Wednesday, 8:07 am, somewhere in the Russian countryside (such as it is). Things I remembered to do before leaving for Tallinn: pack my hair dryer, charge my computer, withdraw rubles to change once I get there. Things I did not remember to do before leaving for Tallinn: change said rubles into kroon (if that’s possible in St. Petersburg), print my hostel reservation (to paper; I have the PDF), do any research outside of the Lonely Planet guidebook, pack a towel. Oh, well. The bus is packed, and the recorded announcement said the ride will take about an hour and a half longer than the ticket said, but in any case, I’m not terribly worried. Three days in a quiet little Eastern European city, coming up. :D
And quiet is exactly what I need right now. Moscow was…fine, but we missed the Metro bombings by eleven hours. I understand that there was no real chance that any of us would be in danger, but still. That’s just too close to call. Six hours away from major public transportation systems sounds perfect. :P I got home from Moscow, woke up to Jarlath’s phone call, checked the news, and was shocked out of the mood to do much of anything on Monday…so I slept. For about sixteen wonderful hours. Considering that the Moscow trip wasn’t that long, I’m surprised how much I needed that sleep.
So, we pulled into Moscow in the small hours of Friday morning, ate breakfast at the hotel, and then commenced a three-hour bus tour because we couldn’t actually check into the hotel yet. We were split up by language once again, and I have to say, the Area Studies program had a wonderful guide for our couple of city tours. Eduard gave us the local history without boring us at all, and he interjected many wonderful little anecdotes and quips that made me wish I had a tape recorder. I’ve recorded a few of his stories for posterity in my photo captions. :) After discovering once again how difficult it is to take photos out the window of a bus, I went a little photo-happy in Red Square and a nearby park, which Eduard claimed was the real Swan Lake as preserved for posterity in Tschaikovsky’s ballet! There were no swans around (apparently it’s more like ‘Duck Lake’, but that’s not really ballet-like, now is it?), and the lake was frozen solid…so what did we do? We slipped and slid our way out onto the lake and took pictures, of course. :) Apart from that lake, though, the rest of the weather in Moscow was as beautiful as we could have hoped for. I actually got out of the bus for photo breaks without wearing a coat. How cool is that? :D
But, I digress (no kidding). We returned to the hotel, checked in at last, and basically fell into bed for part of the afternoon. I’m not sure how some of the group managed to get a full night’s sleep on the train, but I might have gotten two hours, if I was lucky. We split up after that little refresher and set out to explore the city on our own. In the case of the group with which I wandered, this involved finding a little café somewhere near Arbatskaya, then splitting up further to (literally) get lost and see where we wound up. Moscow’s kind of a sad place to get lost in, actually. Parts of the city are beautiful, parts of it are bustling, parts of it are vastly important in that way that only blocks full of government buildings can be. But parts of it are just sad. A shuttered souvenir market, a near-empty park just before dark, some cheesy stalls and little markets that just made you feel kind of sorry for the city.
I’ve got nothing against Moscow; I just failed to fall in love with it the way some of my friends did. It may be the biggest city in Russia, it may be the biggest city within tens of thousands of kilometers, but it’s just not a very nice place. Actually, scratch that. Historical Moscow is breathtaking. Modern Moscow looks like an architectural version of my Great-Aunt Rose’s leftover soup. The city grew on itself much the way my high school has, except that Sherwood makes Moscow look organized. It’s too big, it’s too confusing, and it’s not very friendly. St. Petersburg doesn’t exactly welcome you with open arms, but it doesn’t mind your presence, and as long as you respect the city, it respects you. Moscow wants you to come, but only because it wants to sell you stuff. If you’re not interested in buying, Moscow is not interested in having you.
I continue to digress. Once we made it back to the hotel Friday night, we were planning to go see what Moscow has to offer as far as night life; however, various members of the group who’d left before us informed us that the club scene is ridiculously crowded, tightly face-controlled, and REALLY expensive. (Face control is the policy by which Moscow bouncers control entrance to clubs, based on the potential entrant’s appearance. St. Petersburg is said to have this policy as well, but only at the really upscale clubs; in Moscow, it’s EVERYWHERE.) We ended up having a quiet night in with some bad Soviet sitcoms, and preparing for Saturday’s tour of the Kremlin. (I was the first one down to breakfast Saturday morning…how does it happen that I can sleep in at home, but in hotels, I wake up at ludicrously early hours?)
Saturday was more like what I hoped to see in Moscow: a carefully guided tour of the Kremlin, including an assortment of government buildings, churches, and monuments (and the biggest bell and biggest cannon in the world, both bronze, majestic, and completely nonfunctional). We saw the Communist Party Congress, now housing its own ballet hall; we stood on the very spot where all the tsars through Nicholas II were crowned, and saw the little mark on the floor so the nearsighted Nicholas would know where to stand. We saw the tombs of the early tsars, and learned why we couldn’t see Ivan the Terrible (he’s buried inside the altar, the better to purify him for all his sins). We even toured the armory, seeing the Russian crown jewels (the coronation crown has fur on it!), Peter the Great’s boots, and a selection of Faberge eggs (and a Faberge dandelion). Saturday morning-early afternoon was the highlight of my tour of Moscow, and I’m thrilled to have been able to see all that I saw.
The rest of the trip was comparatively slow, though that is by no means a bad thing. I went after the Kremlin tour to a giant souvenir market on the northeastern side of the city, practicing my haggling skills (which still aren’t very good) and buying an assortment of small souvenirs. These included a traditional Russian shawl, called a platka, which I’m wearing now. :) Saturday night was spent in, having a hair-braiding party with a few girlfriends, and Sunday was left to tour the rest of the museums, including Lenin’s mausoleum! Taking pictures inside was ABSOLUTELY forbidden, to the point where we had to check our cameras AND our phones; the experience was very much worth it, though. We moved through the maze of the memorial garden, noting the names of a hundred good Communists on plaques on the walls and granite memorials, then ducked into the darkness of the mausoleum. After the brightness of the day, the tomb is disorientingly silent and dark. The guards herd you along – no stopping to commune with Volodya here – through the ramped room where Lenin reposes atop a black marble podium, lying in state in a red-fringed palanquin, lit with flattering fuschia lights. He looks like nothing so much as a wax figure of the former triumphant dictator. For all we know, he could be wax. Who’d be able to tell, really? And who really cares?
After less than a minute with Lenin, we stumbled out into the sunlight, collected our belongings, and continued our tourism. St. Basil’s, the Cathedral of the Intercession, is a marvel, even if the steps are painfully steep for those with short legs. Ten different chapels merge seamlessly to create a maze of a church, perfect to wander through contemplatively while at the same time playing hide-and-seek in the tiny side passages. Our group split up after this, and three of us explored the Museum of Modern History, labeled as the Museum of the Revolution on the map. It was fine, really, little different from every other history museum we’ve ever visited, and it would probably have meant more to me if there was a single word of English in the museum. By this point, I was rather tired of brightly lit rooms, so I went by myself in search of Jarlath’s recommendation, the Museum of the Gulag, located somewhere near the Lubyanka, former home of the KGB (now the FSB). I never did find it; the square is full of large, imposing, unmarked buildings, and populated by militsia officers who look like they’d like nothing better than to give a young tourist speaking poor Russian a private tour of the former KGB headquarters. (I don’t think the formal name was the Museum of the Gulag, and how do you bring yourself to ask a Russian police officer with a gun for something by that name?) I ended up in a museum devoted to the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, instead. I know nothing about this guy, other than that he was a revolutionary poet in the early Soviet Union, and that he died somewhere in the Thirties as a result of some political action (and that he has Metro stations named after him in both Moscow and St. Petersburg). Honestly, I don’t remember which side of the action he was on. This didn’t matter very much, as it turned out, because this might as well have been renamed the Museum of Bizarre Shit in Art and Architecture. I apologize for the language, but that’s my lasting impression. I don’t know what the point of the vast assortment of strange sculpture and artsy things was, but the overall impression was of my having consumed something akin to hallucinogenic mushrooms in my lunch…or maybe the artist was the one with the magic mushroom blini. I need to find a translation of Mayakovsky in English just to see what all the weirdness was about.
I was about museum-ed out by this point, so I went back to the hotel, read for a couple of hours, and accepted a large bag of souvenirs and other objects to take back to Petersburg for traveling friends. (This included Evan’s coat, which I almost borrowed and wore to Tallinn, but I figure mine’s probably more waterproof.) I made it to the train station by myself and traveled back with an Ian McKellen lookalike, who mistook me for a German student (not the first time that’s happened, actually), and a young mother with two small boys of (I think) three and five. It was a quiet trip, thankfully, even though I managed about an hour of sleep over the whole thing. And that brings us to Monday, and the rude awakening with the news of the disaster we’d just narrowly averted.
When I awoke refreshed on Tuesday, I basically managed to do some laundry and send assorted emails regarding class registration before I left for the concert hall. We were playing in the small Philharmonic Hall, but my goodness, I have never had the chance to play somewhere quite that amazing. The hall was absolutely full, which I did NOT expect for the university chamber orchestra. (We also had about fifteen ringers, percussion, winds, brass and the like, about whom I learned just yesterday. It sounded really different playing with them, but different in a very good way.) The concert program was Lehar, Dunaevsky, and Strauss, in that order. Andrei Vladimirovich Alekseev isn’t a patch on Professor Berard for putting a program together, or running a rehearsal, but he might be able to give AU’s maestro a run for his money for sheer conductorly weirdness. :D Encouraging the audience to clap along at several points, having the orchestra stomp and sing along with a couple of the polkas, even leaving the hall during our second encore and wandering back in near the end of the piece…it was strange, but it was quite wonderful. :) Lyudmila Afanasyevna came and thoroughly enjoyed it, which made my evening.
And, now I’m writing on a bus on the way to Tallinn. I’ll post this when I make it to the hostel, and then it’ll be time to see what Estonia has to offer (besides the quasi-rock music playing over the bus radio). Stay tuned! :)
11:47 am. Spring is even slower in coming to Estonia than to Russia, it seems. The occasional patches of dead-looking grass showing through the snow are kind of depressing. However, we’re barely into the country, so I’m reserving judgment as of yet. Took about an hour for the busful of people to get through customs control, during which time I received many a strange look for handing over the only blue passport in a sea of red. At least I didn’t need a visa (yes!!!). We’re about an hour and three-quarters away from Tallinn, if the tickets are correct. I’m rather looking forward to a shower (the hot water was out in the apartment both yesterday and this morning) and then, who knows? :)
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Fantastic timing, for once
Longer post will be coming later, but I just wanted to let everyone know that we're all safe. 'Moscow Metro hit by deadly suicide bombings' was a hell of a headline to wake up to. Thankfully, we're all out of Moscow, with one possible exception who's confirmed that she's all right.
