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.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Hugs
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!!!
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...
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.
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.
Monday, October 8, 2007
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.
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
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…
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…
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