative title for this entry is “Part 5: Cowboys,” but you will have to keep reading to understand why.
So I woke up and packed and paid for my hotel room. And the woman took my room key and typed it in to the computer and then started to speak in awkward English. But I answered in Russian. And she smiled and said “Oh, you speak Russian!” And it was good. And then I managed to pay to leave my bag in the камера хранения. I guess they must have these things in the U.S. too where you can leave your luggage because your train/plane leaves late in the day. But I must just stay at only like Super 8’s which never have them. Then I went and bought a Snickers at the Kiosk. This is only important because Snickers became an important part of my diet during my Archangelsk time. One time I tried to buy Skittles but the woman looked at me and had to dig around in her kiosk for like 5 minutes to find a bag of Skittles. So I just stuck with the Snickers. Then I went to the last museum on my list of museums which is housed in the old fort/protection building thing which is very old and apparently one of only a few old stone protection buildings left in Russia. And there was this old Russian man standing at the doorway who was sort of sketchy and smiled at me and opened the door. And then I asked him where the museum was and he kept smiling and pointed me to the door. So then I went to this museum.
And read all about how Archangelsk was Russia’s first port city until dumb Piter came about. And then all about wedding tradition in the север. And then as I prepared to exit, I realized that I had to pass the crazy doorman guy again.

Conversations and Candy:
So he invited me into the small glass hut/cabin/office thing which stands at the entrance. And then I sat down and he told me to tell me what I had thought about the museum. So I just stared to talk and then he interrupted me to ask me where I was from. And I said I studied in Yaroslavl, but I was from America. Oh man, this highly delighted him. And then he mentioned Margaret Thatcher and continued to refer to her for the remainder of our conversation.

So we talked about Russia, politics, the U.S., my family, my lack of boyfriend. He was very unsatisfied by the lack of boyfriend. So I changed my story that I had a boyfriend, but it was too hard when I was in Russia and he was in the U.S. My new friend’s solution to this problem was that the boyfriend could come to Russia. Then he also suggested that there were lots of men in Russia. Plus, winter is coming. And it will be cold, so I need a boyfriend. Then when it was revealed that I was 20 yrs. old, he said I should have 2 children already. By the way, did I want girls or boys? Also don’t forget that every approximately 5 minutes, he would again refer to Margaret Thatcher. Then I am fairly sure that he coupled the fact that I was an American and I was interested in politics, that I was going to be president soon. So he stopped referring to good old Margaret and began referring to seeing me on television as president in a few years. Then he gave me some candy and sent me on my way. He was soo cool. Also, he used to work in Kamchatka!

Next up: “House of Books”
This was only a problem because it combines my love for books and my love of Russian and so I just want to buy approximately EVERYTHING. I found some textbook about America in English, in which there was a “Part 5: Cowboys.” The most important things about the U.S. seemed to be New York City and cowboys. Then I found the atlas/map section so I spent forever looking at all of these awesome World Atlases in Russian. And I even found Мизула (Missoula) on one of the U.S. maps! Sadly, Middlebury did not make the cut. Then again, Middlebury doesn’t make the cut on most English maps. Then I found «Моя Жизнь-Бил Клинтон» (My Life-Bill Clinton) and so I really wanted to buy that. Then I found the children’s section and I almost bought one of the “learn to read” books for Kit. The book was called something like “My Little Book-y” and had awesome pages and illustrations of гриб (mushroom) or кот (cat). But then I realized that books are neither small/compact (especially huge atlases) nor light. So I didn’t buy anything. Then I realized that possibly this was a good idea. Because maybe I am the only person who would want a huge atlas of the world in Russian. Also if you are Laurel and you wish that you were going to receive a travel guide to Paris (in Russian) I am sorry because I decided not to buy that either.

Then I wandered along the pedestrian only street which was full of lots of people and lots of miniature horses and….a camel? I don’t know why there was a camel there. I considered paying money to ride it. But as there would have been no one else to appreciate the brilliance of this experience, I just stared at it for a while. Also I remembered the one time I was talking to Susanna and she was alarmed by the camel invasion of the Irkutsk streets. Then I went back to the market and wandered around some more. Looked at the sea one last time. Retrieved my bags from the hotel. The doorman asked me if I wanted him to put it in my car. And I almost laughed at him.

Sat at the train station for a long time. Sat and slept on the train for a much longer time. Returned to Yaroslavl. Margarita prepared a feast for my arrival. Same old, same old. She also rearranged all of the furniture in my room. And I am not satisfied. But she is in utter восторг. Ну, что делать.

Various Other Things Which I Forgot To Mention
My reading during the trip revealed many interesting things:
Apparently J.K. Rowling recently revealed that Dumbledore was gay. And then the article went on to suggest that McGonogal was a lesbian and question the close relationship between Filch and his cat. Pure brilliance.
Also Tom Cruise is building a like 19 story bunker below his house in Colorado. Because he is afraid of alien invasion.
Also there is this phenomenal picture of George Bush looking like a complete loon. And I understood the whole article except for the punch line.

Russians understood the glory of baked goods. And the glory of chocolate. But as far as I can tell, they don’t really combine the two. So any sort of chocolate chip cookie is non-existent. Except I found some in a grocery store in Archangelsk. But they were not very good. But nonetheless, they were chocolate chip cookies.

Also Ирония Судбы 2 is coming out in December.

Tomorrow is November 7 which is the day of the communist revolution of something like that. And although Putin tried to replace it with November 4th (Day of Unity), communist habits die hard. So there is going to be some Communist Meeting and March.

Update: I walked by where the march was going to be an hour before it was supposed to start. And there were already a lot of police men milling about. And I didn't know if I should be more scared of the policemen or the Communists. So I just went home.

Fast Train 16 Moscow – Archangelsk

2007-11-08T03:50:00.000-08:00

I just returned from my four day vacation in northern Russia: Archangelsk. And although I have very many great stories to share, for some reason, I can’t adequately turn them into words at the moment. Usually the writing genius strikes at approximately 1 a.m., so I will hope that later tonight the words I can come up with will adequately describe my experience. Because the excerpts I just wrote are really really bad and don’t capture what seemed to me to be a sort of magical and unbelievable trip….

And so begins what will definitely end up being a very long, multiple entry story of my last five days. My train to Archangelsk left from Yaroslavl at 2:15 p.m. on Halloween, October 31. However I arrived at the train station at approximately 11:30. You ask, why? And I say that Margarita was driving me crazy. So, I just told her that my train left a lot earlier than it actually did. This was a brilliant plan until she wanted to look at my ticket. She wanted to make sure the train was leaving from the main Yaroslavl station and not the Yaroslavl (Moscow) station. But I just sort of refused and ran out of the apartment. So I sat at the train station for a long time just people watching. So then finally the train came and we all got on. And I found the correct wagon but I didn’t understand the seating. It was a platskart wagon so there are open compartments of 6 people in each compartment. Except the seats were numbered for both a sleeping wagon (which I was in) and a sitting only wagon (which would have held a lot more people). So I just stood in the aisle where I thought my seat was until this man told me it was impossible for another person to be sitting in that area as it was already full and he pointed me to the correct place. And then I just sat down and took a deep breath. And realized that I had 20 hours to go. And I was already exhausted from waiting for the train and getting to the right platform and finding the wagon and then my seat.

So I sat there for a while. My seat mates were two women who essentially immediately made their beds upon receiving their package of sheets and went to bed (at approx 3 p.m.) and another middle aged man who didn’t seem very friendly or talkative. Also everyone immediately took off their shoes and put on their house shoes which they had brought along for the journey. Well, everyone except for me.

So I started to read the magazine that I had bought before my departure. And I sort of read/sort of looked at the pictures for a while. And then the most important event of the journey occurred. New seat mates joined our compartment. They were two men who I would guess were approximately 50 years. Okay, this entry is getting really boring to both write and reread. So I am just going to fast forward to the highlights…

Picnicking with the Russians
The two new men decided it was time to eat. And suddenly the little table was alarmed by loafs of bread, hunks of sausage, cheese, crackers, tea bags, like a billion hard boiled eggs, some container of salt, some larger container of sugar, cookies, hunks of carrot cake. (I am sorry that I used the word “hunk” to describe approximately half of the food.) Moving on. So I was fairly alarmed by the whole magical appearance of all this food. And then one of the guys started talking to me and put a hard boiled egg in front of me. I tried to continue reading. And then he said “Why are you reading….Let’s eat…” And so we had this feast of food and they just kept giving me more pieces of bread or cheese or meat or eggs. And then we drank tea. And it was awesome.

