Tuesday, 9:30 pm. Holiday! The name of today’s cause for celebration is variously translated as “Russian Army Day,” “Military Day,” “Victory Day,” etc., etc. It’s also considered Men’s Day in general, even if the men in question aren’t part of the armed forces. In any case, it’s a national holiday, so no classes for me and none for Lyudmila Afanasyevna. I slept late (woohoo!) and once again got out of the shower to find Olya having a chemistry lesson. If it’s a day off for her, that just means she’s not missing any classes to come to St. Petersburg from Pskov, so I gather. Somewhere around 1, a pair of my host mom’s friends showed up, and the three of them gathered in the kitchen while Olya and I stayed in the living room and talked for quite some time. She speaks very good English for a Russian teenager, even if she doesn’t think so herself, and I speak in Russian when I can. I think I may have made a genuine friend here, which makes me really happy. :D
The weather was beautiful today—and when I say beautiful, I mean near zero Celsius and not actively precipitating—so of course we had to go do something out in the city. About three o’clock, I left to rendezvous with Erica, Matt, and Irena at St. Isaac’s Cathedral. This church doesn’t have services anymore; instead, it’s the state Museum of Religious History (or maybe just religion). Primarily, it’s a museum of breathtaking art and soaring, shiny architecture…the word ‘shiny’ feels out of place in that sentence, but it’s true. Thankfully, though, they didn’t overdo the shiny in this one. I can only compare it to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, which looks like the entire contents of the Fort Knox vault were melted down for the purpose of decorating this one church. In St. Isaac’s, it’s richly decorated, but not overwhelming. It just…works so well. I’m stumbling over the description, but if I ever figure out a way to post photos on here, that’ll work much better.
When I got off the trolleybus at St. Isaac’s, the sky was its normal grayish-white, but the weather was clear and calm. By the time I had found the ticket office about two minutes later, the wind had picked up and it had started to snow. By the time I actually bought my ticket, another two minutes later, the snow was blowing all over the place; we would call this type of weather “blizzard conditions” back home. When the four of us climbed the two hundred stairs to the cathedral’s colonnade, the snow was flying fast enough to blind anyone not wearing glasses, and the wind was blowing hard enough to make you reconsider leaning over the handrail to take a picture. Of course, even with much of the city practically whited out, we couldn’t resist the view. The panorama of St. Petersburg from St. Isaac’s is a photographer’s dream. On a clear day, I’m sure you could see for several miles from there; I could probably pick out my apartment block without even squinting too hard. Absolutely marvelous.
When we left the cathedral, it was still snowing furiously, so what did we decide to do? Go walk some more! Actually, it wasn’t bad; we just made our way back to Nevsky and to this little café that one of Matt’s Russian acquaintances had recommended. I don’t remember how this came up, but at some point before I left, I was talking with Mom and Dad about Russian food. The mention of hot powdered-sugar-covered donuts came up, and Dad recommended I bring home a few. Well, I found them today, Dad. They’re called pishki, and they’re the specialty of this tiny little café on Bolshaya Konnushenaya Ulitsa. The café itself is just called Pishki; they’re that famous. The closest comparison I can make is to fresh funnel cake, but slightly softer, and in donut form. They’re absolutely heavenly, especially coming in out of that kind of weather, and they’re only ten rubles a pop—three for a dollar. :D Nobody looks at you twice if you order six (I’m looking at you, Matt). They even served coffee that was diluted with enough milk and sugar that I actually enjoyed it. I suspect that once word of this place gets around, it’s going to become quite the hangout.
The four of us stayed in Pishki talking and munching for a good two hours, but alas, it came time to head home. Whoever was up for further exploring was vehemently denied by those of us who were sick of the blowing ice pellets. The three girls dropped Matt at the metro and took the trolleybus home, where Lyudmila Afanasyevna greeted me with spaghetti for dinner (with just cheese and butter—Russian-style spaghetti!) and several cups of tea. She’s going to her dacha for her day off tomorrow, while I have class and then English teaching in the evening, so she’s left several pots on the stove for me. Tomorrow: Russian Civilization, then Russian chorus (!). We’ll see if we’ve managed to recruit more than two malchiki since last week. :)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Untranslateables
Monday, 10:45 am. One day of snow has undone a good week and a half of work by the St. Petersburg city sanitation department, grounds crew, or whatever they’re called. Good LORD, just walking across the Smolny campus was treacherous! :P
10:45 pm. Classes went pretty well, though we’re all rather glad not to have three hours of Russian language at ten tomorrow morning. Four class periods of Albina Vitalievna in a row can be…slightly taxing for all involved, including her, I’m sure.
Lyudmila Afanasyevna had students over, so I retired to my room after dinner and actually dozed off over my history book (whoops). I woke up about nine and walked in to see how she was doing, and we ended up talking for an hour and a half. :D It started with the fact that tomorrow is Russian Army Day, also known as Men’s Day, a national holiday. This led to a whole discussion about gender relations, which segued into the fact that her first husband was Bulgarian, and then led to her showing me photographs of her various travels. I know St. Petersburg is considered a cosmopolitan city, but it still surprised me that my host mom has been to Dubai and Thailand! :)
I’m going to start combining a couple days into one post at this point, I think, because we’re starting to settle into a routine. It’s strange to think that I’ve been here long enough to develop a routine, actually…but it’s been almost a month. Time flies like an arrow…fruit flies like a banana.
10:45 pm. Classes went pretty well, though we’re all rather glad not to have three hours of Russian language at ten tomorrow morning. Four class periods of Albina Vitalievna in a row can be…slightly taxing for all involved, including her, I’m sure.
Lyudmila Afanasyevna had students over, so I retired to my room after dinner and actually dozed off over my history book (whoops). I woke up about nine and walked in to see how she was doing, and we ended up talking for an hour and a half. :D It started with the fact that tomorrow is Russian Army Day, also known as Men’s Day, a national holiday. This led to a whole discussion about gender relations, which segued into the fact that her first husband was Bulgarian, and then led to her showing me photographs of her various travels. I know St. Petersburg is considered a cosmopolitan city, but it still surprised me that my host mom has been to Dubai and Thailand! :)
I’m going to start combining a couple days into one post at this point, I think, because we’re starting to settle into a routine. It’s strange to think that I’ve been here long enough to develop a routine, actually…but it’s been almost a month. Time flies like an arrow…fruit flies like a banana.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
In which Amanda waxes philosophical about physiognomy
Saturday, 10:00 pm. Negative twenty-eight degrees Celsius. -28°C. Nearly negative twenty Fahrenheit, for those of you stateside. That’s how bloody cold it is outside tonight. Since I’ve been here, it’s constantly been cold enough to see your breath; tonight, it was cold enough to freeze my breath to my glasses. Anyone who’s still out in this weather is either suicidal or really, really brave.
I’ve stayed home this weekend because Lyudmila Afanasyevna finally laid down the law about whatever this chest cold is I’ve been fighting: no going anywhere by myself until I can speak more than four sentences without coughing. :P Plus, who really wants to go exploring museums this weekend when walking to the apteka at the corner of my building was painfully cold? In any case, I’ve been enjoying the warmth of my bed and probably a dozen cups of tea in the past two days, not to mention a pack of cough drops. This situation is not likely to change tomorrow, either, so at least I’ll be able to get large amounts of laundry done and some extra vocabulary reviewed.
My host mother and I did make plans earlier in the week to attend a concert this evening, though, so that’s how I realized just how piercingly cold it is outside. At the State Polytechnic University, there was a performance by a small symphony orchestra and a guest pianist, playing Chopin and Schubert. I’m sure my translation isn’t quite up to par, but I believe the name of the orchestra is the Concert Society of St. Petersburg’s Orchestra. If I am to express my honest opinion, I’ve heard better orchestras, but rarely have I heard a better pianist than the one they were accompanying for the Chopin concerto. Miroslav Kultishev is all of twenty-four, but he’s already won a slew of international honors, including second place in the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 2007. (As I understand it, this is like the Grand Mastership of piano-ness.)
I had the chance to watch Mr. Kultishev (oh, heck, I can’t think of him as Mr. Kultishev, the man’s five years older than I am) and then to meet him briefly after the concert, and he left quite the impression. As soon as he walked onstage, I thought, there’s the type of guy I would see on the street and pin down as a concert pianist. With some musicians, you’d never guess that’s their day job; take Mr. Phil Hosford, who I could easily see as a high school math teacher (the cool kind). Miroslav, who’s tall, very skinny, long-haired, and looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands until he sits down at the keyboard, couldn’t possibly be anything else…except possibly a painter in an attic apartment. He’s quite shy in person, and understands just enough English to accept a compliment, which he does with his hair sort of falling into his face and a bit of a blush. In different circumstances, I can’t help but think he’d be an interesting person to get to know over a pizza with a few friends. :)
I also had the chance this evening to meet two good friends of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s: one Adolf Ivanovich, a doctor and former med school colleague of hers, and Larisa, my host mom’s best friend and my friend Kim’s host mother. Thoroughly nice people, who understand about as much English as my host mom does, so we were all able to communicate somehow. I also met an American violin student at the local conservatory whose father was just recently transferred to the consulate here, from DC, of all places. (All three of the adults I had come with kept hinting about this Alexei on the ride back, somewhat to my chagrin. No, I did not get his number. Please. I really try not to date musicians.)
And now, a spy novel from the CIEE library and a bottle of warm water. I have yet to figure out what channel the Olympics are on, and I think all the interesting events are shown after I’ve fallen asleep anyway…so, I’ll just have to follow the updates from my friends. Stay warm, everyone.
I’ve stayed home this weekend because Lyudmila Afanasyevna finally laid down the law about whatever this chest cold is I’ve been fighting: no going anywhere by myself until I can speak more than four sentences without coughing. :P Plus, who really wants to go exploring museums this weekend when walking to the apteka at the corner of my building was painfully cold? In any case, I’ve been enjoying the warmth of my bed and probably a dozen cups of tea in the past two days, not to mention a pack of cough drops. This situation is not likely to change tomorrow, either, so at least I’ll be able to get large amounts of laundry done and some extra vocabulary reviewed.
My host mother and I did make plans earlier in the week to attend a concert this evening, though, so that’s how I realized just how piercingly cold it is outside. At the State Polytechnic University, there was a performance by a small symphony orchestra and a guest pianist, playing Chopin and Schubert. I’m sure my translation isn’t quite up to par, but I believe the name of the orchestra is the Concert Society of St. Petersburg’s Orchestra. If I am to express my honest opinion, I’ve heard better orchestras, but rarely have I heard a better pianist than the one they were accompanying for the Chopin concerto. Miroslav Kultishev is all of twenty-four, but he’s already won a slew of international honors, including second place in the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 2007. (As I understand it, this is like the Grand Mastership of piano-ness.)
I had the chance to watch Mr. Kultishev (oh, heck, I can’t think of him as Mr. Kultishev, the man’s five years older than I am) and then to meet him briefly after the concert, and he left quite the impression. As soon as he walked onstage, I thought, there’s the type of guy I would see on the street and pin down as a concert pianist. With some musicians, you’d never guess that’s their day job; take Mr. Phil Hosford, who I could easily see as a high school math teacher (the cool kind). Miroslav, who’s tall, very skinny, long-haired, and looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands until he sits down at the keyboard, couldn’t possibly be anything else…except possibly a painter in an attic apartment. He’s quite shy in person, and understands just enough English to accept a compliment, which he does with his hair sort of falling into his face and a bit of a blush. In different circumstances, I can’t help but think he’d be an interesting person to get to know over a pizza with a few friends. :)
I also had the chance this evening to meet two good friends of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s: one Adolf Ivanovich, a doctor and former med school colleague of hers, and Larisa, my host mom’s best friend and my friend Kim’s host mother. Thoroughly nice people, who understand about as much English as my host mom does, so we were all able to communicate somehow. I also met an American violin student at the local conservatory whose father was just recently transferred to the consulate here, from DC, of all places. (All three of the adults I had come with kept hinting about this Alexei on the ride back, somewhat to my chagrin. No, I did not get his number. Please. I really try not to date musicians.)
And now, a spy novel from the CIEE library and a bottle of warm water. I have yet to figure out what channel the Olympics are on, and I think all the interesting events are shown after I’ve fallen asleep anyway…so, I’ll just have to follow the updates from my friends. Stay warm, everyone.
In which Amanda waxes philosophical about physiognomy
Saturday, 10:00 pm. Negative twenty-eight degrees Celsius. -28°C. Nearly negative twenty Fahrenheit, for those of you stateside. That’s how bloody cold it is outside tonight. Since I’ve been here, it’s constantly been cold enough to see your breath; tonight, it was cold enough to freeze my breath to my glasses. Anyone who’s still out in this weather is either suicidal or really, really brave.
I’ve stayed home this weekend because Lyudmila Afanasyevna finally laid down the law about whatever this chest cold is I’ve been fighting: no going anywhere by myself until I can speak more than four sentences without coughing. :P Plus, who really wants to go exploring museums this weekend when walking to the apteka at the corner of my building was painfully cold? In any case, I’ve been enjoying the warmth of my bed and probably a dozen cups of tea in the past two days, not to mention a pack of cough drops. This situation is not likely to change tomorrow, either, so at least I’ll be able to get large amounts of laundry done and some extra vocabulary reviewed.
My host mother and I did make plans earlier in the week to attend a concert this evening, though, so that’s how I realized just how piercingly cold it is outside. At the State Polytechnic University, there was a performance by a small symphony orchestra and a guest pianist, playing Chopin and Schubert. I’m sure my translation isn’t quite up to par, but I believe the name of the orchestra is the Concert Society of St. Petersburg’s Orchestra. If I am to express my honest opinion, I’ve heard better orchestras, but rarely have I heard a better pianist than the one they were accompanying for the Chopin concerto. Miroslav Kultishev is all of twenty-four, but he’s already won a slew of international honors, including second place in the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 2007. (As I understand it, this is like the Grand Mastership of piano-ness.)
I had the chance to watch Mr. Kultishev (oh, heck, I can’t think of him as Mr. Kultishev, the man’s five years older than I am) and then to meet him briefly after the concert, and he left quite the impression. As soon as he walked onstage, I thought, there’s the type of guy I would see on the street and pin down as a concert pianist. With some musicians, you’d never guess that’s their day job; take Mr. Phil Hosford, who I could easily see as a high school math teacher (the cool kind). Miroslav, who’s tall, very skinny, long-haired, and looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands until he sits down at the keyboard, couldn’t possibly be anything else…except possibly a painter in an attic apartment. He’s quite shy in person, and understands just enough English to accept a compliment, which he does with his hair sort of falling into his face and a bit of a blush. In different circumstances, I can’t help but think he’d be an interesting person to get to know over a pizza with a few friends. :)
I also had the chance this evening to meet two good friends of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s: one Adolf Ivanovich, a doctor and former med school colleague of hers, and Larisa, my host mom’s best friend and my friend Kim’s host mother. Thoroughly nice people, who understand about as much English as my host mom does, so we were all able to communicate somehow. I also met an American violin student at the local conservatory whose father was just recently transferred to the consulate here, from DC, of all places. (All three of the adults I had come with kept hinting about this Alexei on the ride back, somewhat to my chagrin. No, I did not get his number. Please. I really try not to date musicians.)
And now, a spy novel from the CIEE library and a bottle of warm water. I have yet to figure out what channel the Olympics are on, and I think all the interesting events are shown after I’ve fallen asleep anyway…so, I’ll just have to follow the updates from my friends. Stay warm, everyone.
I’ve stayed home this weekend because Lyudmila Afanasyevna finally laid down the law about whatever this chest cold is I’ve been fighting: no going anywhere by myself until I can speak more than four sentences without coughing. :P Plus, who really wants to go exploring museums this weekend when walking to the apteka at the corner of my building was painfully cold? In any case, I’ve been enjoying the warmth of my bed and probably a dozen cups of tea in the past two days, not to mention a pack of cough drops. This situation is not likely to change tomorrow, either, so at least I’ll be able to get large amounts of laundry done and some extra vocabulary reviewed.
My host mother and I did make plans earlier in the week to attend a concert this evening, though, so that’s how I realized just how piercingly cold it is outside. At the State Polytechnic University, there was a performance by a small symphony orchestra and a guest pianist, playing Chopin and Schubert. I’m sure my translation isn’t quite up to par, but I believe the name of the orchestra is the Concert Society of St. Petersburg’s Orchestra. If I am to express my honest opinion, I’ve heard better orchestras, but rarely have I heard a better pianist than the one they were accompanying for the Chopin concerto. Miroslav Kultishev is all of twenty-four, but he’s already won a slew of international honors, including second place in the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 2007. (As I understand it, this is like the Grand Mastership of piano-ness.)