I'm going back to bed. This was not the way to start the week.
I'm going back to bed. This was not the way to start the week.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
In which Amanda ACTUALLY POSTS PHOTOS!
Thursday…no, technically Friday, 1:30 am. I know, I know, it’s been quite some time since my last entry. “But Amanda,” you ask (okay, let’s pretend you asked), “why have you not filled us in on your vastly exciting week?” I apologize, friends and family, for I have been sleeping. I’ve been running at about 200km an hour since Saturday morning, so I’m finally writing the week’s entries on the train to Moscow.
Yes, you read that right. On an overnight train to Moscow, writing at 1:30 in the morning. We met at the station at 2140, the better to over-prepare, because trains are about the only institution in Russia that do(es) not run on Russian time. We pulled out of Moskovsky Voksal (Moscow Station) at 2300 on the dot, and we’re expected to pull into Moscow shortly before 0700. We’re in compartments of four, now split and scattered into each other’s compartments; I’m working in my quiet compartment with three sleeping friends. It’s like the Hogwarts Express, only less colorful, and with all girls in this car (the guys are in the next car over, with Jarlath). I’m writing late because I can’t sleep; we’re all fairly charged up with the party atmosphere. ;) (Plus, this top-bunk situation is a little scary. I’m not convinced yet that I’m not going to fall off and accidentally kill Katie in the middle of the night.)
But, I digress. Week in review, coming up! :)
Saturday: Tsarskoye Selo! Another historic palace surrounded by legendary gardens, which are currently buried under a foot and a half of snow. Definitely the prettiest palace I’ve seen so far, though, and we were actually allowed to take pictures in this one. And I did. About eighty. :) Including me with a statue of Pushkin! The surrounding town is named for Pushkin, and the tour guide was very thorough in explaining where Pushkin studied and how he left his mark on the town. The following are a couple of the best photos from the afternoon’s excursion. We’ve all decided that we’re going back on a weekend in May to wander around the gardens when they’re green. :D
The Amber Room! We weren't really supposed to be taking pictures in here, hence the awkward angle.
Hanging out with Pushkin. :D
Sunday: my birthday! :D I celebrated my birthday by sleeping in, first of all, then meeting a handful of friends for lunch at an Azerbaijani restaurant! This wasn’t actually planned for my birthday, the two occasions just sort of happened to coincide. Major props to Eric for this plan. :D Six of us met outside Gostiny Dvor and went to Baku, lingering for two and a half hours over fantastic Azerbaijani food and conversation. What made it even more interesting was that Dmitri came! Dima, Eric, Svetlana, Megan, Eve and I talked animatedly in Russian and English, sharing the food, toasting with (a single glass of) Azerbaijani wine, and exchanging funny slang in our respective languages. (In Russian, when a person is very, very drunk, he ‘goes home by his eyebrows.’) I even walked around with Eric after we’d finished the meal and took several pictures of the restaurant—he wants to design his house in a similar fashion sometime in the future. :) The rest of the day was very quiet, mostly spent reading and watching British comedy videos on YouTube, followed by a glass of champagne with my host mom and an early night. A fantastic twentieth birthday.
The six of us in Baku. Photo taken by the very nice and VERY patient waiter. From left: Svetlana, Eric, Dmitri, Megan, Eve, and myself.
Monday: back to classes, then orchestra rehearsal. I figured out on Monday that I’m going to be missing the next two rehearsals because of the Moscow trip…the two rehearsals right before the concert. Normally, this would be a MAJOR issue, but thankfully, Angelina explained it to Andrei Vladimirovich such that he understood. The two of them wished me a lovely weekend in Moscow, which was a nice touch. (I did get a text from Angelina today reminding me that I need to bring my viola to the concert. Really, now? I realize that I don’t understand more than about a third of what she says, but does that automatically qualify me as ‘person who needs REALLY silly reminders’? :P) I still don’t know the exact concert order, nor whether we’re actually playing all the pieces in our folders. But, I expect that will be cleared up in the three hours preceding the concert next Tuesday. :)
Tuesday was devoted to classes, laundry, and buying tickets for the following several days. I made my hostel reservations in Tallinn on Monday…without actually having bought the bus tickets yet. We had a group ‘excursion’ to Moscow Station Tuesday after classes so that Katya could help people like me buy their train tickets either back to Petersburg or elsewhere. After I finally had a return ticket from Moscow in my possession, I decided to cross two things off the list in one trip and went to Baltiskiy Voksal (Baltic Station) to buy a round-trip bus ticket to Tallinn. It took me nearly half an hour (and two text messages to Jarlath) to discover that the office was not in fact inside the station, but rather across the street; once I got there, though, I did manage to buy this ticket all by myself! :D I relied on writing down the numbers and times so as to make absolutely sure not to screw it up. I can practice my Russian sometime when I’m spending significantly smaller amounts of money. In any case, I’m now thoroughly ready to spend Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in Estonia! (Also, major thanks to Eric for lending me his guidebook this evening!)
Wednesday: classes, then a long meeting with Moscow trip instructions and protocol, then English class. This was one of the best discussions we’ve had yet, centered around the theme of crime; I got the chance to break out the vocabulary from all the Tom Clancy novels I’ve been reading, and the students got the chance to introduce me to the Russian Sherlock Holmes movies. I really, REALLY want to watch one of these now! :D Also, I made the mistake of mentioning last class (in a discussion of the term ‘witty’) that British humor tends to be based more on wit than American humor, which is (more often than not) based on put-downs. Olga Vladimirovna took me seriously, but in an entirely different fashion than the one I intended. She walked into class with a thin British paperback book, featuring a scantily clad woman on the cover, entitled “Really Wicked Dirty Jokes.” Moreover, I found that she had photocopied several stories from this book and handed them out to the class as examples of wit. The stories were certainly witty; however, I fear that this class now has an indelibly set impression of ‘wit’ meaning ‘off-color.’ What have I done? :P
And that brings us to today, taken up with classes, packing, and attempting to solve class registration issues back home (grrrrrrrrr). I’ll probably be writing the weekend’s entry on the train back home, at a similarly strange hour of the morning. For now, time to try my damnedest not to fall off the top bunk and to grab five hours’ sleep before pulling into Leningradsky Voksal in Moscow. More to come! :)
Yes, you read that right. On an overnight train to Moscow, writing at 1:30 in the morning. We met at the station at 2140, the better to over-prepare, because trains are about the only institution in Russia that do(es) not run on Russian time. We pulled out of Moskovsky Voksal (Moscow Station) at 2300 on the dot, and we’re expected to pull into Moscow shortly before 0700. We’re in compartments of four, now split and scattered into each other’s compartments; I’m working in my quiet compartment with three sleeping friends. It’s like the Hogwarts Express, only less colorful, and with all girls in this car (the guys are in the next car over, with Jarlath). I’m writing late because I can’t sleep; we’re all fairly charged up with the party atmosphere. ;) (Plus, this top-bunk situation is a little scary. I’m not convinced yet that I’m not going to fall off and accidentally kill Katie in the middle of the night.)
But, I digress. Week in review, coming up! :)
Saturday: Tsarskoye Selo! Another historic palace surrounded by legendary gardens, which are currently buried under a foot and a half of snow. Definitely the prettiest palace I’ve seen so far, though, and we were actually allowed to take pictures in this one. And I did. About eighty. :) Including me with a statue of Pushkin! The surrounding town is named for Pushkin, and the tour guide was very thorough in explaining where Pushkin studied and how he left his mark on the town. The following are a couple of the best photos from the afternoon’s excursion. We’ve all decided that we’re going back on a weekend in May to wander around the gardens when they’re green. :D
The Amber Room! We weren't really supposed to be taking pictures in here, hence the awkward angle.
Hanging out with Pushkin. :D
Sunday: my birthday! :D I celebrated my birthday by sleeping in, first of all, then meeting a handful of friends for lunch at an Azerbaijani restaurant! This wasn’t actually planned for my birthday, the two occasions just sort of happened to coincide. Major props to Eric for this plan. :D Six of us met outside Gostiny Dvor and went to Baku, lingering for two and a half hours over fantastic Azerbaijani food and conversation. What made it even more interesting was that Dmitri came! Dima, Eric, Svetlana, Megan, Eve and I talked animatedly in Russian and English, sharing the food, toasting with (a single glass of) Azerbaijani wine, and exchanging funny slang in our respective languages. (In Russian, when a person is very, very drunk, he ‘goes home by his eyebrows.’) I even walked around with Eric after we’d finished the meal and took several pictures of the restaurant—he wants to design his house in a similar fashion sometime in the future. :) The rest of the day was very quiet, mostly spent reading and watching British comedy videos on YouTube, followed by a glass of champagne with my host mom and an early night. A fantastic twentieth birthday.
The six of us in Baku. Photo taken by the very nice and VERY patient waiter. From left: Svetlana, Eric, Dmitri, Megan, Eve, and myself.Monday: back to classes, then orchestra rehearsal. I figured out on Monday that I’m going to be missing the next two rehearsals because of the Moscow trip…the two rehearsals right before the concert. Normally, this would be a MAJOR issue, but thankfully, Angelina explained it to Andrei Vladimirovich such that he understood. The two of them wished me a lovely weekend in Moscow, which was a nice touch. (I did get a text from Angelina today reminding me that I need to bring my viola to the concert. Really, now? I realize that I don’t understand more than about a third of what she says, but does that automatically qualify me as ‘person who needs REALLY silly reminders’? :P) I still don’t know the exact concert order, nor whether we’re actually playing all the pieces in our folders. But, I expect that will be cleared up in the three hours preceding the concert next Tuesday. :)
Tuesday was devoted to classes, laundry, and buying tickets for the following several days. I made my hostel reservations in Tallinn on Monday…without actually having bought the bus tickets yet. We had a group ‘excursion’ to Moscow Station Tuesday after classes so that Katya could help people like me buy their train tickets either back to Petersburg or elsewhere. After I finally had a return ticket from Moscow in my possession, I decided to cross two things off the list in one trip and went to Baltiskiy Voksal (Baltic Station) to buy a round-trip bus ticket to Tallinn. It took me nearly half an hour (and two text messages to Jarlath) to discover that the office was not in fact inside the station, but rather across the street; once I got there, though, I did manage to buy this ticket all by myself! :D I relied on writing down the numbers and times so as to make absolutely sure not to screw it up. I can practice my Russian sometime when I’m spending significantly smaller amounts of money. In any case, I’m now thoroughly ready to spend Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in Estonia! (Also, major thanks to Eric for lending me his guidebook this evening!)