And then we all made up our beds and read until they dimmed the lights and then I just sort of laid there thinking how awesome it was that I had just picnicked with Russians and now the train was speeding towards Archangelsk. And then for some reason everyone got up again and we drank tea again and then we actually went to bed for the night. As in I would sleep for an hour and then wake up either because the train was stopping and so people were getting on or off or because I had to change sleeping positions.

Bloody Nose
Okay, I realize this is gross and not really blog appropriate. But then I got a bloody nose and so I laid there really hoping this was not a “Kit” level bloody nose. As in the bleeding would not spread to my eyes. Because that would have been a very very very bad situation. But luckily it did not spread to my eyes. So that was good.

My Friends Departure
And then I woke up again and the men were bustling about because we had arrived at their station. And then they waved at me and left. And I felt really, really alone and scared. So I went back to bed.

6:30 A.M. Arrival
So then the train lady woke everybody up at 6:00. I was very confused. But I followed along what everybody else was doing and I folded up all my sheets and rolled up my sleeping mattress. And I went to return the sheets to the train lady. Except I had forgotten the towel, so she yelled at me. And then I returned with the towel and she scowled at me. And then we all just sat there. And I was still very confused. And then one of the women in my compartment put on her coat which consisted of like an entire dead fox and his face draped across the back. It was really fairly atrocious. And highly alarming at approximately 6:15 a.m. And then the train slowed into a station and the large letters said Archangelsk. WHAT? I thought we were arriving at 10 a.m. So, I just sat there wondering if maybe this was the Archangelsk Oblast station and we were still 4 hours away from the actual city. But then everybody got up to get off the train. And the scowling train lady was scowling. So I got off. And then I went and sat in the train station from for 3 and a half hours. Because I needed time to compose myself in order to embark upon the next challenges, mainly finding my hotel and checking in. Plus, I knew that the check-in time for the hotel was noon. And although I figured I could show up around 10 or 11. I wasn’t about to show up at 6:45 a.m.

Sitting in the Train Station
Nothing happened. Except these official looking men came and stood about for a while. And I felt like they were just staring at me and waiting for me to move and then they would come and demand large amounts of paperwork and documents and such. But then they just turned out to be waiting for a train. So they got on and left. And I started to breath again.

Public Transportation
Although I had spent a significant amount of time reading the travel guide book that Megan has at school, I had to return it to her before I left for the trip. So my entire knowledge of Archangelsk was confined to a small piece of paper on which I had written down things which seemed important. And I had a mini hand drawn map I had copied down from the book. The map consisted of a box representing the train station, another box far away representing the hotel, and the name of the main street which connected the train station to the center of the city in which my hotel was approximately located. So, exiting the train station, I knew only that I needed to go straight for a long time till I ran into the water and then wander to the right and somewhere there would be my hotel.

So I stood at the marshrootka stop for a very long time. Just reading where all of them were going and desperately hoping that this all worked out. And then two different people tried to ask me directions. And I almost started laughing at them. I wish they knew that they asked directions from the clueless American girl with only a paper map of the city. So then I saw that one of the buses was going down “Sunday street” which was the main street I needed to get to the end of. So I got on and paid. And then we drove. And then at the end of it, we turned left. So I got off and walked back to the right. And at this point, I realized how helpless I was. And how useless the paper map really was. Because it didn’t have any connecting street names between Sunday street and my hotel. I also forgot to mention that I knew the information center was at 8 Freedom Street. And on the paper map, the dot for the information center and the box for my hotel were close together. So then somehow I walked straight and I found Freedom Street. And then I turned to walk towards the water because I thought that I remembered that my hotel was close to the water. And then THERE WAS MY HOTEL! And so I walked into the lobby and sort of just stared at the doorman. And he said “registration?” And I said “da.” And then I checked in, which was made much easier by the fact that the moment the front desk boy saw my U.S. passport he began to speak in English to me. And then the doorman carried by suitcase to my room and wished me a “pleasant relaxation.” And then I took another deep breath. And took a nap for 4 hours.

Rambling about Margarita

2007-11-08T03:48:00.000-08:00

I just got off the phone with my mom which as usual decayed into this hour long Abby monolog in which I just sort of carry on in full loon mode discussing any and every topic which comes to mind. I suppose this is what happens when you speak English with another English speaking person on a very rare basis. And so there was the Abby monolog which sort of further decayed into me telling ridiculous stories about my host grandmother, Margarita. Which I sort of forgot how many there are and how amusing they are.

First off- Margarita is a very nice woman. She makes very delicious borsh. And she’s very good at being generally overbearing and treating me like a completely incompetent person. But I think it would be hard to remember that although this foreign student doesn’t fluently speak your language and has never before lived in Russia, she is still a competent independent adult (sometimes). So I always try to remind myself to accept her quirks and overbearing-ness as her attempts to protect me. Sometimes this helps, sometimes I just get frustrated with her anyways.

Now on to the good stuff-

As I ate my dinner a few nights ago, Margarita proudly exclaimed how glad my mother would be that I was no longer a vegetarian. She explained how there would no longer have to be complex meals cooked for me since as I already told her I was the only family member who had come up with such a ridiculous idea to not eat meat. Then she asked me why I had become a vegetarian. I really hate this question because I feel that generally it’s not asked in an “I’m curious” mode but rather a “Give me your ridiculous reason so that we can engage in this long and annoying debate about how that is a bad and stupid reason.” Anyways, so I don’t like this question and usually (in English) I just say that I don’t like the taste of meat. But seeing as how I was currently eating a bowl of soup with a large hunk of chicken meat floating in it, I didn’t feel that that reason would satisfy Margarita. So I just told her that it was sort of this gradual transition and I didn’t really have a reason (silly me!) and now I have realized how ridiculous it was to not eat meat. She seemed satisfied that I had recognized my mistake and proud that she had fixed the silly American girl who didn’t eat meat.

And then approximately 5 minutes after this conversation ended. She asked me if she should buy колбаса (sausage) for me to take on the train with me. And I said no. First of all, I never eat meat except when she puts it in front of me and makes me eat it. i.e. I do not frequent the hotdog stands at various points around town. Second of all, seeing as she had been planning the food that would be packed for me for the train for approximately 2 weeks, I was sure that this food would both last a lifetime and take up more room in my suitcase than all of my clothes, and so I just immediately declined any food item which she suggested for the train package. Then apparently frustrated with my rejection of the колбаса, for some unknown reason, she began to ask me questions about sausage products in the U.S.

Margarita: What kind of sausage do they have in the U.S.?
Me: Like what brand names? I don’t know. I didn’t eat sausage when I lived in the U.S.
Margarita: (laughs) What do you mean, you don’t know. What kinds do they have?
Me: Like what types of sausage? I don’t know.
Margarita: Do they have (a long list of adjectives describing sausage of which I understood or recognized none of the words)?
Me: (blank stare)
Margarita: Repeats the question.
Still didn’t understand any of the adjectives describing various types. I kept waiting for her to say солёный because that means salty and I figure that could be a type. But she never said it. Thus, I continued to sort of blankly stare.
Margarita: (in disgust) You don’t know what types they have.
Me: No.

Okay, I rarely have discussions about meat products in America (in English or Russian). Unless the discussion focuses on how good “summer sausage” is. I engage in that discussion on a fairly regular basis. Regardless, I can not name a single person who has experience in both American meat products compared to Russian meat products and adequate Russian language skills to have a conversation on this topic. I am probably one of the least qualified individuals to be involved in such a conversation. And Margarita was not surprisingly under whelmed.

Also this doesn’t actually have a story to go along with it. But as I have mentioned earlier Margarita is quite hip and involves in SMS with her grandson on a nearly daily basis. I am fairly sure he hates the fact that his grandmother is constantly sending him SMS. But the most brilliant part of it all is that there is this magnifying glass lying around the apartment which she always has to use in order to read the text on the cellphone. So she sits there holding the cellphone in one hand and the magnifying glass over the top of it to read the SMS. It is pure brilliance. I nearly laugh every time I see this.

Also, watching news program with Margarita is pure torture. This is mainly because at intervals of approximately 5 seconds, she exclaims ужас/ужасно/какой ужас/просто ужас...etc This all just generally translates to “oh the horror.” This continues for the 30 minute program. Sometimes it is interrupted by her attempts to explain the news story to me. It is strange what she decides to explain and what she figures I understand. I would say that 90 percent of the time I already understood what she decides needs explaining. The other 10 percent of the time her explanations have completely nothing to do with the actual content of the news. Like she decides to explain the most trivial piece of information. I am living an existence where I do not approve of or appreciate trivial pieces of information. Or excessive wordiness.

