Hello my people!

I, your Queen, have made it to an internet cafe. I even managed to pay for a computer and get set up without embarrassing myself. Yay! That means, among other thigs, that there are about fifty or sixty new photos my flickr account

Yesterday afternoon they gave us another bonus stipend, so I'm swimming in money, which is a good place to be. I am swimming a bit less now, since I went out and bought a buncha stuff today.

But, let's take this chronologically.

Yesterday, after I posted, I went around the internet and collected a few lace scarf patters so I'll have something to do on the cruise. Then I went to the restaurant for our wrap party.

The restaurant was Georgian- to those of you confused, this is the original small slavic nation for which our Georgia is named- and WONDERFUL. There is a myth that when God was creating the world, he took a snack break, tripped over the Ural mountains, and dropped his food into Georgia. I wholly believe it now.

When we came in, the tables were COVERED in food, wine, and juice, just waiting for us. This was the APPETIZER spread, and it was all everyone could do not to stuff themselves so silly that there was no room for the main course. I kept saying that I was done, I was done... and yet I kept eating! Wonderful. And apparently the wine was good (illegal) Georgian wine. Us non-drinkers had a wonderful pomegranate/cranberry juice that even the wine drinkers liked.

There were two hours between appetizers and the main course (the slavic version of barbeque, shashliki) and that was all that saved us.

The teachers started with a toast, thanking us and saying that we had ALL passed ALL of our tests. Massive cheers. Then everyone was toasting and talking and digging into the food. We were supposed to just ask about our individual grades whenever we wanted, and everyone just started eating and having a good time, since there was no reason to worry anymore.

As the evening progressed, everyone started wandering around to sit with everyone else. There was singing- we sang all of our silly, silly songs from phonetics, and then our phonetics teacher sang a bunch of other stuff. One student did a song, and then there was the singer who actually works at the restaurant, who was phenomenal. Some people said that they wished he'd sung all evening instead, but I think that for all of the students, it was great to do what we did.

By the time the main courses came out, hardly anyone was where they had been originally- everyone was trying to find out whose plate they had, and where their plate was.

Then more food (and more food and more food), and dancing, and flowers and wine and vodka for all the teachers- we passed the hat at our meeting today, and got everyone a lovely bouquette, or wine if they don't like flowers, or vodka if they didn't like wine. The teachers left eventually, making a little procession of toasts and wishes of good luck out of the restaurant.

Only after they had all left did we realize that NOBODY had remembered to ask about their grades. Oh well! I found, after I knew that I'd passed, that I didn't care. I just had a good time.

I finally wandered out with the last people at about ten thirty, and caught a marshrutka home.

While we were still hanging out outside the restaurant, a beautiful Russian wolfhound came by. I commented on how beautiful it was, and said how sad I was that you couldn't pet other peoples' dogs here. A teacher and our assistant said, "What? Why? Are you afraid you'll get bitten?"

"No. It just seems like no one does that here."

"Of course they do! I just petted someone's dog in the street yesterday! It's fine!"

So, of course, I went home with a little spring in my step, dog-deprived as I am.

As I was walking home from the marshrutka, I saw a gorgeous mastiff hanging out with his owner, who was talking to some friends. I was admiring it as I came up- huge, beautiful, mountain of muscles that it was- and wondered if I could pet it. I wasn't going to try, being very tired and on my way home, but it was a nice thought. As I came by, I smiled at it, but as I did so, I got a little feeling that something was wrong. The dog had its ears and and tail cropped all the way off- it was obviously a cold climate mastiff, so this is probably standard- so that it couldn't really emote. There was a look in its eye I didn't really like, so I started to walk at a little angle away from it.

At that point, the dog freaked out. It gave this huge snarl and leapt at me. It didn't get any piece of me, by some miracle, but it got my purse, ripped it off me- broke the strap- and shook it like it was killing something. The owner turned around and yelled, "Zhuzhka! What are you doing?" and the dog cowered and spat my (very drooly and broken) purse out. The owner handed to me, apologizing profusely, and I just took it, said "no problem" and went home.

The dog was on a leash, which was a good thing, but it was so weird- the owner seemed completely shocked at her dog's behavior. I don't know. I have a nice pair of welts on my neck from the sides of my purse strap, but it was only a seam that gave way, so I stitched it back together last night and it's working fine.

That actually begins my story today. I live like five minutes from two handbag shops, one of them called "one thousand and one handbags", so I thought I'd stop by and buy a new purse, since I don't think I did the most sturdy or attractive repair job on earth. However, I found out that all the handbags here are ugly and expensive, so I'm sticking with mine.

Then I went into town and took a lot of pictures of the main thoroughfare, and stopped in at the mall to buy- you guessed it!- amber (this piece had been haunting me, being perfect for one of YOU) and some yarn, as well as a scarf so I don't have to use any grody public head scarfs at the monasteries we'll be visiting.

After that I walked all over the place until it was time to meet my friends. Then I found the park where I was to meet them, sat down, and went to call them, only to find that my cell phone refuses to work. It keeps saying something too me, but the only word that I can understand out of it is "too much", so that doesn't help me at all. So then I bought an ice cream cone and sat in the park eating it, and when my friends didn't show up, I just went to the museum alone. They had uttered the famous phrase, "It can't take more than a couple of hours" about the art museum they'd been to that morning, so I assumed that they'd either gotten out hours ago or would be in there for hours yet.

The second proved to be true- as I was leaving the Ethnographic Museum, I ran into them coming in.

The museum was fascinating- displays of all the dress, tools, and lifestyles of all the major ethnic groups of the Russian territories, and a big temporary display of chinese artifacts. Really cool.

Then, after that, I walked for ten thousand years (or twenty minutes, depending on how tired your feet are) and found both this internet cafe and the jewelry store that had been recommended to me, where I bought something for myself for once, and something for Noni.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave on the cruise, so tonight I'm sorting my crap and getting packed. I'm basically packing for good, since I won't be spending another night in the apartment. I did all my laundry today, so of course the apartment is coated in it. I hope I get home before these grey clouds turn into rain- I really need my clothes to by DRY for tomorrow.

It was cool just wandering all over the city today. I think it was a good goodbye. I managed to communicate nicely with shopkeepers, and did things that I never would or could have done when I came. I feel wonderful, though sad to be leaving. Like I told my hostess, I wish that I could have St Petersburg and Portland right next to each other.

So, this is it. Au revoire, blog my darling. Someday we shall meet again.

FINALS

I am writing you this from beyond the academic grave.

I know I did well on the Reading test- it was WAY easier than I'd expected. The Listening test, I am fairly sure I at least passed. The grammar test is a toss up- I was sure about all my answers, but that hasn't been the best predictor before. The essay, who knows, and my Conversation final was just confusing. Either I did really well and made the panel of teachers happy, or I was really amusing. (it was done in the Russian oral final tradition, with a panel of teachers and a bunch of random questions. Ow.)

So I should find out about my grades in, oh, half an hour? EEEEEEEK.

I have tomorrow and sunday free. My hostess suggests that I go to these island-parks that are really beautiful tomorrow, but I don't know. I'm very tired and I still have some shopping to do (like for amber for noni!) and so forth and so on. I really want to get some pictures of the city and upload them, so I might just spend the day in the city and then stop at an internet cafe to upload my photos and post here.

Yesterday, as you read, I was very grumpy. Yay grumpy. AND the snack stand was closed, so no chocolate.

But then I went on the tour- it turns out that that WAS the activity, I wasn't skipping anything- of the gallery, and then the teacher and I went out for gelatto and buttons and yarn and yay. We get on like a house on fire, so it was a very good afternoon.

Lots of stories when I get home. I love you all- even you people who aren't even commenting!- and I can't wait to BE home again.

comments

Bridges make me nervous now, which is ironic because I'm in a city with several hundred bridges.

It is surprisingly tiring to speak a foreign language. I always surprise myself by how worn out I get, even on days when all I do is talk russian.

And it does seem to be a year for travel. The stars must be aligned or something.

Saw your email, noni. I realized that I hadn't bought myself any amber, and I need a scarf for monastery tours anyhow, so it seems that I'll be back in town for some shopping tomorrow or Sunday. I'll see what I can do for ya.

Barbara, it's wonderful to hear from you. I'm glad lily's getting back soon, and when I'm home I can sort out with her what she needs Shae to do. It's going to be a real vacation to get home and just sit around training my dog and reciting Shakespeare.