I had the chance to watch Mr. Kultishev (oh, heck, I can’t think of him as Mr. Kultishev, the man’s five years older than I am) and then to meet him briefly after the concert, and he left quite the impression. As soon as he walked onstage, I thought, there’s the type of guy I would see on the street and pin down as a concert pianist. With some musicians, you’d never guess that’s their day job; take Mr. Phil Hosford, who I could easily see as a high school math teacher (the cool kind). Miroslav, who’s tall, very skinny, long-haired, and looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands until he sits down at the keyboard, couldn’t possibly be anything else…except possibly a painter in an attic apartment. He’s quite shy in person, and understands just enough English to accept a compliment, which he does with his hair sort of falling into his face and a bit of a blush. In different circumstances, I can’t help but think he’d be an interesting person to get to know over a pizza with a few friends. :)
I also had the chance this evening to meet two good friends of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s: one Adolf Ivanovich, a doctor and former med school colleague of hers, and Larisa, my host mom’s best friend and my friend Kim’s host mother. Thoroughly nice people, who understand about as much English as my host mom does, so we were all able to communicate somehow. I also met an American violin student at the local conservatory whose father was just recently transferred to the consulate here, from DC, of all places. (All three of the adults I had come with kept hinting about this Alexei on the ride back, somewhat to my chagrin. No, I did not get his number. Please. I really try not to date musicians.)
And now, a spy novel from the CIEE library and a bottle of warm water. I have yet to figure out what channel the Olympics are on, and I think all the interesting events are shown after I’ve fallen asleep anyway…so, I’ll just have to follow the updates from my friends. Stay warm, everyone.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Alto clef readers WILL rule the world!
Thursday, 1:15 pm. I got out of the shower this morning to find one of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s students, Olya, at the table having tea. She’s very interesting to talk to – enough that I was almost late for classes this morning…whoops. I packed a couple of quick blini and ran out the door; thank heavens for my living only ten minutes from campus!
10:45 pm. Not only have I found my happy place with the chamber orchestra – they found me a viola. This keeps getting better and better. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D (It’s one size bigger than I play back home, but that’s really not a problem.) I can’t take it home, but the orchestral manager, Angelina (who is also a violist!), assured me that I’m good enough I don’t need to practice. She’s very much mistaken, but I think I’ll manage. :) Last week was all sight-reading; this week we started the serious detail work on a couple of pieces. I’m happy to report that only about half of Konstantin Fyodorovich’s directions need translation! (The rest are either measure numbers, very general instructions, or nonverbal instructions any musician would understand.)
Angelina was kind enough to inform me that the concert is scheduled for March 31. This is, oddly for me, right in the middle of my spring break. This means I’m going to have to sacrifice my nebulous plans of spending a week in another country, which is a bit of a shame. But all is far from lost! If I’m not going to travel far, I can spend the week visiting the “diamond necklace” of palaces that are a short train ride from St. Petersburg! The weather will be absolutely lovely by this time, so spending a couple of days exploring Peterhof or Yekaterinburg at my leisure sounds to me like an excellent use of the break. (Plus, it’ll definitely save me money, which I always like.) My only regret is that more of my friends won’t be around to hear the concert. :)
The ride home only took about fifty minutes, which was a pleasant surprise. In DC, spending an hour on public transportation to get most of the way across the city would sort of irk me; in St. Petersburg, I’m finding that people don’t mind as much, and I’m starting to mind less, too. To get from my homestay to the main campus of the university, I can take one bus the entire way (trolleybus #11)! Granted, this means I spend an hour in transit thanks to traffic, but at least it’s a warm hour, and the service is practically door-to-door. DC, I suggest taking notes on St. Petersburg’s public transportation system.
And now, as usual, tea and bedtime. I haven’t been able to shake a nasty cough since we got back from Novgorod, so my dear host mother has been making me put honey in EVERYTHING I drink, including milk. Here’s hoping it works!
10:45 pm. Not only have I found my happy place with the chamber orchestra – they found me a viola. This keeps getting better and better. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D (It’s one size bigger than I play back home, but that’s really not a problem.) I can’t take it home, but the orchestral manager, Angelina (who is also a violist!), assured me that I’m good enough I don’t need to practice. She’s very much mistaken, but I think I’ll manage. :) Last week was all sight-reading; this week we started the serious detail work on a couple of pieces. I’m happy to report that only about half of Konstantin Fyodorovich’s directions need translation! (The rest are either measure numbers, very general instructions, or nonverbal instructions any musician would understand.)
Angelina was kind enough to inform me that the concert is scheduled for March 31. This is, oddly for me, right in the middle of my spring break. This means I’m going to have to sacrifice my nebulous plans of spending a week in another country, which is a bit of a shame. But all is far from lost! If I’m not going to travel far, I can spend the week visiting the “diamond necklace” of palaces that are a short train ride from St. Petersburg! The weather will be absolutely lovely by this time, so spending a couple of days exploring Peterhof or Yekaterinburg at my leisure sounds to me like an excellent use of the break. (Plus, it’ll definitely save me money, which I always like.) My only regret is that more of my friends won’t be around to hear the concert. :)
The ride home only took about fifty minutes, which was a pleasant surprise. In DC, spending an hour on public transportation to get most of the way across the city would sort of irk me; in St. Petersburg, I’m finding that people don’t mind as much, and I’m starting to mind less, too. To get from my homestay to the main campus of the university, I can take one bus the entire way (trolleybus #11)! Granted, this means I spend an hour in transit thanks to traffic, but at least it’s a warm hour, and the service is practically door-to-door. DC, I suggest taking notes on St. Petersburg’s public transportation system.
And now, as usual, tea and bedtime. I haven’t been able to shake a nasty cough since we got back from Novgorod, so my dear host mother has been making me put honey in EVERYTHING I drink, including milk. Here’s hoping it works!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
In which Amanda becomes a semi-professional grammar nazi
Wednesday, 3:10 pm. Only one class today, spent discussing the comparative lack of symbolic value of the Russian constitution when it’s been rewritten five times in the past ninety years. We had the first meeting of the American students’ Russian-language chorus today – only about ten minutes long, but we received a song to sound out by next week! This looks like great fun, or at least it will be once my throat’s back to normal. :P Now it’s time to head home and catch up on some history reading regarding Ivan the Terrible. My host mother’s having guests this evening, and indicated that it would be really nice for me to meet ANOTHER “ochen simpatchni malchik” (very nice boy) and his mother, a friend of hers. I do wish she’d stop hinting about Russian boys, but I know she means well, so I promise to at least give Dmitri (Dima) a chance this evening. :)
11 pm. As it turns out, I was spared trying to flirt in Russian after all; I got home after classes to find a text message from Professor Yarushkin, the English language teaching coordinator. I ate a quick dinner and headed over to the main campus, not quite sure what to expect – his message gave me no clue as to our meeting at 6 was to be a half-hour interview or a two-hour group information session. As it turns out, I walked into an actual three-hour class! Olga Vladimirovna (she told me to just call her Olga) teaches upper intermediate English to a group of seven university students and recent graduates on Monday and Wednesday evenings. (I will only be present for the Wednesday classes, because the orchestra meets on Mondays and Thursdays.) The students all seemed happy to meet me and asked me many questions, both about the current topic (travel and migration) and about American life and my impressions of Russia in general.
I’m very impressed by the level of English in this class, actually. As far as I understand, English is taught in the public school system in St. Petersburg, even in grade school; however, the quality of the instruction leaves something to be desired. Some of the students have been studying English only since they entered the university, while others have been studying since they were kids, but their instruction was seriously lacking. As it stands, though, they all speak at least middling English, and the grammar concepts I was explaining today are really fairly minor details. I’m happy to find out that there are equivalent proverbs in Russian for most of the common ones we bandy around in English; “Rome wasn’t built in a day” becomes “Moscow wasn’t built in a week.” :)
It takes me about an hour by public transportation to get from the apartment to the campus on Vasilievsky, so it was fairly late when I made it home, and it’ll be later tomorrow. Even with my gloves, my hands were red and probably dangerously cold when I made it home (yes, Mom, I know), so I sat and nursed a cup of very hot tea for a while, then came in to blog and go to bed. Hooray for only having two classes tomorrow! :D
11 pm. As it turns out, I was spared trying to flirt in Russian after all; I got home after classes to find a text message from Professor Yarushkin, the English language teaching coordinator. I ate a quick dinner and headed over to the main campus, not quite sure what to expect – his message gave me no clue as to our meeting at 6 was to be a half-hour interview or a two-hour group information session. As it turns out, I walked into an actual three-hour class! Olga Vladimirovna (she told me to just call her Olga) teaches upper intermediate English to a group of seven university students and recent graduates on Monday and Wednesday evenings. (I will only be present for the Wednesday classes, because the orchestra meets on Mondays and Thursdays.) The students all seemed happy to meet me and asked me many questions, both about the current topic (travel and migration) and about American life and my impressions of Russia in general.
I’m very impressed by the level of English in this class, actually. As far as I understand, English is taught in the public school system in St. Petersburg, even in grade school; however, the quality of the instruction leaves something to be desired. Some of the students have been studying English only since they entered the university, while others have been studying since they were kids, but their instruction was seriously lacking. As it stands, though, they all speak at least middling English, and the grammar concepts I was explaining today are really fairly minor details. I’m happy to find out that there are equivalent proverbs in Russian for most of the common ones we bandy around in English; “Rome wasn’t built in a day” becomes “Moscow wasn’t built in a week.” :)
It takes me about an hour by public transportation to get from the apartment to the campus on Vasilievsky, so it was fairly late when I made it home, and it’ll be later tomorrow. Even with my gloves, my hands were red and probably dangerously cold when I made it home (yes, Mom, I know), so I sat and nursed a cup of very hot tea for a while, then came in to blog and go to bed. Hooray for only having two classes tomorrow! :D
Speed dating and shopping
Monday, 11:20 pm. Just got in from what we’re all calling Russian speed dating! The sobesedniki mixer featured a motley crew of Russians and Americans eating chips and salsa and trying to speak each other’s languages, with varying degrees of success. We had five minutes to get to know each other, then moved on to the next conversation partner. If the gender balance had been a little more equal (more guys than girls tonight, for once!), it would’ve been true speed dating. :)
I’m actually amazed at the conversations one can get into in five minutes with a total stranger. I’m not great with names, but I can remember discussing the use of the word ‘Snowpocalypse’ with Anya, American comedy with Olga, the merits of Antonio Banderas songs with Roman, and even the incredible variety in the music of Billy Joel and Queen with Ilya. Actually, if this works out, I may be joining Ilya’s band for a while with my violin. :D All in all, it was a wonderful way to break out of our little American group and realize that Russian students are truly friendly people once you start talking to them. Actually, that generalization can really be applied to Russians in general. Pass them on the street and they’ll look suspicious if you smile, but strike up a conversation about violin-piano duets with Masha and you’re instantly a friend.
The only drawback to a blast of an evening out is the fact of ten o’clock classes tomorrow. Time to get to sleep for tomorrow’s grammar lesson.
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Tuesday, 10:00 pm. Not a lot to write today. Ethnic Studies was canceled when Leonid Vladimirovich failed to show up after half an hour for the class before mine, so I went home. I would like to report, though, that I successfully managed to buy a battery charger! This is a minor annoyance, because I brought one from home, but it appears to have given up the ghost here in Russia. Either that, or it needs intense computer psychological counseling that is beyond me…maybe I’ll get Alec, the computer science major on the program, to take a look at it. :P Anyway, this one cost me a little less than US$17 and charges two batteries at a time. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect—cheap, functional, and a nice stand-in until I can get mine back to the States and see what’s wrong with it.
About twelve of us went out for Zoltan’s birthday this evening and had blini. We realize it’s not Maslenitsa anymore, but there’s really no occasion on which I would pass up a blin with chocolate sauce. :D Oh, and Olympic fever has officially gripped Russia. Even in Teremok, the city’s blini chain, they were showing the biathlon, which involves skiing and shooting. In my humble and ill-informed opinion, this is not a great combination—sure, let’s start an avalanche and then race away from it!—but it seems to be of great importance to the Russian sports fan community, so it’s time to learn. :)
I’m actually amazed at the conversations one can get into in five minutes with a total stranger. I’m not great with names, but I can remember discussing the use of the word ‘Snowpocalypse’ with Anya, American comedy with Olga, the merits of Antonio Banderas songs with Roman, and even the incredible variety in the music of Billy Joel and Queen with Ilya. Actually, if this works out, I may be joining Ilya’s band for a while with my violin. :D All in all, it was a wonderful way to break out of our little American group and realize that Russian students are truly friendly people once you start talking to them. Actually, that generalization can really be applied to Russians in general. Pass them on the street and they’ll look suspicious if you smile, but strike up a conversation about violin-piano duets with Masha and you’re instantly a friend.
The only drawback to a blast of an evening out is the fact of ten o’clock classes tomorrow. Time to get to sleep for tomorrow’s grammar lesson.
--
Tuesday, 10:00 pm. Not a lot to write today. Ethnic Studies was canceled when Leonid Vladimirovich failed to show up after half an hour for the class before mine, so I went home. I would like to report, though, that I successfully managed to buy a battery charger! This is a minor annoyance, because I brought one from home, but it appears to have given up the ghost here in Russia. Either that, or it needs intense computer psychological counseling that is beyond me…maybe I’ll get Alec, the computer science major on the program, to take a look at it. :P Anyway, this one cost me a little less than US$17 and charges two batteries at a time. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect—cheap, functional, and a nice stand-in until I can get mine back to the States and see what’s wrong with it.
About twelve of us went out for Zoltan’s birthday this evening and had blini. We realize it’s not Maslenitsa anymore, but there’s really no occasion on which I would pass up a blin with chocolate sauce. :D Oh, and Olympic fever has officially gripped Russia. Even in Teremok, the city’s blini chain, they were showing the biathlon, which involves skiing and shooting. In my humble and ill-informed opinion, this is not a great combination—sure, let’s start an avalanche and then race away from it!—but it seems to be of great importance to the Russian sports fan community, so it’s time to learn. :)
Monday, February 15, 2010
Weekend in Novgorod: Blini and churches!
Friday, 9:45 pm. Classes...they’re very classlike. Russian Civ currently has us examining our self-perceptions as Americans, while in Ethnic Studies we’re discussing the difficulties of balancing national identity and Soviet identity. I have to admit, though, that five people discussing ethnography on a Friday afternoon just makes for an anticlimactic end to the week. But, we’ve got Novgorod tomorrow to look forward to! :D
Friday night plans and waking up at 6:30 Saturday morning don’t mesh well, so Erica, Matt and I left classes together and found a café about halfway between Erica’s and my homestays and the metro. We spent a lovely two hours over tea and blini discussing literature, Russian philosophy, and what the lamps had been in a previous incarnation. (Tea kettles and old wash tubs, we finally decided.) When we’d about exhausted the topic of Lolita, I came home, had a lovely dinner, packed for Novgorod, and sat drinking tea with Lyudmila Afanasyevna and discussing why men can’t cook (sorry, Dad!). It’s looking like an early night, if I want to have any chance of staying awake for the tour tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll have an internet connection over the weekend, but I am taking my computer (for the 4-hour bus ride), so you’ll be treated to a narration of the weekend’s retreat. :D
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Saturday, 11:50 am. You know, it’s a shame you can’t take a decent picture out the window of a moving bus. The countryside between St. Petersburg and Veliki Novgorod (Novgorod the Great, as opposed to Nizhny—the not so great?—Novgorod) is almost mythically beautiful, all birch forests and pines. The trees themselves look kind of scrubby, at least compared to the giant forest of, I don’t know, Pavlovsk, but there’s still a certain pride to the forest that’s managed to survive this far north for this long. The interspersed villages are charming as well, with brightly painted houses against the snow. Four hours on the bus this morning wasn’t bad at all.
We actually made it into the hotel EARLY today. I wasn’t sure that was permitted in Russia, or at least within CIEE. We’re checking into lovely little rooms on the top floor and heading out to lunch and explorations in a bit. :)
Sunday, 7 pm. So, you know that account of the weekend I promised to write? It’s coming halfway through the ride home, about two hours from St. Petersburg. Fascinating retreat. Novgorod is beautiful, Maslenitsa’s a blast…and good grief, it’s hard to type in the dark. I’m low on battery here, so I’ll try not to ramble for too long.
Saturday and Sunday were mostly taken up with bus-and-walking tours of the city of Novgorod. We visited the Kremlin (the historical seat of government, from when Novgorod was an independent city-state), a bunch of famous churches (spent an hour and a half learning about every bloody icon in the Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom), and a number of monuments and other picturesque sites. Our guide (for the Area Studies tour) was a lovely babushka named Natalya who gave us far more history than we ever would have learned from books, sprinkled with wonderful little gems of life advice. I wish she could come with us back to Petersburg and teach our history class! (Of course, she was also the reason we spent an hour and a half in the Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom, which is really pretty small for an hour and a half. But, it was worth it.)