Wednesday: classes, then a long meeting with Moscow trip instructions and protocol, then English class. This was one of the best discussions we’ve had yet, centered around the theme of crime; I got the chance to break out the vocabulary from all the Tom Clancy novels I’ve been reading, and the students got the chance to introduce me to the Russian Sherlock Holmes movies. I really, REALLY want to watch one of these now! :D Also, I made the mistake of mentioning last class (in a discussion of the term ‘witty’) that British humor tends to be based more on wit than American humor, which is (more often than not) based on put-downs. Olga Vladimirovna took me seriously, but in an entirely different fashion than the one I intended. She walked into class with a thin British paperback book, featuring a scantily clad woman on the cover, entitled “Really Wicked Dirty Jokes.” Moreover, I found that she had photocopied several stories from this book and handed them out to the class as examples of wit. The stories were certainly witty; however, I fear that this class now has an indelibly set impression of ‘wit’ meaning ‘off-color.’ What have I done? :P
And that brings us to today, taken up with classes, packing, and attempting to solve class registration issues back home (grrrrrrrrr). I’ll probably be writing the weekend’s entry on the train back home, at a similarly strange hour of the morning. For now, time to try my damnedest not to fall off the top bunk and to grab five hours’ sleep before pulling into Leningradsky Voksal in Moscow. More to come! :)
Friday, March 19, 2010
Mail call!
Friday, 6:05 pm. Wow. Time for a VERY extended week-in-review post. :)
First, most important, and to which a full email will be devoted in a few minutes: I received a piece of mail today! It wasn’t the package from home (sorry, Mom), but it made me possibly even happier: a birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa. Two days before my birthday. PERFECT timing. I nearly cried, I was so happy. Thank you so much. That just made my month right there. :D:D:D:D
Sunday turned out not to be devoted entirely to my essay, when one of my host mom’s students came over around eight pm. I’d heard many a mention of this Dmitri before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I finally met him…but now I understand what my host mom means when she describes an ‘ochen simpatichni malchik.’ :D Without gushing too much…he’s wonderful (and SO CUTE)! We sat and had tea and cake for a good two hours and arranged a movie date for the three of us (Dima, Lyudmila Afanasyevna, and myself) Tuesday evening. I managed to acquit myself fairly well in a mixture of English and Russian, and I think Dima speaks about as much English as I do Russian, so we muddled through somehow. Sleep may have been a little while in coming Sunday night. :)
Monday: classes and orchestra rehearsal. Major thanks to Lyudmila Afanasyevna for leaving dinner out on the stove, as I ate and dashed out the door only to almost run smack into her on the steps. Our concert’s been moved up a day, and while I still don’t know for sure what time it is, we’re playing in the actual Philharmonic Hall on Nevsky Prospekt!!!! I get to play on the same stage as the St. Petersburg Symphony! I can’t believe it! :D
Tuesday: classes, then the planned evening. I met Dima in the station two down from the top of the blue line; naturally, I was running late, but for once, it wasn’t my fault. I don’t know why we sat underground near Gorkovskaya for a while, but at least I made it there. We saw a movie called What Men Talk About (О Чём Говорит Мужини), a Russian comedy about gender differences…thankfully, not a romantic comedy. I may have only understood about 30% of it, but Dima and Lyudmila Afanasyevna translated assorted bits for me as the movie went along, so I got a few of the jokes (and some interesting new Russian slang (heeheehee)). Before we went home, my host mom decided that we needed to go grocery shopping, so we wandered around a MASSIVE supermarket and talked for quite some time about music and assorted other cultural differences. All in all, it was a very pleasant time, made more pleasant by the fact that Dima wants to come with my host mom to my concert! (And he’s convinced that he’s going to wear a tux. Not quite sure if that’s appropriate, but it makes me giggle.)
Wednesday: classes, then English teaching. Listening to the class coming up with adjectives to describe each other’s personalities was both educational and, frankly, quite amusing. They’re really quite good, but I do derive some amusement from hearing their sentence structure and idiomatic usage. Then again, the class feels free to giggle at some of my Russian mistakes, so we’re all even. I’m not sure quite how we segued into a ‘borderline inappropriate terms’ section of class, but I think that may have been Olga Vladimirovna’s own amusement for the evening. :D Wednesday was also St. Patrick’s Day, but I swear, every Irish pub in the city was packed to the doors. Wes, Brenna and I met late in a tiny little bar at the far end of the city and sang Irish songs and made Irish toasts for an hour and a half. Still a blast, more so because we didn’t have to shout over anybody or surgically remove anyone’s elbows from our guts.
Thursday didn’t quite end up as planned, because of a text message from Jarlath which I received in the middle of Wednesday’s class. Sometime last week, several students were handed a “copy-editing test” from the St. Petersburg Times, the city’s English-language newspaper. From the results from that, two students were chosen for a small internship, and those two students turned out to be my friend Eve and myself! We went after classes to the office, somehow negotiated the guard desk (bloody strict entrance policies), and were each shown to a desk and handed the occasional page to go over with a fine-toothed linguistic and stylistic comb. It was a slow day, and the deputy editor apologized, but hey, I got all of my English class’s essays graded, and Eve got a large chunk of Madame Bovary read, so there was no time wasted. :) I’ll be going back on Thursdays; the newspaper comes out Tuesdays and Fridays, so they use the services of American student copy editors the days before. I’ll still be attending two orchestra rehearsals a week, though, so Angelina (the manager) gave her approval when I texted her. I get to put my grammar police work on my resume! I’m ridiculously excited! :D
And that brings us to today: fairly normal classes (including a fascinating series of literary culture lectures in Russian Civ), and a belated St. Patrick’s Day party planned for this evening. Which reminds me, if I’m going to attend, I’d better go change. We’re going to Tsarskoye Selo tomorrow, so I swear I’ll manage to post pictures on here! Stay tuned! :)
First, most important, and to which a full email will be devoted in a few minutes: I received a piece of mail today! It wasn’t the package from home (sorry, Mom), but it made me possibly even happier: a birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa. Two days before my birthday. PERFECT timing. I nearly cried, I was so happy. Thank you so much. That just made my month right there. :D:D:D:D
Sunday turned out not to be devoted entirely to my essay, when one of my host mom’s students came over around eight pm. I’d heard many a mention of this Dmitri before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I finally met him…but now I understand what my host mom means when she describes an ‘ochen simpatichni malchik.’ :D Without gushing too much…he’s wonderful (and SO CUTE)! We sat and had tea and cake for a good two hours and arranged a movie date for the three of us (Dima, Lyudmila Afanasyevna, and myself) Tuesday evening. I managed to acquit myself fairly well in a mixture of English and Russian, and I think Dima speaks about as much English as I do Russian, so we muddled through somehow. Sleep may have been a little while in coming Sunday night. :)
Monday: classes and orchestra rehearsal. Major thanks to Lyudmila Afanasyevna for leaving dinner out on the stove, as I ate and dashed out the door only to almost run smack into her on the steps. Our concert’s been moved up a day, and while I still don’t know for sure what time it is, we’re playing in the actual Philharmonic Hall on Nevsky Prospekt!!!! I get to play on the same stage as the St. Petersburg Symphony! I can’t believe it! :D
Tuesday: classes, then the planned evening. I met Dima in the station two down from the top of the blue line; naturally, I was running late, but for once, it wasn’t my fault. I don’t know why we sat underground near Gorkovskaya for a while, but at least I made it there. We saw a movie called What Men Talk About (О Чём Говорит Мужини), a Russian comedy about gender differences…thankfully, not a romantic comedy. I may have only understood about 30% of it, but Dima and Lyudmila Afanasyevna translated assorted bits for me as the movie went along, so I got a few of the jokes (and some interesting new Russian slang (heeheehee)). Before we went home, my host mom decided that we needed to go grocery shopping, so we wandered around a MASSIVE supermarket and talked for quite some time about music and assorted other cultural differences. All in all, it was a very pleasant time, made more pleasant by the fact that Dima wants to come with my host mom to my concert! (And he’s convinced that he’s going to wear a tux. Not quite sure if that’s appropriate, but it makes me giggle.)
Wednesday: classes, then English teaching. Listening to the class coming up with adjectives to describe each other’s personalities was both educational and, frankly, quite amusing. They’re really quite good, but I do derive some amusement from hearing their sentence structure and idiomatic usage. Then again, the class feels free to giggle at some of my Russian mistakes, so we’re all even. I’m not sure quite how we segued into a ‘borderline inappropriate terms’ section of class, but I think that may have been Olga Vladimirovna’s own amusement for the evening. :D Wednesday was also St. Patrick’s Day, but I swear, every Irish pub in the city was packed to the doors. Wes, Brenna and I met late in a tiny little bar at the far end of the city and sang Irish songs and made Irish toasts for an hour and a half. Still a blast, more so because we didn’t have to shout over anybody or surgically remove anyone’s elbows from our guts.