It’s strange living with a woman whose entire perception of the world is based upon the price of bread. In Soviet times, it was only 20 kopecks and now it is 35 roubles. Then she does some very quick math and tells me that it has increased for example by 15 times. This is repeated with the price of cheese, the price per kilowatt for electricity, and the rent for the apartment. Mainly I am more surprised with the rapid math skills than with the actual price differences. Although the price differences are fairly astonishing. As one of the other Americans told me “You can get drunk and chain smoke for the evening for less than 5 bucks!” That was the one and only time we hung out.

I think Russians are good at math because they constantly count the numbers on their public transportation tickets. Speaking of public transportation tickets, I recently received my first lucky ticket!!! Meaning that the sum of the first 3 numbers was equal to the sum of the last 3 numbers. 354-462. But I decided not to eat the ticket (as you are supposed to) but instead it is now proudly displayed on my desk. And by proudly displayed, I mean it is hidden under a pile of papers so that Margarita will not throw it away in her cleaning of my room.

Although this entry will not be posted for a long time (after I return from Archangelsk in all likelihood), I am currently packed and ready for my departure. As ready as I will ever be for a 20 hour train ride with a bunch of Russians.

Bon Voyage!

Archangelsk

2007-11-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

I am currently in the process of chronicling my time in Archangelsk. It was awesome. Like, SO awesome. So there will be many posts to come about that...

But now I am back in Yaroslavl. And it is cold. And we have classes tomorrow. And Margarita reorganized my room, so now the table that used to be in the corner just sort of stands in the center of the room being in the way. But there is no way that I would ever be able to reorganize it myself. So yes.

And that is all.

I wrote this a VERY long time ago....

2007-11-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

Various items of note of varying levels of interest:

I went and played hockey at a special “training session” on Saturday. Except it was at a different rink than normal which I hadn’t played at since the beginning of September. So I forgot where to get off the bus and so I got lost and wandered around for an hour with my bag and hockey stick, increasingly getting more and more frustrated. But I finally found the rink, like 45 minutes after I was supposed to have been there. Also hug boy was not invited to the special practice session, so my count of “sketchy hugs received by large Russian hockey players” is sadly 0 this week. I was also promoted to the first line of players. (*This is a side note that will probably only interest Stonewall, but in hockey in Russia, they divide the team into groups of 5 which always play together instead of lines of 3 forwards and 2 defense-although it is still set up with 3 forwards and 2 defense.*) But this only meant I had to play against people who were actually sort of good instead of the normal loons on the fifth line. This also resulted in this sort of large collision with some guy in which I bit my lip really hard and resulted in a large swollen lip that is only finally disappearing. And then the whole rest of the game he would just apologize to me at every possible moment. Also one of the goalies kissed my hand and told me I was the best player on the ice. Just the general insanity.

On Sunday I took the train to Kostroma which is another of the cities in Russia’s Golden Ring (historical cities surrounding Moscow). The point of this trip was not to actually do a lot of sightseeing in Kostroma which was good because I spent much more time on the train going and returning than I spent in the actual city. Mostly the point was to not sit in the apartment all day increasingly being in a bad mood about my lack of activities. The trip included 3 hours on the train there, 4 hours of wandering about, and 3 hours back. My favorite part of the trip was all of the completely random stops the train made. They kept making announcements about the stops which I didn’t bother to listen to that much, because Kostroma was the last stop so they would just kick me off when we finally arrived. Then I realized that they kept announcing various numbers regarding different stops. At first I thought they were saying “This is blah blah blah stop. The next stop is in 32 kilometers.” Then I realized the name of the next stop was actually “32 kilometers.” So this insanity continued for 3 hours as we went from stop 32 kilometers to stop 39 kilometers to stop 47 kilometers. Also most of these stops were in the middle of nowhere with only the concrete platform to show it was a “stop.” I suppose most of the passengers were going to their dachas which are apparently required to be in the middle of nowhere. Also I remembered during summer school when I had to explain what I was doing for the magical weekend and I just kept trying to explain we were going to Kurt’s “dacha.” Which is just amazingly hysterical now.

Also I think this is amazing, but I think the funniness will be lost in translation if you don’t speak Russian. I had an exam on verbs of motion (глаголы движения!!!) on Monday. So I went to bed on Sunday night with my head stuffed full of various prefixes and conjugations and such. And then I woke up Monday morning and I had this segment of this dream stuck in my head. And all I remember is that it was my бабшука telling me that “Туалет ушёл домой.” …which I guess in translation would be “The toilet left for a long time to go home.” But it loses all its funniness if you don’t understand the hellacious-ness of Russian verbs of motions. Anyways, it was SO strange.

Also on Monday I called the hotel in Archangelsk to reserve a room for the 3 nights I will be there. Which turned out to be less than hellacious than expected, although the spelling of my name was extremely difficult. Hopefully the general sense of “Abigail Mayer” was not lost in my mangled attempt to spell out my name in Cyrillic letters.

I also had this other really strange dream. I’m sorry that this has absolutely nothing to do with actual Russia. Anyways, it is very interesting and sort of displays the crazy mess of English and Russian, America and Russia that is currently occurring in my head. So I was back at Midd and just kept thinking “Thank goodness I made it through all of that Russian-speaking time.” And I was going to water polo practice which for some reason was being conducted at this pool which was a strange mix of the Grizzly Pool and the Midd pool. And Alex Machi (Midd crew coach) was the head coach and he just kept yelling at me that I was doing everything wrong. Which was true. I am bad at water polo in real life and also in my dream. And then this man approached our practice and asked if we were the КПРФ meeting. Which is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. And we said no but then I got so distracted thinking about how he was looking for the Communist Party meeting that I started playing even worse and Machi just kept yelling at me. And then I woke up.

Looking forward, I am leaving Yaroslavl next Wednesday on our second fall break for the 20 hour train ride to Archangelsk. It never seemed that long until I realized that the flights from the U.S. to Europe are only like 9 hours.

Blog Entry Stuck on Flash Drive

2007-10-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

I wrote a blog entry last night and now the computer at the internet cafe won't let me open my flash drive. It is mildly frusterating. But not frusterating enough to inspire me to try to explain the situation to the already just generally annoyed attendant so that she can help me fix the problem. Nothing really big or important has happened lately anyways.

---There was this sort of collision/open-ice hit that occured when I played hockey on Saturday. Which resulted in me having a large swollen lip for the past 4 days. But now my lip is normal sized again. It also resulted in the other man continuously apologizing to me for the rest of the game. Also my hand was both shaken and kissed by various people as they told me I was the best player on the ice.

--I called the Archangelsk hotel to reserve my room for next week. Hopefully the general sense of "Abigail Mayer" was conveyed, regardless of my absolute incompetence at spelling my name in Cyrillic letters.

--I went to Kostroma on Sunday. Mainly because I was annoyed at sitting around on the weekend in the apartment not doing anything. The fact that it was a 3 hr. train ride there and 3 hrs. back meant I didn't really have time to see any of the important churches or other buildings that I was "supposed" to have seen. But I enjoyed wandering about the town center and the market and not sitting at home in a bad mood.

--Also I have been having VERY strange dreams lately. I dreamed I was back at Midd and all I could think was "Thank goodness I made it through all that Russian-speaking time." And I was at water polo practice at this pool that was a strange mix of the Midd pool and the Grizzly Pool in Missoula. And Alex Machi was the coach and he kept yelling at me that I was doing everything wrong. Which I was, because I am bad at water polo in real life and in my dream. And then this man approached us and asked if we were the кпрф meeting. As in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. And we said No. And then I got so confused and interested thinking about that, that I started playing even worse, and Machi just continued to yell at me. And then I woke up.

--Also Susanna's description of the men's shoes here reminded me that I need to say how much I HATE the pointed elf-like shoes that they all wear. They're not realy elf-like. But they are very ugly. And for some reason I can't be entertained by their ridiculousness. Just annoyed. They are atrocious. Okay, end of rant.

--I am leaving for Archangelsk on Wednesday. It is a 20 hr. train ride which never seemed that long until I realized that the plane flights from the U.S. to Europe are approximately 9 hours.

--Can't think of anything else important to report.

Hugs

2007-10-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

I was going to write this very long and charasmatic blog entry last night when I got home from playing hockey, but instead I spent two hours reading the Russian travel book that I borrowed from Megan (our RC) and decided that I need to go whitewater rafting in Kamchatka.

Anyways, there are lots of stories to tell (in no particular order).

Last night I went to play hockey again which was amazing as usual. However, Monday's are always pretty hectic because I have basketball practice from 5:30 to 7 and then I have to get to the rink as fast as I can so that we can play for as long as possible before they kick us off the ice at 10:30. So although I have considered taking my hockey stick with me to basketball practice, I have ultimately decided against this. So usually I get home around 4:30 and pack for basketball and hockey. Then I take my basketball stuff and go to practice. Then I jump on a trolley bus and come back to the apartment and grab all of my hockey stuff and go wait for the 97 marshrootka.