Saturday evening was spent watching the Olympics (skiing, speed skating, and snowboarding) with about twenty people packed into Brenna’s and my hotel room. (She’s now Brennuchka, by the way. We also have a Misha, a Matveychka, and an Erichka in the group, and we’re intending to give everybody a Russian nickname by the end of the tour. Not sure how you make Amanda into a nickname, though. We’ll see.) Sunday, after the first part of the tour, we were treated to a Maslenitsa feast in a local restaurant, and then we spent some free time exploring the Maslenitsa festival! As I understand, Maslenitsa is the name of the whole week leading up to Lent, but it’s also the name of the last day, which is taken up with a cross between a county fair and the Renaissance Festival. The feast was incredibly tasty, mostly salati and blini (I may or may not have had six) and live folk music in the background! Anya, Jarlath’s girlfriend/fiancée, taught a group of us how to dance to the folk music, and I have some very entertaining video of her and Jarlath. :D (Sadly, I STILL have two left feet.) At the festival, all around the Kremlin, on both sides, were set up vendors’ booths, a concert stage by the statue of Lenin, and games and other entertainment. I wandered for a bit with four of the girls and actually persuaded Liz to come dance with me to some traditional Russian folk music. :D I also bought a couple of little souvenirs, including a very cute hand-carved wooden barrette I’m wearing now.
Irrelevant, but still interesting: out of forty-five people on the program, it’s kind of fascinating how many of us have birthdays this semester. We’re in the middle of four birthdays in a row right now: Claire’s on Saturday, Hayley’s on Sunday, Nadya’s on Monday, Zoltan’s on Tuesday. Also, Jarlath (the American coordinator) and I figured out on Saturday that we share a birthday! The Sunday before our trip to Moscow, he turns thirty and I turn twenty, so we’ll plan something particularly interesting. As a group, we are NOT following the Russian custom of having the birthday celebrant pay for the entire event, though. For college students, that’s just not practical.
My computer seems to be genuinely angry at me for not finding a place to plug it in on the bus, so I’m going to end this account for now and continue back in the apartment/tomorrow. For now, once I get home, it’s tea and bedtime.
11:00 pm. In addition to being Maslenitsa, it’s Valentine’s Day, so Erica and I stopped by the local flower shop once we got off the bus. We each picked out a lovely bouquet of carnations for our host moms, and they were surprisingly inexpensive! Russians LOVE giving flowers, so I guess it pays to make the process economical. Lyudmila Afanasyevna exclaimed over the flowers and put them in a vase on the table, where they brighten up the kitchen very nicely indeed. She also fed me three blini with blackberries (frozen), bringing my total blini count for the day to thirteen. :D Now, it’s seriously bedtime if I have any hope of making it through class tomorrow. Happy Valentine’s Day/Maslenitsa/whatever you care to celebrate, everybody!
Friday night plans and waking up at 6:30 Saturday morning don’t mesh well, so Erica, Matt and I left classes together and found a café about halfway between Erica’s and my homestays and the metro. We spent a lovely two hours over tea and blini discussing literature, Russian philosophy, and what the lamps had been in a previous incarnation. (Tea kettles and old wash tubs, we finally decided.) When we’d about exhausted the topic of Lolita, I came home, had a lovely dinner, packed for Novgorod, and sat drinking tea with Lyudmila Afanasyevna and discussing why men can’t cook (sorry, Dad!). It’s looking like an early night, if I want to have any chance of staying awake for the tour tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll have an internet connection over the weekend, but I am taking my computer (for the 4-hour bus ride), so you’ll be treated to a narration of the weekend’s retreat. :D
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Saturday, 11:50 am. You know, it’s a shame you can’t take a decent picture out the window of a moving bus. The countryside between St. Petersburg and Veliki Novgorod (Novgorod the Great, as opposed to Nizhny—the not so great?—Novgorod) is almost mythically beautiful, all birch forests and pines. The trees themselves look kind of scrubby, at least compared to the giant forest of, I don’t know, Pavlovsk, but there’s still a certain pride to the forest that’s managed to survive this far north for this long. The interspersed villages are charming as well, with brightly painted houses against the snow. Four hours on the bus this morning wasn’t bad at all.
We actually made it into the hotel EARLY today. I wasn’t sure that was permitted in Russia, or at least within CIEE. We’re checking into lovely little rooms on the top floor and heading out to lunch and explorations in a bit. :)
Sunday, 7 pm. So, you know that account of the weekend I promised to write? It’s coming halfway through the ride home, about two hours from St. Petersburg. Fascinating retreat. Novgorod is beautiful, Maslenitsa’s a blast…and good grief, it’s hard to type in the dark. I’m low on battery here, so I’ll try not to ramble for too long.
Saturday and Sunday were mostly taken up with bus-and-walking tours of the city of Novgorod. We visited the Kremlin (the historical seat of government, from when Novgorod was an independent city-state), a bunch of famous churches (spent an hour and a half learning about every bloody icon in the Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom), and a number of monuments and other picturesque sites. Our guide (for the Area Studies tour) was a lovely babushka named Natalya who gave us far more history than we ever would have learned from books, sprinkled with wonderful little gems of life advice. I wish she could come with us back to Petersburg and teach our history class! (Of course, she was also the reason we spent an hour and a half in the Cathedral of the Divine Wisdom, which is really pretty small for an hour and a half. But, it was worth it.)
Saturday evening was spent watching the Olympics (skiing, speed skating, and snowboarding) with about twenty people packed into Brenna’s and my hotel room. (She’s now Brennuchka, by the way. We also have a Misha, a Matveychka, and an Erichka in the group, and we’re intending to give everybody a Russian nickname by the end of the tour. Not sure how you make Amanda into a nickname, though. We’ll see.) Sunday, after the first part of the tour, we were treated to a Maslenitsa feast in a local restaurant, and then we spent some free time exploring the Maslenitsa festival! As I understand, Maslenitsa is the name of the whole week leading up to Lent, but it’s also the name of the last day, which is taken up with a cross between a county fair and the Renaissance Festival. The feast was incredibly tasty, mostly salati and blini (I may or may not have had six) and live folk music in the background! Anya, Jarlath’s girlfriend/fiancée, taught a group of us how to dance to the folk music, and I have some very entertaining video of her and Jarlath. :D (Sadly, I STILL have two left feet.) At the festival, all around the Kremlin, on both sides, were set up vendors’ booths, a concert stage by the statue of Lenin, and games and other entertainment. I wandered for a bit with four of the girls and actually persuaded Liz to come dance with me to some traditional Russian folk music. :D I also bought a couple of little souvenirs, including a very cute hand-carved wooden barrette I’m wearing now.
Irrelevant, but still interesting: out of forty-five people on the program, it’s kind of fascinating how many of us have birthdays this semester. We’re in the middle of four birthdays in a row right now: Claire’s on Saturday, Hayley’s on Sunday, Nadya’s on Monday, Zoltan’s on Tuesday. Also, Jarlath (the American coordinator) and I figured out on Saturday that we share a birthday! The Sunday before our trip to Moscow, he turns thirty and I turn twenty, so we’ll plan something particularly interesting. As a group, we are NOT following the Russian custom of having the birthday celebrant pay for the entire event, though. For college students, that’s just not practical.
My computer seems to be genuinely angry at me for not finding a place to plug it in on the bus, so I’m going to end this account for now and continue back in the apartment/tomorrow. For now, once I get home, it’s tea and bedtime.
11:00 pm. In addition to being Maslenitsa, it’s Valentine’s Day, so Erica and I stopped by the local flower shop once we got off the bus. We each picked out a lovely bouquet of carnations for our host moms, and they were surprisingly inexpensive! Russians LOVE giving flowers, so I guess it pays to make the process economical. Lyudmila Afanasyevna exclaimed over the flowers and put them in a vase on the table, where they brighten up the kitchen very nicely indeed. She also fed me three blini with blackberries (frozen), bringing my total blini count for the day to thirteen. :D Now, it’s seriously bedtime if I have any hope of making it through class tomorrow. Happy Valentine’s Day/Maslenitsa/whatever you care to celebrate, everybody!
In which Amanda finds her Russian happy place :D
Thursday, 11:40 pm. Long day, but I’m in my happy place. :D
Classes were nothing out of the ordinary; there’s got to be a way to teach phonetics other than drilling us until we all go mad, including the professor, but I’m not sure what it is. After class, though, was when the fun began! We hopped a bus (all forty-five of us) to SS Peter and Paul Fortress, Pietropavlovskiy Krepost, the museum of where St. Petersburg began. As I understand it, this was Peter the Great’s fortress to defend against Sweden, built before Sweden was actually defeated but sporting some impressive victory monuments (that were there from the beginning) anyway. It’s also the burial place of all of the Russian tsars from Peter through the Romanovs. The gardens are supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful, but at the moment, they’re mostly breathtakingly cold. Stepping inside the cathedral and burial chapel was definitely a relief.
I really need to figure out how to post pictures on here, because describing the tombs of the tsars without photographs is a sort of futile exercise. Even with a horde of American students tramping through with bookbags and wet boots, there’s a real majesty to the church. Various colors of marble, gold decorations on every tomb, gold nameplates in almost illegibly ornate Church Slavonic script, the sheer blaze of brightness that is the main altar…it’s a feast for the eyes. The tour guide was almost impossible to hear (Russian tour guides really need to learn to speak up!) but certainly worth the extra effort, with a story about almost every tomb we passed.
I realize that when most Americans think of Russian royalty, one of the first (and, frequently, only) occurrences to come to mind is the murder of the family of Nicholas II. Nobody during the revolution was particularly inclined to give the tsar and his family a decent burial, so their remains were dumped somewhere in a ditch in the countryside, and they were only found sometime in the last twenty years (I forget when, exactly). I used to (oh, who am I kidding? I still do) love the Royal Diaries series of books, written from the point of view of famous princesses at the age of fourteen or so, and Anastasia Romanov’s was one of my particular favorites, so I felt sort of an extra twinge when I looked into this room. In the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, there’s a separate room for the tombs of the Romanov family. Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna are buried together in the center of the back wall; the grand duchesses (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia) surround them on either side; and the tsarevitch Alexei’s grave is against the left wall. Interestingly, most of the plaques have dates on the bottom as to when they were interred at Peter and Paul, but the graves of Alexei and Maria are blank at that point. Their remains were never found.
After that sobering little excursion, the tour continued; however, I had other plans for the evening that did not involve tramping around frozen gardens for another hour. With the full permission of Katya, I excused myself and headed for the metro to make my way to the main campus of the university, eventually winding up where I did yesterday more through trial and error than through actual solid planning. I arrived a little early for the chamber orchestra auditions, exchanged a few words with the quiet cellist Mariam, and sat down to await the conductor, who I was told knew I was coming. Within five minutes, several other girls showed up toting food, and we ended up setting up a birthday party for one of the violinists. And thus was my introduction to the St. Petersburg State University Chamber Orchestra: making buterbrode. :D
Before too long, thirteen string players and the conductor, Konstantin Fyodorovich, assembled in one rather large room with a peeling linoleum floor. I was given a violin that was sitting in a storage closet (they think they have a viola, too, but they’re not sure if it’s in use right now or just ‘elsewhere’) and shown to a seat in the first violin section: trial by fire! As it turns out, this wasn’t an ‘audition’ so much as a ‘hey, we have new members? Awesome!’ kind of occasion. Yulia, the lone violist tonight, took charge of translating for me, making introductions and explaining the rehearsal schedule. Thankfully, the music itself needs no translation. The conductor shouts ‘ras, dva’ instead of ‘one, two,’ and I don’t understand his jokes, but apart from that, it closely resembled any chamber orchestra I’ve ever played with—and the music was delightful! It felt wonderful to have a violin in my hands again, even if it’s an instrument borrowed from a closet and not my own; just the joy of playing with a group of highly competent and friendly musicians put me back in my happy place. I’ve missed orchestras. :)
We took a break partway through for Dasha’s birthday party, which involved snacks, tea, and gossip served on an old piano. Except for Konstantin Fyodorovich, the orchestra is (or at least was tonight) entirely female. Even if I don’t understand the majority of what’s being said, I can at least pick up on the conversational tones, because large groups of college-age women are pretty much the same everywhere, I figure. :) When we finished, six of us walked to the bus stop together, and I bid farewell to Natasha, Sasha, Lera, Yulia, and Masha. Only a few of them speak English, and my Russian is still elementary, but they’re a very welcoming group, and they invited me back next week, which is wonderful! :D
I made it home around eleven (thank you, trolleybuses!) and was greeted with a plate of blini by Lyudmila Afanasyevna. We sat and ate and chatted about music for another half-hour, and only then realized that we both need to get up in eight hours. Thank heavens for classes tomorrow not starting until 11:30! I don’t think I’m going to the choral auditions tomorrow; I think I’m going to wait and see how the chamber orchestra works out first before dramatically over-committing myself. There’s still the English teaching thing to come, and we’ll be meeting English-Russian conversation partners (called sobesedniki) on Monday! I’m thrilled to finally be getting back into the busy swing that is my life’s tempo. Who knows what discoveries await tomorrow?
Classes were nothing out of the ordinary; there’s got to be a way to teach phonetics other than drilling us until we all go mad, including the professor, but I’m not sure what it is. After class, though, was when the fun began! We hopped a bus (all forty-five of us) to SS Peter and Paul Fortress, Pietropavlovskiy Krepost, the museum of where St. Petersburg began. As I understand it, this was Peter the Great’s fortress to defend against Sweden, built before Sweden was actually defeated but sporting some impressive victory monuments (that were there from the beginning) anyway. It’s also the burial place of all of the Russian tsars from Peter through the Romanovs. The gardens are supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful, but at the moment, they’re mostly breathtakingly cold. Stepping inside the cathedral and burial chapel was definitely a relief.
I really need to figure out how to post pictures on here, because describing the tombs of the tsars without photographs is a sort of futile exercise. Even with a horde of American students tramping through with bookbags and wet boots, there’s a real majesty to the church. Various colors of marble, gold decorations on every tomb, gold nameplates in almost illegibly ornate Church Slavonic script, the sheer blaze of brightness that is the main altar…it’s a feast for the eyes. The tour guide was almost impossible to hear (Russian tour guides really need to learn to speak up!) but certainly worth the extra effort, with a story about almost every tomb we passed.
I realize that when most Americans think of Russian royalty, one of the first (and, frequently, only) occurrences to come to mind is the murder of the family of Nicholas II. Nobody during the revolution was particularly inclined to give the tsar and his family a decent burial, so their remains were dumped somewhere in a ditch in the countryside, and they were only found sometime in the last twenty years (I forget when, exactly). I used to (oh, who am I kidding? I still do) love the Royal Diaries series of books, written from the point of view of famous princesses at the age of fourteen or so, and Anastasia Romanov’s was one of my particular favorites, so I felt sort of an extra twinge when I looked into this room. In the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, there’s a separate room for the tombs of the Romanov family. Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna are buried together in the center of the back wall; the grand duchesses (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia) surround them on either side; and the tsarevitch Alexei’s grave is against the left wall. Interestingly, most of the plaques have dates on the bottom as to when they were interred at Peter and Paul, but the graves of Alexei and Maria are blank at that point. Their remains were never found.
After that sobering little excursion, the tour continued; however, I had other plans for the evening that did not involve tramping around frozen gardens for another hour. With the full permission of Katya, I excused myself and headed for the metro to make my way to the main campus of the university, eventually winding up where I did yesterday more through trial and error than through actual solid planning. I arrived a little early for the chamber orchestra auditions, exchanged a few words with the quiet cellist Mariam, and sat down to await the conductor, who I was told knew I was coming. Within five minutes, several other girls showed up toting food, and we ended up setting up a birthday party for one of the violinists. And thus was my introduction to the St. Petersburg State University Chamber Orchestra: making buterbrode. :D
Before too long, thirteen string players and the conductor, Konstantin Fyodorovich, assembled in one rather large room with a peeling linoleum floor. I was given a violin that was sitting in a storage closet (they think they have a viola, too, but they’re not sure if it’s in use right now or just ‘elsewhere’) and shown to a seat in the first violin section: trial by fire! As it turns out, this wasn’t an ‘audition’ so much as a ‘hey, we have new members? Awesome!’ kind of occasion. Yulia, the lone violist tonight, took charge of translating for me, making introductions and explaining the rehearsal schedule. Thankfully, the music itself needs no translation. The conductor shouts ‘ras, dva’ instead of ‘one, two,’ and I don’t understand his jokes, but apart from that, it closely resembled any chamber orchestra I’ve ever played with—and the music was delightful! It felt wonderful to have a violin in my hands again, even if it’s an instrument borrowed from a closet and not my own; just the joy of playing with a group of highly competent and friendly musicians put me back in my happy place. I’ve missed orchestras. :)
We took a break partway through for Dasha’s birthday party, which involved snacks, tea, and gossip served on an old piano. Except for Konstantin Fyodorovich, the orchestra is (or at least was tonight) entirely female. Even if I don’t understand the majority of what’s being said, I can at least pick up on the conversational tones, because large groups of college-age women are pretty much the same everywhere, I figure. :) When we finished, six of us walked to the bus stop together, and I bid farewell to Natasha, Sasha, Lera, Yulia, and Masha. Only a few of them speak English, and my Russian is still elementary, but they’re a very welcoming group, and they invited me back next week, which is wonderful! :D
I made it home around eleven (thank you, trolleybuses!) and was greeted with a plate of blini by Lyudmila Afanasyevna. We sat and ate and chatted about music for another half-hour, and only then realized that we both need to get up in eight hours. Thank heavens for classes tomorrow not starting until 11:30! I don’t think I’m going to the choral auditions tomorrow; I think I’m going to wait and see how the chamber orchestra works out first before dramatically over-committing myself. There’s still the English teaching thing to come, and we’ll be meeting English-Russian conversation partners (called sobesedniki) on Monday! I’m thrilled to finally be getting back into the busy swing that is my life’s tempo. Who knows what discoveries await tomorrow?