Thursday didn’t quite end up as planned, because of a text message from Jarlath which I received in the middle of Wednesday’s class. Sometime last week, several students were handed a “copy-editing test” from the St. Petersburg Times, the city’s English-language newspaper. From the results from that, two students were chosen for a small internship, and those two students turned out to be my friend Eve and myself! We went after classes to the office, somehow negotiated the guard desk (bloody strict entrance policies), and were each shown to a desk and handed the occasional page to go over with a fine-toothed linguistic and stylistic comb. It was a slow day, and the deputy editor apologized, but hey, I got all of my English class’s essays graded, and Eve got a large chunk of Madame Bovary read, so there was no time wasted. :) I’ll be going back on Thursdays; the newspaper comes out Tuesdays and Fridays, so they use the services of American student copy editors the days before. I’ll still be attending two orchestra rehearsals a week, though, so Angelina (the manager) gave her approval when I texted her. I get to put my grammar police work on my resume! I’m ridiculously excited! :D
And that brings us to today: fairly normal classes (including a fascinating series of literary culture lectures in Russian Civ), and a belated St. Patrick’s Day party planned for this evening. Which reminds me, if I’m going to attend, I’d better go change. We’re going to Tsarskoye Selo tomorrow, so I swear I’ll manage to post pictures on here! Stay tuned! :)
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Footwear Boutique Square
Sunday, 1:15 pm. An exciting weekend has culminated in a day that I am declaring to be Hang Out In Your Long Underwear and Listen to Billy Joel Day. For once, it’s not snowing, but Erica so kindly informed me yesterday that it’s supposed to drop down to -20C this coming week. Aaaaaaaargh.
Wednesday evening's English class was canceled due to illness on the part of Olga Vladimirovna, which wouldn't have been an issue, except that I had to go all the way to the university to find that out from a note on the door. :P The public transportation system and I are getting to know each other very well indeed. I stopped at the bookstore by Ploshchad Vosstaniya on the way home, to make myself feel that the trip was worthwhile, and I bought a bilingual copy of Hamlet! It's a little ridiculous how happy that makes me. :D
Thursday: classlike things happened! We’ve all chosen pieces that we’re going to be working on individually for phonetics; I gather this will be part of our final exam. Most of the group picked readings from our worksheets, but I chose an Anna Akhmatova poem we’d been given as part of a Russian Civilization packet. If I remember nothing else about Russian literature, ‘Voronezh’ will be the one thing that sticks with me. :) After classes came a rather slow-moving orchestra rehearsal, during which I learned the importance of leaving with the group; I was in the bathroom as the rest of them were filing out, and they managed to lock me in. >.< After a comic minute or two of banging on the door and shouting, I decided that wasn’t going to get me anywhere and climbed out the window. Into a waist-high snowdrift, but, better than being stuck there. At least jeans dry. :) I then joined a large group at a little club near Sennaya Ploshchad where Jarlath’s cover band was playing. It was loudtacular (thanks, Becca!), it was crowded, and it was great fun. Highlights of the evening included Jarlath singing Freddy Mercury and Michael Jackson, and the girl who performed three sets later singing the Chicken Dance song in Russian. :D
Friday: more classlike things happened! We had grammar with the phonetics teacher, which always makes us appreciate our grammar teacher more and more. Don’t get me wrong, Olga Sergeevna certainly knows her stuff, but grammar class turns into ‘nitpicky pronunciation of new vocabulary’ class. :P After class, we had a cultural exchange event of a kind I’d never thought of: a Russian-American rock concert! Several Russian students and a handful of American students, plus Jarlath, played some favorites for each other and discussed them throughout. It was a blast, frankly, and plans for the next one are already in the works. Evan and I are putting together a couple of numbers that will be a little surprising, in a good way. :) I came home intending to spend the evening transcribing music from the videos I’d taken of Russian chorus. When my computer wouldn’t play the movies I’d been able to take on my camera, this turned into going out to a café for cheesecake with Erica and discussing musicals for a fantastically long time. (And, eventually, I found a freeware program that will actually let me play .mov files, so the transcription can proceed.)
Saturday: I met Matt, Erica, and Misha downtown somewhere in the middle of a day’s shopping. I thought I had carefully timed my arrival (read: run late enough) that I would have missed most of the shopping, as I love these people, but I still hate to shop. As it turns out, I met them in a café, but that was merely the refreshing break before a tour of what I swear was every shoe shop in God’s green creation. (…actually, that doesn’t work, as that would imply that Russia is currently green. God’s icy creation, perhaps.) I don’t actually know what Sennaya Ploshchad means (‘Sennaya’ is not in my dictionary), but it might as well mean Footwear Boutique Square; I think we visited two dozen within two miles. And our dear Misha managed to NOT ACTUALLY BUY ANYTHING until his trip back home. Eventually, he left, and Matt and Erica and I found one of the dozens of quirky little hole-in-the-wall cafés this city has to offer and sat and talked over coffee and pishki. :) I went straight from there to the university area, ordered dinner in a Teremok (without betraying that I’m an American! Hurrah!), and went from there to rehearsal. As far as I can tell, rehearsal went fine, though Andrei Vladimirovich did leave halfway through, so the latter part of rehearsal was a little more relaxed. I managed not to get locked in this time, and went dancing with a group of Americans later in the evening.
So, today is to be spent writing the beginnings of my Russian Civilization essay that’s due right before Moscow. Nina Mikhailovna’s instructions were rather vague (not a surprise), but this is just supposed to be five pages on our impressions of our first two months in Russia. I’ve basically been writing this essay all along, in that case; I just need to distill my blog entries into five pages that flow. Of Fish and Frostbite, Greatest Hits, perhaps. :D I’ll sign off and get to work, in that case. Stay warm!
Wednesday evening's English class was canceled due to illness on the part of Olga Vladimirovna, which wouldn't have been an issue, except that I had to go all the way to the university to find that out from a note on the door. :P The public transportation system and I are getting to know each other very well indeed. I stopped at the bookstore by Ploshchad Vosstaniya on the way home, to make myself feel that the trip was worthwhile, and I bought a bilingual copy of Hamlet! It's a little ridiculous how happy that makes me. :D
Thursday: classlike things happened! We’ve all chosen pieces that we’re going to be working on individually for phonetics; I gather this will be part of our final exam. Most of the group picked readings from our worksheets, but I chose an Anna Akhmatova poem we’d been given as part of a Russian Civilization packet. If I remember nothing else about Russian literature, ‘Voronezh’ will be the one thing that sticks with me. :) After classes came a rather slow-moving orchestra rehearsal, during which I learned the importance of leaving with the group; I was in the bathroom as the rest of them were filing out, and they managed to lock me in. >.< After a comic minute or two of banging on the door and shouting, I decided that wasn’t going to get me anywhere and climbed out the window. Into a waist-high snowdrift, but, better than being stuck there. At least jeans dry. :) I then joined a large group at a little club near Sennaya Ploshchad where Jarlath’s cover band was playing. It was loudtacular (thanks, Becca!), it was crowded, and it was great fun. Highlights of the evening included Jarlath singing Freddy Mercury and Michael Jackson, and the girl who performed three sets later singing the Chicken Dance song in Russian. :D
Friday: more classlike things happened! We had grammar with the phonetics teacher, which always makes us appreciate our grammar teacher more and more. Don’t get me wrong, Olga Sergeevna certainly knows her stuff, but grammar class turns into ‘nitpicky pronunciation of new vocabulary’ class. :P After class, we had a cultural exchange event of a kind I’d never thought of: a Russian-American rock concert! Several Russian students and a handful of American students, plus Jarlath, played some favorites for each other and discussed them throughout. It was a blast, frankly, and plans for the next one are already in the works. Evan and I are putting together a couple of numbers that will be a little surprising, in a good way. :) I came home intending to spend the evening transcribing music from the videos I’d taken of Russian chorus. When my computer wouldn’t play the movies I’d been able to take on my camera, this turned into going out to a café for cheesecake with Erica and discussing musicals for a fantastically long time. (And, eventually, I found a freeware program that will actually let me play .mov files, so the transcription can proceed.)
Saturday: I met Matt, Erica, and Misha downtown somewhere in the middle of a day’s shopping. I thought I had carefully timed my arrival (read: run late enough) that I would have missed most of the shopping, as I love these people, but I still hate to shop. As it turns out, I met them in a café, but that was merely the refreshing break before a tour of what I swear was every shoe shop in God’s green creation. (…actually, that doesn’t work, as that would imply that Russia is currently green. God’s icy creation, perhaps.) I don’t actually know what Sennaya Ploshchad means (‘Sennaya’ is not in my dictionary), but it might as well mean Footwear Boutique Square; I think we visited two dozen within two miles. And our dear Misha managed to NOT ACTUALLY BUY ANYTHING until his trip back home. Eventually, he left, and Matt and Erica and I found one of the dozens of quirky little hole-in-the-wall cafés this city has to offer and sat and talked over coffee and pishki. :) I went straight from there to the university area, ordered dinner in a Teremok (without betraying that I’m an American! Hurrah!), and went from there to rehearsal. As far as I can tell, rehearsal went fine, though Andrei Vladimirovich did leave halfway through, so the latter part of rehearsal was a little more relaxed. I managed not to get locked in this time, and went dancing with a group of Americans later in the evening.
So, today is to be spent writing the beginnings of my Russian Civilization essay that’s due right before Moscow. Nina Mikhailovna’s instructions were rather vague (not a surprise), but this is just supposed to be five pages on our impressions of our first two months in Russia. I’ve basically been writing this essay all along, in that case; I just need to distill my blog entries into five pages that flow. Of Fish and Frostbite, Greatest Hits, perhaps. :D I’ll sign off and get to work, in that case. Stay warm!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
In which the term 'metric boatload' becomes standard English
Wednesday, 4 pm. Very early in orientation, we were introduced to the concept of ‘phases’ of study abroad. I’m not sure whether this is a CIEE concept, a Jarlath concept, or a recognized social scientific model, but basically, it’s divided into three parts. Phase 1 is the stage of fascination with your host country, and learning to negotiate such things as the public transportation system and the lack of toilet paper in university restrooms. Phase 2 is the stage of ‘why did I come here?’, usually triggered by a small incident and resulting in depression and general blaming of one’s host country for all the things one sees as wrong. Phase 3 is everything after Phase 2.