SO TIRED

GRAH

Well, first of all I'm sorry, but there will be no posts while I'm on the cruise or after, so tomorrow will be the last post, I believe. No, I might make it to an internet cafe before I go. Check anyway, I guess. I was going to try and do the cool thing where you can send text messages to your blog, but my phone is not compatible. Ah well. Cell service wouldn't be guaranteed, anyway.

I turned in my essay yesterday, as I said, and I just had my last two classes. Tests tomorrow, then one free day and off onto the boat.

The lectures and movies today and tomorrow are optional; I'm not going today. I'm going to go to an art thing and then tramp around the city a little with our translation teacher and some other students, camera in hand.

I can't wait to come home. I'm having the hardest time concentrating- one ear will be listening to the teacher or the discussion, and both eyes and the other ear will be at home, or in space, or anywhere but there. Oh well.

Mom, dad, you can call me tonight if you want. I feel like whining in English, and we might not be able to talk for almost a week once I leave for the cruise. However, we're still on for Saturday night regardless.

Blah.

At least I'm just worn out. Patrick, with whom I travel in the mornings, had to sit through all our classes not knowing if the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota was anywhere near his family, or if they were around it when it happened. He borrowed my phone card to call home just now, and everything's fine, thank heavens.

And now I am going to go buy an overdose of chocolate from the very nice girl who runs the ultrasecure snack place across the courtyard, and sit in the sun and be grouchy.

Onward with the days...

Lessee...

Yesterday afternoon I went to the Russian version of the mall and got a little shopping done. Then I went home and tried to do homework.

And tried and tried... I got a rough draft of my essay done before I had to pass out, and then tried to wake up early (succeeding marginally) to copy it over this morning. My god.... They count up all your errors and deduct them from the total points available. You need at least 60% of the points to pass, but there are only forty points and I turned in a four hundred word essay. The teachers said that she was confident we would all pass, but frankly I'm very worried. It didnt' help that I turned it in and she said that I'd misspelled the third word in the title. (She let me fix it, and I know why I made the mistake, but still nervous making.)

Talked to mom and dad last night... boy, I'm starting to miss home. I'm just so tired of constant study. Even when I'm not actually doing homework, I'm studying russian- which is the point of this whole escapade, but I'm getting worn out.

We have one more day of classes, then finals day, and then we leave on our cruise.

As for our itinerary, I'll try and put it up tomorrow. I forgot my copy today.

Today we will be having the translation workshop promised to us yesterday; yesterday, we all piled into the lecture hall and.... started learning about stress patterns in the declension of nouns. They did a little switcharoo on us. Oh well, we get it today, so it's all the same.

....they're also planning on doing language lectures ON THE BOAT. All our teachers are like, "you get to relax soon! yay!" but we know that they'll be herding us into the mess hall to learn about spelling rules or stuff.

Everyone's nervous about the tests. I walked by some people smoking in the courtyard, and one of them was saying, "...I just keep thinking, someone's going to say- 'Hey! The State Department called! They say thanks for wasting our money, retard!'" Then everyone laughed, but slightly nervously.

Victor, I'm still trying to track down your music. Promise not to kill me if I can't find any?

COMMENTS

I fixed the link on my previous post, and here it is again. CLICK ME

Nurmi, you will have to recommend me a few good books.

Grandma, a soviet comedy was made under the Soviet censorship regime- you only laugh at the right things at the right times. A Russian comedy could be soviet, or could be made freely before or after (or outside of) the Soviet Union.

Backlog of info!

Yes, now I have to type four days' worth of blog instead of just one.

Friday was... um... I can't remember what we did friday.

Oh yeah! We watched the movie Zerkalo, or Mirror. I think it's fairly famous even in the english speaking world. It's by the same guy who did the Russian original of Solaris, grandma. I liked it. I don't claim that I understood it, but I liked it.

Then I finished Harry Potter, the act of which- so far from the rest of my Harry Potter peoples- drove me to such heights of homesickness that I actually bothered to use my phone card and call home.

Then came Saturday. I went to the Museum of History of Saint Petersburg with a couple of friends, which was wonderful and kind of terrifying. It was very interesting to read all of the old propoganda posters and try to understand them. Sometimes there were linguistic difficulties, but sometimes I just didn't get the point- a poster saying "YOUTH ON TANKS!" with pictures of.... youths on tanks. Okaaay.

But then I got into the portions of the museum devoted to the Great Patriotic War and the Seige of Leningrad. The Seige, in case you haven't heard of it, was a period of 900 days- three years- in which almost no food or supplies made it into the city. Over half of the population starved to death, all the while still cranking out tanks and missiles. The front was so close to the city that the tanks didn't even have to be delivered- they were just driven from the city to the war.

The siege was timed, coincidentally, for a record-breakingly cold winter. The germans' plans for the city were to kill as many Russians as possible, so there'd be less to feed over the winters to come. There is black and white footage of gaunt people in huge coats, pulling sleds through the street and barely even looking at the bodies on the sidewalk. Sometimes someone puts a body on a sled. In the spring, everyone had to go around finding people who had died and been buried under the snow all winter. All the men were fighting, so it was women and children and old men running the city. My hostess told me that her mother had written in her diary that they had had wonderful, wonderful soup one day- made out of glue. All the parks were turned into cabbage fields, or dug with slit trenches to try and protect people from the constant bombing.

I was looking at a diorama of some of the internal fortifications of the city, and realized that the soldiers, sandbags, antiaircraft arms and smoke were all on a little embankment where I get off the marshrukta every day.


As I said, kind of terrifying.

Then I went to the bookstore, went home, and fell asleep.

The next day we all loaded up nice and early to go to The Czar's Woods, or however you can translate it. It's another summer palace complex, like Peterhof, and it's also where Pushkin studied.

I had a bit of an incident when the trolleybus I took decided that it didn't want to be a number 10; all its life it had dreamed of being a number 7. Before I realized that there was a mechanical midlife crisis underway, we were already on the wrong island. I got off and tried to catch a marshrutka, but there were none. No buses going my way, metro would have taken over forty minutes to get where I was going. I finally called one of our organizers who, it turned out, wasn't on duty and was actually asleep, but she told me where I could catch a marshrutka. as I turned to try and find it, the first cab I'd seen all day went by. I flagged him down, he screeched to a stop and nearly caused an accident, I confirmed a price with him, and off we went. It would have cost me about six bucks, but since I didn't have change I paid him eight. I got there on time though!

Then we went to the palace, which was gilded and mirrored and gorgeous and of which there are now many pictures in my Flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aubraspictures/ I would have taken even more, but I thought we were going to go through more rooms so I just took the coolest ones. Turns out that most of the interior is still being renovated after the German occupation.

You can also buy Baltic amber there, over which I drooled for some lenght of time- a half to a third of the price here- and there was a big souvenir flea market. I think that someone gypped me out of an extra hundred rubles there, but what the hey. I did some mental math and added my bill up to six hundred. I asked, and the girl looked at me like I'd grown a third ear and said seven hundred. I paid up, went home, redid the math, and thought, HEY!

Oh well.

It was so hot when we went into the palace that I almost bought a fan from one of the souvenir stalls. Then, as we were leaving, I went through some of the very nice art and jewelry and souvenir shops, and started falling in love with some shawls. They were all so expensive, but I really liked one that had no price. I asked, and it was fifty dollars- almost half as much as I'd expected. I bought it, kind of laughing at myself, but happy. I showed it off in the overwarm lobby while we waited for everyone else.

Then, when we got outside, the wind was blowing, the sky was over cast, and it was starting to rain. And who, may I ask, had just bought a nice warm shawl? Me! I was one of the few warm and dry people from then on. And fairly stylish, too.

Then we had a picnic! Lovely day for a picnic. We were all crammed under a little shelter in the middle of a clayey field, watching some Russian folks grilling food for us. Most people just went ahead and hit the ample supplies of beer, wine, and vodka to keep warm. I and the other two people who don't drink were very bored.

One guy from my group impressed everyone with the fact that he could down vodka like a russian... we had to herd him onto the bus when we left. Then the next day I found out that no one had actually made sure he got to his house safely. Jeez. Three people got off with them, and from what they said then they were going to stick with him! Aargh.

So, four wet, bored, and cold- though well fed- hours later, we went home. Then I tried to do homework.

Yesterday I documented my trip to school- as can be seen in the Flickr account- and then had classes and a lecture on grammar. Then we watched a movie called Brother, or Brat in russian. VERY cool hit-man movie. Fun fun fun. (Dad, you and me and mom are watching Zerkalo when I get back, and you and me are watching Brat.)

Then I went home and tried to do homework.