In which American musical theater nearly comes to St. Petersburg
Wednesday morning. Happiness is discovering friends’ blogs. I miss you, Becca. :D
Our Ethnic Studies homework for today was to develop an “alphabet of American symbols,” based on a similar Russian worksheet we received last class. Just to test myself, I created another alphabet beside the one I came up with. I’m not sure what it says about me, or America in general, that I can name a musical starting with every letter of the alphabet, but not a symbol. (Z? Anyone?)
8:42 pm. Finally, we’re getting close to returning to the norm of over-committing ourselves! (Hey, if you can’t do four extracurriculars at once in college, when can you do them?) We took a little excursion after classes today to the main campus of the university, where Irina Borisovna pointed out most of the facilities, helped us sign up to volunteer to teach English, and interpreted several signs for grateful, confused artsy students.
New lesson for me: apparently one of the trolleybuses that I take regularly to get to Nevsky actually goes all the way to the main campus. We left after classes from Smolny Campus, caught the 11 bus, and stayed on it the whole way across the city. In retrospect, thirty-some of us piled onto one bus was…adventuresome? Possibly not the wisest idea, anyway. I did, however, get to experience the wonder of not having to hold onto anything because I was sandwiched firmly between Matt, Adam, Fred, Liz, and Brenna. In any case, the crowd eventually thinned out enough for some of us to sit down, and when we all piled off the bus on Vasilievsky, I swear the tires groaned in relief.
Next stop: wandering around the university! One of the main buildings is called the Labyrinth, and they weren’t messing around when they named it. I have a vague idea of how to get from the bus stop outside the Philology Department to the student activities building, but that’s about it. We crossed into the building with the library at some point, passed the pool, and were collectively distracted by a large icicle that had formed on a hanging wire. The Pendulum of Death, as aptly named by Lauren, sort of set the mood for this campus. Smolny is bright, cheery, and easy to imagine nuns wandering around; the main campus would make a nun genuflect before crossing the courtyard.
We met Professor Yarushkin and signed up to teach English (and possibly our other foreign languages) to Russian students, which I’ll be able to write more about once it actually starts; then Irina Borisovna led the chorally and orchestrally inclined of us to the student union and translated the signs for us. I think orchestra auditions are tomorrow at 6:30, which will be both fantastic and a rather tight fit, as we’re going to Peter and Paul Fortress at three-thirty. The question of how to get my hands on a viola before then will be resolved tomorrow. I have a phone number for the orchestra manager (at least that’s who I assume Angelina is), and some key phrases from Irina Borisovna, so let’s see how I do! (Choral auditions are Friday evening. I’ll figure out by then if I can in fact participate in both…
Our Ethnic Studies homework for today was to develop an “alphabet of American symbols,” based on a similar Russian worksheet we received last class. Just to test myself, I created another alphabet beside the one I came up with. I’m not sure what it says about me, or America in general, that I can name a musical starting with every letter of the alphabet, but not a symbol. (Z? Anyone?)
8:42 pm. Finally, we’re getting close to returning to the norm of over-committing ourselves! (Hey, if you can’t do four extracurriculars at once in college, when can you do them?) We took a little excursion after classes today to the main campus of the university, where Irina Borisovna pointed out most of the facilities, helped us sign up to volunteer to teach English, and interpreted several signs for grateful, confused artsy students.
New lesson for me: apparently one of the trolleybuses that I take regularly to get to Nevsky actually goes all the way to the main campus. We left after classes from Smolny Campus, caught the 11 bus, and stayed on it the whole way across the city. In retrospect, thirty-some of us piled onto one bus was…adventuresome? Possibly not the wisest idea, anyway. I did, however, get to experience the wonder of not having to hold onto anything because I was sandwiched firmly between Matt, Adam, Fred, Liz, and Brenna. In any case, the crowd eventually thinned out enough for some of us to sit down, and when we all piled off the bus on Vasilievsky, I swear the tires groaned in relief.
Next stop: wandering around the university! One of the main buildings is called the Labyrinth, and they weren’t messing around when they named it. I have a vague idea of how to get from the bus stop outside the Philology Department to the student activities building, but that’s about it. We crossed into the building with the library at some point, passed the pool, and were collectively distracted by a large icicle that had formed on a hanging wire. The Pendulum of Death, as aptly named by Lauren, sort of set the mood for this campus. Smolny is bright, cheery, and easy to imagine nuns wandering around; the main campus would make a nun genuflect before crossing the courtyard.
We met Professor Yarushkin and signed up to teach English (and possibly our other foreign languages) to Russian students, which I’ll be able to write more about once it actually starts; then Irina Borisovna led the chorally and orchestrally inclined of us to the student union and translated the signs for us. I think orchestra auditions are tomorrow at 6:30, which will be both fantastic and a rather tight fit, as we’re going to Peter and Paul Fortress at three-thirty. The question of how to get my hands on a viola before then will be resolved tomorrow. I have a phone number for the orchestra manager (at least that’s who I assume Angelina is), and some key phrases from Irina Borisovna, so let’s see how I do! (Choral auditions are Friday evening. I’ll figure out by then if I can in fact participate in both…
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
In which Amanda learns how to completely wing a recipe :D
Tuesday. 7:11 pm. A fairly normal day of classes (and no homework! Hurrah!) culminates in something far more exciting: Amanda learning to cook! Those who know me back home are well aware of my (not entirely deserved) reputation for the ability to burn a salad. HOWEVER, Lyudmila Afanasyevna is determined to change that before I go home. She’s also not getting home for three hours yet, so I present to you the following challenge:
Blini,
By myself,
From scratch,
On a gas stove,
With no measuring utensils.
Seriously, I can’t find a single measuring cup or spoon in the apartment. But, if my host mother manages it, so can I, right? I have Billy Joel on my computer and some fried potatoes and kielbasa to keep me company, so we’ll see if I can’t surprise Lyudmila Afanasyevna (pleasantly!) when she gets home.
…okay, this may not be happening at all if I can’t find the flour. Rows of vertical storage are very efficient in a small apartment, but good LORD, these cabinets are high! And my host mother is a good two inches shorter than I am! I don’t know how she manages! I have half a mind to call one of my tall guy friends to help me get some of the ingredients down.
Okey dokey! Found the flour. I think. Now, to break out the dictionary and make sure.
I’m completely winging it on the measurements here, but I don’t think that “batter should be thin” meant “batter should be frothy.” More flour!
One down, many to come. Katya warned me that the shape takes a while to get right, which is so true. It’s a little thick, and it doesn’t look like an actual blin, but it tastes like one. Go me!
…lesson to Amanda: cast-iron skillet handles are HOT.
About eight blini into the process, I think I’ve finally figured out the secret to the thickness! Don’t actually measure the batter with a large spoon; pour it into the pan from the larger bowl and spread it around with the spoon. They’re still coming out just a bit brown, but they’re certainly not burnt. Oh, and don’t bother refreshing the vegetable oil until you literally can’t get the blin off the pan. Too much oil means you can’t spread the batter.
It’s snowing! I feel like part of a Thomas Kincaid painting, except for the whole laptop bit.
8:20 pm. Success! From a recipe off the Internet and without measuring anything, I have a plate of nine successful blini, plus two remarkably unsuccessful ones that I’ll eat. Granted, the recipe was supposed to make more, but it took me most of the batch to get the thickness right. I took a few next door to Erica for a second opinion, which was quite positive. I’ll try again later in Maslenitsa. :D
10:00 pm. After a second batch, the ultimate measure of success: Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s approval. :)
Blini,
By myself,
From scratch,
On a gas stove,
With no measuring utensils.
Seriously, I can’t find a single measuring cup or spoon in the apartment. But, if my host mother manages it, so can I, right? I have Billy Joel on my computer and some fried potatoes and kielbasa to keep me company, so we’ll see if I can’t surprise Lyudmila Afanasyevna (pleasantly!) when she gets home.
…okay, this may not be happening at all if I can’t find the flour. Rows of vertical storage are very efficient in a small apartment, but good LORD, these cabinets are high! And my host mother is a good two inches shorter than I am! I don’t know how she manages! I have half a mind to call one of my tall guy friends to help me get some of the ingredients down.
Okey dokey! Found the flour. I think. Now, to break out the dictionary and make sure.
I’m completely winging it on the measurements here, but I don’t think that “batter should be thin” meant “batter should be frothy.” More flour!
One down, many to come. Katya warned me that the shape takes a while to get right, which is so true. It’s a little thick, and it doesn’t look like an actual blin, but it tastes like one. Go me!
…lesson to Amanda: cast-iron skillet handles are HOT.
About eight blini into the process, I think I’ve finally figured out the secret to the thickness! Don’t actually measure the batter with a large spoon; pour it into the pan from the larger bowl and spread it around with the spoon. They’re still coming out just a bit brown, but they’re certainly not burnt. Oh, and don’t bother refreshing the vegetable oil until you literally can’t get the blin off the pan. Too much oil means you can’t spread the batter.
It’s snowing! I feel like part of a Thomas Kincaid painting, except for the whole laptop bit.
8:20 pm. Success! From a recipe off the Internet and without measuring anything, I have a plate of nine successful blini, plus two remarkably unsuccessful ones that I’ll eat. Granted, the recipe was supposed to make more, but it took me most of the batch to get the thickness right. I took a few next door to Erica for a second opinion, which was quite positive. I’ll try again later in Maslenitsa. :D
10:00 pm. After a second batch, the ultimate measure of success: Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s approval. :)
Soul-searching between dishes
Monday. Quote of the day: “Wait, 1865? Is that when the Columbus thing actually happened?”
It’s the beginning of Maslenitsa today! I’m not sure what this week is called in any other culture, but it’s supposed to celebrate the end of winter, beginning of spring, that sort of thing. (We’re conveniently ignoring the fact that it’s still snowing every single day and predicted to be -15C tomorrow.) As far as I understand, the main cultural element of Maslenitsa is the pre-Lent celebration of eating blini every day. I had two for breakfast this morning (and could have easily eaten more, if not for the giant bowl of kasha that preceded them), and slathered with strawberry jam and a little bit of lemon juice, they’re absolutely fantastic. They’re also super easy, so I’ll do my best to make a couple hundred when I get back to the States! :D
Slow school day. Apparently there’s a banya club that normally meets on Mondays, but they didn’t end up going out today…it wasn’t well publicized, really. I think everyone else, at least in our language group, was slightly overwhelmed by the intensity of the lessons today. Three hours of Albina Vasilievna, our main language teacher, is a lot; we’ll all be thanking our lucky stars that we studied with her come next semester, but right now, she makes for a difficult three hours.
Lyudmila Afanasyevna has students this evening, so I’ve been keeping busy doing my grammar homework and (once I finished that) the dishes. She has several students, both from the university and from local high schools, who come by in the evenings for extra chemistry lessons. I’ve met four of them so far: Olga, Ksusha (not sure if this is a nickname), and this evening, Katya and Nastia (Anastasia). I’m sure this is a normal exchange student feeling, but meeting these students, for example…at the moment, it’s a real source of anxiety. I mean, they’re certainly nice enough, but my usual strategy of making small talk completely fails with my current command of the language. It’s going to take a while for me to forget that I’m studying what’s effectively first- or second-grade grammar in the language they’ve spoken all their lives.
Bah. Enough thinking. Time to go distract myself with a couple of pots to wash. Doing the dishes is turning out to be remarkably calming, actually. Mom, I’ll keep this in mind when I get back home. :)
It’s the beginning of Maslenitsa today! I’m not sure what this week is called in any other culture, but it’s supposed to celebrate the end of winter, beginning of spring, that sort of thing. (We’re conveniently ignoring the fact that it’s still snowing every single day and predicted to be -15C tomorrow.) As far as I understand, the main cultural element of Maslenitsa is the pre-Lent celebration of eating blini every day. I had two for breakfast this morning (and could have easily eaten more, if not for the giant bowl of kasha that preceded them), and slathered with strawberry jam and a little bit of lemon juice, they’re absolutely fantastic. They’re also super easy, so I’ll do my best to make a couple hundred when I get back to the States! :D
Slow school day. Apparently there’s a banya club that normally meets on Mondays, but they didn’t end up going out today…it wasn’t well publicized, really. I think everyone else, at least in our language group, was slightly overwhelmed by the intensity of the lessons today. Three hours of Albina Vasilievna, our main language teacher, is a lot; we’ll all be thanking our lucky stars that we studied with her come next semester, but right now, she makes for a difficult three hours.
Lyudmila Afanasyevna has students this evening, so I’ve been keeping busy doing my grammar homework and (once I finished that) the dishes. She has several students, both from the university and from local high schools, who come by in the evenings for extra chemistry lessons. I’ve met four of them so far: Olga, Ksusha (not sure if this is a nickname), and this evening, Katya and Nastia (Anastasia). I’m sure this is a normal exchange student feeling, but meeting these students, for example…at the moment, it’s a real source of anxiety. I mean, they’re certainly nice enough, but my usual strategy of making small talk completely fails with my current command of the language. It’s going to take a while for me to forget that I’m studying what’s effectively first- or second-grade grammar in the language they’ve spoken all their lives.
Bah. Enough thinking. Time to go distract myself with a couple of pots to wash. Doing the dishes is turning out to be remarkably calming, actually. Mom, I’ll keep this in mind when I get back home. :)
Monday, February 8, 2010
In which we find the IKEA in St. Petersburg. Who knew?
Sunday, 10:48 am. Good grief, do my feet hurt. The Dom Knigi employees seemed rather surprised to see a group of seven Americans show up at about 8 pm, but they voiced no objection to our hanging out and delightedly testing our Russian language skills for two hours. Several of the group bought notebooks and school supplies, making me feel slightly superior for packing mine. :) (My host mother was out for the evening; I got home at about ten-thirty, roughly ten minutes before she did.) Russian bookstores aren’t quite as intentionally welcoming as Barnes and Noble or Borders; there’s no drinking coffee and sitting for a couple of hours reading in here. Dom Knigi is amazingly well stocked, though. The city library is open at very inconvenient hours, so I sense that I may be visiting the bookstore fairly often when I’m homesick for a room full of books.
I feel like I should have noticed this previously, but I’m a little leery about doing my laundry here, actually. We were warned about the parasites in the water, but we weren’t warned that it’s oddly yellowish and smells like oatmeal. For showering, this isn’t an issue with some decent shampoo; for washing clothes, I’m not quite so sure. I still have a couple days’ worth of socks, though, so we’ll see how this goes. (I’m not sure the oatmeal smell would be a bad thing, actually, as whatever clothes I wear out in public—anywhere!—end up smelling like smoke. I’m rather surprised at how many of the American students on this program smoke; I’m not the least bit surprised at how many of the Russians smoke. I don’t, though, and I’ve got to find some way to smell like I don’t! :P)
We’re meeting at 2 at Kazansky Sabor for a “scavenger hunt” through the city; I’ll write more later, once I figure out just what this entails. All I know is, more opportunities to take pictures! Hooray! :D
10:25 pm. Oy. Gevalt. The ‘scavenger hunt’, I have to say, was not an overwhelming success. But, it’s over, and I am full of warm food and sitting down for the evening.
First of all, if you actually want students to show up to an event, don’t make it optional. Out of the forty-five or so students on the program, ten showed up for the scavenger hunt. We split into two- and three-person teams, received a list from Jarlath (who, apparently for good reasons, was twenty-five minutes late), and set off to traverse the entire city for three hours and take photos. Morgan, Daniel, and I tramped all over the city, translating the list as we went, ended up backtracking five times or so, and generally familiarized ourselves with most of the city. So, from that respect, if that was one of our goals, the event was a success.
What wasn’t so successful was the meeting at the end. We were given three hours and told to meet at the IKEA in a mega-mall in the northern part of the city; what we figured out well into the process was that it takes a good hour to get from Nevsky Prospekt, where we started, to this mall, way the heck up on the Blue Line (second-to-last stop, and then a shuttle from there). I mean, it’s a good thing that we know how to get to this mall, but it’s VERY much out of the way for a final meeting spot. Dan actually went home and left me and Morgan as the representatives of our team. None of the eight who remained were particularly happy with Jarlath as we all rolled in. I stayed about ten minutes, then headed home with an understandably impatient Zoltan, leaving him at Ploshchad Vosstaniya and catching a trolleybus back to my street.