Except yesterday I got home a little bit earlier than usual which sent Margarita into this excited bustling about becuase it meant I would be able to eat before basketball practice and not have to wait until 11:30 like I usually do to eat dinner. So then I got to eat my first dinner at approximately 3:30 p.m. Then she told me she would have food waiting for me when I came back from basketball which I could eat for five minutes (second dinner) and then I could eat my real (third dinner) upon returning after hockey. Except this is ridiculous. Becuase eating 3 dinners is craziness especially when every "dinner" has approximately 6 times the number of calories I could hope to expend in playing both basketball and hockey.

So I decided that I would just tell her we were playing hockey earlier than usual so I had to take all of my stuff with me and couldn't come home for "second dinnner." So then I packed all of my stuff and repacked it all and checked to make sure I had skates and gloves and various hats and gloves and basketball shoes and shorts and etc... And then I came up with the brilliant plan to hide my hockey stick somewhere so that I wouldn't have to actually take it to basketball practice with me. This plan is actually really ridiculous becuase I essentially have to pass the apartment coming from basketball going to hockey if I want to get the correct marshrootka, but anyways. I feel like this story is not really going to make sense, but that is sort of the point. So then I took my hockey stick and decided I would hide it in the entry way to the apartment building so that I would not have to actually carry the hockey stick in the streets while it is daylight. Mainly I think carrying the hockey stick at night is more acceptable because people cannot actually see what you are carrying and they might just think I have lost my mind and am carrying it for protection purposes. Once again, I really just want a foldable hockey stick. Okay, so I hid the hockey stick behind the door in our подьезд and I rushed off to basketball. And then I realized I had forgetten a hair tie becuase I was wearing a hat so my hair was down. And then this became a catastrophe because it is impossible to play either hockey or basketball with volumptuos hair all over the place. So I spent the entire 20 minute walk to basketball searching the ground for a rubber band. I had never spent a long time studying the trash present on russian streets. Now, I have. There were lots of cigarettes. If only it became fashioanable for cigarettes to be sold instead of in boxes, but lashed together with rubber bands. There were also an alarming amount of condoms all over the place. Also I was so focused on staring at the ground, that I could have been carrying my hockey stick because I would have forgotten to be self-conscious about it. And then I got to basketball and still hadn't found a rubber band. But then a very nice girl gave me this large yellow scrunchy thing when I tried to explain (demonstrate) me putting up my hair. And then we played basketball. And then I decided I would just take the yellow scrunchy with me to hockey and return it to her on Thursday at our next practice. This probably is creating a stereotype of Americans as forgetfull and insensitive hair-scrunchy stealers.

Then I got on the trolleybus and went all the way back to the apartment and entered the outer door carrying a yellow bag and two seconds later exited carrying the bag plus a hockey stick. Except I don't think there was anyone around to see this insanity that was occuring. And then I walked to the bus stop. Also I have this problem where I am able to run to the bus stop when I see the bus coming and then it stops and I relax just a tiny bit and maybe stop running so fast and just as I approach to get on, the doors close and it pulls away. That happened last night where I saw the bus and ran and then as soon as I began to enter the door, it left. Oh well. Then I went to hockey.

Important back-story: Last week when Andrei and I went to play hockey, some other guy introduced himself to me, except of course I immediately forgot his name. Anyways he was very nice (last week).

This week he sort of lost his mind. So I got on the ice. Usually I spend the first 30 seconds looking around for any other girl that might have magically appeared to play hockey. Usually, I think I see like 3 girls. Then I realize they are all just amazing mullet-ed men. So I stepped on the ice and suddenly Andrei began pointing at something behind me and then I turned around and the guy from last week is skating towards me with open arms. And he is very tall so he is sort of just towering over me. And then he sort of tries to hug me, except I had no idea what to do. And then he says something like "Abby!!!!!! Warm up and then come play with us!!!" And I say "Ok." And am really fairly alarmed by the towering russian man who just tried to give me a hug. And then essentially the hugging just continued for the rest of the evening. Like whenever anything would happen: I would fall down, I would stand up, I would score a goal, I would make a pass...And hugs would accompany all of these actions. It was just quite ridiculous. And then of course there was another hug upon his departure. So yes.

Also I just returned from the train station where I succesfully bought a ticket to Archangelsk and back for our end of October/beginning of November vacation. And by "bought a ticket" I mean that I attempted to explain what I wanted and then the woman just took the piece of paper (I had written out of what trains I needed on what dates) from me and did it all. I think she was not impressed by my slow-ness to say "the 31st of October." Regardless, that is a very large success. Now the newest problem will be finding a hotel room. And then calling the hotel to reserve the hotel room. I am already frightened.

Also, there is a lot of snow in Yaroslavl. And it is very beautiful. And I just wander around looking at all of the amazing hats. It is impossible to be in a bad mood when you get to admire all of the different hats. The miliary men have some of the coolest hats. It makes me a tiny bit less scared of them.

Also, Happy Birthday Miss Aiko Sophia Weverka!!!

Boot Purchasing...

2007-10-16T04:38:00.000-07:00

Another week has come and gone in Russia and just when I feel like I might be getting the hang of things and my mental list of stuff to do sort of calms down (I gave up on written lists long ago mainly because they just kept growing instead of shrinking), I realize what a clueless loon I am and go into this ridiculous but strangely enjoyable and entertaining tizzy about my lack of competence.

Ex 1. I bought boots on Tuesday. I’m not sure if it went smoother or rougher than expected. Whenever I was walking around town in early September it always seemed as if there were billions of shoe stores. This has nothing to do with shoe stores, but there are also window and door stores everywhere. At first I thought this might be due to the fact that I know the words for window and door, and so I understand those signs in comparison to signs for various other businesses which I don’t know the words for and thus pay no attention to. However, I think I have come to the conclusion that there actually are an enormous number of door and window stores in Yaroslavl. There are also lots of shoe repair stores. Except most of the time the shoe repair store resembles a falling down out-house esque building (only in size, not in smell.) Actually they might smell really bad, I have not yet had occasion to enter a shoe repair building. If I do, I shall report back. Continuing with my boot buying. As soon as I decided to buy boots, it seemed like all the shoe stores disappeared. Anyways, luckily I remembered where two of the larger shoe stores were, so I set off for the first one on Tuesday morning. Upon entering I was overwhelmed by both all of the shoes and all of the bustling about sales women and also the strange man sitting on a chair who seemed to be guarding the other half of the store. I just stayed in the un-guarded area. I was only momentarily distracted by the selection of red stiletto heel snake skin esque knee high boots and got down to business searching out a boot that fit my needs. These needs included “black” because black is classy (as well as being stately and majestic), black also doesn’t really get dirty, and it matches everything and Russian people seem to like black. There also needed to be some sort of heel because after all I am in Russia and these people love their heels. However this heel needed to be solid and durable and not toothpick sized. The boot also needed to have a minimal amount of golden bangles and jangles and silver highlights and etc… It also needed to fit my foot which was sort of a problem because I didn’t really know what size I was. I decided that asking a sales woman for size “большой (big)” was not really acceptable. Luckily there is this amazing system where every shoe has a tag attached to it with not only the price displayed but also this little list of sizes usually ranging from 32-40. So if the size you need is not crossed out, you just approach a kind looking saleswoman and give her the boot and say the size “40” and hope for the best. Then she disappeared into the back room and came back and gave me the box and the boot and…I was unable to get my foot in the boot. Small problem. Then I smiled and gave her back the box and went to find a boot with a size larger than 40. Except I soon realized that not a single tag had a size greater than 40 in the entire store. Maybe the man was guarding the section with the bigger sized boots, but I decided to abandon ship and hope for the best at the next store. This is really a highly ridiculous and unnecessarily long story…Store number 2. Upon entry I immediately made sure that the tags on the boots went above size 40. They went to 42, except 41 and 42 were crossed out on nearly every single boot. At this point, I decided to give up browsing by style or price and just go strictly for something with a size 41 or 42. Then I tried a 41 and I still couldn’t get my foot in the damn boot. At this point, a slight level of panic began to occur. Then I found a 42, it was black and strong-heeled (not toothpick) and has this row of slight sparkly highlights that are fairly unnoticeable. And they fit. Success!!! Then the woman asked me “Вы будете покупать?” and I said “yes.” But ever since it has been bothering me why she used the imperfective tense. I’m not kidding. I still don’t understand why she didn’t use “купить.” Oh well, moving on. Then I paid and spent essentially every ruble that was in my wallet. Also this is another completely unrelated tale, but every day when I walk to the university I walk past this little billboard for one of the stores that advertises the day’s buy and sell prices for the dollar and the euro. And every day the dollar is lower and lower and it is now 24.5 and it used to be 25.5. After my boot buying on Tuesday, I was feeling fairly competent and maybe not ready for winter, but sort of ready for winter.