Today we have our second translation workshop, and then I'm going to go souvenir shopping in town, and then I'll try to do homework. I had better try pretty damned hard, because I've got an unreasonable amount due tomorrow, part of which is that final essay which is long and important and, as yet, only an idea floating around my head. Aargh.

Anywho, as I said, lots of photos are up now, and my cards are cleared for more photo taking. Thursday, I have plans with a friend to wander town and get some sightseeing and photo taking in before we leave.

Tomorrow I might try and get the photos into folders so you know what you're looking at, but that might have to wait until I get home. Suffice it to say that the dogs in the pictures are asleep, not dead, and that the kitty is named Nils and is a petting whore.

EDIT

Now all the photos are in sets that say what they're of. You can see all the sets down the right hand side of the main page on my album. http://www.flickr.com/photos/aubraspictures/ Have to run to lecture now! Talk to you tonight, mom and dad!

Small post today

Not because I'm lazy, but because I'm setting up my Flickr account! You can look at my photos at http://flickr.com/photos/10774783@N08/ . They're unlabeled as such, but meh- they're there!

Art art art.

Yesterday's lecture was by the girl who is normally our tour guide. She's vastly knowledgeable and eloquent in two langauges, and she gave us a lecture on Russian icons and icon traditions. Interesting. (Actually more interesting than the icons we saw later.)

Anyway, after she finished the lecture she herded us all across town and handed us over to a Russian guide at the Russian Museum. She is mainly licensed as an english-speaking freelance guide, so she can't take us some places, and in others isn't allowed to speak Russian to us, so I have to assume the Russian Museum was one of those places that only uses their own guides.

Anyway, this guide was very good. She didn't have the same sparkle as our usual one, but she was good. Good enough, in fact, that I think we picked up about eight Russian tourists by the time we got through the museum.

It was wonderful to get so close to so many beautiful russian paintings. I know exactly what portaits I'm going to steal if the apocalypse comes! And thanks to another painting, I know what that looks like! (well, it was actually of pompeii, but hey.)

Then I wended my way home, to dinner and news that Marina Sergeevna was coming back. She arrived later that night, when I was reading HP at my desk, and it turns out that she's back in town to translate- apparently there's a man who has built a church and social program somewhere that I couldn't place the name of, and now he wants to do one in Finland, so there'll be people from all over and they wrangled Marina Sergeevna to translate for them. She came into my (her) room to look for a dress and kerchief that would be suitable, and unfortunately found only a kerchief and a bunch of heavy sweaters. We chatted about my studies, and when she found out that we'd be going north on the rivers, she went and got a book from the other room- pictures of the north of russia in all seasons. Staggeringly beautiful. (damned cold in winter, too)

Lyuba also went out and bought the other simplified detective from that series. I'm a chapter in and ten people have died. ^^ She has borrowed the unsimplified one that I have- too complicated for me at the moment- and will no doubt be up to her eyes in it all weekend.

FINALS!

WHY MUST THERE BE FINALS?

Wahhhhhhh.

All our teachers keep saying that they don't really need to test us, they know our progress... but nonetheless we should rememorize everything we've done so far. I have more Writing homework than ever this weekend, plus a big essay that's the final test for TWO classes, and I've been getting rather erratic results in my grammar quizes, so I need to reread all of that stuff. It's I think partly because the teacher is new to teaching- for instance, I missed two or three points on a quiz today because I used the neutral phrase instead of the negative, and the negative instead of the neutral, because we disagreed on whether something was bad or just meh.

I got a writing test back today, and I did fairly well on it, except in the end we had to write 50 words on something, and I lost a couple of points for bad grammer. My writing teacher explained that I don't pay any attention to my endings, and that I just write anything that comes into my mind (said kindly, and no, my grammar isn't THAT bad). Unfortunately, my grammar teacher, out of whose class I had just emerged, was sitting nearby and shot me a look that I would normally be inclined to read as very dirty. I wonder what it meant in Russian. I hope nothing that bad.

I hope to finally get to that yarn shop this weekend. And Victor, I'm keeping an ear out for where I can buy CDs- I haven't been looking, thus far, but I'm going to try hard to bring you back some Garik Sukachev, like you asked.

It's so hard to believe that we've only got one more week loose in the city! Wahh!

Comments

Matt, when you were fourteen, they were up to what, the second book? They only started growing teeth in the third book, and by the fourth book people die and there's a good dollop of mental torment.

And when you were fourteen you probably started to read Kant. That's where it all went down hill. *shakes head*

Look forward to seeing you, too.

Glad that everyone is getting their share of Harry Potter, too. Indeed a good read.

Annabelle! I am so sad that I don't get to see you before you go home. Just imagine that I'm sitting on you and giving you a noogie, and that'll be almost as good. ;-) And if you represent me, does that mean I represent Josh?

Russian comedy, I cannot explain, because the only comedies I've watched were Soviet comedies. Modern, who knows. Slapstick, confusion, human foibles, and drinking seem to be staples of what I've seen.

WHEEEEEEE

I HAVE HARRY POTTER!

Copies of the book are like contraband here- in order to get my copy, I sidle up to a lot of people and said I was looking for a copy. They in turn could only repeat rumors of people, locations, and waiting lists. Finally I got a tip that there was a free copy that no one knew about. After a little more sidling and whispering, I got my grubby little paws on it.

Of course, I had to force myself to write my essay and eat and things before I started reading it, but I chewed my way through 220 glorious pages last night. Mmmmm lovely.

ANYWAY you probably want to hear about Russia now.

After I posted yesterday, we had a joint lecture that was... controversial. I'm too tired of arguing about it to go into much detail, but suffice to say that it was being presented to the wrong audience- it was tips for English speakers in Russia, and was a bit too heavy on generalization and overcaution. The poor presenters had a tough crowd- they didn't quite deserve the reception they got.

Then we all went outside and argued about the presentation (and did some whispering and sidling about a certain Book) until we were all late for the movie.

Then we went in, and the guy who introduces the movies as usual got sidetracked and talked for an extra fifteen minutes, and then we had a lovely hour and a half of a Soviet heist movie.

After that, I turned my weary way home (alone, since everyone else was still arguing about the presentation).

As I was nearing my building, I heard someone calling "girl! girl!" behind me. I havу made a rule of not turning around when people call me thus, because it's usually someone of the drunk and stubbly sort, but this was a lady's voice and a bit distressed.

So I turned around, and a very nicely dressed and very distressed young woman came up to me and explained in a teary rush that either her cat was dead or her bag had been stolen (koshka umerla or meshok ukrali, not so easy to differentiate in those conditions), and in either case she didn't know what to do. I told her I didn't speak the best Russian, and could she please speak a little more slowly. Her bag had been stolen, it turned out, and she had no way to get home. I gave her fifty rubles for the metro ($2), and she offered to meet me to return the money later. I think she was worried that, as a foreigner, I might actually ACCEPT this offer, because an extra splash of relief washed over her when I gave the russian reply of nonononono. Then she turned and hustled to the metro station.

Let me mention at this point that there was a Militia (police) van in the middle of the road not fifty meters away. That's the rule around here- avoid the police, and if you need something- directions or anything- find a woman going somewhere carrying something. That's actually the advice they gave us when we came.

Then I got home to find that Lyuba was out, so I had the whole apartment to myself, and did my essay and ate dinner and buried myself in happy reading for a few hours.

I seem to have forgotten to recount the end of the Big Repair.

I mentioned awhile ago that we were going to have some repairs in my room, and that I had, after stage one, a pipe going halfway up my wall. Then three weeks went by, or however long, and then there was a pipe, not only going halfway up my wall, but another one coming out of the cieling to the floor, rather impeding my desk. Finally, another flood of workmen has come and gone, and there is a nice shiny new pipe going from floor to ceiling, with a brief stop at the radiator.

It's very hard to say "repair", because it's not really repair. The Russian word is "remont". Technically, it just means repair, but remont is not a process. Remont is a way of life. there's a whole pack of purely Russian connotations that go along when you say "remont" that just don't get through when you say "repair."

Comments

I have been to St. Isaacs- even climbed up and looked at the panorama. I've got some lovely pictures from there, whenever I manage to upload them. Lovely, but very different from the Church of the Spilled Blood.

I'll try and do people pictures soon, too... I was going to earlier, but my housemates have been a mite scarce.

Anв yes, Orthodox services are long, long and also have no sitting allowed. Even the Tzar had to stand, though he had the privilege of standing a step above everyone else on a little velvet platform.

Joshy washy! See email.