Lyudmila Afanasyevna spent the day at her dacha, skiing and enjoying the winter in the country, so she was out fairly late as well; serendipitously, she met me on the stairs as I was having trouble with my keys. We ate a very late, very large, very tasty dinner, and then both retired for some reading for our classes. So, after an adventurous weekend, I am retiring early and looking forward to ten hours off my feet. Back to history and grammar tomorrow! :)
I feel like I should have noticed this previously, but I’m a little leery about doing my laundry here, actually. We were warned about the parasites in the water, but we weren’t warned that it’s oddly yellowish and smells like oatmeal. For showering, this isn’t an issue with some decent shampoo; for washing clothes, I’m not quite so sure. I still have a couple days’ worth of socks, though, so we’ll see how this goes. (I’m not sure the oatmeal smell would be a bad thing, actually, as whatever clothes I wear out in public—anywhere!—end up smelling like smoke. I’m rather surprised at how many of the American students on this program smoke; I’m not the least bit surprised at how many of the Russians smoke. I don’t, though, and I’ve got to find some way to smell like I don’t! :P)
We’re meeting at 2 at Kazansky Sabor for a “scavenger hunt” through the city; I’ll write more later, once I figure out just what this entails. All I know is, more opportunities to take pictures! Hooray! :D
10:25 pm. Oy. Gevalt. The ‘scavenger hunt’, I have to say, was not an overwhelming success. But, it’s over, and I am full of warm food and sitting down for the evening.
First of all, if you actually want students to show up to an event, don’t make it optional. Out of the forty-five or so students on the program, ten showed up for the scavenger hunt. We split into two- and three-person teams, received a list from Jarlath (who, apparently for good reasons, was twenty-five minutes late), and set off to traverse the entire city for three hours and take photos. Morgan, Daniel, and I tramped all over the city, translating the list as we went, ended up backtracking five times or so, and generally familiarized ourselves with most of the city. So, from that respect, if that was one of our goals, the event was a success.
What wasn’t so successful was the meeting at the end. We were given three hours and told to meet at the IKEA in a mega-mall in the northern part of the city; what we figured out well into the process was that it takes a good hour to get from Nevsky Prospekt, where we started, to this mall, way the heck up on the Blue Line (second-to-last stop, and then a shuttle from there). I mean, it’s a good thing that we know how to get to this mall, but it’s VERY much out of the way for a final meeting spot. Dan actually went home and left me and Morgan as the representatives of our team. None of the eight who remained were particularly happy with Jarlath as we all rolled in. I stayed about ten minutes, then headed home with an understandably impatient Zoltan, leaving him at Ploshchad Vosstaniya and catching a trolleybus back to my street.
Lyudmila Afanasyevna spent the day at her dacha, skiing and enjoying the winter in the country, so she was out fairly late as well; serendipitously, she met me on the stairs as I was having trouble with my keys. We ate a very late, very large, very tasty dinner, and then both retired for some reading for our classes. So, after an adventurous weekend, I am retiring early and looking forward to ten hours off my feet. Back to history and grammar tomorrow! :)
In which you're probably quite glad I'm not posting all my photos
Saturday, 7 pm. The best weather we’ve seen so far in this country came on the best sightseeing day! :D Thirty-five or so photos later, I return, cold and footsore but happy, from the winter wonderland that is Pavlovsk in February.
We took a different form of public transportation this time, called electrichki, sort of longer-distance trains (very much like Amtrak, but with benches instead of individual seats). The ride was a little over half an hour, at least for half the Area Studies group. We pulled into Pavlovsk Station, but our dear Jarlath was apparently very distracted by the conversation he was having. After a good thirty seconds of confused silence, somebody ventured, “Hey, Jarlath, aren’t we getting off here?”, and our coordinator sprung up as though hit with a cattle prod. He shepherded us off as fast as we could run, but only eleven out of about twenty-five made it off the train. Apparently electrichki doors don’t open automatically like Metro doors back home do if there’s something in them, so in the process of trying to force the door open for a couple more of us, Jarlath got his fingers caught in the door. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt, but it was hilarious for those of us on the platform, watching the train pass out of sight with those fingers sticking out like, well, sore fingers! The eleven of us camped out in the station itself for a while until the rest of the group caught a bus back, and eventually, we began what was actually supposed to be the day’s adventure.
Pavlovsk itself was an estate given by Catherine the Great (Catherine II) to her son Paul upon the birth of Paul’s son, Alexander. Quite a present…just “here, son, have a few gorgeous acres in the middle of nowhere, go build yourself a palace!” The palace itself is a lovely little place, but in my (and most of the group’s) opinion, the buildings absolutely pale in comparison with the grounds themselves. Photos of the interior of the palace itself were only allowed for a rather exorbitant fee, which I don’t think any of us paid. We can find photos of the shiny objects inside the palace on postcards; we can’t find gorgeous shots of trees in snow nearly as easily.
After the tour of the palace itself, some of the group wanted to try the assorted winter sports available – skiing, tubing, and skating among them. It was three-thirty by the time we got out, though, so most of us were content with wandering the grounds for a while (and couldn’t find the main winter sports area, anyway. When you don’t know enough of the language to read the map, navigating an area the size of the grounds of Pavlovsk becomes quite the challenge). Mike, Ella, Alec and I set off on a campaign to take artistic photographs of trees in snow, got separated, and all ended up with some gorgeous photos once we met up again. I got completely lost in the middle of the forest, ended up asking directions a couple of times from rather standoffish but helpful Russian tourists, and found my way to a giant hill traversed almost exclusively by skiers. Thankfully, I could see the bridge in the distance; the only way to it, though, was down the hill, so down I went. I managed to fall flat on my squishy parts crossing the bloody icy street from Pavlovsk Station to the park entrance, so I have NO idea how I managed to get down this hill without falling, but I guess I’d used up my bad gravity karma for the day. :) Fortuitously, as soon as I reached the bottom of the hill, I ran smack into four of the Area Studies group – almost literally! Kyle, Nick, Eve, and Brenna led me out, and about thirty of us took the train home together.
I’m writing this from home, after a hot bowl of soup, some sort of cherry dumplings (odd, but very tasty), and three cups of very hot English Breakfast tea. This makes for a very happy Amanda. :D There are several sets of Saturday night plans in the air, but I think most of us are too tired from wandering through the forest to do much of anything. The most viable one sounds like a trip to the giant bookstore on Nevsky; I can think of no better way to pass the evening. :)
We took a different form of public transportation this time, called electrichki, sort of longer-distance trains (very much like Amtrak, but with benches instead of individual seats). The ride was a little over half an hour, at least for half the Area Studies group. We pulled into Pavlovsk Station, but our dear Jarlath was apparently very distracted by the conversation he was having. After a good thirty seconds of confused silence, somebody ventured, “Hey, Jarlath, aren’t we getting off here?”, and our coordinator sprung up as though hit with a cattle prod. He shepherded us off as fast as we could run, but only eleven out of about twenty-five made it off the train. Apparently electrichki doors don’t open automatically like Metro doors back home do if there’s something in them, so in the process of trying to force the door open for a couple more of us, Jarlath got his fingers caught in the door. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt, but it was hilarious for those of us on the platform, watching the train pass out of sight with those fingers sticking out like, well, sore fingers! The eleven of us camped out in the station itself for a while until the rest of the group caught a bus back, and eventually, we began what was actually supposed to be the day’s adventure.
Pavlovsk itself was an estate given by Catherine the Great (Catherine II) to her son Paul upon the birth of Paul’s son, Alexander. Quite a present…just “here, son, have a few gorgeous acres in the middle of nowhere, go build yourself a palace!” The palace itself is a lovely little place, but in my (and most of the group’s) opinion, the buildings absolutely pale in comparison with the grounds themselves. Photos of the interior of the palace itself were only allowed for a rather exorbitant fee, which I don’t think any of us paid. We can find photos of the shiny objects inside the palace on postcards; we can’t find gorgeous shots of trees in snow nearly as easily.
After the tour of the palace itself, some of the group wanted to try the assorted winter sports available – skiing, tubing, and skating among them. It was three-thirty by the time we got out, though, so most of us were content with wandering the grounds for a while (and couldn’t find the main winter sports area, anyway. When you don’t know enough of the language to read the map, navigating an area the size of the grounds of Pavlovsk becomes quite the challenge). Mike, Ella, Alec and I set off on a campaign to take artistic photographs of trees in snow, got separated, and all ended up with some gorgeous photos once we met up again. I got completely lost in the middle of the forest, ended up asking directions a couple of times from rather standoffish but helpful Russian tourists, and found my way to a giant hill traversed almost exclusively by skiers. Thankfully, I could see the bridge in the distance; the only way to it, though, was down the hill, so down I went. I managed to fall flat on my squishy parts crossing the bloody icy street from Pavlovsk Station to the park entrance, so I have NO idea how I managed to get down this hill without falling, but I guess I’d used up my bad gravity karma for the day. :) Fortuitously, as soon as I reached the bottom of the hill, I ran smack into four of the Area Studies group – almost literally! Kyle, Nick, Eve, and Brenna led me out, and about thirty of us took the train home together.
I’m writing this from home, after a hot bowl of soup, some sort of cherry dumplings (odd, but very tasty), and three cups of very hot English Breakfast tea. This makes for a very happy Amanda. :D There are several sets of Saturday night plans in the air, but I think most of us are too tired from wandering through the forest to do much of anything. The most viable one sounds like a trip to the giant bookstore on Nevsky; I can think of no better way to pass the evening. :)
In which I nearly die by icicle, once again
Friday, 5:12 pm. One of the scariest sights I have seen in my entire time in Russia is just outside. Workers from the city sanitation department have spent the day clearing the snow from the roofs of the apartment building. It’s only a six-story building, but a cascade of huge clumps of snow and giant icicles falling six stories, and landing with a WHUMP, is enough to make you consider turning right the heck around and camping at the school for a while. :P
Nothing particularly special about classes today, except for once more reinforcement of the “nothing is predictable in Russia” axiom. The power went out around, oh, noon, sometime in the middle of the second period of the day, and came on only as we were leaving our last class. Apparently this is considered normal at Smolny; we didn’t receive any sort of explanation, nor did any of us feel comfortable asking for one. Actually, about the only thing this changed was the time we got out of our last class – my Ethnic Studies professor let us out fifteen minutes early because it was getting too dark to read his notes. (And just as we were leaving, the power came on. C’est la vie russe.)
I’m expecting a quiet night in with Lyudmila Afanasyevna, some tea, and my grammar homework. And then tomorrow is our group trip to Pavlovsk! So excited!!!! :D
Nothing particularly special about classes today, except for once more reinforcement of the “nothing is predictable in Russia” axiom. The power went out around, oh, noon, sometime in the middle of the second period of the day, and came on only as we were leaving our last class. Apparently this is considered normal at Smolny; we didn’t receive any sort of explanation, nor did any of us feel comfortable asking for one. Actually, about the only thing this changed was the time we got out of our last class – my Ethnic Studies professor let us out fifteen minutes early because it was getting too dark to read his notes. (And just as we were leaving, the power came on. C’est la vie russe.)
I’m expecting a quiet night in with Lyudmila Afanasyevna, some tea, and my grammar homework. And then tomorrow is our group trip to Pavlovsk! So excited!!!! :D
Friday, February 5, 2010
In which I ramble about Russian cuisine for a while
Thursday, 10:35 am. Ergh. Apparently my battery charger has gone kaput, which is really annoying, as I’ve been using the thing for all of a week. I still have plenty of juice left in my camera batteries, so I’m going to wait to go buy a new one until I really need to. Would shipping it back and requesting a new one under the warranty be cheaper than buying a new one over here, do you think?
8:33 pm. I was feeling some major cabin fever this evening (which is rather ridiculous), but it’s been assuaged by a lovely dinner discussion with Lyudmila Afanasyevna and some Russian TV. I really don’t watch much TV at home, but it’s amazing how amusing Russian teen dramas can be when you don’t understand eighty percent of the dialogue and can just watch the actors. Russian-dubbed American TV is pretty entertaining, too, but listening to Angela Lansbury and a Russian actress at the same time is really quite difficult. I’m sure it would be easier if I could tune out one language or the other entirely, but processing both at once is a little much.
I’ve been further exploring Russian food, too, and am happy to say that it’s not at all what the American stereotype (I use that word lightly) had led me to expect. It’s not all cabbage and potatoes, by any means, though I have been eating quite a bit of both. Borshch (no T) sounds very foreign indeed (beet soup?), but at least the version I tried yesterday is quite light, not strongly flavored, and quite pretty, actually. Russians do love their vegetables (Misha Merkushev is actually a vegetarian), though they’re mostly not fresh; usually either pickled, frozen, or canned. While it does make me miss a good American salad, vinaigret (a sort of pickled beet salad) is really quite tasty. Kasha, a ubiquitous porridge, is rather boring by itself, but with some jam on it, it’s lovely! (My host mother made me kasha for breakfast this morning, but she left very early, and it had cooled and mostly solidified by the time I got out of the shower. Two eggs and a huge bowl of kasha are way too much for breakfast, so I cut up the solidified kasha into wedges, put some jam in a little container, and took it with me for lunch.) And the variations on finger food are quite fascinating, too. Pirozhki is the generic term for assorted little pies, dumplings, or similar, mostly any sort of dough with filling inside; I haven’t had any with prunes yet, Mom :), but I’ve had them with cabbage, cottage cheese, assorted meat, and even cherries. Pelmeni, too, are a sort of meat dumpling, bearing a resemblance to ravioli; they’re about half-dollar sized, and you eat a whole bowl of them in a sitting. With some melted butter, they’re absolutely wonderful. I’ve rambled about blini already, but here’s the exciting part: next week, for…Shrovetide? Is that what the week before Lent is called?...we’re supposed to be eating blini EVERY DAY in celebration of the richness of life right before Lent. Now THIS is awesome. :D And I haven’t tried coffee over here yet, but Russia loves its tea. There is nothing the slightest bit unusual about my drinking six cups of tea in a day here. (Oh, and European hot chocolate is sinfully rich. And cheap, too.)
I’ve only been here a week (…nine days, if we count the day I flew in) and I can already sense an improvement in my language skills! The teacher of the conversation class out of which I switched, Irina Vladimirovna (I think), put it best when she described our conversations with our host families: “you speak three languages: pa-angliiski, pa-russki, i pa-gesti (English, Russian, and gestures).” Even now, though, the balance between Russian and English is slowly shifting, to a degree of which I’m actually (possibly irrationally) proud. Several of us American students have expressed to each other our great frustration with the high learning curve, but we’re climbing it slowly, but surely. :)
…also, I think Lyudmila Afanasyevna is trying to play matchmaker for me. Not with her son, thankfully, but with some other boys closer to my age. She keeps hinting about the boys in the program, and about one of the students she invited over Sunday night…“he plays guitar and sings, very nice, you know. –wink-” They’re all very nice boys, but, really? I understand that some people come to another country and meet the love of their life, but that wasn’t really one of my goals for this program, thanks. :)
We don’t have actual homework per se, but I’m reading the first couple of chapters of my history book anyway to have a better grounding for our next Russian History class. Time to get back to St. Vladimir’s role in Kievan Rus.
8:33 pm. I was feeling some major cabin fever this evening (which is rather ridiculous), but it’s been assuaged by a lovely dinner discussion with Lyudmila Afanasyevna and some Russian TV. I really don’t watch much TV at home, but it’s amazing how amusing Russian teen dramas can be when you don’t understand eighty percent of the dialogue and can just watch the actors. Russian-dubbed American TV is pretty entertaining, too, but listening to Angela Lansbury and a Russian actress at the same time is really quite difficult. I’m sure it would be easier if I could tune out one language or the other entirely, but processing both at once is a little much.
I’ve been further exploring Russian food, too, and am happy to say that it’s not at all what the American stereotype (I use that word lightly) had led me to expect. It’s not all cabbage and potatoes, by any means, though I have been eating quite a bit of both. Borshch (no T) sounds very foreign indeed (beet soup?), but at least the version I tried yesterday is quite light, not strongly flavored, and quite pretty, actually. Russians do love their vegetables (Misha Merkushev is actually a vegetarian), though they’re mostly not fresh; usually either pickled, frozen, or canned. While it does make me miss a good American salad, vinaigret (a sort of pickled beet salad) is really quite tasty. Kasha, a ubiquitous porridge, is rather boring by itself, but with some jam on it, it’s lovely! (My host mother made me kasha for breakfast this morning, but she left very early, and it had cooled and mostly solidified by the time I got out of the shower. Two eggs and a huge bowl of kasha are way too much for breakfast, so I cut up the solidified kasha into wedges, put some jam in a little container, and took it with me for lunch.) And the variations on finger food are quite fascinating, too. Pirozhki is the generic term for assorted little pies, dumplings, or similar, mostly any sort of dough with filling inside; I haven’t had any with prunes yet, Mom :), but I’ve had them with cabbage, cottage cheese, assorted meat, and even cherries. Pelmeni, too, are a sort of meat dumpling, bearing a resemblance to ravioli; they’re about half-dollar sized, and you eat a whole bowl of them in a sitting. With some melted butter, they’re absolutely wonderful. I’ve rambled about blini already, but here’s the exciting part: next week, for…Shrovetide? Is that what the week before Lent is called?...we’re supposed to be eating blini EVERY DAY in celebration of the richness of life right before Lent. Now THIS is awesome. :D And I haven’t tried coffee over here yet, but Russia loves its tea. There is nothing the slightest bit unusual about my drinking six cups of tea in a day here. (Oh, and European hot chocolate is sinfully rich. And cheap, too.)