Ex 2. There is really no reason to use the “Ex 2” heading except I felt like “Ex 1” had carried on for far too long, so I will just continue the same story here. Then today it began to snow. It wasn’t true snow. It was what I would call…wintry mix. I wonder if they have the word “wintry mix” in Russian. If I began to speak about the “зимной смесь,” will my бабушка think I have lost my mind? Anyways, there was wintry mix occurring in the улица (street). Somehow “in the улица” sounds so much cooler than “in the street.” But then I began to freak out because of my lack of appropriate head gear for such weather. It’s very strange but certain information and hints seems to always be mentioned in the “get ready for Russia” handbooks, guidebooks, lectures, warnings, etc… one of these hints is about hat use and how if every one else in the street is wearing a hat, you better be wearing a hat or how you can’t go outside with wet hair so put on a hat or how lack of hat wearing in bad weather is the number one case of death of ignorant foreigners…So I have hats here, but they are sort of large and brightly-colored and one has a pom-pom esque thing on the top. Just not really that classy. So then I decided to stand by my window for approximately one hour (perhaps it was longer...this was also a desperate but highly successful attempt to not do my homework) as I watched the passers-by and tried to figure out the appropriate head gear for this type of weather. Except this was complicated by the fact that my window faces the courtyard interior part of our apartment complex and not the street so there were very few people walking about. One man was in fact walking about in a short-sleeved t-shirt and definitely no hat. Then there were also businessmen (probably returning from or going to their бизнес ланч), but they were only getting into or out of cars and they had no hats on. Then there was a small child, but the small children here are usually dressed in full snow suits and hats and sort of resemble puffy snowmen more than actual children. Then there was also a woman without a hat, but with an umbrella. See, the snow was really that lame that you could pretend it was rain and just prance about with the umbrella. After a very long time of watching the window and without coming to any sort of conclusion, I decided to leave and take my umbrella, but not take a hat. There is this hat rack in the entrance way to the apartment that I studied as I put on my boots and coat and got ready to leave. But these hats are my бабушка’s and I probably should not refer to her hat collection for fashion advice on how to properly fit in with the young, hip, Russian college kids. Then when I was leaving, Margarita asked if I had an umbrella (yes) and said nothing about my lack of head gear, so I figured I had made a correct if fairly uninformed decision. My entrance onto the street and immediate presence of multiple umbrellas proved that everyone was pretending it was just rain and there really was no need for head-gear as my blue umbrella would suffice. However, I still don’t know what sort of hat I’m supposed to be wearing. I did notice a lot of hoods (usually with large amounts of furriness) which seemed strange at first, mainly because as far as I know furry hoods don’t really occur on the Midd campus or in U.S. in general. Then I realized that furry hoods allow for maximum warmth and minimal interference with hairstyles. After all, there is no such thing as a “hood-hair.” If the hat question continues to trouble me, I suppose I can just purchase some large fur-hooded coat.

Ex 3. Also today I realized the need for winter gloves. Winter gloves are especially important in Russia, because it especially sucks to have cold hands when you are supposed to be carrying your precious plastic bag and your hand is cramping from the cold and it is just sort of miserable. Also, off topic again, but as Susanna has earlier documented in her fine blog “looncompound.blogspot.com” the phenomenon of the plastic bag in Russia continues to astound me. They were not joking in the handbook when they said people don’t use backpacks they use plastic bags. In fact I don’t really understand how people in the U.S. function without carrying around a plastic bag. I’m not kidding. You can’t put tennis shoes for basketball practice in your purse (no matter how big it is). Actually I take that back, some of Mama Mayer’s “purses” could fit a pair of tennis shoes. Anyways, the plastic bag is very important but white plastic bags from grocery stores are really the least desirable type of bag to carry as far as I can tell (unless you are actually carrying groceries). But Margarita always gives me white plastic bags to carry stuff in and then I have to walk around feeling self conscious of the low quality of my lame white grocery store plastic bag. I feel like if you are not in Russia, or have not been in Russia and seen the plastic bags, you will think I am joking. But I am not joking. Continuing. There is this small black plastic bag in my room for garbage and one day I emptied all the trash into a white bag and took the black bag for the day, but then I couldn’t deal with the fact that I had spent that much time and energy worrying about the caliber of plastic bag and then switching all the garbage into the white bag and then switching all the garbage back into the black bag when I got home so that Margarita wouldn’t make some comment about the different garbage bag (because she invariably would). So then I decided to start using the GAP bag that Ben gave me before I left Boston when I tried to explain to him the importance of the plastic bag (at this point, I myself did not fully understand the phenomenon). Except now the GAP bag is sort of falling apart, it is clearly not up to par with the Russian plastic bags which although they sort of begin to fade and you can tell when someone has had that specific bag for a long time, they never develop huge gaping holes like the GAP bag has now. So now I have to figure out a new bag. Also, returning to the initial subject- I have to purchase some winter gloves which are not ski-gloves like the ones I have, so that I can continue to carry my plastic bag with warm hands.

Finally, in my never-ending search for new procrastination methods I found myself reading “что делать?” this evening, which might be the most intellectually minded procrastination method I have ever involved myself in. And of this I am very proud. I am also proud that I generally understood the first two pages.

Well, this loon circus has gone on long enough.

2007-10-08T04:37:00.000-07:00

So the picture uploading is taking approximately a lifetime, so you will just have to hold your horses until I get it figured out.

I am back in Yaroslavl. I spent the entire weekend in the apartment. Like from when we returned at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning till I left for class this morning at 8. Actually I left the apartment once for an hour and a half on Sunday. I'm fairly sure that is not an acceptable way to immerse myself in the dazzling russian culture and intriguing country and people that surround me at every turn. Oh well.

Today I am going to try to go buy boots. But this task might get postponed until tomorrow because I am also supposed to have basketball practice and go play pick-up hockey and also do my homework.

Also these two british students were just sitting next to me and suddenly I realized they had stopped talking and were staring at my screen and its lack of Cyrillic letters. Then I turned to them and said "Hello." Then they said nothing and quickly finished working and left. You would think I could interact with other english speakers with some level of success. Apparently not.

Kaliningrad

2007-10-08T04:23:00.000-07:00

If this entry ever gets posted to the blog, it will represent a huge success or maybe better described, a series of small victories and everlasting determination. It will also mean that I will be able to transfer pictures from my laptop to the newly purchased flash drive thing to some computer so that you can all see my brilliant photography skills. It will also mean that my mom will finally get a copy of the pictures from Maine which have been sitting on my camera/computer for nearly 2 months. Sorry about the delay.

We just returned from a 4 day trip to Kaliningrad which in my simplest explanation is the Russian version of Alaska, as in it is part of the country, but does not touch the rest of country sharing its borders with Latvia, Poland, and the Baltic Sea. It has this insanely interesting history, which unfortunately I only partly understand as a result of all the explanations being, you guessed it, in Russian. It used to be part of Prussia until the end of WWII when Prussia was split into three parts, 2 given to Poland, and 1 given to the Soviet Union. Then it existed for a good long time as part of the USSR (interestingly enough- foreigners were not allowed into Kaliningrad before 1991) and then when the Soviet Union dissolved, it became an oblast of the Russian Federation. I just wanted to know why it didn’t become an independent country like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania but the answer to that is apparently that because it wasn’t independent before it became a part of the Soviet Union, it shouldn’t be independent after the Soviet Union.

We flew in and out of Moscow which would have been convenient except our flights were at the worst possible times considering we had to make the 4 hr drive from Yaroslavl. We left Yaroslavl at around 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning in order to make it in time for our 7:30 a.m. flight out of Moscow. The driver was supposed to begin picking us all up at midnight but apparently he decided to do things by his own schedule and only showed up at the first person’s house around 1:15. But we made it to the airport in time, thanks to his VERY fast driving and then we caught our 2 hr. plane to Kaliningrad. We landed in very rainy weather, which continued for almost the entirety of our time there.