If anything could convert me to Russian Orthodox Christianity...

It would have to be the cathedral we went and saw yesterday. Amazing.

It was The Church of the Spilled Blood, which was built on the site of the assassination of a tzar; if this sounds familiar, it's because I talked about it a little before, and posted some pictures of the exterior. I don't have any pictures of the interior, due to not having a camera, but there is no way they would be adequate, anyway.

The entire inside of the church- walls, ceiling, floor- was covered in mosaic. The floor and parts of the walls were in mosaics of marble in sweeping designs, and with details in the semi precious stones that Russia is so fond of- jasper, lapis lazuli, et al. I am learning that well-carved stone is more beautiful than anything.

Most of the church was mosaics in fresco form, though- a sort of mosaic that uses small shards of glass infused with different metals to make the colors. There werу over 400 colors used in the church, and the making and applying of them is so painstaking that it takes a single artist an entire year to do one square meter.

As I said, the entire interior of the cathedral.

There were over 270 saints, larger than life size, as well as several huge panels depicting scenes from Christ's life. It was staggering in its detail and beauty. They also preserved the piece of street on which the tzar died- there's a sort of shrine in front of The Entombment of Christ, and if you look down into it there's just a piece of old cobblestone road in the middle of all that glory.

After that I just went home; soooooo tired.

Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter. Rumor has it that there are three copies circulating- at least one should be free on friday, but the other two are shrouded in mystery. There is one store in the center of town that carries- or carried- it, but I have yet to trek that way myself. I'm trying to get dibs on one of the circulating copies.

And as for the movie, apparently it's got a good job of dubbing and is fairly understandable. However, when I'll have the oomph and the time to go see it, I don't know.

We had our translation workshop yesterday- SO FUN. My group spent an hour and a half on two poems- one really sappy 1800's love poem, and one Anna Akhmatova from 1915. I was very excited when, a couple of lines in, I realized that not only was the Akhmatova a poem that I loved in translation, but it was one that I had compared translations of in Intro to Poetry last year. It never occured to me that I'd be able to read the original. As I said, freakin' cool. I'm even passingly pleased with my translation. It turns out that a) the original is in iambic meter and b)rhymes. I managed to keep the meter, but my rhymed translation is a horror that should be expunged from this earth. (I'm still working on it.)

The translation teacher (who is also, incidentally, the knitter) says that she's going to try and get us at least one more session to fine-tune all of our translations.

Ugh... I couldn't sleep for the life of me last night. I was so tired, so glad to be in bed, so.... awake. Getting out of bed this morning, I felt like some sort of somnolent Sysiphus. Oh well. I have a freeish evening today, so I can write the essay that's due tomorrow and hopefully wend my way bedward at a decent hour.

I shall- I SHALL I say- try and take a bunch of pictures over the next week and a half, and hopefully upload a bunch. I don't know. Bleh.

BARBARA or LILY if you're reading this, please email me a little info about shakespeare this summer? your emails escape me for the moment, and I want to make sure I have some sort of idea of what I should be thinking about. This is assuming that I am still in the role of whiny guy with dog, of course.

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I hope that I won't have to wait until I get home to read HP- at the very latest I can expect to have it for the cruise.

As for the cruise, we'll be going north along the rivers and across the great lakes of russia, getting off to see some of the (apparently breathtakingly beautiful) area and historic sites. It's a cruise for russians, so it's still part of our language training. Should be about five days, I think.

Aaaargh.... cute lab images in my mind now. It was bad enough that I heard all the dogs over the phone yesterday. Mom put Shae on the phone, but instead of being happy to hear me, she seemed to think that mom was playing some sort of cruel trick, playing Aubra noises when there was no Aubra around. Need puppies!

Goodbye, Mr Sun!

Cloudy cloudy cloudy.

Yay for grammar this morning... oh, what a pain it is. Just grammar in general I think, not our teacher. This morning's class was actually pretty good.

Yesterday's movie was not the lighthearted Soviet comedy we were promised. That one hadn't been delivered yet. Instead, we got to watch Little Vera, an emotional rollercoaster of Perestroika life with lots of yelling and drinking and pain and naked people. Everyone came out of the auditorium worn out and depressed. Well, that's how everyone went in, so we all came out MORE so.

Supposedly, the comedy will be on Wednesday.

Sleep... how I miss thee. Last night I even went to bed at ten- TEN!- when I should have been doing homework still, and slept the whole night (alright, weird fairy tale nightmare woke me up briefly), and I was still so INCREDIBLY tired this morning.

That said, I still can't believe that this is our second to last week of classes. Then we take our cruise, and then we go home. Wow.

Hmm. Russia, Russia, Russia. I see a lot more dogs with muzzles on around here, and a woman was walking some sort of pit breed who had obviously had his head rather severely chewed on at some point. Then I passed a guy walking away from the metro station with a fresh cut on his face. (I know of at least one sighting of someone covered in blood, stumbling vaguely in the direction of the hospital, but I haven't had any such myself.)

There seem to be two variants on the street musicians here- small bands with at least one guitarist/singer, and people playing accordions. There was one girl playing the violin, but she seems to have been the exception. One of the accordionists I saw couldn't have been more than thirteen, and her little sister was watching her gravely from the other side of the metro tunnel.

I also see a lot of people walking through the streets with large musical instruments strapped to their backs- guitars and cellos, mostly.

Tonight I'm going to a cathedral, and thursday I'm going to the Russian Museum, and then I think I've signed up for something on Saturday. I forgot my camera today, forgetting that cathedrals are generally places where one likes to take pictures. Oh well.

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Grandma, have you ever met a lab who WASN'T obsessed with toys?

And Nurmi, "I read a book necessarily to call. You (plural) to wait until that of time for the meantime to that to do so, overly?"

Mayyyyybe you could send me that in English.

Constantine, Constantine, wherefore art thou Constantine?

I must say that I am highly disappointed.

I have been in Eastern Europe for over a month now, and I have yet to see ONE vampire. I mean, seriously! I have been to cathedrals, the sites of gory atrocities, ancient graveyards, and forboding ancient tombs. In fact, I've been to several places that were all of those at once. I've even been to a desecrated cathedral, and nothing! Same goes for ancient streets and deep underground metro stations at midnight. What gives?

Maybe it's just the wrong season- if the sun never sets this time of year, it's probably when all of them go on vacation or something. Still, I've got at least two sightings at home- I was hoping that Russia would be more fruitful.

Anyway, today is the kind of day that in Russian is called 'miraculous,' and I can believe it. The sun is shining, shining up in a huge blue sky with puffy white clouds floating past. It's very warm in the sun and fairly chilly in the shade, and it's just glorious. I did my laundry on Saturday, and almost everything was dry the next day, which is miraculous in itself- I was beginning to suspect myself of being a waterwitch, because every time I did laundry it poured.

Saturday was mostly kicking around the apartment. Yesterday I went to the Mariinsky- again!- and saw a one act opera and a one act ballet. The opera was stravinsky- might be called Nightingale in english- and awesome. The ballet... meh. Modern ballet about ancient gods is not my forte. The coolest thing that happened there was that I was late- no, that's not the cool thing- and had to sit on the floor for the opera. Then, during the intermission, I actually managed to have a conversation with an usher about where I was supposed to be, and they didn't break into English the minute they heard my accent. Joy! (It was actually better to sit on the floor for the opera- I think that I had one of the best seats in the house. The ballet was good from the balcony, so all around good luck.)

Thank the gods for my foresight in bringing a book of crossword puzzles. I didn't do a single one on the planes, I didn't do any for weeks- I was to the point of thinking that I would never, every do one and I'd bring it back to the united states untouched. Then, on Saturday, a spirit seized me and I think I did about seven in a row. I've been glued to that little book.

I may soon have a working photo gallery. I'm extra leery now about carting my technology around if I'm going to be out at night, now- one of the guys in my group had his cell phone stolen by the police, on his way home at about two. I'm rarely out past eleven, but it's still nervous-making.

Heh. Last night I must have been feeling a little subconsciously homesick, because my internal 'Time to Feed the Horses!' timer went off. It hasn't done that since my first week out.

Once again, I'm absolutely sure that there are a thousand more things to say, but I can't remember any of them right now. Miss you all!

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I've read that sign, Nurmi. I can totally believe it now. I have yet to see any humorous signs in english, but the shirts are certainly entertaining. The disillusioned punk with a sweatshirt that said "punk are not dead,"; the young man striding across a bridge in a shirt that says "PLOW"; a tiny old bird-like babushka, kerchief over her hair, waiting for a bus and looking for something in her handbag, in a baggy jacket that says in huge orange letters, "Wanna take it? Feel free."