I’ve only been here a week (…nine days, if we count the day I flew in) and I can already sense an improvement in my language skills! The teacher of the conversation class out of which I switched, Irina Vladimirovna (I think), put it best when she described our conversations with our host families: “you speak three languages: pa-angliiski, pa-russki, i pa-gesti (English, Russian, and gestures).” Even now, though, the balance between Russian and English is slowly shifting, to a degree of which I’m actually (possibly irrationally) proud. Several of us American students have expressed to each other our great frustration with the high learning curve, but we’re climbing it slowly, but surely. :)
…also, I think Lyudmila Afanasyevna is trying to play matchmaker for me. Not with her son, thankfully, but with some other boys closer to my age. She keeps hinting about the boys in the program, and about one of the students she invited over Sunday night…“he plays guitar and sings, very nice, you know. –wink-” They’re all very nice boys, but, really? I understand that some people come to another country and meet the love of their life, but that wasn’t really one of my goals for this program, thanks. :)
We don’t have actual homework per se, but I’m reading the first couple of chapters of my history book anyway to have a better grounding for our next Russian History class. Time to get back to St. Vladimir’s role in Kievan Rus.
In which I realize how little I actually know about art
Wednesday, 10:30pm ish. You know, days like today make me wish I actually knew something about art, so I could appreciate the Hermitage a little better. This GIANT art museum used to be Catherine II’s Winter Palace (or the main building did; it’s actually five buildings), and it’s a hugely ornate building to start with, even before you put a bajillion famous works of art inside it. I took a few select pictures, but as a group, we probably spent two hours inside, oh, a twentieth of the museum. (On the other hand, it’s probably a good thing I don’t appreciate art more, or you’d never get me out.) As it is, it’s a lovely place to just stroll through, especially with friends.
About fifteen of us went in together and lost each other almost immediately; six of us came out together and decided that, since our host moms either wouldn’t be home or weren’t expecting us home for a while, we’d eat out in a café on Nevsky. The Literary Café is supposed to be very famous because of its connection with several writers, including Pushkin (there’s a giant portrait of him outside). I’m not sure we got the full experience of that, because with the exception of Irena, who’s a native speaker, we all had to order dinner by the pointing method. But, hey, the food’s great, and we had an experience to brag about, certainly. :D (I had my first borshch! It looks like tomato soup, until you dig down and find all the beet shreds at the bottom. SO GOOD.)
The group split up for separate destinations afterward, and Zoltan and I trekked around in search of a currency exchange for him, then stopped by the Russian National Library. It’s only open 10-5 on weekdays, but we’ll probably head down there again someday soon after classes. Some Wednesday when we’re not having a tour of the Hermitage, probably. :) We headed our separate ways home shortly after, and I curled up with my book for the night. Thankfully, Anna Karenina is so much more readable than The Brothers Karamazov (despite the protests of several friends to the contrary; my friend Matt will not stop his crusade to get me to try Bratya Karamazova again!). I’ll give the latter another try while I’m here, but the copy I was reading back home was almost impenetrably dense. Tolstoy, thankfully, is making me revise my opinion of Russian literature. :)
About fifteen of us went in together and lost each other almost immediately; six of us came out together and decided that, since our host moms either wouldn’t be home or weren’t expecting us home for a while, we’d eat out in a café on Nevsky. The Literary Café is supposed to be very famous because of its connection with several writers, including Pushkin (there’s a giant portrait of him outside). I’m not sure we got the full experience of that, because with the exception of Irena, who’s a native speaker, we all had to order dinner by the pointing method. But, hey, the food’s great, and we had an experience to brag about, certainly. :D (I had my first borshch! It looks like tomato soup, until you dig down and find all the beet shreds at the bottom. SO GOOD.)
The group split up for separate destinations afterward, and Zoltan and I trekked around in search of a currency exchange for him, then stopped by the Russian National Library. It’s only open 10-5 on weekdays, but we’ll probably head down there again someday soon after classes. Some Wednesday when we’re not having a tour of the Hermitage, probably. :) We headed our separate ways home shortly after, and I curled up with my book for the night. Thankfully, Anna Karenina is so much more readable than The Brothers Karamazov (despite the protests of several friends to the contrary; my friend Matt will not stop his crusade to get me to try Bratya Karamazova again!). I’ll give the latter another try while I’m here, but the copy I was reading back home was almost impenetrably dense. Tolstoy, thankfully, is making me revise my opinion of Russian literature. :)
In which my inner five-year-old comes out to play
Day 7. 4:55 pm. First real day of classes. Right now, I’m going to check my email, then walk home and pass out before dinner; more to come this evening.
9:55 pm. I’ve been answering Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s phone for her when she’s out, because she’s waiting on some important calls and doesn’t have an answering machine (or a regular schedule, right now). About half the calls I can answer, and about half of them degenerate into English. I’m really rather embarrassed right now. >.<
So, first day of classes! We were placed into groups based on our language abilities as demonstrated by the placement test. I have to admit, though, I think the placement system was flawed. The Russian grammar/conversation group in which I’m currently placed has two students with one semester of the language, and four students with three semesters. While I’m flattered that I apparently impressed the teachers, I fear that productivity would be severely impacted by the fact that I understood maybe forty percent of what the professors told us today. The rest of the class knows all six cases, future tense, and many more complicated grammar things; Sam and I each have two and a half cases (we were using the same book). I’m going to talk to Jarlath tomorrow and see about switching. I understand the need to challenge oneself, but there’s a difference between ‘challenged’ and ‘over my head.’ Other than that, though, Russian Ethnic Studies seems to be a rather ill-defined class, but definitely an interesting one.
I got home about five o’clock and really did pass out for half an hour before warming up some leftovers for dinner. After Lyudmila Afanasyevna made it home (about seven-thirty) and ate, I had planned to go for a walk in the Tauride Gardens with a couple of girlfriends; neither of the girls could make it, so my host mom and I went together. Some evening, after school, I need to get a bunch of friends to stick around Smolny for a little bit and walk down to the gardens with me after it gets dark. Tavricheskiy Sad, as it’s called (and badly transliterated), is also the City Children’s Park (Dyetsky Sad), so there are several playgrounds, dogs all over the place (nice dogs, not strays), and plenty of kid-friendly places. We saw two parents pulling toddlers on sleds, people throwing Frisbees for dogs, kids on the playgrounds, the hockey goals on the frozen lake...actually, I went down onto the lake (it’s VERY thick ice) and made a snow angel, just for the sheer fun of it. Lyudmila Afanasyevna had never seen a snow angel! Oh, and the best part? Ice slides. I’m not sure whether these are intentional or just worn into the hillside, but there are several paths that are clear of snow and form natural slides, just out of ice. They’re SO MUCH FUN, especially if you go down standing on both feet and fall into a snowbank. :D
So, my inner child (well, okay, not really inner) is indulged for the night. We don’t have any homework just yet, so it’s time to settle in with Anna Karenina for the night. I think we’re going to the Hermitage tomorrow; THAT ought to make for an exciting post. :D
9:55 pm. I’ve been answering Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s phone for her when she’s out, because she’s waiting on some important calls and doesn’t have an answering machine (or a regular schedule, right now). About half the calls I can answer, and about half of them degenerate into English. I’m really rather embarrassed right now. >.<
So, first day of classes! We were placed into groups based on our language abilities as demonstrated by the placement test. I have to admit, though, I think the placement system was flawed. The Russian grammar/conversation group in which I’m currently placed has two students with one semester of the language, and four students with three semesters. While I’m flattered that I apparently impressed the teachers, I fear that productivity would be severely impacted by the fact that I understood maybe forty percent of what the professors told us today. The rest of the class knows all six cases, future tense, and many more complicated grammar things; Sam and I each have two and a half cases (we were using the same book). I’m going to talk to Jarlath tomorrow and see about switching. I understand the need to challenge oneself, but there’s a difference between ‘challenged’ and ‘over my head.’ Other than that, though, Russian Ethnic Studies seems to be a rather ill-defined class, but definitely an interesting one.
I got home about five o’clock and really did pass out for half an hour before warming up some leftovers for dinner. After Lyudmila Afanasyevna made it home (about seven-thirty) and ate, I had planned to go for a walk in the Tauride Gardens with a couple of girlfriends; neither of the girls could make it, so my host mom and I went together. Some evening, after school, I need to get a bunch of friends to stick around Smolny for a little bit and walk down to the gardens with me after it gets dark. Tavricheskiy Sad, as it’s called (and badly transliterated), is also the City Children’s Park (Dyetsky Sad), so there are several playgrounds, dogs all over the place (nice dogs, not strays), and plenty of kid-friendly places. We saw two parents pulling toddlers on sleds, people throwing Frisbees for dogs, kids on the playgrounds, the hockey goals on the frozen lake...actually, I went down onto the lake (it’s VERY thick ice) and made a snow angel, just for the sheer fun of it. Lyudmila Afanasyevna had never seen a snow angel! Oh, and the best part? Ice slides. I’m not sure whether these are intentional or just worn into the hillside, but there are several paths that are clear of snow and form natural slides, just out of ice. They’re SO MUCH FUN, especially if you go down standing on both feet and fall into a snowbank. :D
So, my inner child (well, okay, not really inner) is indulged for the night. We don’t have any homework just yet, so it’s time to settle in with Anna Karenina for the night. I think we’re going to the Hermitage tomorrow; THAT ought to make for an exciting post. :D
In which I explore my new school with dry shoes
Day…6? Right, 6. First semi-official day of school! Busy, and not terribly productive in the students’ opinion, but a happy day nonetheless.
I just stumbled my way through a two-minute phone call from a colleague of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s asking where she is. Apparently her son Misha is in the hospital because of (from what little I could make out, I’m guessing) ruptured sinuses or something. He’s her only son, and she dotes on him (understandably -smile-), so she left for the ‘poliklinika’ right after dinner and doesn’t know when she’ll be back. I didn’t understand most of the phone conversation, but after I explained that I’m not Lyudmila Afanasyevna, I’m the American student staying with her, we managed to communicate in English for a few sentences. I feel strangely accomplished.
Oh, and we’re getting along just fine with mixed-language texts, except that all of our Russian spelling is lousy. Having to look things up gets to be its own adventure. :)
So, the day. Lucky duck that I am, I was able to shower before school and still sleep in until 8:30. :D Lyudmila Afanasyevna walked me over (I’m proud to say I know the way now!) and I met up with a gaggle of Americans taking up the whole hallway. (Note: whenever you enter any major Russian building, you’re expected to remove and check your coat. This applies to large wet boots, too, so I brought a large plastic bag and my leather shoes to change into. Much better than tracking slush all over the building.)
We were talked at for a while by our Russian soon-to-be professors, of which talk I may have understood twenty percent; Jarlath then summarized for the Language Program students (thank goodness). Then came the dreaded placement test. It wasn’t that bad, actually; though I did peter out around question 42 of 140, so did all the other one-semester students I talked to. We’re being placed into groups based on our ability as determined by our scores on here. I’m happy with whichever group I end up in; too high and I’ll have no idea what’s going on, but I think the group below the one I’ll end up in will be the group of students with no Russian whatsoever. In any case, it’ll turn out just fine.
Afterwards came lunch in the café; it’s really a darling little place, with white walls hung with paintings, little iron-worked tables, and tablecloths, and the whole shebang. Then we all wandered around the building for a while as Jarlath pointed out our classrooms, the Internet-connected computer lab, the offices, the bathrooms (very important—and they all smell like chlorine), and the CIEE special rooms. I borrowed two books from the informal library (I left all of my literature at home because of the weight limit), Anna Karenina and The Other Boleyn Girl. Now I have something to do before bed other than caption my photos! :D (They have a strangely large stock of trashy romance novels. Is that really what people pack for a semester abroad? :P)
Post-tour, most of the students left to visit the bus stops where they’ll be commuting to every day; everyone came with their host mothers this morning, but the staff wanted us to know how to get to Smolny ourselves. For the few of us within walking distance, though, this wasn’t really necessary, so a handful of the girls stayed behind to check our email and write to our parents (and, in my case, post to my blog). That took until nearly dinnertime, so I walked home and got here about five minutes before Lyudmila Afanasyevna. She left right after dinner, so I’m sitting writing and drinking several cups of tea. A good thirty of us are planning to meet at Kazansky Sabor around nine and head out for a walk along Nevsky, probably including a bar, so I’ll write more later if anything interesting happens.
12:14 am. Got home shortly before midnight. A stroll along Nevsky did turn into ‘hey, there’s this great cheap bar along Nevsky,’ so the crowd of us made it a social occasion and met up with a few of our Russian tour guides from yesterday. SPB (not quite sure what the Russian name is) is, apparently, a cheap bar frequented by students; it wasn’t bad, really. Then again, it was the first time I’ve actually been to a bar, so I’m not sure I’m one to judge. It was clean, at least!
Had my first beer tonight, too. Beer is…definitely an acquired taste. I took the advice of Megan, who was on the program last semester, and ordered a very basic light beer, called Baltica 7 (and drank it over the course of about two hours). I’m not sure how to describe it…it’s pretty weird for me, but probably drinkable again. (I paid effectively $3 for half a liter, which is the smallest size the bar offers. As I understand from friends, this is a couple of beers stateside.) In any case, this will not be happening very often on Monday nights; we don’t have to be at the school until 11 tomorrow, so there should be enough time for even Fred to sleep off his pitcher. Yes, I do realize I’m not legal stateside. Very few of us are. I’m curious, and I figured I’d try it over here where I am legal, and it’s cheap. Now I know that beer is not something I want to try in great quantities in the US. I felt a little tipsy when I first stood up, but that’s about it.
I got home to Lyudmila Afanasyevna watching TV in her room, back from the hospital. I gave her a Baltimore Orioles baseball to give to Misha shortly before she left; she handed me a very nice note from Misha when I returned. (I did have to look up a couple of words, but I do for nearly every conversation.) I’m quite looking forward to meeting him, once he makes it out of the hospital!
The alarm is set to go off in eight hours, so it’s time to clock out. Hasta luego, all!
I just stumbled my way through a two-minute phone call from a colleague of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s asking where she is. Apparently her son Misha is in the hospital because of (from what little I could make out, I’m guessing) ruptured sinuses or something. He’s her only son, and she dotes on him (understandably -smile-), so she left for the ‘poliklinika’ right after dinner and doesn’t know when she’ll be back. I didn’t understand most of the phone conversation, but after I explained that I’m not Lyudmila Afanasyevna, I’m the American student staying with her, we managed to communicate in English for a few sentences. I feel strangely accomplished.
Oh, and we’re getting along just fine with mixed-language texts, except that all of our Russian spelling is lousy. Having to look things up gets to be its own adventure. :)
So, the day. Lucky duck that I am, I was able to shower before school and still sleep in until 8:30. :D Lyudmila Afanasyevna walked me over (I’m proud to say I know the way now!) and I met up with a gaggle of Americans taking up the whole hallway. (Note: whenever you enter any major Russian building, you’re expected to remove and check your coat. This applies to large wet boots, too, so I brought a large plastic bag and my leather shoes to change into. Much better than tracking slush all over the building.)
We were talked at for a while by our Russian soon-to-be professors, of which talk I may have understood twenty percent; Jarlath then summarized for the Language Program students (thank goodness). Then came the dreaded placement test. It wasn’t that bad, actually; though I did peter out around question 42 of 140, so did all the other one-semester students I talked to. We’re being placed into groups based on our ability as determined by our scores on here. I’m happy with whichever group I end up in; too high and I’ll have no idea what’s going on, but I think the group below the one I’ll end up in will be the group of students with no Russian whatsoever. In any case, it’ll turn out just fine.
Afterwards came lunch in the café; it’s really a darling little place, with white walls hung with paintings, little iron-worked tables, and tablecloths, and the whole shebang. Then we all wandered around the building for a while as Jarlath pointed out our classrooms, the Internet-connected computer lab, the offices, the bathrooms (very important—and they all smell like chlorine), and the CIEE special rooms. I borrowed two books from the informal library (I left all of my literature at home because of the weight limit), Anna Karenina and The Other Boleyn Girl. Now I have something to do before bed other than caption my photos! :D (They have a strangely large stock of trashy romance novels. Is that really what people pack for a semester abroad? :P)
Post-tour, most of the students left to visit the bus stops where they’ll be commuting to every day; everyone came with their host mothers this morning, but the staff wanted us to know how to get to Smolny ourselves. For the few of us within walking distance, though, this wasn’t really necessary, so a handful of the girls stayed behind to check our email and write to our parents (and, in my case, post to my blog). That took until nearly dinnertime, so I walked home and got here about five minutes before Lyudmila Afanasyevna. She left right after dinner, so I’m sitting writing and drinking several cups of tea. A good thirty of us are planning to meet at Kazansky Sabor around nine and head out for a walk along Nevsky, probably including a bar, so I’ll write more later if anything interesting happens.