It’s the beginning of March, and we’re all either in Phase 2 or carefully walking along the edge. It’s just that time of the program, I guess. And because we’re all aware of this, we’re all developing our own Phase 2 buffers. I was sitting on my bed after yesterday’s classes, staring rather blankly at War and Peace and being homesick, when I realized I needed to get up and do something before I continued thinking too much. So what did I do? I made a metric boatload of lemon biscotti. (Regular boatloads don’t work outside the US.) :D I realize this is not exactly intuitive, but my host mom is perfectly fine with my using the stove, as long as I clean up after myself. So, after dinner, she showed me where the baking soda was and how to light a gas oven, then retired to grade chemistry exams as I set to work mixing things. There is still not a single measuring utensil in the apartment, so I eyeballed the measurements and threw in the zest from about half a lemon between two batches. One batch turned out lovely and small like the tea cookies I was hoping for; the other batch over-raised and burned on the bottom, but slicing off the burned parts produced biscotti that were just as tasty, only slightly bigger. I took a good three dozen to school today, and they were very positively received; I think Lyudmila Afanasyevna took another dozen with her for lunch. :D
Another thing that’s keeping me thoroughly excited to be here: Russian chorus. :D I got Irina Gennadyevna’s permission to take video of her singing today, so I’m going to write down the music when I can. (This would be easier if I could get a hold of some staff paper, but I’ll probably just use the back of my notebook.) We have four songs now, two tragic laments and two bouncy jig-like songs, two of which will hopefully be accompanied: the chrysanthemum-themed mourning song by Evan on guitar, and the blini song by yours truly on violin! The director’s enthusiasm is infectious, and we can’t leave the room without humming and laughing. Great fun. :D
Alas, it is now time to head home and heat up some soup before my English class. It’s STILL SNOWING here—the weather conditions when I got up would have been classified as ‘blizzard’ back home—so traffic will naturally be more snarled than usual…and I may have to leave an hour and a half to get across the city. I bring a book with me, though, so it’s really not a problem, and it’s easier than walking to and from the Metro stations. Stay warm, everyone!
It’s the beginning of March, and we’re all either in Phase 2 or carefully walking along the edge. It’s just that time of the program, I guess. And because we’re all aware of this, we’re all developing our own Phase 2 buffers. I was sitting on my bed after yesterday’s classes, staring rather blankly at War and Peace and being homesick, when I realized I needed to get up and do something before I continued thinking too much. So what did I do? I made a metric boatload of lemon biscotti. (Regular boatloads don’t work outside the US.) :D I realize this is not exactly intuitive, but my host mom is perfectly fine with my using the stove, as long as I clean up after myself. So, after dinner, she showed me where the baking soda was and how to light a gas oven, then retired to grade chemistry exams as I set to work mixing things. There is still not a single measuring utensil in the apartment, so I eyeballed the measurements and threw in the zest from about half a lemon between two batches. One batch turned out lovely and small like the tea cookies I was hoping for; the other batch over-raised and burned on the bottom, but slicing off the burned parts produced biscotti that were just as tasty, only slightly bigger. I took a good three dozen to school today, and they were very positively received; I think Lyudmila Afanasyevna took another dozen with her for lunch. :D
Another thing that’s keeping me thoroughly excited to be here: Russian chorus. :D I got Irina Gennadyevna’s permission to take video of her singing today, so I’m going to write down the music when I can. (This would be easier if I could get a hold of some staff paper, but I’ll probably just use the back of my notebook.) We have four songs now, two tragic laments and two bouncy jig-like songs, two of which will hopefully be accompanied: the chrysanthemum-themed mourning song by Evan on guitar, and the blini song by yours truly on violin! The director’s enthusiasm is infectious, and we can’t leave the room without humming and laughing. Great fun. :D
Alas, it is now time to head home and heat up some soup before my English class. It’s STILL SNOWING here—the weather conditions when I got up would have been classified as ‘blizzard’ back home—so traffic will naturally be more snarled than usual…and I may have to leave an hour and a half to get across the city. I bring a book with me, though, so it’s really not a problem, and it’s easier than walking to and from the Metro stations. Stay warm, everyone!
Holiday weekend!
Monday, 3:15 pm. Another holiday! This is International Women’s Day...though apparently it’s not particularly international, mostly a Russian holiday. I celebrated by sleeping in, as did Lyudmila Afanasyevna. :D Misha’s coming over in about two hours for dinner, and then the three of us are going to a show this evening—a Cuban dance spectacle! No, I don’t know why this particular show, but I think it was Misha’s idea, and it sounds awesome. Maybe I can practice translating between Spanish and Russian!
Saturday’s orchestra rehearsal went quite well, though attendance was down; not sure if people actually work on Saturday nights, or if they hadn’t gotten the message. I have discovered that Andrei Vladimirovich knows who I am, and though he speaks only a few words of English, he does his best to throw a couple of them into his speeches for my benefit. I don’t usually need it, but I appreciate the effort. :) I seem to be acquiring a reputation among my Russian acquaintances for being eager to participate, but very quiet. I suppose it’s true, mainly because I can understand Russian a whole lot better than I can speak it. I do really enjoy the listening, though. Russians as a whole are not…how shall I say…reserved?...so they’re very interesting to just listen to. :D
After rehearsal, I met up with a large group of friends and a bunch of us went dancing. Lyudmila Afanasyevna was out, so when I got home and couldn’t sleep very well, I spent a couple of the wee hours of the morning sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and reading Tom Clancy. Come to think of it, reading The Cardinal of the Kremlin in English while in Russia has a certain irony to it… :) I slept in on Sunday and met my new friend Ilya at the Hermitage! Sobesedniki are really just supposed to meet up and practice our conversation skills, so we wandered around the museum for three solid hours talking…not necessarily about the art. Ilya writes music and plays guitar and piano, is very well read, and (thankfully) has a great sense of humor, so those three hours flew. At one point, we were standing in front of a painting of angels playing musical instruments, trying to guess the chord being played by an angel holding a five-string cello. :D (We couldn’t figure out the tuning of the cello, so we decided C was probably a safe bet.)
I did not end up going out Sunday evening, which is really just fine. Erica and Matt and I have been trying to plan an outing to see Alice in Wonderland all weekend, but the two of them ended up going this afternoon. I’ll go see it with someone else later. :) For now, it’s just me, the Bruce Springsteen mp3s Ella gave me last week, and War and Peace. Lyudmila Afanasyevna is cooking some sort of special dinner for when Misha comes over, but she kindly shooed me out of the kitchen, so it’s R&R time. :)
12:15 am. Very interesting evening. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
First, meeting my host brother for the first time! I’m not sure why I’ve been thinking of Misha all along as “my host brother” rather than “my host mom’s son,” especially as I’ve been in Russia a month and just met him tonight. Misha is such a large part of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s life, though, that I guess I think of him as family just as much as I think of her as family. :) In any case, he’s pretty awesome. He just got back from a weekend of snowboarding in Finland, brought me Finnish chocolate (always a good start -heeheehee-), and insisted on speaking English because he wants to practice, though his is very good already. (I have to admit, I was also fascinated by his Fu Manchu-style mustache-goatee-thing, but I tried not to show it.)
Separately from the part about the show: lessons from riding around DC with a certain internship boss are true. European drivers (maybe just Eastern European) are NUTS. I’m probably glad I can’t convert from English to metric in my head yet, because I couldn’t tell how fast we were actually going when Misha drove us to and from the theater. On snow-covered roads, with blowing snow and intermittent traffic, most US drivers would be more careful. Russian drivers merely crank up the heat a notch and swerve around the truck that’s already halfway into the other lane because of the erratically parked cars. Tonight was fairly easy on the traffic front, too, because of the holiday. Workdays are dangerous. I’m not generally a reckless person, but crossing Suvorovsky Prospekt to the post office (perhaps seven minutes away from the apartment) has nearly made me into road pizza at LEAST three times…or maybe road pashtet instead. Come to think of it, there’s no reliable way to tell what pashtet is actually made of. Yet another reason to stay away from prepackaged food you can’t identify by sight.
/end rambling. The evening’s entertainment was a show called Kings of Salsa...not exactly what I thought I’d be seeing when I came to Russia, but a nice surprise. If I were hired to review the show, I’d put more detail. As it is…let me just recommend that, if they come to the States, you wait a couple of years to go see them until they’ve had more practice. And if any of my Audio Technology major friends want a job where they’d be certain to be doing good with their skills, please go apply to Kings of Salsa. All in all, though, it was great fun. Lyudmila Afanasyevna and Larisa Nikolaevna, her best friend who came with us, have decided that they want to learn to salsa—especially the shimmying part. :D I picked up an advertisement for a salsa studio near the Petrogradskaya metro stop that has free lessons on Fridays, and I’ve convinced Erica that we need to go one of these weekends. Now, if only we had a couple of men willing to join us…
I’m not sure yet whether this is a Russian thing in general or a Lyudmila Afanasyevna thing, but we sat and had tea and cake before the show, and we sat down and had tea and cake AGAIN after the show. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Any day off needs something like tea and cake, especially if it’s good cake. :) It seems that any social occasion involves tea, something to eat, and usually a series of toasts with something other than tea. Such occasions, with at least three conversations going at once in Russian and about half a conversation in English, are mentally exhausting, but they’re quite fun. And they make me miss my family back home something fierce.
Saturday’s orchestra rehearsal went quite well, though attendance was down; not sure if people actually work on Saturday nights, or if they hadn’t gotten the message. I have discovered that Andrei Vladimirovich knows who I am, and though he speaks only a few words of English, he does his best to throw a couple of them into his speeches for my benefit. I don’t usually need it, but I appreciate the effort. :) I seem to be acquiring a reputation among my Russian acquaintances for being eager to participate, but very quiet. I suppose it’s true, mainly because I can understand Russian a whole lot better than I can speak it. I do really enjoy the listening, though. Russians as a whole are not…how shall I say…reserved?...so they’re very interesting to just listen to. :D
After rehearsal, I met up with a large group of friends and a bunch of us went dancing. Lyudmila Afanasyevna was out, so when I got home and couldn’t sleep very well, I spent a couple of the wee hours of the morning sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and reading Tom Clancy. Come to think of it, reading The Cardinal of the Kremlin in English while in Russia has a certain irony to it… :) I slept in on Sunday and met my new friend Ilya at the Hermitage! Sobesedniki are really just supposed to meet up and practice our conversation skills, so we wandered around the museum for three solid hours talking…not necessarily about the art. Ilya writes music and plays guitar and piano, is very well read, and (thankfully) has a great sense of humor, so those three hours flew. At one point, we were standing in front of a painting of angels playing musical instruments, trying to guess the chord being played by an angel holding a five-string cello. :D (We couldn’t figure out the tuning of the cello, so we decided C was probably a safe bet.)
I did not end up going out Sunday evening, which is really just fine. Erica and Matt and I have been trying to plan an outing to see Alice in Wonderland all weekend, but the two of them ended up going this afternoon. I’ll go see it with someone else later. :) For now, it’s just me, the Bruce Springsteen mp3s Ella gave me last week, and War and Peace. Lyudmila Afanasyevna is cooking some sort of special dinner for when Misha comes over, but she kindly shooed me out of the kitchen, so it’s R&R time. :)
12:15 am. Very interesting evening. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to make of it.