Martha Stewart probably has a genetically engineered poodle that folds out into a full bathroom suite and dressing room, and can fold a perfect napkin at the same time.

PS

Almost forgot to mention this. I heard NSYNC playing in the supermarket yesterday. Horrors.

My god Russian is hard...

No matter how much I learn, I still can't understand everything! I'm starting to worship our American teachers, who somehow managed to become fluent. HOW???

That said, however, my understanding is getting much, much better every day, and my speech is really picking up. I managed, with a little stumbling, to use a grammatically complicated phrase in an actual conversation with Lyuba the other day, and she raised her eyebrow and smiled as she turned back to the stove, and muttered that I had improved greatly. I've been having moments like that a lot- and now I'm at a point where I can actually start expressing complete thoughts without leaping for a dictionary every three words, which is a relief. My grammar in speech is still limping, but is better than before by lightyears. (The trouble in Russian is less about knowing how the grammar works than about managing to DO it all in the time between thinking a thought and saying it. There are about 20 conjugational options per verb, and about 12... 13? different declensional options for every noun. My numbers are probably wrong, but that's what it feels like.)

Lessee... yesterday's afternoon lecture was a psychologist, who was great but wanted a little more audience participation that we could offer him, and tried to use poetry to illustrate points, forcing our two bilingual teachers to translate for him, which was a little awkward, especially since one of the poems made them blush.

Then I little a little net surfing and left for the theater, entirely looking over the fact that it was five, not six. Thus I arrived at the theater not a half hour early, but an hour and a half early. Waaaayyyy too far to go home or to any of my usual wandering places, no open cafes. I fed the pigeons in the park for half an hour (I keep some of the awful cafeteria bread in my purse for just such an emergency), and then took a walk along the canal and looked at all the parks and people.

Two strange incidents on that walk. One was just a bastard being a bastard- here, if you want to get across a busy street with no lights, you have to go lane by lane. I was waiting on the center line for the way to be clear, and some creep in a white SUV decided to have some fun and swerved at me and honked. I think I managed to keep from visibly leaping out of my skin, but my heart might still be in one of the upper branches of a tree near there.

Then as I was walking along the canal, I looked down on the embankment to see a man watching a little Pekingese paddle to shore and then get out and shake off. The man regarded the dog, the dog regarded the man. I assumed that the dog liked to swim after ducks, and the man was letting it do so. Then, as I rounded the corner of the canal, I looked down to see that the guy had that dog up by the scruff and was sort of staring at it at arm's length. The dog seemed to be pretty nonchalant, so I thought maybe this was some sort of drip-dry routine they had. Then, as I walked on, I heard a huge SPLASH and looked down to see the pekingese paddling back to the embankment. The dude threw it back in the canal! Then it got out, shook off, looked up at the guy, and peed on the railing. The man just stared at it, with no sort of expression on his face. Then they just sort of ambled off together. I have no idea what happened after that, except that I then passed someone I'm pretty sure was the guy, walking the opposite direction he had been, sans dog. I checked, and it wasn't hopelessly paddling in the canal anywhere I could see, so I have NO explanation for this.


Then I found a fellow classmate eating bread in a park, and we chatted for a little while, then went to the theater. I had seat one in row one, which was great for music and seeing the stage, and hell for reading the supertitles- my neck is still a little sore. The supertitles sucked anyway, unfortunately- a little summary about every ten lines. I know that there's a lot of repetition in some of the scenes, but I understood enough Italian to know that more was going on.

It was funny anyway, and I had a great time. It didn't have the same amazing spark that La Traveatta did, but was fantastic nonetheless.

Then I went home, ate a massive dinner, and tried hopelessly to stay awake for homework purposes. Then I went to bed.

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Nurmi, the statues are actually modern, I believe. They're in a more modern style, and besides, the courtyard is only three years old- apparently most of it used to be a really ugly garage.

I wonder what Martha Stewart thought of the bathrooms here. I never thought that a bathroom where I could sit down, or where there was soap, would be such an utter luxury.

Lara, I hope that you realize that I will sing with you till the ends of the earth when I get back. Also, I want to resume our Keitsul collection- pleeeeaaaase?

Mom, dad,my cough is almost gone, I am well fed, and feeling fine. Looking forward to your call on Saturday!

Fifty kopecks for a kick in the head.

Alright, there's a little story to go with that title.

There is a beautiful courtyard in the middle of the School of Philology campus, where there are plantings and lovely trees and benches, and also a lot of lovely bronze statues. Some of them are just boring philosophers, but most of them are charmingly mythological- a couple of fawns making faces at each other, for instance, or a dachsund with a tragedy mask on his face and a comedy mask on his butt. Students seem to treat these statues as little shrines of academic success- they wedge coins into them or leave them at their feet.

The most popular deity is the vaguely buddha-esque hippopotamus that is by an entrance to one of the departments- she's lying on her side in her great folds of fat, smiling broadly and almost wiggling her toes. She almost always has a big pile of fifty kopeck and one or two ruble coins around her. (People, besides leaving her money, rub her belly.) Then the second favorite is The Little Prince, which is a jester sitting on a throne of fat books, reading a book in his lap, and then off to the side there's a little tiny person sitting on the books- you get the understanding that the jester is huge and we are the little guy. I get the feeling that offerings to the Little Prince for special occasions requiring particularly scholarly luck, while the hippopotamus is for all around fortune.

Anyway, I'm totally into all the supersitions here, and so whenever I get a pocket full of (nigh on worthless) fifty kopeck coins, I leave them at a shrine. The last time, it was the hippopotamus, but yesterday I thought, hey, I had a test this morning, I feel like leaving something for the Little Prince. So I got out my fifty kopecks, bent over to put them in front of him, and as the money leaves my hand BAM! Ow. I had forgotten that he had his legs jauntily crossed and that one of his very pointy shoes was right there in front of me.

So, now I can truly say that I have paid fifty kopecks for a kick in the head.

(The next person to leave him an offering, I saw, put a hand over his shoe before she bent.)

Other than that- Cinderella last night was a blend of modern and classical, and I loved it to BITS. It's sort of a children's ballet, which just meant that both the serious arts lover and the little bouncing girl in me were royally entertained.

It also turns out that one of my teachers knits, and she was ecstatic when she saw me knitting in the front row at a lecture, to the point that she announced that we had a knitter in the auditorium before remembering she was supposed to be introducing the lecturer instead. Slightly embarrassing, but it's worked out as she knows where a real gourmet yarn shop is, and can't wait to take me there next week. She's a cool woman, and we get along really well.

The lecture, after that, was really cool- it was given by a pair of translators, who were of course multilingual, clear, and eloquent. They talked about the history of translation, which is really fascinating in Russia- remind me to tell you all about it when I get home.

My host mom said this morning, as she made her son's VAT of porridge, that I eat like a bird- little and quickly. What can I say?

Yum.

I'm freaking myself out by being used to the food here.

For instance, the soup yesterday was a thick, greasy broth with potatoes and onions and something else amongs bits of pork, which were mostly big pieces of lard with a little meat attached.

It was delicious.

It's like my American self is watching me eat everythign and is disgusted, but the rest of me just thinks that it's good food.

Yesterday was classes, and then a reading by a Russian author. The book was very interesting, but extremely compicated in any language, so our translator/professor did an alternating translation. It's called Lupetta, and I believe there's a website at http://lupetta.ru with english.

Then there was an optional tour that I didn't want to go on, so I went home and bought some new knitting needles- I had forgotten that one should never buy full length or small gauge needles of the cheap bamboo sort, and had bought a set of fourteen inch 3.5 millimeters. They were so bent they were hardly usable by yesterday morning, and by yesterday afternoon had acquired a case of the Mysterious Stickies, feeling as though someone had dunked them in maple syrup and then put them back in my knitting.

So, I went to the store and bought a new set. Or tried. there was some sort of oil involved in their packaging, apparently, so all of the price stickers had gone transparent and unreadable. Of course, only on the size and material I needed. The rest were fine. Then it took the three shopkeepers ten minutes to figure out how much they cost- one of them asked me why I hadn't gotten one with a legible sticker, and I had to explain in my terrible russian that there WEREN'T any with legible stickers. Finally managed to pay them and leave.