12:14 am. Got home shortly before midnight. A stroll along Nevsky did turn into ‘hey, there’s this great cheap bar along Nevsky,’ so the crowd of us made it a social occasion and met up with a few of our Russian tour guides from yesterday. SPB (not quite sure what the Russian name is) is, apparently, a cheap bar frequented by students; it wasn’t bad, really. Then again, it was the first time I’ve actually been to a bar, so I’m not sure I’m one to judge. It was clean, at least!
Had my first beer tonight, too. Beer is…definitely an acquired taste. I took the advice of Megan, who was on the program last semester, and ordered a very basic light beer, called Baltica 7 (and drank it over the course of about two hours). I’m not sure how to describe it…it’s pretty weird for me, but probably drinkable again. (I paid effectively $3 for half a liter, which is the smallest size the bar offers. As I understand from friends, this is a couple of beers stateside.) In any case, this will not be happening very often on Monday nights; we don’t have to be at the school until 11 tomorrow, so there should be enough time for even Fred to sleep off his pitcher. Yes, I do realize I’m not legal stateside. Very few of us are. I’m curious, and I figured I’d try it over here where I am legal, and it’s cheap. Now I know that beer is not something I want to try in great quantities in the US. I felt a little tipsy when I first stood up, but that’s about it.
I got home to Lyudmila Afanasyevna watching TV in her room, back from the hospital. I gave her a Baltimore Orioles baseball to give to Misha shortly before she left; she handed me a very nice note from Misha when I returned. (I did have to look up a couple of words, but I do for nearly every conversation.) I’m quite looking forward to meeting him, once he makes it out of the hospital!
The alarm is set to go off in eight hours, so it’s time to clock out. Hasta luego, all!
Monday, February 1, 2010
In which I make my first public transportation mistake
Day 5. 8:23 am. It appears technology and I don’t get along any better in Russia than we did back home. My hair dryer appears to be stuck on ‘low’ (physically stuck), but that’s probably okay, because ‘low’ is still pretty blasted hot. And where in the name of all that is good and holy have my rechargeable batteries gotten to?
9:14 pm. Eventful day! I’m chuckling to myself at our communications within the group; we have very different language levels, so we talk to each other mainly by entertainingly mixed English/Russian text messages. Learning how to read and type with a Russian keyboard on a phone is an adventure all to itself.
Today being Sunday, the first order of business (after breakfast—kasha with jam, mmmmm) was mass at St. Catherine’s (Svieta Katerina). Cecilia and I wanted to attend the Russian-language mass, but that was at noon, when we were due at Kazansky Sabor, so we went to the English one. I won’t bore anyone with the details of my first Catholic mass, but I will say that it wasn’t very different from the Methodist services I’m used to. (And the singers were out of tune. Way. Out. Of. Tune.)
Next order of business: finding me replacement batteries (which I’ll probably regret buying once I find mine from home, but for now, they’re doing heavy duty in my camera) and Cecilia a plug adapter that fit French appliances. This involved walking up and down Nevsky Prospekt for about forty-five minutes, with Cecilia asking questions and me trying to decipher the directions, until we ended up inside the main shopping mall, Gostiny Dvor. Another half-hour in here and we finally found an elektricheskiy magazin, and the errand was successful. I purchased a couple of postcards in Dom Knigi, the city’s biggest bookstore (SO COOL!), and sat and wrote them in a café while we waited until the meeting time.
The afternoon’s activity ended up being “go take pictures of whatever landmarks you can find for two and a half hours, then report back to this restaurant.” A group of ten of us, led by two lovely Russian university students, Ira and Lera (Irina and Valeriya), toured some of the southeastern section of the city and took, oh, only about four dozen pictures. Those will be posted and captioned as soon as I have a place to put them. In any case, it was a beautiful tour, and great fun, being a rather silly group of tourists without feeling too silly about it.
Afterwards, I’m not quite sure how, about six of us ended up with one of the Russian tour guides and two of his friends on a less formal tour of the city (including the main hangouts for the St. Petersburg gay community…who knew?). Fyodor, Kiril, and Yuri wanted us to come back to a Soviet bar with them, but we begged off because of classes tomorrow. The rest of the group went in search of a bookstore, but I cut my tour short to make it home for dinner at six. (I ended up getting off the bus at entirely the wrong end of the street before ours, and being about fifteen minutes late anyway because I was walking the entire bloody length of Suvorovsky Prospekt. Thankfully, my host mother was very understanding, and my friends were on the phone to give directions.)
After dinner, two of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s students from the medical school came over for a visit, and we sat at the table for a good two hours drinking tea and eating apple cake. I only understood about one word in five, but I was kind of surprised at how much that really was: the conversation centered largely on technical medical school talk, but it hopped around to music, vacations, Yuri’s choral and guitar experiences, Lena’s thoughts about dental school, and on and on. Occasionally, Lyudmila Afanasyevna would translate for me; Yuri spoke perhaps ten words of English and Lena none, but I could figure out enough to at least try to follow the conversation.
It must be said: listening to long conversations in a language you barely understand is exhausting. Time to hit the sack and prepare for our language placement test tomorrow (!!!!).
9:14 pm. Eventful day! I’m chuckling to myself at our communications within the group; we have very different language levels, so we talk to each other mainly by entertainingly mixed English/Russian text messages. Learning how to read and type with a Russian keyboard on a phone is an adventure all to itself.
Today being Sunday, the first order of business (after breakfast—kasha with jam, mmmmm) was mass at St. Catherine’s (Svieta Katerina). Cecilia and I wanted to attend the Russian-language mass, but that was at noon, when we were due at Kazansky Sabor, so we went to the English one. I won’t bore anyone with the details of my first Catholic mass, but I will say that it wasn’t very different from the Methodist services I’m used to. (And the singers were out of tune. Way. Out. Of. Tune.)
Next order of business: finding me replacement batteries (which I’ll probably regret buying once I find mine from home, but for now, they’re doing heavy duty in my camera) and Cecilia a plug adapter that fit French appliances. This involved walking up and down Nevsky Prospekt for about forty-five minutes, with Cecilia asking questions and me trying to decipher the directions, until we ended up inside the main shopping mall, Gostiny Dvor. Another half-hour in here and we finally found an elektricheskiy magazin, and the errand was successful. I purchased a couple of postcards in Dom Knigi, the city’s biggest bookstore (SO COOL!), and sat and wrote them in a café while we waited until the meeting time.
The afternoon’s activity ended up being “go take pictures of whatever landmarks you can find for two and a half hours, then report back to this restaurant.” A group of ten of us, led by two lovely Russian university students, Ira and Lera (Irina and Valeriya), toured some of the southeastern section of the city and took, oh, only about four dozen pictures. Those will be posted and captioned as soon as I have a place to put them. In any case, it was a beautiful tour, and great fun, being a rather silly group of tourists without feeling too silly about it.
Afterwards, I’m not quite sure how, about six of us ended up with one of the Russian tour guides and two of his friends on a less formal tour of the city (including the main hangouts for the St. Petersburg gay community…who knew?). Fyodor, Kiril, and Yuri wanted us to come back to a Soviet bar with them, but we begged off because of classes tomorrow. The rest of the group went in search of a bookstore, but I cut my tour short to make it home for dinner at six. (I ended up getting off the bus at entirely the wrong end of the street before ours, and being about fifteen minutes late anyway because I was walking the entire bloody length of Suvorovsky Prospekt. Thankfully, my host mother was very understanding, and my friends were on the phone to give directions.)
After dinner, two of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s students from the medical school came over for a visit, and we sat at the table for a good two hours drinking tea and eating apple cake. I only understood about one word in five, but I was kind of surprised at how much that really was: the conversation centered largely on technical medical school talk, but it hopped around to music, vacations, Yuri’s choral and guitar experiences, Lena’s thoughts about dental school, and on and on. Occasionally, Lyudmila Afanasyevna would translate for me; Yuri spoke perhaps ten words of English and Lena none, but I could figure out enough to at least try to follow the conversation.
It must be said: listening to long conversations in a language you barely understand is exhausting. Time to hit the sack and prepare for our language placement test tomorrow (!!!!).
In which my host mother nearly punches a bs driver
Day 4. 5:45 am. Damn jet lag. Why am I wide awake two and a half hours before I need to be? Grrrrr.
8:55 am. Notes on Russian apartment living:
-As I sort of expected, there is a washer in the apartment, but not a dryer. What I didn’t expect was to look up while taking a shower and see clotheslines strung over the shower. Much better than stringing them outside. :P
-Russian toilet paper bears a very strong resemblance to American paper towels.
-When entering a Russian home, you take off your shoes at the door (which I do in the States anyway) and put on tapechki (тапечки), which are house slippers. I have to say, this is an amazingly practical custom. Not only does it imply respect for the separation of home and the outside world, but it keeps the floors (mostly) free of slush and grime, and it also protects your feet from cold Russian floors in the morning. Dear God, that floor is cold.
Good news, Mom! I’m learning how to cook on a gas stove and haven’t managed to burn anything or blow anything up yet! I’m on my own for breakfast this morning, but Lyudmila Afanasyevna explained something about breakfast last night…and the explanation involved chicken broth, rice, and the word ‘porridge.’ I’m not entirely sure that boiling the rice in some chicken broth until it falls apart is quite what she meant, but that’s what I’m trying. And hey, if it doesn’t work out, I have only my own culinary aptitude to blame, right? :) Another breakfast innovation: tea with Russian jam (or at least the liquid from it). I don’t usually put sugar in tea, but I could get used to this. Mmmmmmmmm.
Couple more notes from last night: Mom, apparently there is no real Russian equivalent of a technical writer. The word I was using for ‘writer’ means ‘author’, literature-wise, so the best we came up with was ‘business writer.’ Also, my whole family has very American names, but we were able to translate Molly into Masha, so that’s your name over here from now on, sis. :)
Operation Porridge was not exactly what I’d call a success, but it’s not bad. Time to finish and do the dishes, dry my hair, and meet Erica and her host mother at ten. Next stop, bus tour of the city! :D
4:22 pm. Just got home. Lyudmila Afanasyevna is apparently still at work, so I just came in and donned my tapechki (and wiped up the floor). The group is trying to coordinate plans for this evening, but we all need to talk to our host moms first, so for now I’m just relaxing.
We met at Kazansky Cathedral for the bus tour pretty much first thing today. Erica’s host mother is the host family coordinator, so she needed to arrive at 10:30 rather than 11:00 for the Area Studies students. It was actually pretty awesome, though, because several of the early arrivers had time to step inside Kazansky Sabor! Cameras are forbidden inside, which is perfectly understandable but also a shame, because it’s a little overwhelming to try to describe it. It’s been a long while since I’ve been inside a church that ornate. Gold leaf everywhere, jeweled icons, mosaics, the paintings on the ceiling, the candles…wow. I haven’t been to an actual service yet, obviously, but apparently the main focus of a Russian church is the lighting of candles/incense before icons; there are no pews. There was even a live choir singing for the little prayer service that was being conducted (at least, it looked little). It was (not to sound sacrilegious in my word choice) magical.
But, I’m getting off track. Bus tour. Right. As far as I understand, we really did tour most of St. Petersburg, with a very nice guide named Yulia pointing out lots of landmarks and letting us stop a few times to take pictures. We did learn (rather late in the tour) that taking pictures is forbidden outside the former KGB building (very imposing place, with six underground floors where most of the dirty work took place), and in the Metro. As beautiful as some of the stations are, it’s considered a strategic area, so taking pictures of it gets you a 300-ruble fine and suspicion of being a terrorist (or a dumb tourist). I’ll buy some postcards instead.
We explored all the major islands, crossed over at least three or four rivers, passed a good three dozen churches, and had a couple dozen museums pointed out to us as well. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing about putting photos on the internet; I’ll post a link once I have one. It’s breathtaking, mind-blowing, feet-numbing…a little of everything, really. (Well, no, a lot of feet-numbing.) We didn’t stop anywhere for more than ten minutes, but all of our brains are already fizzing with ideas of where we want to go first. Actually, for me, I have enough ideas fizzing around that I don’t know where to start. :)
Oh, and one of the sweetest parts of the day? Blini for lunch. :D They’re sort of halfway between crepes and injera (closer to crepes), but they’re bigger than crepes and they don’t form a ball in your stomach the way injera does. They’re plate-sized thin pancakes filled with pretty much anything you want, available from little kiosks on the street, served warm, and they’re SO GOOD. I know that Lyudmila Afanasyevna said that dinner will be pork, so I didn’t want to order pork on a blin…and I ended up getting one with a banana and chocolate sauce. Such a guilty pleasure, but, oh my goodness, was it divine. I sense that blini are going to be lunch fairly often. :D
As of now, it’s just me in the apartment, going through my photos and letting a cup of tea steep in the kitchen (whoops, that reminds me, I forgot about it!). I also painted part of the back of my phone with gold nail polish so I can tell it apart from everyone else’s. I’ll write more later if we end up going somewhere interesting. :) A few of us are trying to find a Russian church service to attend tomorrow before the scheduled walking tour at noon. Keeping my fingers crossed!
10:52 pm. Rather an eventful four hours. Lyudmila Afanasyevna finally made it home from a full day of giving exams at about ten minutes of seven. I wasn’t particularly worried, except for the fact that I had two phone numbers and no idea what they were. We managed to confirm within five minutes of her getting home and are now on the same page…day late, but hopefully not a ruble short. Dinner was a vast assortment of simple but very tasty food. I did discover that my host mother believes in natural medicine, to an extent: she puts ginger in her tea and eats it when she reaches the bottom of the cup, and she also chews raw garlic. The former, I can definitely do. The latter is going to take some getting used to. If you’ve never had raw garlic, imagine biting down on a peppercorn, but multiply it by about twenty. Ergh.
After dinner, Lyudmila Afanasyevna was kind enough to take me on a tour of our neighborhood. I am the luckiest girl on this program to be within an easy ten-minute walk of classes. (I can’t remember street names right now, but the route is easy enough: past the pharmacy, through the construction site by the regional governor’s office, and across the street in the direction of the huge blue-and-white cathedral.) She also took me to the American consulate on Furshtskaya Ulitsa (or something like that), to the Cherneshevskaya metro station (about a twenty-five-minute easy walk, through the beautiful Tauride Gardens!), and to the grocery store just down the street. She decided that we would take a marshrutka (sort of an informal taxi-bus) back to Tverskaya Ulitsa, but apparently the driver had changed from his normal route…I swear they were going to come to blows in another minute. No Kazakh taxi driver is going to mess with Lyudmila Afanasyevna. (We took a regular bus.)
We got back well after ten-thirty, so it’s time to hit the sack. I’m visiting a Catholic church on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Catherine’s, with Katie and Cecilia tomorrow, so if I’m going to shower beforehand, the alarm is set for 7:30 (ugh). Signing off!
8:55 am. Notes on Russian apartment living:
-As I sort of expected, there is a washer in the apartment, but not a dryer. What I didn’t expect was to look up while taking a shower and see clotheslines strung over the shower. Much better than stringing them outside. :P
-Russian toilet paper bears a very strong resemblance to American paper towels.
-When entering a Russian home, you take off your shoes at the door (which I do in the States anyway) and put on tapechki (тапечки), which are house slippers. I have to say, this is an amazingly practical custom. Not only does it imply respect for the separation of home and the outside world, but it keeps the floors (mostly) free of slush and grime, and it also protects your feet from cold Russian floors in the morning. Dear God, that floor is cold.
Good news, Mom! I’m learning how to cook on a gas stove and haven’t managed to burn anything or blow anything up yet! I’m on my own for breakfast this morning, but Lyudmila Afanasyevna explained something about breakfast last night…and the explanation involved chicken broth, rice, and the word ‘porridge.’ I’m not entirely sure that boiling the rice in some chicken broth until it falls apart is quite what she meant, but that’s what I’m trying. And hey, if it doesn’t work out, I have only my own culinary aptitude to blame, right? :) Another breakfast innovation: tea with Russian jam (or at least the liquid from it). I don’t usually put sugar in tea, but I could get used to this. Mmmmmmmmm.