Tuesday:
We landed at 8:30 Kaliningrad time (one hour behind Moscow) and took cabs to the hotel. Then we sat around for a long time while they debated whether they would let us check in before the 12:00 check-in time. Then we checked in and Kristin and I decided to try to find the Museum of Amber. This involved sitting on random buses to get downtown and then wandering around forever, through very large puddles, and walking in a huge circle so that we ended up where we started, and then finally finding the museum. 90% of the world’s amber is produced/found/mined in the Kaliningrad Oblast so there were lots of both historical information and examples as well as this display of some annual amber art contest conducted in Kaliningrad. Then we got lost again trying to get back to the hotel, finally got on the correct bus, but since we weren’t really paying attention accidentally rode two stops past our hotel so then we had to walk back more through the puddles. It was sort of a rough start to the trip. Then I ate dinner (which consisted of a carrot, an apple, bread, cheese, and chocolate) and went to bed at 7. I am going to blame this on the fact that I didn’t really sleep the night before when we were speeding from Yaroslavl to Moscow. It could also be related to the fact that I am sort of a loon.

Wednesday:
Ate breakfast at the hotel, although the blini were already gone by the time we got to the buffet. Everyone else was disappointed. I was not. I do not understand the obsession with blini. Yes, they are good, but they are not THAT good. My less than love for them may relate to the fact that the last time Margarita made blini for us, she made 12. That is a lot. I guess they are not as filling as pancakes, but they are pretty close. Then she ate 2 of them and told me to eat the remaining 10 of them. I ate 5 and ran away to my room and then hurriedly left for school so she wouldn’t have time to yell at me about not eating enough. Anyways, on Wednesday we took an 8 hour bus ride/tour with a guide. The first 2 hours were just driving around Kaliningrad. We made one stop at the old cathedral on the island in the center of the city. It was built in the 13th century when three different villages were located on the land that is now the city of Kaliningrad. It is also the location of Immanuel Kant’s tomb as he was born, taught, and died in Kaliningrad or Königsberg as it was known during the Prussian time. Then the remaining 6 hours of our tour were spent at the Куршкая Коса (Kurshkaya Kosa) which was the first national park in Russia. It is located on this tiny strip of land that separates this fresh water lagoon from the Baltic Sea. We stopped at a scientific research station where they catch thousands of birds per day and tag them with a little ring about one of their legs for tracking purposes and then let them go. While we were there, one of the scientists tagged one smaller bird and also showed us an owl that they had just caught the night before. We also got to hike to the top of one of the big sand dunes and search for shards of amber on the beach, although my searching was unsuccessful.

Also while we were driving back from the park to the hotel we got pulled over by the police (дпс is what their vests say, I think. I’m not sure what it stands for. I would guess that д is движение which means “traffic.”) Anyways, for some reason the driver of our van thought he was being generous and kind when he found a radio station playing strictly American rap. Like the entire hit list of 50 Cent, Eminem, and various other atrocious rappers. Also, they don’t bleep out the bad words because I guess the Russians are not expected to object to words such as motherf**cker and n**gger being repeated over and over again. So while the song “I’m a motherf**cking P.I.M.P.” is playing at a fairly loud volume we were flagged to the side of the road. I have never actually seen a policecar pull over a vehicle. Mostly policemen just stand by the side of the road and flag over whomever they want. So this conversation between policeman and driver occurred while “motherf**cking P.I.M.P” is still playing fairly loud on the radio. I can’t explain how strange this whole encounter was. Then our driver was reprimanded for 20 minutes because of something wrong with the headlights. Also, they played “Who Let The Dogs Out.” It was awesome.

Thursday:
I took a bus back to the coast (about 1.5 hr) to a very small village called Cветлогорск (Svetlogorsk). It was a little resort village that had clearly closed up for the winter season, but it was very nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of a city. It was also very interesting, because for some unknown reason the village and all of its buildings survived from the Prussian era so it looks like a quaint German town. Combed the beach some more and in a moment of inattention was flooded by an incoming wave which soaked the bottom half of my jeans for the rest of the day. Saw what is rumored to be the largest sundial in Europe although I couldn’t figure out how to read it and I think it was inaccurate anyways. Then I spent the afternoon back in Kaliningrad at the World Ocean Museum. Buying tickets turned out to be a nightmare as there is the little slot for your money but you are expected to speak to the cashier through this glass divider thing, except I just end up mumbling like a loon and then finally resorted to pointing at the list of exhibits and the one I wanted to see. The cashier was not impressed with me. The whole museum is housed on three huge boats in the harbor (well two boats and one submarine.) One of the boats was нельзя (forbidden) as the woman explained to me so I spent the afternoon on both the submarine and this huge Soviet scientific research vessel with exhibits about the history of sea exploration and scientific research. I feel like being unable to read any of the information provided in the museum is not really as bad as you would think it to be. It just means you get to focus on the actual things on display and you never have to feel bad about going as fast or as slow as you want through specific parts of the exhibit which are more or less interesting than other parts. Also, I am obsessed with maps in other languages. Because I can still understand them.

Friday:
This was our last day in Kaliningrad so I set off to the Museum of Art and History. Somehow I convinced the woman to charge me only 20 roubles (for a student) instead of 40 (for a foreign student), because I just pulled out my Yaroslavl Student ID and tried to explain that “they” told me I only had to pay 20 roubles for entry. She too was not really impressed with my speaking ability, but my determination finally forced her to charge me the 20 roubles. Then I proceeded to wander about the exhibits of various ancient Prussian swords and arrow heads and pots and vases and other cool stuff. I was one of the only people in the exhibits so the whole time I was there all of the museum staff (mostly older women) were gossiping like crazy about something. I’m not really sure what they were talking about but whenever I would approach them, they would suddenly dim their voices (I know that is the incorrect English construction but you should all understand the concept). I wanted to go tell them that they should just continue at normal volume. Then I went and bought this flash drive at a store I had seen earlier when Kristin and I wandered forever lost about the city on Tuesday. I am sure you can buy them in Yaroslavl, I’m just not sure where the computer stores are, so my souvenir from Kaliningrad is this flash drive. It will probably be more useful than some large amber necklace. Then I tried to go back to the third ship of the ocean museum because it is about the history of space exploration. Four different Soviet astronauts were born in Kaliningrad, which makes it the only single place in the world to have that many people in space (that is a very poorly constructed English sentence). Also, this is completely unrelated, but the first woman in space was born in Yaroslavl. But the woman at the cashier place (she was the same one from the day before) just gave me an even more exasperated look, said нельзя again and I just ran away. I bet she was expecting me to come back again today. So I wandered back to the really old cathedral and paid for the museum entry there and got to see old pictures of the cathedral and this huge collection of money from different countries around the world. Included in the collection was a U.S. state quarter from Georgia. And then the death mask of Kant, which is just sort of alarming and strange. Then I took a bus back to the hotel and we left for the airport, concluding our mini vacation in Kaliningrad.

---Now I am back in Yaroslavl. Because of our plane being delayed, I didn’t get dropped off at the apartment until 4 a.m. (it was supposed to be closer to 2 a.m.), so today I haven’t really done anything. I ate a huge Margarita breakfast which was appreciated after dining for the past few days on bread, cheese, and chocolate. I think Margarita would be appalled by that diet, so I just told her that we ate well at various different restaurants in Kaliningrad. I guess what seems most striking is the fact that I feel like I’ve returned to some sort of “home.” It’s strange that this completely foreign city now feels semi-comfortable and safe to me. So while it’s nice to travel and see different parts of the country (semi-planning 4 days in Мурманск at the end of October on our second fall break), it’s also nice to have some place to come back to where it’s all routine and comfortable.

--My latest fear/worry regarding life in Russia. I think it is time I started buying things at the kiosks at the street, mainly because I am tired of finding grocery stores where I can buy a chocolate bar and a bottle of water. But the kiosks are so scary. Everything just sits there behind the glass and everything depends on my ability to formulate a correct Russian sentence to express what I need. Also, related to this is my fear of shoe shopping. I need to buy boots (and eventually some sort of warm winter coat). But these seem like very important purchases where I will not be allowed to only say да or нет. I will keep you all posted.

In the meantime, enjoy all the pictures…

Russglish and Englissian

2007-09-27T01:40:00.001-07:00

Observations:

I very rarely have true conversations in Russian (aside from school and home) which is where I seem to spend all my time so that opening sentence is in fact completely false. Anyways, people always want to speak english with me and so we end up having this brutally mutated discussion using both english and russian words and grammer rules. For example, why not use the genetive plural of friend so it will become friend-ob or if you are trying to say girl but it is a feminine word so it becomes girl-a.Also there is this very strange phenomenon, (maybe it is just a personal problem and not a wide spread phenomenon, but I'm not sure) that I speak very poor english when I try to speak with Russians. I sort of take on the awkward word choice and weird accent and I am very embarassed of my inability to speak. It seems more comfortable to speak bad russian because I don't have to cringe at every mistake I make (where as I do when I speak english).