It's interesting here- no one trusts you not to steal anything, no matter how inexpensive. There are locks and alarms on all the soda coolers here, so that it's a big rigamarole of asking for what you want, waiting while it's unlocked, listening to the alarm, then waiting for it to get relocked, then paying, then getting your soda. Same goes for chocolate bars, which they don't even leave the locked glass cases overnight. Then if you want to, say, buy some needles, or a clasp, or a little bit of zipper from the store, you tell them what you want at the counter, then they write you a slip, then you take the slip to the register and pay for it, then you take the reciept from that back to the counter and they give you what you bought. You're also not allowed to take backpacks or large purses into any grocery stores- you have to leave them in a locker or check them.

Anyway, after that whole rigamarole I went home and was introduced to a guest, an ex-student of Lyuba's, and then went and hid in my room to do homework. I succeeded at that, if "Falling asleep in your armchair with knitting in your lap, then waking up an hour later with a neck permanently bent at right angles to your body" is what you mean by 'doing homework'.

Aaaaargh I'm sure there's more to say, but I don't know what it is.

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I think that I'll be very content with Canby when I get back- our couch is in Canby, next to our kitchen and surrounded by our dogs. The opera can give me none of these.

And Victor, without yarn, I would be a little slavering monster in the corner of my room at this moment, probably unraveling the rug just to have something to do with my hands.

Figarofigarofigaroooooo....

Alright, that opera's not until Thursday, but still.

Last night I went and saw La Traveatta in the Marinksi theater. Amazing venue, amazing show. It's a tragedy, of course, so I almost cried at the end and felt all sniffly on the metro home. Hopefully the experience will be rounded out, in true greek fashion, by The Marriage of Figaro on Thursday- that's as close to a satyr play as I'm likely to find. In between, tomorrow night, I'm going to see the ballet Cinderella. Then, Sunday, there's some sort of ballet and opera combination that we're all going to. Whee!

My most recent Puzzles of Russian Syntax lecture was on some extremely complicated aspects of Russian that not even linguists- not even native speaker linguists- can understand yet. Basically, I knitted like a fiend, kept my head down, and listened to all the native speakers argue.

Today would have been a perfect day for pictures of my morning commute, but I didn't think about it till I was out the door. Instead, let me describe a picture for you.

Imagine a beautiful courtyard in the middle of urban St. Petersburg, a round medallion in the center with paths spreading out like rays. There are beautiful flowers planted in planters set into the paths, and there are four green areas in the corners where there are trees, benches, and playsets. Pigeonsof many colors coo and strut, and people in dark clothes and carrying bags with umbrellas sticking out of them stroll past. In one section, the pavers have been taken up so the pipes can be repaired, and people walk around the missing section, where a huge pile of clayish dirt is heaped. On the pile sleep three large stray dogs.


The reason I didn't think about the camera was that I realized at one AM last night as I was (I thought) finishing my homework, that I was doing WEDNESDAY'S homework, and that I had a grammar test first thing in the morning. There was nothing for it but to go to sleep, at that point, but I had to get up at six thirty to study.

Now I want to look at some headlines so I can see what's been going on in that dear homeland of mine (I'm sick of hearing news second hand from a paper written by people who don't speak english.)

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I'm feeling much, much better- down to a little cough. I don't know how yarn shops look, this was just a yarn section but it was quite well stocked, and the prices were about the same. Mom and dad, call me tonight, not tomorrow night.

OMG

I HAVE YARN!

All you anime watchers can insert one of those obnoxiously satisfied kitty smiles right there.

It sort of gives you an idea of the shopping around here that it took me three days to figure out which clothing store by a pharmacy near the metro station it was that sells knitting things.

Anywho, they were having a sale and I bought six skeins of a lovely acrylic-wool blend in dark blue and steely grey, and am about four inches into the purse I've been designing in my head. My head is much clearer, and my hands are much happier. Knitting is magic.

Beyond that, I went to the Yusopov palace on Saturday. That's the palace where Rasputin... um... started to be killed? It was where he got poisoned and shot the first time, at least.

That grisly story only takes up two rooms of the palace, and the rest of it was lush and beautiful. I have so many more ideas for stories set in palaces now. Coolest of all for me was the Mirror Room, which was an octagonal little vestibule where each wall was a white door with a mirror taking up most of its surface. It was as though we were standing in a sea of doors, and it was impossible to tell which we'd come through. Some of them were just closets, one went to the main hall, one held the gramaphone that had been playing the night of the assassination, and one led to the secret staircase entrance that Rasputin took. Down in the basement and up above, they had wax figures of army dudes and Rasputin himself, eating a fatefully (or not so fatefully) poisinous cookie. Veeeerrry creepy to be standing a) on the place where he actually had been shot, and b) looking at him eating a cookie.

And then Sunday was sleeping in, shopping, buying yarn (YAY YAY YAY) and doing lots of laundray.

Another student has lent me his copy of The Historian, and I somehow am two hundred pages in just since Friday, although I did manage to get all my homework done too. It's nice, because it's printed on big sheets of tissue-thin paper, so you don't have to turn the pages too often and they stay put once they're turned. That means- you guessed it!- sitting in bed, The Historian on my lap, and knitting. Heaven. The irony of handling sharp wooden sticks while reading a vampire novel is not lost on me.

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For those of you that didn't hear this, my hostess told me (as I sat completely silent at the dinner table like a little American storm cloud) that the third week of an exchange is always hard. You forget how to talk, everything gets scary again, you get sick (this said as I sniffled pathetically.) But then, she said, that sometime in the fourth week it all gets better again.

With the advent of yarn, I believe her.

Oh, and if you aren't commenting because you don't know how, just click comments and write your comment in the text box on the side. Leave it as Anonymous and just type your name at the bottom. I live for comments!

PS

Drunken young men like me here, apparently. This week's specimen was actually kind of polite, in a weird way, and asked permission to follow me around. When I told him he couldn't- no, no matter how pretty I was, no matter how nice he was, and no matter how much he liked me- he just sort of said, "I can't?" and wandered off. Weird.

Oog.

Yesterday was fine, I guess. The trip to the monastery in the afternoon was cancelled due to rain that turned out to be a rain of sunshine. So then we all had an afternoon to burn. I showed a friend where the supermarket was and went home (I've been told you can buy yarn in a shop near my house, but I've yet to find it). Then Lyuba and I watched a movie that she loved and that I had seen five minutes of the day before. I made a mental note then to hunt it down, and then I got home the next day and it was qued up in the VCR!

Of course, twenty minutes in, the workmen came anв I ended up doing grammar homework in the kitchen until they left, which was unfortunately not long since the pipe they brought wasn't long enough. They'll be back today, but I won't be there, so yay I guess.

Sort of having a craptastic day, for no reason in particular except that my nasty cough hasn't finished going away- the rest of it is much better though, so I really should be grateful- and that Grammar this morning sucked. There are still communication problems in there- she's our youngest teacher, and also the only one that speaks no English- and today I was just pathetic. I would understand the principle, but not the question, or I would understand the question, but not the principle, and then we had a partners exercise and I had no partner, so I just stared at it and tried to make anything vaguely grammatical coalesce with absolutely no luck. Finally the teacher came over and practicaly did it for me. Very depressing.

And guess what I'm missing, as of yesterday. Coffee shops. All my favorite coffee shops from home just keep wandering through my mind of their own accord. I'm not missing anything else, except being babied when I'm sick, but coffee shops won't leave me alone.

Our sick compatriot flew home yesterday. They ruled out all the illnesses that they could cure soon enough for her to resume the program, and it wasn't any of those, so she went home to get diagnosed for once and for all and to get cured. I sent my two English books- a novel and some short stories- to her, and she was glad to get them. It's a long flight to go without reading material.

As for comments:

Lots of people have cats. There's even a cat in our courtyard here, who everyone fights over- it just started pouring rain, and everyone in here was worried that the cat would get caught out.

As for finding a dog to pet, no. This is not a culture where you can pet other peoples' dogs, unfortunately. There are no yards here, whatsoever, but a lot of the streets are designed so that there is a strip of green space between the lanes, where people tend to do their dog walking. If a game of fetch or some running around is in order, there's a great big park down the road where I see a lot of giant schauzers and great danes and such.

Uh...

I have no idea what I'm writing about today. About the only thing that was interesting over the last day was my trip to the store, which was vaguely frightening- the supermarket shoppers here are MILITANT! I managed to buy batteries and tissues and yogurt, etc. Figuring out what candy I wanted was extremely hard... I finally just bought a bag that a) didn't have a picture of prunes on the front, ) cost 65 rubles and c) vaguely resembled the wrappers of a candy I particularly liked from the candy bowl in the kitchen. Jackpot! I got home to find that I'd managed to buy almost the same candy, only without orange flavoring- sort of an almond roca type thing called "gryalizh" or something like that.