Couple more notes from last night: Mom, apparently there is no real Russian equivalent of a technical writer. The word I was using for ‘writer’ means ‘author’, literature-wise, so the best we came up with was ‘business writer.’ Also, my whole family has very American names, but we were able to translate Molly into Masha, so that’s your name over here from now on, sis. :)
Operation Porridge was not exactly what I’d call a success, but it’s not bad. Time to finish and do the dishes, dry my hair, and meet Erica and her host mother at ten. Next stop, bus tour of the city! :D
4:22 pm. Just got home. Lyudmila Afanasyevna is apparently still at work, so I just came in and donned my tapechki (and wiped up the floor). The group is trying to coordinate plans for this evening, but we all need to talk to our host moms first, so for now I’m just relaxing.
We met at Kazansky Cathedral for the bus tour pretty much first thing today. Erica’s host mother is the host family coordinator, so she needed to arrive at 10:30 rather than 11:00 for the Area Studies students. It was actually pretty awesome, though, because several of the early arrivers had time to step inside Kazansky Sabor! Cameras are forbidden inside, which is perfectly understandable but also a shame, because it’s a little overwhelming to try to describe it. It’s been a long while since I’ve been inside a church that ornate. Gold leaf everywhere, jeweled icons, mosaics, the paintings on the ceiling, the candles…wow. I haven’t been to an actual service yet, obviously, but apparently the main focus of a Russian church is the lighting of candles/incense before icons; there are no pews. There was even a live choir singing for the little prayer service that was being conducted (at least, it looked little). It was (not to sound sacrilegious in my word choice) magical.
But, I’m getting off track. Bus tour. Right. As far as I understand, we really did tour most of St. Petersburg, with a very nice guide named Yulia pointing out lots of landmarks and letting us stop a few times to take pictures. We did learn (rather late in the tour) that taking pictures is forbidden outside the former KGB building (very imposing place, with six underground floors where most of the dirty work took place), and in the Metro. As beautiful as some of the stations are, it’s considered a strategic area, so taking pictures of it gets you a 300-ruble fine and suspicion of being a terrorist (or a dumb tourist). I’ll buy some postcards instead.
We explored all the major islands, crossed over at least three or four rivers, passed a good three dozen churches, and had a couple dozen museums pointed out to us as well. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing about putting photos on the internet; I’ll post a link once I have one. It’s breathtaking, mind-blowing, feet-numbing…a little of everything, really. (Well, no, a lot of feet-numbing.) We didn’t stop anywhere for more than ten minutes, but all of our brains are already fizzing with ideas of where we want to go first. Actually, for me, I have enough ideas fizzing around that I don’t know where to start. :)
Oh, and one of the sweetest parts of the day? Blini for lunch. :D They’re sort of halfway between crepes and injera (closer to crepes), but they’re bigger than crepes and they don’t form a ball in your stomach the way injera does. They’re plate-sized thin pancakes filled with pretty much anything you want, available from little kiosks on the street, served warm, and they’re SO GOOD. I know that Lyudmila Afanasyevna said that dinner will be pork, so I didn’t want to order pork on a blin…and I ended up getting one with a banana and chocolate sauce. Such a guilty pleasure, but, oh my goodness, was it divine. I sense that blini are going to be lunch fairly often. :D
As of now, it’s just me in the apartment, going through my photos and letting a cup of tea steep in the kitchen (whoops, that reminds me, I forgot about it!). I also painted part of the back of my phone with gold nail polish so I can tell it apart from everyone else’s. I’ll write more later if we end up going somewhere interesting. :) A few of us are trying to find a Russian church service to attend tomorrow before the scheduled walking tour at noon. Keeping my fingers crossed!
10:52 pm. Rather an eventful four hours. Lyudmila Afanasyevna finally made it home from a full day of giving exams at about ten minutes of seven. I wasn’t particularly worried, except for the fact that I had two phone numbers and no idea what they were. We managed to confirm within five minutes of her getting home and are now on the same page…day late, but hopefully not a ruble short. Dinner was a vast assortment of simple but very tasty food. I did discover that my host mother believes in natural medicine, to an extent: she puts ginger in her tea and eats it when she reaches the bottom of the cup, and she also chews raw garlic. The former, I can definitely do. The latter is going to take some getting used to. If you’ve never had raw garlic, imagine biting down on a peppercorn, but multiply it by about twenty. Ergh.
After dinner, Lyudmila Afanasyevna was kind enough to take me on a tour of our neighborhood. I am the luckiest girl on this program to be within an easy ten-minute walk of classes. (I can’t remember street names right now, but the route is easy enough: past the pharmacy, through the construction site by the regional governor’s office, and across the street in the direction of the huge blue-and-white cathedral.) She also took me to the American consulate on Furshtskaya Ulitsa (or something like that), to the Cherneshevskaya metro station (about a twenty-five-minute easy walk, through the beautiful Tauride Gardens!), and to the grocery store just down the street. She decided that we would take a marshrutka (sort of an informal taxi-bus) back to Tverskaya Ulitsa, but apparently the driver had changed from his normal route…I swear they were going to come to blows in another minute. No Kazakh taxi driver is going to mess with Lyudmila Afanasyevna. (We took a regular bus.)
We got back well after ten-thirty, so it’s time to hit the sack. I’m visiting a Catholic church on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Catherine’s, with Katie and Cecilia tomorrow, so if I’m going to shower beforehand, the alarm is set for 7:30 (ugh). Signing off!
In which I move in with my host family
Day 3, technically. A two-day-old peanut butter sandwich tastes surprisingly good at midnight when it’s on a Mom roll. :D I’m feeling rather like a wallflower back here, but Rebecca and Kristin are having enough trouble talking to Sasha that I’m very reluctant to butt in and try my one semester’s worth of the language. We’ll see how this goes.
…oh, and apparently we have Sudoku on our Russian phones. I am still, much to my surprise (not), no good at Sudoku. Hey, here’s my chance! :)
Day 3, for real this time. 10:50 pm. What a day. What. A. Day. (I’m practicing Cyrillic typing here, so bear with all of the parentheticals, please.)
I’m writing this from the bedroom in the apartment of Lyudmila Afanasyevna M. (Людмила Афанасиевна), a professor of chemistry at Pavlov Medical School (at least, I think that’s the name). She’s hosted many times before, and she welcomed a rather confused and way overtired American girl who speaks broken Russian with open arms. I have very good feelings about this semester. :D
We spent most of the day in orientation mode, more discussions of cultural differences, health and academic policies. Honestly, most of the group was glazing over during the academic presentation; we picked our classes before hitting the ground in Russia, anyway. (We went over social do’s and don’ts in the cultural differences section; apparently women are strongly discouraged from sitting on cold surfaces, for fear that they’ll freeze their ovaries and never bear children.) But the tension grew as we drew closer to meeting our host families; maps and addresses were distributed at the same time, so we immediately mapped out who’s where in the city and swapped numbers. I lucked out with my location: I’m literally less than ten minutes from the Smolny (Смолнй) campus of St. Petersburg State University! Erica and I are actually in the same building on Tverskaya Ulitsa (Тверская Улитса), even closer to the university than to the Cherneshevskaya (Чернешевская) metro station. Ella is just across the street, and Cecilia and Irena are not very far away (and Irena’s host mother is friends with my host mother, apparently. So is Kim’s host mother). The group is really spread all over the city, from the very southern end near Moskovskaya (Московская) Station (where we were for the first two days) to the very northern part of the city. The Smolny campus of the university is pretty far to the west on our maps, while much of the group is on the eastern island, Vasilievsky Island (Василевский), near the main campus. (I got confused looking at my guidebook over break and thought we were all commuting to Vasilievsky. They’re kind of on opposite ends of the city, so it’s a very good thing CIEE didn’t have us try to find Smolny on our own.)
I’m going to be living in the room that used to belong to Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s grown son, Mikhail (Михаил) (he’s thirty). The bookcase is full of his old books, videos, and what I think are probably scrapbooks; the closet still has his belts hanging in it. As far as I understand, he doesn’t live with his mother anymore, but he comes over very frequently. (He also speaks very good English, at least from his mom’s perspective. My Russian is quite a bit worse than Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s English, but hey, we got through dinner somehow!) The combination of his and his mother’s taste in décor runs to lots of little tchotchkes throughout the apartment, a couple of dried flower arrangements, and sports equipment in this room; my phone is charging on top of a couple of hand weights. There’s also a giant stuffed gray-white owl on the wall above the bed, which I imagine would be rather fearsome in the dark. It’s okay, though. I’ve named him Volodya. We shall be great friends…won’t we, Volodya?
Lyudmila Afanasyevna (never just Lyudmila, even on the blog) is an inch or two shorter than me, blonde, and probably about sixty. It’s just her and me in the apartment. We talked about our families and interests and discovered that we’re both very much into classical music; she has plans to take me to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic sometime, which would be VERY exciting. :D She has been teaching chemistry to medical students for thirty years, married one of her colleagues from the medical school, and divorced when Mikhail (Misha/Миша) was twelve. I felt very awkward upon asking if there was a Mr. M and finding out she’s divorced, but she was very frank about it. She definitely believes in the strength of Russian women, and in the two and a half hours I’ve known her, I can see why. : ) She wouldn’t let me help with the dishes tonight, but ‘maybe tomorrow,’ she said. I don’t think she believes in a woman allowing anyone to do everything for her, the way Russian men seem to be expected to. It’s a comfortingly familiar outlook.
Dinner was an interesting mix of cuisines: hot dogs (which come in a string and are smaller than the American standard) with fried cabbage, some sort of mixed vegetable salad including beets, another raw vegetable salad with sour cream (smetana/сметана) for dressing, and a couple of types of garlic sauce to try with the hot dogs. (I can’t remember the name right now, but I’ll figure it out in the morning. Whatever it is, the Finnish version comes in a tube and is thicker and less spicy; the Russian version comes in a jar and is heavy on the garlic, and something else…maybe horseradish. Not easily identifiable, but VERY good.) Afterwards came stewed fruits (jam), which Lyudmila Afanasyevna cooks herself (it’s like American jam, only chunky and not as overpoweringly sweet); little tea biscuits; and actual tea. “Not strong tonight, but in the morning, strong,” we managed to work out. (My host gift of two-and-a-half pounds of Starbucks coffee was greatly, greatly appreciated. I don’t drink coffee, but she does, and she had a jar of instant in the cupboard. The American University mug I brought joined her collection of mugs in a little kitchen nook; it was perfect! I’m wondering if Misha likes American sports, and if so, he’ll receive a couple of my smaller host gifts…maybe the Terrible Towel.)
My dear host mother actually has to go to the medical school very early tomorrow (seven-thirty—on a Saturday! Ugh!) to proctor an exam, so she told me I’m on my own for breakfast, after showing me where everything is and giving me full permission to use the (gas) stove. I was very flattered, actually; I understand that her schedule necessitates this kind of a welcome, but I also consider it a sign of great trust. (That being said, I will probably stay away from the stove. I know my limits, and cooking is one of them.) We’re due at Kazansky Sabor (rough transliteration of Казанскй Совор/Kazansky Cathedral) at 11 to start a bus tour of the city; I think we’re splitting up and going with Jarlath to take the tour in English. (We did manage to see a good deal of the city tonight while dropping off students. Nevsky Prospekt/Невский Проспект…the frozen and snowed-over Neva river…a couple of the bridges…it’s all…wow.) I’m meeting Erica and her host mother downstairs at 10, so it’s probably time to sign off and enjoy a real night’s sleep for the first time in four days. G’night, all!
…oh, and apparently we have Sudoku on our Russian phones. I am still, much to my surprise (not), no good at Sudoku. Hey, here’s my chance! :)
Day 3, for real this time. 10:50 pm. What a day. What. A. Day. (I’m practicing Cyrillic typing here, so bear with all of the parentheticals, please.)
I’m writing this from the bedroom in the apartment of Lyudmila Afanasyevna M. (Людмила Афанасиевна), a professor of chemistry at Pavlov Medical School (at least, I think that’s the name). She’s hosted many times before, and she welcomed a rather confused and way overtired American girl who speaks broken Russian with open arms. I have very good feelings about this semester. :D
We spent most of the day in orientation mode, more discussions of cultural differences, health and academic policies. Honestly, most of the group was glazing over during the academic presentation; we picked our classes before hitting the ground in Russia, anyway. (We went over social do’s and don’ts in the cultural differences section; apparently women are strongly discouraged from sitting on cold surfaces, for fear that they’ll freeze their ovaries and never bear children.) But the tension grew as we drew closer to meeting our host families; maps and addresses were distributed at the same time, so we immediately mapped out who’s where in the city and swapped numbers. I lucked out with my location: I’m literally less than ten minutes from the Smolny (Смолнй) campus of St. Petersburg State University! Erica and I are actually in the same building on Tverskaya Ulitsa (Тверская Улитса), even closer to the university than to the Cherneshevskaya (Чернешевская) metro station. Ella is just across the street, and Cecilia and Irena are not very far away (and Irena’s host mother is friends with my host mother, apparently. So is Kim’s host mother). The group is really spread all over the city, from the very southern end near Moskovskaya (Московская) Station (where we were for the first two days) to the very northern part of the city. The Smolny campus of the university is pretty far to the west on our maps, while much of the group is on the eastern island, Vasilievsky Island (Василевский), near the main campus. (I got confused looking at my guidebook over break and thought we were all commuting to Vasilievsky. They’re kind of on opposite ends of the city, so it’s a very good thing CIEE didn’t have us try to find Smolny on our own.)
I’m going to be living in the room that used to belong to Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s grown son, Mikhail (Михаил) (he’s thirty). The bookcase is full of his old books, videos, and what I think are probably scrapbooks; the closet still has his belts hanging in it. As far as I understand, he doesn’t live with his mother anymore, but he comes over very frequently. (He also speaks very good English, at least from his mom’s perspective. My Russian is quite a bit worse than Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s English, but hey, we got through dinner somehow!) The combination of his and his mother’s taste in décor runs to lots of little tchotchkes throughout the apartment, a couple of dried flower arrangements, and sports equipment in this room; my phone is charging on top of a couple of hand weights. There’s also a giant stuffed gray-white owl on the wall above the bed, which I imagine would be rather fearsome in the dark. It’s okay, though. I’ve named him Volodya. We shall be great friends…won’t we, Volodya?
Lyudmila Afanasyevna (never just Lyudmila, even on the blog) is an inch or two shorter than me, blonde, and probably about sixty. It’s just her and me in the apartment. We talked about our families and interests and discovered that we’re both very much into classical music; she has plans to take me to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic sometime, which would be VERY exciting. :D She has been teaching chemistry to medical students for thirty years, married one of her colleagues from the medical school, and divorced when Mikhail (Misha/Миша) was twelve. I felt very awkward upon asking if there was a Mr. M and finding out she’s divorced, but she was very frank about it. She definitely believes in the strength of Russian women, and in the two and a half hours I’ve known her, I can see why. : ) She wouldn’t let me help with the dishes tonight, but ‘maybe tomorrow,’ she said. I don’t think she believes in a woman allowing anyone to do everything for her, the way Russian men seem to be expected to. It’s a comfortingly familiar outlook.
Dinner was an interesting mix of cuisines: hot dogs (which come in a string and are smaller than the American standard) with fried cabbage, some sort of mixed vegetable salad including beets, another raw vegetable salad with sour cream (smetana/сметана) for dressing, and a couple of types of garlic sauce to try with the hot dogs. (I can’t remember the name right now, but I’ll figure it out in the morning. Whatever it is, the Finnish version comes in a tube and is thicker and less spicy; the Russian version comes in a jar and is heavy on the garlic, and something else…maybe horseradish. Not easily identifiable, but VERY good.) Afterwards came stewed fruits (jam), which Lyudmila Afanasyevna cooks herself (it’s like American jam, only chunky and not as overpoweringly sweet); little tea biscuits; and actual tea. “Not strong tonight, but in the morning, strong,” we managed to work out. (My host gift of two-and-a-half pounds of Starbucks coffee was greatly, greatly appreciated. I don’t drink coffee, but she does, and she had a jar of instant in the cupboard. The American University mug I brought joined her collection of mugs in a little kitchen nook; it was perfect! I’m wondering if Misha likes American sports, and if so, he’ll receive a couple of my smaller host gifts…maybe the Terrible Towel.)
My dear host mother actually has to go to the medical school very early tomorrow (seven-thirty—on a Saturday! Ugh!) to proctor an exam, so she told me I’m on my own for breakfast, after showing me where everything is and giving me full permission to use the (gas) stove. I was very flattered, actually; I understand that her schedule necessitates this kind of a welcome, but I also consider it a sign of great trust. (That being said, I will probably stay away from the stove. I know my limits, and cooking is one of them.) We’re due at Kazansky Sabor (rough transliteration of Казанскй Совор/Kazansky Cathedral) at 11 to start a bus tour of the city; I think we’re splitting up and going with Jarlath to take the tour in English. (We did manage to see a good deal of the city tonight while dropping off students. Nevsky Prospekt/Невский Проспект…the frozen and snowed-over Neva river…a couple of the bridges…it’s all…wow.) I’m meeting Erica and her host mother downstairs at 10, so it’s probably time to sign off and enjoy a real night’s sleep for the first time in four days. G’night, all!
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