Also I think that they mainly teach british english (b/c I looked at the textbook at this school where I am supposed to go teach english in less than an hour) and they were having discussions about their "favourite" things. Also it is written just as awkwardly as the russian textbooks we have to read. Also this guy kept talking about his "flat" when we were discussing where he lives, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I understood the conversation just not what word he kept using. Then it finally dawned on me, except he says "flat" with this strange british/russian accent. So it is awesome.

These are some of the rules for a telepone conversation from the earlier mentioned textbook:
Say "Hello"
Tell who you are
Tell what you want
Give the person time to answer
Don't speak very loud
Don't talk very long.
Listen to what the other person says.
Say something in answer.

People, it's a telephone. It's not like they don't have telephones in Russia. They do. And actually my 74 year old бабушка has instructed me that if I am going to be late, I can just text her and she will wait to have dinner with me.

Apparently all Russians know the english word "butterfly" which is entertaining because the russian word for butterfly is бабочка which is like 10 times more awesome than "butterfly."

They also know the words "bear" and "beer" although the girl I was hanging out with yesterday made me repeat both words many times so she could hear the difference because people always
thought she was talking about beer when she was trying to talk about a bear.

Also I told her that we have shoes which we call sneakers and she laughed very hard and told me they had a chocolate bar called that. Then I realized she was talking about snickers and I was talking about sneakers.

We also had a discussion about how it is very strange that religious icons and icons on the computer are the same word, because well religious icons are important and computer icons are not important.

This is a very dull and boring post and for that I am sorry.

Also, this is an awesome story: yesterday on the bus this woman started talking to me. I don't know what she was saying. Then she pointed at the roof emergency exit thing. Then I mumbled back to her and ignored her. Then I realized she was telling me it was too hot on the bus and I was supposed to open the roof emergency exit door/thing so that it would not be so hot on the bus. What?

This is a really unorganized/scatterbrained post.

встречи на улице

2007-09-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

While I was wandering around killing time this fine Saturday afternoon (it is my new Saturday/weekend hobby to wander aimlessly about the city taking various modes of public transportation to various locales, wandering about, returning, getting lost, getting found, returning home...) anyways the whole 4 hours I spent doing that today, I was trying to think of something to write about here. There's so many tidbits of daily life that are impossible to accurately describe in any language (and translation into english especially ruins them).

Anyways, this afternoon 4 different people on the street stopped me to ask various random questions. That is awesome! Maybe I don't look like an absolutely cluesless American wandering the streets. The first lady asked me something that I didn't understand, actually I didn't really understand she was talking to me until the conversation had ended. So I just said "I don't know." and sort of stared at her. The second lady asked me if this was the number 9 bus. I said yes just because I didn't really know what to say immediately and then I realized that we were in fact on the number 9 bus, so that was a good answer. Then the third lady asked me what time it was. This is perhaps the worst question ever to be asked in Russia.

Let me explain my basic understanding of time in Russia: they use both the 24 and the 12 hour clock. So if you are trying to say that it is 4:30 for example, you have several ways to say it. You could say "four thirty." You could say "half of five." You could say "sixteen thirty." You could say "half of seventeen." It is very confusing. Anyways, I was lucky enough that it was exactly 4:30 because if it had been 4:15 or 4:40 there are like 800 other ways to say those time. Anyways, I replied it is "half of five" and she said "thank you" and we parted. And it was awesome.

Then the fourth woman asked me something like "Are we going on the correct path" and I said "I don't know." Then I finally ended up at the internet center.

Also I just finalized my schedule (after deciding on the mainstream "fairy tale" class) so that is good. I am taking Grammer, Phonetics, Politics, Conversation, and Fairy Tales...

I wrote this a long time ago, but the computer wouldn't post it...

2007-09-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening, while eating dinner, I was watching some russian version of Judge Judy where they conduct a trial with all sorts of attorneys and defendants and witnesses, etc. I wasn't completely concentrating on understanding, but I felt that I understood a fair amount of what was going on. This man was being charged with murdering some unknown dog and all of his neighbors in the housing complex were testifying against him. From what I understood all of the witnesses were absolutely crazy. They would all just begin yelling at each other at random points screaming "yeah, but what about this...." or doing overdramatic hand motions to show their disgust at the whole event. Finally it went to commercial break right before the verdict was read. All of the witnesses had been so out of control, everyone contradicting everyone else's version of events, there were lots of shady acquantainces (I think one woman spent a month in the hospital because she was homeless and one of her friends who worked at the hospital arranged for her to become a patient...). Anyways, I just knew that with all of these loons just being loons, the defendant would be proven not guilty. We come back from commercial break and the judge reads the verdict (which I didn't understand, but I'm going to blame that on all of the legal jargon). Then Margarita explained to me that he had been sentenced to 10 years in jail. WHAT???

That is my life.

In other news, I succesfully put 200 rubles onto my mobilnik yesterday. It sounded like a fairly basic exchange that needed to occur. First I realized that I didn't know how to explain that I wanted to put money on my phone. My conversation teacher told me to use the verb "to place in a laying down position one time (положить)." With that handy piece of advice I set off in search of an MTS store. There is one fairly close to the university but the last time a girl from our group went there the sales guy kept texting her the next day, so I decided to steer clear of that one. Then I was walking to where I thought another store was located. I realized I had no idea what is the normal amount of money to place onto a phone at one time. If I only put on 100 rubles, that is sort of ridiculous because then I will have to go back next week and do it again. However, if I put on 500 rubles, does that mean that I am a rich American who just has too much money. I finally settled on 200 roubles. I walked into the store. There were 4 different counters (ahhh). I proceeded to browse through the free brochures on the wall while I tried to figure out what to do. The security man kept giving me weird looks. Then I approached a counter. I began to speak. The woman gave me this eye look and just stared at me. I'm going to tell myself that the weird look was only because I appeared so russian she was suprised at the small American accent and not her pure disgust at my slaughtering of the language. Anyways, she said "to pay" and I said "yes" and she pointed me to a different counter. Then the new woman asked me what my phone number was. I recited it as fast as I could. Keep in mind, I spent the entire walk to the store reciting my number as fast as I could. It's only hard because if the number is 915, you're not allowed to say "nine one five" you have to say "nine hundred and fifteen" which is a lot harder. Then she asked how much money I was putting on. I said "200." She didn't give me any weird looks, so I assume that is a good number. Then I left. It was all around a complete success.

The third piece of news is my lack of success with mainstream hunting. I'm getting tired of writing about the damn mainstream so I'm sure everyone else is equally tired of reading about it. Anyways, there was so much optimism the last time I posted about it. Meghan and I had found a list of maybe 4 or 5 classes which all had a lot of potential. I went to the first one on the list last Friday morning.

It was supposed to be a small "spets kours" about museums taught by a female professor, except the room was full of 30 people and a male professor. I went back to look at the schedule. A new room number had been written over the old one. Then a woman showed up and talked about merchants and not museums for 90 minutes. Then at the end of the lecture, she said "Well see you all in November." I have no idea what I attended, and I just ran away.

Last night (Monday) was supposed to be the second one on my list. But I decided to skip it and go play pick-up hockey at the Lokomotiv arena instead, which was definitely the better decision. It was awesome. The less I speak, the more competent I seem, although I think it was fairly shocking that a girl was there to play pick-up. And I scored two goals.

Tonight I shall try again in the mainstream search. It is supposed to be a course about fairytales in different cultures. I have already decided that this is the class I am going to take, which is probably not the best plan, but I'm tired of looking. It meets just on Tuesday nights, so Mondays and Thursday are open for both hockey and hopefully the girls basektball team I am joining (first practice this Thursday...I will report back). It also has an exam in December, so I would not be required to stick around Yaroslavl into January.

Also, if I don't respond to your emails, please don't hate me. I don't have that much internet time, and half of it is spent sifting through all of the damn e-mails from SNG at Midd.

Important Things to Write About...

2007-09-13T04:17:00.000-07:00

I titled this entry, in the hope that it would inspire me to think of important things to convey to my dedicated readers. However, I'm still coming up empty.

1. It is already very cold in Yaroslavl. Like yesterday I wore two pairs of long underwear. And it's also this rainy cold where you can never achieve any sort of warm-ness. I heard that they turn on the heat in the city when they get 3 days in a row when the temperature doesn't get about 8 degrees.

2. Last Friday, I went to go coach (or try to coach, or stand there looking like a loon) a youth boy's hockey team. The coach described a hockey playing girl from America as "exotic." I think I more impeded the practice as I stood there looking like a loon and every once in a while saying such useful words as "молодец, давай, быстро..." Oh yeah, high quality coaching skills. Then after practice the boys wanted to know what place I (and my team) had recieved in the world championships. At least, I think that's what they were asking.