Humph. Rain just started pouring outside. I am so incredibly glad that I brought my little REI jacket that turns into a little ball when it's not in use; there is absolutely no way to predict the weather here, and a more serious coat can be a real hassle when the rain stops immediately and the sun shines the rest of the day.

My cold is getting a little better- my lungs don't itch, I don't feel like I'm going to die when I cough, and my nose isn't trying to paint my shirt green, so the arc of improvement is continuing. I was sitting in my NYI (New York Institute, generative grammar) lecture yesterday, and I heardmuch coughing and sniffling. I think I figured out where I got this cold. Other people from that lecture are coming down with it now, too.

I tried to go find some yarn and knitting needles the other day, too, but no such luck. Marina Sergeevna told me the general area of the store, but since she couldn't remember the name and there wasn't a giant sign saying "YARN" anywhere, I didn't find it. Oh well.

Oh, and since I fell asleep before I finished my homework last night (at this rate I should put on my pajamas before opening my book), I was working at my desk this morning when my hostess came in and told me that there was going to be a work crew coming to repair the pipes in my room today or tomorrow, so instead of finishing my homework I had to put all my stuff away- everything I own is now either in my suitcases or under the bed. Luckily, I got to the university early, so that turned out fine.

Aaaand... yeah. Email, then I should log off because there's high demand for computers today.

Cultural notes part II

I've been meaning just to talk about Russia for a while now. Nothing particularly interesting has been happening to me over the last day, so here goes.

Food

As far as I've seen, feeding people is a huge part of everyone's life. The other part is eating. Marina Sergeevna had been waiting for me to get home yesterday, and had a huge dinner on the stove for me. When I came through the door, she said that her little dochka (affectionate term for younger female) was home, and then she said "Now I have my obedka!" Obedka roughly translates to "little dinner-eater." Perhaps the strangest name I have ever been called, but said with such affection!

Transit

Perhaps I need to go into a little more detail about going here and there in St. Petersburg.

The marshrutki are little minivans into which numbers of people squish, and for about a dime more than the state-run transit, are very quickly squashed from one place to another. The drivers are specialists with an amazing ability to a) drive b) honk and c) make change at the same time. You have to yell where you want the marshrutka to stop, and if they can't hear you they'll either keep going or just career to the side of the road and let you out right then.

The subway has beautiful stations far below the earth- the escalators take so long to reach the trains that people get out books and magazines and read on them. I've seen someone get through three pages of a newspaper before we even hit the end. There are occasionally beggars of a sort I've only seen in subway stations- old women just asking for money. Most beggars here have a schtick or a ware to sell. It always strikes me as funny, too, because they have to pay to get down there.

The trolleybus is lately my favorite way to get around, because one goes by a block from my house, then goes past the university and into the center of town and back, which means it can put me basically anywhere in my normal circle of events. However, they are driven by real people on real roads, which means you have to contend with St Petersburg traffic when you're in it- I'm absolutely amazed that there haven't been any crashes while I was on one. Yesterday no one would stop to let it turn, and after a moment, it became a matter of the trolley driver honking madly and just turning into the oncoming traffic. (the roads of St. Petersburg are like a jungle- whoever is biggest and will sustain the least damage from an accident has the right of way. Honking doesn't mean "you stupid idiot" here, it means "I'm coming, I'm not slowing down, and God have mercy on your soul.")

Animals

There are lots of dogs here. Most of them are pets, and all of the pets are well groomed and fairly well behaved. There seem to be two classes- the big working dog class, and the little companion breeds. There are a lot of terriers and a lot of dachsunds, and also a fair number of rottweilers and german shepherds. Everyone walks their dogs on leashes, and I have not seen one dog who does not pull. Heeling? What's that? And the people don't even seem to notice. Moreover, not one walks with a loose leash, but I haven't seen anyone canted back against the pull. There seems to be some sort of balance.

I've already mentioned the puppy and kitten merchant- oh, heartbreak!- and the crows. Now let me point out that EVERYONE here feeds the pigeons and the sparrows. The back door of a little snack kiosk will open, and handfuls of seeds or crumbs will fly out, and then the ground will be paved with birds. They come over and stare at you if you sit on a bench for too long without contributing.

The other day I saw a dog that could have been stray- no collar, no recent baths- wandering through the streets, extremely heavy with milk. I thought, where are her puppies? Oh, there they were, in the box on the handcart that man was pulling. They were tiny and black and adorable. Who needs a leash when you've got puppies?

There was also a guy selling pygmy rabbits by the metro station.

I feel very sorry for the turtle in our kitchen. He just wants to go somewhere and walk and swim for more than twelve inches in one direction. He scrapes against the glass for hours.

Random observations

You have to pay for shopping bags here, but the ones you get are triple reinforced monsters that you can use to the end of the world.

Stores don't let you bring backpacks or large purses in- you have to check them.

It's not uncommon to see people carrying something together- a bag or a box, each person with one hand on one handle. It doesn't even have to be large or heavy. It just seems like a social thing.

There are beautiful flower gardens everywhere that look completely random, ugly and pointless until you go up a few stories in one of the surrounding buildings. Then it becomes clear that they are perfectly planted so that when all the flowers are in bloom, they make big flowers and patterns out of intricate colors, so that when you look out the window you can see them spread out below.

Pretty Pretty Pictures!

Yay!

First off, home. Here is my room:





Usually, I do manage to keep it neater than this, but the last couple of days have been coughing and laundry, so yeah.

Then on to the hallway and thу kitchen. (I also had pictures of the livingish room, but since that's also sort of a bedroom, I though it would be rude to post them.)





The two doors at the end of the hall, by the way, are the two halves of the bathroom. They're separate here.

Then, just to prove I'm alive, me looking slightly stoned and crappy at eight this morning.



Then two pictures of lunch here.




Aaaand that's it for now... though now I'm going to be incredibly greedy with the computer and talk a little bit too.

The ballet yesterday was.... cancelled! Yay! They left off getting tickets until the last minute, aтв then there were none to be had. Oh well. That meant that I went home and got force fed enormous amounts of food!

I managed, being hungry, to eat the bread, the cheese, the entire tomato with another sort of cheese, the tea, and the mulled wine, and the sausage. Marina Sergeevna was worried because I didn't eat the massive bowl of fish salad or the other of vegetable salad.

Then I read for a while, did some homework, read, did some homework, took a deliciously hot shower (we need a gas heater in our bathroom!), and did some more homework. Then I went to bed.

Farm withdrawl! I'm at the point of having dreams about horses and rabbits and cuddly puppies and cats and... yeah.

I miss:
Family, of course, but also

Butter on my bread
Pancakes
Salad that is actually made of salad
Large refrigerators
My books
Cookie sheets

(Still having a blast though.)

Budzdarova!

That's how you say 'gezundheit' or 'bless you' in Russian. (To a woman- male is 'budzdarov')

I know this very intimately now, because I have a lovely specimen of a cold. Yay for being sick in foreign countries! I'm already getting better, but I sound terrible today. I was absolutely pathetic, wandering the Hermitage Museum yesterday.

The folk cures are slightly different here, too- my newly acquired babushka tried to give me MILK of all things! I managed to turn that down politely, though, or I might have drowned in my own phlegm last night. Of course, there were also offers of an ancient bottle of Vick's VapoRub, which is now lurking on my nighstand.

Oh, did I say newly acquired babushka? Indeed! I heard that she was coming- she's my host's mother- and I asked where she lived. "Here," Lyuba replied.

???

Home is an interesting concept here, and combines in new and fascinating ways with the Russian concept of time. A friend of mine had her host go to Dacha (the ubiquitous suburban house that almost every family has) for 'a day' and she came back a week later. During the meantime, her adult son moved back in.

Anyway, it turns out that Marina Sergeevna, Lyuba's mother, lives at the Dacha during the summer and is now writing her next book out there. But, every once in a while, she has to come into town to pick up her pension, so Lyuba relaxes at the Dacha and Marina Sergeevna stays in the apartment. It's her room I've got, by the way, but she doesn't mind. She immediately adopted me as one of her own.

And it turns out that the Russian Diet backpedals on weekends. Lyuba has decided that I don't eat enough. AND then she went and told her mother that- I've practically had to barricade my door against study snacks, and I got off lightly last night when I went in for a cup of tea and came out with a plum, a giant stuffed pastry, and a wedge of cheese.