First, meeting my host brother for the first time! I’m not sure why I’ve been thinking of Misha all along as “my host brother” rather than “my host mom’s son,” especially as I’ve been in Russia a month and just met him tonight. Misha is such a large part of Lyudmila Afanasyevna’s life, though, that I guess I think of him as family just as much as I think of her as family. :) In any case, he’s pretty awesome. He just got back from a weekend of snowboarding in Finland, brought me Finnish chocolate (always a good start -heeheehee-), and insisted on speaking English because he wants to practice, though his is very good already. (I have to admit, I was also fascinated by his Fu Manchu-style mustache-goatee-thing, but I tried not to show it.)
Separately from the part about the show: lessons from riding around DC with a certain internship boss are true. European drivers (maybe just Eastern European) are NUTS. I’m probably glad I can’t convert from English to metric in my head yet, because I couldn’t tell how fast we were actually going when Misha drove us to and from the theater. On snow-covered roads, with blowing snow and intermittent traffic, most US drivers would be more careful. Russian drivers merely crank up the heat a notch and swerve around the truck that’s already halfway into the other lane because of the erratically parked cars. Tonight was fairly easy on the traffic front, too, because of the holiday. Workdays are dangerous. I’m not generally a reckless person, but crossing Suvorovsky Prospekt to the post office (perhaps seven minutes away from the apartment) has nearly made me into road pizza at LEAST three times…or maybe road pashtet instead. Come to think of it, there’s no reliable way to tell what pashtet is actually made of. Yet another reason to stay away from prepackaged food you can’t identify by sight.
/end rambling. The evening’s entertainment was a show called Kings of Salsa...not exactly what I thought I’d be seeing when I came to Russia, but a nice surprise. If I were hired to review the show, I’d put more detail. As it is…let me just recommend that, if they come to the States, you wait a couple of years to go see them until they’ve had more practice. And if any of my Audio Technology major friends want a job where they’d be certain to be doing good with their skills, please go apply to Kings of Salsa. All in all, though, it was great fun. Lyudmila Afanasyevna and Larisa Nikolaevna, her best friend who came with us, have decided that they want to learn to salsa—especially the shimmying part. :D I picked up an advertisement for a salsa studio near the Petrogradskaya metro stop that has free lessons on Fridays, and I’ve convinced Erica that we need to go one of these weekends. Now, if only we had a couple of men willing to join us…
I’m not sure yet whether this is a Russian thing in general or a Lyudmila Afanasyevna thing, but we sat and had tea and cake before the show, and we sat down and had tea and cake AGAIN after the show. Not that I’m complaining, of course. Any day off needs something like tea and cake, especially if it’s good cake. :) It seems that any social occasion involves tea, something to eat, and usually a series of toasts with something other than tea. Such occasions, with at least three conversations going at once in Russian and about half a conversation in English, are mentally exhausting, but they’re quite fun. And they make me miss my family back home something fierce.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
In which Amanda decides to stick to browsing in bookstores
Saturday, 2:00 pm. Russian libraries are INTENSE. I brought my bookbag and massive amounts of vocabulary to attempt to organize…on a Saturday. Yes, I know. Erica and I had yet to visit the actual university library, as opposed to the one on the Smolny campus, and Zoltan agreed to show us. It’s a fantastic day outside, though—probably only -5C and sunny—so Erica and I parted ways; she’s planning to walk around the city and do a Dostoevsky tour. This would probably be more meaningful for me if I’d actually read more than half a book of Dostoevsky, so I left her to her adventure and met up with Zoltan at the Vasileostrovskaya Metro anyway.
Good news: the library is obviously big, quiet, and well-stocked. Bad news: the library is tough. They make you lock up your bags when you enter, and this included my purse, which always makes me nervous. I mean, the receptionist keeps the key, and in my opinion, you NEVER part a girl from her purse and keep the key. That’s just wrong. I am thus left with my computer (sans power cord, but there’s no place to plug it in, anyway), my folder-o’-worksheets, my notebook, a pen in my pocket, my dictionary, and a Tom Clancy novel. Also, you’re not allowed to check out books; what a library card allows you to do is request a book to look at for a certain period of time. Clearly, this place does not encourage browsing, which is mostly what I was hoping to do anyway. But, hey, now I know.
Week in review: Wednesday was Russian Civilization, spent discussing Nina Mikhailovna’s reasons why young people today are less than intelligent for believing fervently in Stalin. To be fair, she does try to cover both sides of the issue, but it’s still fun to listen to what is clearly her strongly held opinion. Following this class, the Russian chorus met again, singing first a very sad song about a deserted lover and then a bouncy number about—what else?—blini! The chorus is mostly made up of the words ‘vkusni blini,’ which means ‘tasty blini,’ repeated over and over. Erica and Ella and I were among the girls completely unable to keep a straight face until the end of the song. It’s great fun. :D
Wednesday was also another English class day, spent discussing one of my areas of very, very little expertise: shopping, film memorabilia, and spending large amounts of money. Four girls and Kolya (Nikolai) made it to class, so the six females in the room spent perhaps a leetle more time than absolutely necessary seeking his opinions on Paris Hilton and hairstyles. But, hey, he has a mullet, so it’s reasonable to think he has something to contribute to the discussion. :) After class, Erica and I (who both teach on Wednesdays) met at the steampunk café on Furshtatskaya (which I have since learned is called Factory Eggs…???) for a beer, blini (mmmmm), and girl talk. Many, many thanks to whoever placed the two of us in homestays next door to each other. :D
Thursday: class and orchestra. Since we’ve missed several Mondays this semester due to holidays, it’s been decided that we now have rehearsal on Saturday evenings until the concert. This is a minor inconvenience, but at least public transportation schedules don’t change on the weekend. We also met the big-boss conductor tonight! Konstantin Fyodorovich is actually our principal violinist, though he conducts most of the rehearsals; our real conductor is Andrei Vladimirovich Alekseev. He’s…an interesting character. He sort of lolls back in his chair while he conducts, speaks very rapidly and in short bursts, leaves in the middle of a piece if he thinks we’re doing well enough, and has long, lank black hair that’s usually in his eyes. Basically, the quintessential artiste. :) He’s a fun guy, though…and I think he was sort of wondering where the blonde in the back of the viola section came from, because I distinctly heard my name when he and Konstantin Fyodorovich were talking as we were packing up. (I understand that our main conductor is part of the orchestra and not long out of the university himself, but it’s SO WEIRD for the orchestra to call him by first name and patronymic, and Andrei Vladimirovich to call him Kostya.)
Friday: classes, including our FIRST QUIZ in Russian language! It really wasn’t much of a challenge, I am proud to note, though the lack of directions on the activities made it interesting until Albina Vitalievna explained what was going on. Russian teachers figure that the students are going to try to help each other, so they leave the room for a smoke break while the actual quiz is taking place…whereas an American teacher would be watching all eight of us like a hawk. We were good, though. We only explained a couple of the activities to those who hadn’t caught the directions the first time around. :)
Friday night, we had an event at Nikolaevsky Palace at 6:45, which is a bit of a stretch for those who had to run home after class ends at 5 and shower, dry their hair, and then take a forty-five minute trolleybus ride to get there. In my case, it was THREE trolleybus rides, as I ended up leaving both the 5 and the 7 when the fare-collectors announced route changes. :P I was only ten minutes late, thankfully. Part of the purpose of the event was to allow us to mingle with our host mothers, but Lyudmila Afanasyevna had tickets to the opera instead. :) So I met up with Devon and her host mom on the third bus and entered with them.
The event itself was a stage production called Feel Yourself Russian! (I’ll put in the Russian title once I have the invitation in hand again.) It was a music and dance show that was obviously put together for tourists, but despite the cheese, it was great fun. Russian ballerinas are exquisitely beautiful; Russian male dancers are unbelievably acrobatic; and Russian singers are also very, very talented. Even the band was wonderful, featuring a couple of accordions, miscellaneous hand percussion, a couple of mandolins, and the BIGGEST BALALAIKA IN HISTORY. Seriously, I’m not sure how they made this one; it may have involved seeking out some historic giant pine in Siberia and felling it for wood. I think this instrument was as big as me, and that’s not counting the neck. Incredible. :D They also had a reception, at which I tried both champagne (tasty) and caviar (not so much). It was red caviar, not the truly expensive black stuff, but still, it’s overrated. The small salty gobbets of fishy flavor were not greatly improved by the mayonnaise in which they were placed on a small piece of bread. I get the idea that caviar is better with toppings…like hard-boiled eggs. With about twice as much egg as fish.
A few of us went out after the show, and Erica and I once again ended up taking the metro home together and standing outside talking for quite some time once we made it home. It’s great fun when you don’t notice how cold it is until you’ve been standing outside deep in conversation for half an hour. :D I’m not sure what today’s plans are, but they don’t involve me going home until after orchestra rehearsal. My host mom is at her dacha for the weekend (the note she left on the table said she’d be back sometime tomorrow afternoon), so at least she’s not expecting me home for dinner. I’m two buildings away from the rehearsal room anyway, so I’ll probably stay here putting together vocab lists for a while and then go enjoy the glorious weather. :)
Good news: the library is obviously big, quiet, and well-stocked. Bad news: the library is tough. They make you lock up your bags when you enter, and this included my purse, which always makes me nervous. I mean, the receptionist keeps the key, and in my opinion, you NEVER part a girl from her purse and keep the key. That’s just wrong. I am thus left with my computer (sans power cord, but there’s no place to plug it in, anyway), my folder-o’-worksheets, my notebook, a pen in my pocket, my dictionary, and a Tom Clancy novel. Also, you’re not allowed to check out books; what a library card allows you to do is request a book to look at for a certain period of time. Clearly, this place does not encourage browsing, which is mostly what I was hoping to do anyway. But, hey, now I know.