3. On this same excursion I was also told that all of the passerbys just assumed I was carrying the hockey stick for my son.

4. The search for a mainstream course may not be as hopeless as initially believed. Today I went with Megan to look at the politics and history schedules and found some classes which both fit in my schedule, have only зачёт, and have nice professors whom I can understand. Tomorrow I have to go to one of them to try it out, but we don't know the subject matter. It is in the "museum" department. So it will surely be quite interesting, or just very strange. Regardless, it will be better than the Chinese history class.

5. Oh also this weekend, Margarita gave me charcoal tablets when I complained to her that my stomach hurt. It was very strange. But I suppose they sort of worked. She was amazed that they didn't sell them in the U.S. because they are so useful.

6. Also I really enjoy how the computer is underlining every word I write because it is doing Russian spell check on them all.

суперлига-локомотив

2007-09-13T04:08:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to the opening home game of the Yaroslavl Locomotive Hockey Team. They play in the SuperLeague (Russian NHL). We won 4-1. It was awesome.

Sporting events seems to cross cultural boundaries. There was very loud music (both english and russian selections...the english included Cotton-Eyed Joe and Now, I'm a Believer), all sorts of concession stands selling beer, popcorn, (and miniature cups of tea), the "wave" which took a while to get started but finally made it all the way around the system, large cheers including "шайбу, шайбу, шайбу....which translates to puck, puck, puck," goals, penalties, fights, and other general awesomeness.

I continue to struggle to find a mainstream course which is understandable. My attempts failed again last night when I found myself in a class on Chinese history. I couldn't tell the difference between unknown Russian words and random Chinese place names or people's names. I'm becoming very frusterated in this mainstream search.

....и я попробовала купить шампунь

2007-09-03T02:55:00.000-07:00

Whenever I am walking around the city or sitting at home, I promise myself that I will write a very composed and thoughtful and introspective and maybe not insane blog post. But then I become so frazzled just trying to get to a computer and enter a code and click two times here and three times there, that by the time I get on the internet I am already worried that I have wasted all of my 30 roubles. So then I just start frantically reading e-mails and replying to 6 at the same time, and then trying to post on my blog.....

Yesterday I tried to buy shampoo and soap and various other items. First of all I should preface this that the day before I tried to buy these things and entered a store that sold "продукты" but apparently they only sell food there. Then yesterday I went to a real store where I could purchase such items. Except they all sit behind the counter or under the glass shelf and I have to ask some woman to pick them out for me. I think it might be important to explain that it is impossible for me to purchase shampoo at home becuase I get overwhelmed and stand there for like 30 minutes and then just go with the kids shampoo that smells good. So there was a huge wall of shampoo, in Russian, and I was supposed to somehow convey which kind of shampoo I wanted. This was also necessary for the purchase of toothpaste, soap, various other items. So instead I ran away and didn't buy anything. Maybe today I will try again.

Real school started today. And we took both a written and a spoken exam. One of the other girls tried to explain to her family that we were taking an оральный тест (oral test) but was told that "oral" only refers to sex. Maybe that's not appropriate for this family minded blog. Oh well.

I have the afternoon free after the two classes, so I decided I should wander around. Except I still don't understand the weather forecasts and warnings that my babyska tries to give me every morning. So my coat is about 1 billion times too warm for the current weather. Except walking about in short sleeves seems to be sort of a faux pas as I haven't seen any women doing it (which is great since I brought so many short sleeve shirts...not joking...I just threw all my summer school clothes into a suitcase...bad idea). So then I went to the рынок which is just this ginormous, crazy place where they sell everything and there are stalls everywhere. And I bought this green jacket thing, which I shall be wearing upon my exit from this fine internet cafe establishment.

This morning when I was speaking with one of the teachers I told her I liked to play hockey and was interested in politics. She gave me this LOOK and said something like well that's interesting aka strange. Apparently those two interests don't mesh in Russia.

I am also going to try to go to a mainstream history class this evening from 6:30 to either 7:50 or 9:20. The schedule just pretty much baffles me.

Also in the market area, I just keep saying да which is a very bad solution. I also told these women I was from Canada because it seemed like a better answer. Then they just kept asking me why I was here studying like I had lost my mind coming here. I may be beginning to agree with them.

Once again, the blog post is just pure insanity. Well next time we will hope for composure and wise insights into the russian psyche.

Ярославль

2007-09-01T04:09:00.000-07:00

Well everyone, I made it to Yaroslavl. Last night I was dropped off at my host family (бабушка). I got my whole room set up and even managed to watch some made for tv movie about the life and death of Princess Di with my Margarita Petrovna. The concept of my vegetarianism came up where we talked about the fact that I don't eat meat and she replied well good, here is some chicken for you and we will have fish tomorrow. Whatever, it's sort of a necessity in Russia to eat meat and I can deal.

Today we are still doing orientation stuff and just generally wandering about the city trying to figure out how to find a mainstream class, where/how to buy phonecards, cellphones, various other necessities. It's nice to feel a general sense of being settled in one place for the next several months and I'm hoping that the honeymoon phase of culture transition will continue to last and I won't dip into frusteration and culture shock too soon.

I'm not sure when our actual classes start at the university (probably Monday or Tuesday). Right now I'm planning on taking the 3 required Midd classes, the one спецкурс по политике (politics) with the Middlebury program and then one mainstream (with like REAL russian students) maybe history or politics or something.

I think my time is running out...

Москва...(Moscow)

2007-08-30T12:12:00.001-07:00

I feel the first order of business here needs to be a warning that I have not slept in the past lot of hours. I tried to do the math, but I'm too tired to do it. Somewhere around 30 hours, I think.

1. I think that I have decided to like tea just in time for it to be a very good decision.

2. Tonight after dinner, all of the kids from Midd (Eddie, Natalie, Ivan, Susanna, and I) set off "out on the town" with дэнис (*yes laurel good work*) as our trusty tour guide. We managed to buy metro tickets thus completing my first true business interaction. The entire interaction consisted of me saying одну поездку and then спасибо. We ended up at the Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil's, and finally the Moscow river. It was so crazy to actually be there wandering around. I'm still not sure I have realized the reality of the situation. It seems like any moment I will be whisked back to the U.S. for our fall semester.

3. Like I already said, tomorrow we have orientation meetings in the morning and then our train leaves at 2:30. I am looking forward to finally being able to settle down in one place and stop living out of my suitcase as I have essentially done since summer school ended 3 weeks ago. I am also terrified out of my mind at the thought of introducing myself and conversing with my family. My usual attitude that "I'll never see these people again" can't really be of any use since they will see me pretty much everyday for the next few months.

4. I am sorry if these entries are fairly boring. It seems like I keep writing the same thing over and over again. But I'm trying to take advantage of the free wireless internet in our Moscow hotel because I'm pretty sure this is a "once in a trip to Russia" experience.

5. I don't know when I'll be posting again as I imagine I'll be fairly busy during my first few days just trying to figure out the city. blah blah blah.

Moscow

2007-08-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

Brief blog post here. I landed safely in Moscow, with a brief layover in Frankfurt. Right now we are staying at a hotel somewhere in the city and I am currently fighting the urge to collapse onto my bed. We will be here this afternoon and evening and then all of tomorrow until we take the train to Yaroslavl at 2:30 p.m. I'm hoping to wander about a little bit later this evening, but they've taken our passports for paperwork purposes this afternoon, so we're pretty confined to the hotel.

I'm not sure that I had any true expectations of what the city would look like, so I can't speak of anything that truly surprised me. Денис, who studied at Midd last year and worked at summer school, and lives in Moscow is supposed to come by for dinner tonight, so he might be able to lead us about the city a little bit. Even if I don't get the chance to explore today, I'll only be 4 hours by train from Moscow, so I'll definitely be able to make it back for a weekend or two.

Abby

добро пожаловать

2007-08-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

Прив...

This is my blog. I am going to Russia (soon). I will be living in the city of Yaroslavl (pop. 600,000) which is located in Western Russia between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaroslavl
Map: http://www.bugbog.com/images/maps/russia_map.jpg

I think the current state of mind is very scared (but also excited). And ready to not just sit around all day thinking about leaving. And staring at my suitcases.

I have no idea what else to say.

This is my address.

15000 Ярославль
ул. Совестская, 14
Ярославский Государственный Университет
ИНОТДЕЛ
Абигэль Мэйер (Abigail Mayer), американская студентка
RUSSIA

or

15000 Yaroslavl
ul. Sovietskaya, 14
Yaroslavckii Gosoodarstvenii Universitet
Inotdel
Abigail Mayer, american student
Russia

Пок...