Danil was supposed to travel with me this morning, since he needed to be in early, but I run on American time- leaving at 8:30 means leaving at 8:35, which causes Lyuba and Marina Sergeevna both to cringe- and he runs on Russian time- ninish?- so I had to leave him a note and skedaddle. I got about six steps down the stairs when I realized I was still wearing my tapochki, or house slippers.

I am going to the Marinskii Theater to see the ballet of Romeo and Juliet tonight. I can't wait! Even if I do feel crappy, and I do have homework, I'm not going to turn down ballet. Especially not free ballet.

I'll be going back to the Hermitage for sure- students get in free, and I only saw art and interiors in the six fast-moving hours I spent there yesterday. I want to go back and see the dentists' tools used by Peter the Great! The teeth he pulled are in there somewhere too...

Aaaaaand I don't know what else to say. Pictures soon, but I didn't want to lug my camera through the day and then check it at the theater, and there's the usual Monday jam on computers. I've been trying not to cough on this one, so hopefully it's not too scary for other people to use.

art and stuff

Thought I had yesterday afternoon off, but it turned out we were going to a sort of artists' commune in the middle of the city. It was interesting- it's been there for eighteen years. It's a big apartment building that a bunch of artists moved into and repaired anв now it's studios and galleries in apartment layouts. There are random murals painted everywhere, and artists wandering around. Pretty cool.

Then I went home, did homework, talked to mom and dad. I've got some sort of allergy or cold thing going, so I've got a minor sore throat and some sniffles, but I'm doing fine. (one girl from our group is in the hospital with something bacterial. Hopefully the tests will figure out what today.)

Today we have our little meeting over our thoughts of the week, and the we have our NYI lecture, aтв then we get to go HOME! Hurrah!

As per requests, I shall try to put up some picture of everyday life soon.

Dum de dum

Last night we went on our river and canal cruise. Basically, it was a party on a boat. I had been hoping for something *educational* but obviously I was the minority. I don't smoke, I don't drink, and I don't like loud noises, so I sat in the dining room of the boat, sipped my Fanta, and enjoyed all the beautiful buildings and fountains by the light of 'sunset,' or what passes for it here. I had been in dire need of a couple of hours to sit and daydream, and this fit the bill perfectly.

I got home and Lyuba immediately leapt on me with an offer of food. I told her no thanks, trying to to trouble her (it was eleven at night) and so she wandered back to her book. Then, in the kitchen, I found dinner laid out for me. What the????

I had better not get used to this.

I've been doing homework like a fiend in the nine hours a day I'm not at school or in excursions. That leaves about seven hours for sleep, if you move fast in the morning. We're all starting to look a little zombieish. Today we have a choice between a free evening or a movie, and I have yet to hear of one person who is going to the movie.

The computer I so distressed yesterday is still not working, but I don't know what to do about it and neither does anyone else. The people with laptops just use the internet cables from the broken computers, so that really hasn't taken down the count of the useable terminals.

I'll take some pictures of home and stuff over the weekend and post them tomorrow or on Monday.

Blergh.

even more pictures! and words, even!

I have like an hour before I have to go find a) a bathroom with toilet paper and b) the bridge a mile away that we're catching our boat at. Therefore, I may now enlighten you as to more of the beauty of Peterhof, and all the crap I did over the last day.

The crap I did was mainly homework, but also- yippee!- going to the ballet! We went to see Chaika, by Chekhov. You may know it as, I think, Seagull? Anyway, he wrote a play and then some genius decided to turn it into a ballet. I say genius in the pejorative and positive senses both.

The version we went and saw was really amazing. It was modern, and as you all know I'm more of a classical type person in most things, but it was STUNNING even when I grimaced at the modernity. And this wasn't the sort of modern that is just for modernity's sake- it was there to speak, and spoke.

Depressing story.

Also, I thought I had a really good seat until it came to light that I was sitting in the wrong seat 127. I was in the expensive seat 127, while poor student 127 was in the back behind a tall guy.


Alright. Further pictures for the enjoyment of the peoples. Categories, rather than chronology, are in order. There are more than these- I have to resize them all one at a time- but I'll try and bring those home in full format, on a cd or something, so we have something to work with.

St Petersburg

These were taken at different times throughout the day, but here they are.

These are the fountains in the Neva.



This is the Church of the Spilled Blood (built where a tzar was assassinated)






And this is a cathedral that has no name and was never consecrated because a worker committed suicide in it right before it was finished. It's mainly a concert hall.

(and josh, I have more pictures of the cathedrals for you.)



Peterhof Grounds

...since I just cause the computer I was using to have an emotional breakdown by asking it to make a picture 800 inches wide instead of 800 pixels wide, the rest are going to have to wait for a little while.

ta ta!

Pictures!

Here I am in the school computer lab, with my digital camera all hooked up. Yay!

Alright. We start with the hotel room I stayed in, my first night in Russia.






Then on to Peterhof!

These are my peoples.





Then a bunch of pictures from Peterhof.







The people in costumes made mad faces at me for taking pictures of them instead of paying to get my picture taken with them (solid business plan?)

The golden fountain depicts Peter the First (or the Great, I'm getting them mixed up.) and his triumph over the Swedes.

The garden is right outside of Mon Pleisure, that Peter's private summer palace

The last one is a Russian hamburger. Frightening.

Now I've taken up too much time on the computers. I hope to get an afternoon to really do all this right, but for now, alas.

Maps!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=St+Petersburg,+Russia&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=60.894251,109.160156&ie=UTF8&ll=59.949864,30.240501&spn=0.002391,0.006663&t=k&z=17&om=1

I'm in one of those little square houses in a row going diagonally across the picture.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=St+Petersburg,+Russia&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=60.894251,109.160156&ie=UTF8&ll=59.940122,30.299397&spn=0.001196,0.003331&t=h&z=18&om=1

That's my building at the university. The courtyard in the middle is where all the dancing happened.

Now I really have to go and write an essay. Tired!

What to say...

I can't really think of much that happened yesterday... oh wait! Am I going insane?

I forgot until this moment that yesterday was weird and busy.

It was the launch day of our second week, yay, and also of the New York Institute, which is a program that brings students from all over Russia, and a few from other slavic countries, Europe, and the US, to this school to study culture and cognitive sciences related to linguistics, in English. They NYI students take three lectures a day, three days a week, for four weeks- or something like that- and we got to choose a lecture to take with them.

I chose to take a lecture on images of homeland in Russia and America, because it would be good for me. But what I really wanted was to take the "Puzzles of Russian Syntax" lecture. And the longer I was in Russia, the more I realized that I would learn plenty about homeland identity just by dinner conversation with my host. And there was generative grammer- GENERATIVE GRAMMAR- getting ready to be taught just a few rooms away. It was like a giant magnet, pulling, pulling, and I resisted, resisted, resisted-

Ten minutes before the start of the lectures, where was I? You guessed it! Chasing down the Syntax teacher and begging to get into his lecture. Which I did!

Ohhhhh glorious hours of proforms, noun phrases, heirarchical structure and recursion. It was like being in a brain spa. And it all pertains to Russian, despite being taught in English (really, the point is to introduce the concept of generative grammar to Russia), so I'm learning useful things! It's like finding a healthy candy, for free.

Then, after the lectures, there was a reception with champagne- which I still think is foul and traded for orange juice as soon as politely possible- and folk music!

It was a surprise for the NYI students, but we had it on our schedules: "Surprise: folk music with dancing and instruments." Big surprise, eh?

Anyway, we were all expecting that it was going to be an exibition of dancers, and sure enough out they came, singing and wearing lots of ribbons and kerchiefs and things. But then about twenty seconds into the first dance, they all dispersed and dragged an audience member with them. I was one of them- everyone else on my bench wouldn't go, so I said what the hell. Then they sent us all out to get another person ourselves, and then all of that group had to go find new partners, until we had enough people to take up the whole middle of the courtyard. Luckily, the dances were self explanatory enough that I didn't have to understand too much of the direction. (I was really grateful for the square dancing I did in school.) It was FUN. I danced the whole entire time, as did many of the people from my scholarship- as soon as the men had to separate out, it became clear that all but about three of them were from our group. About half the women were, too. That's sort of the dynamic with us- we've already been dropped in the middle of a foreign culture, so why the hell not do it all?

Then after the dancing ended, Patrick and Ryan and I talked to Polina, a very nice Russian girl, and set each other straight on stereotypes and things. She had been taught in class that all Americans leave their parents' houses at 16. Imagine.

Then I left fairly early and went home, where Lyuba forced an enormous dinner on me, and I did homework all evening.