Week in review: Wednesday was Russian Civilization, spent discussing Nina Mikhailovna’s reasons why young people today are less than intelligent for believing fervently in Stalin. To be fair, she does try to cover both sides of the issue, but it’s still fun to listen to what is clearly her strongly held opinion. Following this class, the Russian chorus met again, singing first a very sad song about a deserted lover and then a bouncy number about—what else?—blini! The chorus is mostly made up of the words ‘vkusni blini,’ which means ‘tasty blini,’ repeated over and over. Erica and Ella and I were among the girls completely unable to keep a straight face until the end of the song. It’s great fun. :D
Wednesday was also another English class day, spent discussing one of my areas of very, very little expertise: shopping, film memorabilia, and spending large amounts of money. Four girls and Kolya (Nikolai) made it to class, so the six females in the room spent perhaps a leetle more time than absolutely necessary seeking his opinions on Paris Hilton and hairstyles. But, hey, he has a mullet, so it’s reasonable to think he has something to contribute to the discussion. :) After class, Erica and I (who both teach on Wednesdays) met at the steampunk café on Furshtatskaya (which I have since learned is called Factory Eggs…???) for a beer, blini (mmmmm), and girl talk. Many, many thanks to whoever placed the two of us in homestays next door to each other. :D
Thursday: class and orchestra. Since we’ve missed several Mondays this semester due to holidays, it’s been decided that we now have rehearsal on Saturday evenings until the concert. This is a minor inconvenience, but at least public transportation schedules don’t change on the weekend. We also met the big-boss conductor tonight! Konstantin Fyodorovich is actually our principal violinist, though he conducts most of the rehearsals; our real conductor is Andrei Vladimirovich Alekseev. He’s…an interesting character. He sort of lolls back in his chair while he conducts, speaks very rapidly and in short bursts, leaves in the middle of a piece if he thinks we’re doing well enough, and has long, lank black hair that’s usually in his eyes. Basically, the quintessential artiste. :) He’s a fun guy, though…and I think he was sort of wondering where the blonde in the back of the viola section came from, because I distinctly heard my name when he and Konstantin Fyodorovich were talking as we were packing up. (I understand that our main conductor is part of the orchestra and not long out of the university himself, but it’s SO WEIRD for the orchestra to call him by first name and patronymic, and Andrei Vladimirovich to call him Kostya.)
Friday: classes, including our FIRST QUIZ in Russian language! It really wasn’t much of a challenge, I am proud to note, though the lack of directions on the activities made it interesting until Albina Vitalievna explained what was going on. Russian teachers figure that the students are going to try to help each other, so they leave the room for a smoke break while the actual quiz is taking place…whereas an American teacher would be watching all eight of us like a hawk. We were good, though. We only explained a couple of the activities to those who hadn’t caught the directions the first time around. :)
Friday night, we had an event at Nikolaevsky Palace at 6:45, which is a bit of a stretch for those who had to run home after class ends at 5 and shower, dry their hair, and then take a forty-five minute trolleybus ride to get there. In my case, it was THREE trolleybus rides, as I ended up leaving both the 5 and the 7 when the fare-collectors announced route changes. :P I was only ten minutes late, thankfully. Part of the purpose of the event was to allow us to mingle with our host mothers, but Lyudmila Afanasyevna had tickets to the opera instead. :) So I met up with Devon and her host mom on the third bus and entered with them.
The event itself was a stage production called Feel Yourself Russian! (I’ll put in the Russian title once I have the invitation in hand again.) It was a music and dance show that was obviously put together for tourists, but despite the cheese, it was great fun. Russian ballerinas are exquisitely beautiful; Russian male dancers are unbelievably acrobatic; and Russian singers are also very, very talented. Even the band was wonderful, featuring a couple of accordions, miscellaneous hand percussion, a couple of mandolins, and the BIGGEST BALALAIKA IN HISTORY. Seriously, I’m not sure how they made this one; it may have involved seeking out some historic giant pine in Siberia and felling it for wood. I think this instrument was as big as me, and that’s not counting the neck. Incredible. :D They also had a reception, at which I tried both champagne (tasty) and caviar (not so much). It was red caviar, not the truly expensive black stuff, but still, it’s overrated. The small salty gobbets of fishy flavor were not greatly improved by the mayonnaise in which they were placed on a small piece of bread. I get the idea that caviar is better with toppings…like hard-boiled eggs. With about twice as much egg as fish.
A few of us went out after the show, and Erica and I once again ended up taking the metro home together and standing outside talking for quite some time once we made it home. It’s great fun when you don’t notice how cold it is until you’ve been standing outside deep in conversation for half an hour. :D I’m not sure what today’s plans are, but they don’t involve me going home until after orchestra rehearsal. My host mom is at her dacha for the weekend (the note she left on the table said she’d be back sometime tomorrow afternoon), so at least she’s not expecting me home for dinner. I’m two buildings away from the rehearsal room anyway, so I’ll probably stay here putting together vocab lists for a while and then go enjoy the glorious weather. :)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Russian spring is...ironic
Tuesday, 7:00 pm. We now return you to your more-or-less regularly scheduled rambling blog post. :) Yesterday was the first Monday evening orchestra rehearsal I’ve attended, and I think I’ve established the structure of my Mondays here: class 11:30 – 5, then walking straight home after class, grabbing something quick for dinner, and leaving after about fifteen minutes to catch the bus to the main campus. Somehow, I was under the impression that Monday’s rehearsals started at 6:30…thankfully, I was wrong, and I was in fact present for the entire rehearsal. There’s a small concert on Wednesday at which those of the orchestra who can make it will be playing three of our pieces, but I teach on Wednesdays, which was accepted with quiet regret. I rather enjoy being a violist…among other reasons, because people actually notice if you’re absent. :) I even ended up making awkward half-understood small talk with Konstantin Fyodorovich, the conductor, on the bus on the way home. His commute makes me grateful for my own, actually; he takes the metro way out to the end of the blue line, then a bus from there. It makes my one-bus route look positively easy!
I had a very pleasant email Monday evening just before leaving. The results of our Russian speed dating two weeks ago have been published, and we’ve been paired with sobesedniki! As I expected, I’ve been matched with Ilya, the classic rock enthusiast. We have very tentative plans to meet this weekend, but so far they haven’t gone further than exchanging phone numbers. I think we’re both pretty psyched. :D
Tuesday’s classes were pretty normal, and this is one of the few nights when I don’t have extracurricular plans, so it’s laundry night. Thankfully, the repairman who woke me up with a drill a few days ago managed to fix the washer, so Amanda can has clean blue jeans. :D Probably the most eventful part of the day was the one-month interview with the CIEE staff, actually. I sat down with Jarlath for fifteen minutes and we talked about extracurriculars, the host family situation, Russian food, and the fact that the group is visiting Tsarskoye Selo the day before our birthday. :D:D:D:D:D:D (Tsarskoye Selo is a palace a couple of hours outside St. Petersburg where Nicholas II moved his family shortly before the revolution. I’ve only read about it in my guidebook, but the photos are GORGEOUS. Happy Amanda!) Jarlath actually sought my opinion on a School of Political Science talent show, which I heartily endorsed. I may have come off as a little overly bubbly during the interview, but I can’t help it. I’m loving it here!
I’ve also started, and gotten about halfway through, Lolita. It’s disturbing, but it’s also fascinating, hard to put down, and the most accessible piece of Russian literature I’ve ever picked up, which is quite nice. I appreciate the classics as much as anyone—heck, I finished the Complete Works of William Shakespeare before graduating high school—but every so often, it’s nice to be able to read a work of serious literature without having to go back and review every page to figure out which Princess So-and-so was having an affair with whom this time around. (Plus, Erica can finally get off my case about not having read it! Now, if Matt finds me a suitable translation of The Brothers Karamazov, I’ll work on that one next. But I’m letting it rest for now.) I may or may not be revisiting Bukvoed, the store where I found Lolita, this weekend. If I do, I’m going in a group again. :)
Lyudmila Afanasyevna has given up meat and eggs for Lent, which is both good and bad (and doesn’t really affect me, as she continues buying meat for me…awkward, but not necessarily something to change). On the one hand, she cooks some amazing vegetarian food; on the other hand, this means fish. Lots of fish. Lots of very STRONG fish. The entire apartment, starting at about two feet outside the door, smells like fish. Welcome to spring, everyone.
…actually, speaking of spring, apparently it’s started already as far as Russia is concerned. As Albina Vitalievna explained to us on Monday, March means spring, period. “Russian spring” is not spring. “Russian spring” means two inches of water (at least) on the sidewalks, slick barely-melted ice, MORE falling icicles, and ‘wintry mix’ that would stupefy a DC weatherman. One minute it’s snow, the next it’s rain, the next your glasses are crusted over. It makes getting anywhere particularly interesting, let me conclude. I sound like I’m complaining, but this whole paragraph reads better if you imagine it with an ironic laugh attached. Just another of the adventures we didn’t truly anticipate when we applied to this program. :) (Also, I am still allowing myself a moment of moral superiority every time one of my program-mates swears she HAS to buy rubber boots like mine.)
I think my jeans are done, so it’s time to break out the drying rack and wrap this up. Tomorrow: Russian Civ, Russian chorus, and English teaching! Tonight, there shall be nothing more eventful than another couple cups of tea, I hope. Stay dry, everyone. :)
I had a very pleasant email Monday evening just before leaving. The results of our Russian speed dating two weeks ago have been published, and we’ve been paired with sobesedniki! As I expected, I’ve been matched with Ilya, the classic rock enthusiast. We have very tentative plans to meet this weekend, but so far they haven’t gone further than exchanging phone numbers. I think we’re both pretty psyched. :D
Tuesday’s classes were pretty normal, and this is one of the few nights when I don’t have extracurricular plans, so it’s laundry night. Thankfully, the repairman who woke me up with a drill a few days ago managed to fix the washer, so Amanda can has clean blue jeans. :D Probably the most eventful part of the day was the one-month interview with the CIEE staff, actually. I sat down with Jarlath for fifteen minutes and we talked about extracurriculars, the host family situation, Russian food, and the fact that the group is visiting Tsarskoye Selo the day before our birthday. :D:D:D:D:D:D (Tsarskoye Selo is a palace a couple of hours outside St. Petersburg where Nicholas II moved his family shortly before the revolution. I’ve only read about it in my guidebook, but the photos are GORGEOUS. Happy Amanda!) Jarlath actually sought my opinion on a School of Political Science talent show, which I heartily endorsed. I may have come off as a little overly bubbly during the interview, but I can’t help it. I’m loving it here!
I’ve also started, and gotten about halfway through, Lolita. It’s disturbing, but it’s also fascinating, hard to put down, and the most accessible piece of Russian literature I’ve ever picked up, which is quite nice. I appreciate the classics as much as anyone—heck, I finished the Complete Works of William Shakespeare before graduating high school—but every so often, it’s nice to be able to read a work of serious literature without having to go back and review every page to figure out which Princess So-and-so was having an affair with whom this time around. (Plus, Erica can finally get off my case about not having read it! Now, if Matt finds me a suitable translation of The Brothers Karamazov, I’ll work on that one next. But I’m letting it rest for now.) I may or may not be revisiting Bukvoed, the store where I found Lolita, this weekend. If I do, I’m going in a group again. :)
Lyudmila Afanasyevna has given up meat and eggs for Lent, which is both good and bad (and doesn’t really affect me, as she continues buying meat for me…awkward, but not necessarily something to change). On the one hand, she cooks some amazing vegetarian food; on the other hand, this means fish. Lots of fish. Lots of very STRONG fish. The entire apartment, starting at about two feet outside the door, smells like fish. Welcome to spring, everyone.
…actually, speaking of spring, apparently it’s started already as far as Russia is concerned. As Albina Vitalievna explained to us on Monday, March means spring, period. “Russian spring” is not spring. “Russian spring” means two inches of water (at least) on the sidewalks, slick barely-melted ice, MORE falling icicles, and ‘wintry mix’ that would stupefy a DC weatherman. One minute it’s snow, the next it’s rain, the next your glasses are crusted over. It makes getting anywhere particularly interesting, let me conclude. I sound like I’m complaining, but this whole paragraph reads better if you imagine it with an ironic laugh attached. Just another of the adventures we didn’t truly anticipate when we applied to this program. :) (Also, I am still allowing myself a moment of moral superiority every time one of my program-mates swears she HAS to buy rubber boots like mine.)
I think my jeans are done, so it’s time to break out the drying rack and wrap this up. Tomorrow: Russian Civ, Russian chorus, and English teaching! Tonight, there shall be nothing more eventful than another couple cups of tea, I hope. Stay dry, everyone. :)
Monday, March 1, 2010
Week in review...warning: lax writing style
Monday, 1:15 pm. Good Lord. I apologize for such a delay in blogging but I’ve been indulging in another of my favorite activities: sleeping. (And homework, but that doesn’t really count as an ‘indulgence.’) I read over the entries I’d scribbled down between activities and realized that posting them one by one would make for really choppy reading, so I’ve condensed them into a sort of ‘week in review’ post. Enjoy!
Wednesday: classes, Russian chorus, and orchestra. Russian chorus consisted of about fifteen girls and two guys (heaven bless Evan and Matt) going through every word of a folk song in great detail with Irina Gennadyevna, then singing it at ever-increasing tempos. It doesn’t sound like much in the description, but it’s great fun, and as we learn more and more songs, we’ll learn more and more vocabulary, too. :D English class was spent discussing the concept of excess (and who better than an American to help with that part!) and cooking. I’m discovering just how much gets lost in translation when the translation is largely incomplete. How the heck do you explain the concept of “savoury” to someone who only speaks basic English? How do you even explain it to an English speaker?
Thursday: classes, then orchestra. We’re getting into the detailed work, and therefore the part of the rehearsal process where my lack of the language might be a detriment, but thankfully, Konstantin Fyodorovich speaks fluent gestures. Yulia or Angelina (tonight, Yulia) still translates for me, but I’m actually discovering that I need their translation less and less. Osmosis really is effective in learning a new language. :D We also had a small Men’s Day party at the break in rehearsal, for the two men in the orchestra (Andrei on violin and Ilya on cello) and our esteemed conductor. One of the second violinists, Vera, has a tendency to make long rambling speeches on occasions like this…and the rest of the orchestra has a tendency to hush her and go on with their conversations. :P We may or may not be having rehearsal on Saturday to make up for Monday’s lack of rehearsal. Nobody’s quite sure yet, so I’m waiting for a text message before planning Friday night.
Friday: classes, then Ladies’ Night (good news – no rehearsal tomorrow!). This was, admittedly, not a particularly exciting outing; eight girls met at a jazz club on Furshtatskaya, about a twenty-minute walk from my homestay (finally, I don’t have to go across the city to hang out with people!). Listening to rather elderly Russian men crooning Russian and American jazz was certainly a pleasant way to spend the evening, anyway, and I missed extensive amounts of girl talk. :) Most of the girls left from Sunduk to hit some club on Vasilievsky, but Ella and I really didn’t feel like taking a cab home from the other end of the city, so the two of us walked home together. She’s very good at convincing me to be sensible when I’m wavering on the edge of doing something silly.
Saturday: catch-up day with regard to homework, then a party! The political science department (probably one of their student organizations) is hosting a party this evening vaguely based on the theme of the movie ‘Tsars.’ This is not the same movie we half-watched on the bus back from Novgorod, but a different movie in which Ivan the Terrible ends up in the 1970s. Don’t ask; I haven’t. :P Anyway, it was my first excuse to break out my dress this semester! As it turned out, it’s quite difficult to make friends with Russian students when the music is THAT loud, but at least the dancing was fun. I stayed until fairly early in the morning and ended up walking home (from the far end of Nevsky Prospekt, this was not smart) with Irena, Devon, and Cecilia, all of whom live on the street leading up to mine. By “not smart,” I don’t mean that anything actually happened; it’s just a really long walk. I let myself in without waking Lyudmila Afanasyevna and fell into bed.
Sunday: spent the day with Olya after her lesson! The chemistry lesson lasted until about 1:30, most of which time I spent reading Tolstoy. I’ve embarked upon War and Peace, for better or worse. And I WILL finish it this semester, if it takes me the entire semester to do so. Anyway, the two of us and Ella went to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood…and were pretty much struck dumb when we walked inside. Every inch of the inside of that church that is not covered in marble is covered in mosaic tiles. It’s AMAZING. (And now that Jackie has explained to me how to upload pictures on Blogger, I’ll be putting in some pictures very soon!) It’s not a particularly interesting place to spend hours, at the moment, but in small doses, it’s breathtaking. :) Then, to regain our breath, we went bookstore-hopping! Nevsky Prospekt alone is lined with bookstores, many of which are open 24 hours—so if we ever want to go book shopping at three in the morning, we know where to go! :D I’m cheap, but I do have to watch myself in bookstores. I found a copy of Lolita for a little more than $5, though, so I have reading material that’s not War and Peace! :D
Wednesday: classes, Russian chorus, and orchestra. Russian chorus consisted of about fifteen girls and two guys (heaven bless Evan and Matt) going through every word of a folk song in great detail with Irina Gennadyevna, then singing it at ever-increasing tempos. It doesn’t sound like much in the description, but it’s great fun, and as we learn more and more songs, we’ll learn more and more vocabulary, too. :D English class was spent discussing the concept of excess (and who better than an American to help with that part!) and cooking. I’m discovering just how much gets lost in translation when the translation is largely incomplete. How the heck do you explain the concept of “savoury” to someone who only speaks basic English? How do you even explain it to an English speaker?
Thursday: classes, then orchestra. We’re getting into the detailed work, and therefore the part of the rehearsal process where my lack of the language might be a detriment, but thankfully, Konstantin Fyodorovich speaks fluent gestures. Yulia or Angelina (tonight, Yulia) still translates for me, but I’m actually discovering that I need their translation less and less. Osmosis really is effective in learning a new language. :D We also had a small Men’s Day party at the break in rehearsal, for the two men in the orchestra (Andrei on violin and Ilya on cello) and our esteemed conductor. One of the second violinists, Vera, has a tendency to make long rambling speeches on occasions like this…and the rest of the orchestra has a tendency to hush her and go on with their conversations. :P We may or may not be having rehearsal on Saturday to make up for Monday’s lack of rehearsal. Nobody’s quite sure yet, so I’m waiting for a text message before planning Friday night.
Friday: classes, then Ladies’ Night (good news – no rehearsal tomorrow!). This was, admittedly, not a particularly exciting outing; eight girls met at a jazz club on Furshtatskaya, about a twenty-minute walk from my homestay (finally, I don’t have to go across the city to hang out with people!). Listening to rather elderly Russian men crooning Russian and American jazz was certainly a pleasant way to spend the evening, anyway, and I missed extensive amounts of girl talk. :) Most of the girls left from Sunduk to hit some club on Vasilievsky, but Ella and I really didn’t feel like taking a cab home from the other end of the city, so the two of us walked home together. She’s very good at convincing me to be sensible when I’m wavering on the edge of doing something silly.
Saturday: catch-up day with regard to homework, then a party! The political science department (probably one of their student organizations) is hosting a party this evening vaguely based on the theme of the movie ‘Tsars.’ This is not the same movie we half-watched on the bus back from Novgorod, but a different movie in which Ivan the Terrible ends up in the 1970s. Don’t ask; I haven’t. :P Anyway, it was my first excuse to break out my dress this semester! As it turned out, it’s quite difficult to make friends with Russian students when the music is THAT loud, but at least the dancing was fun. I stayed until fairly early in the morning and ended up walking home (from the far end of Nevsky Prospekt, this was not smart) with Irena, Devon, and Cecilia, all of whom live on the street leading up to mine. By “not smart,” I don’t mean that anything actually happened; it’s just a really long walk. I let myself in without waking Lyudmila Afanasyevna and fell into bed.
Sunday: spent the day with Olya after her lesson! The chemistry lesson lasted until about 1:30, most of which time I spent reading Tolstoy. I’ve embarked upon War and Peace, for better or worse. And I WILL finish it this semester, if it takes me the entire semester to do so. Anyway, the two of us and Ella went to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood…and were pretty much struck dumb when we walked inside. Every inch of the inside of that church that is not covered in marble is covered in mosaic tiles. It’s AMAZING. (And now that Jackie has explained to me how to upload pictures on Blogger, I’ll be putting in some pictures very soon!) It’s not a particularly interesting place to spend hours, at the moment, but in small doses, it’s breathtaking. :) Then, to regain our breath, we went bookstore-hopping! Nevsky Prospekt alone is lined with bookstores, many of which are open 24 hours—so if we ever want to go book shopping at three in the morning, we know where to go! :D I’m cheap, but I do have to watch myself in bookstores. I found a copy of Lolita for a little more than $5, though, so I have reading material that’s not War and Peace! :D
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