My feet hurt

...a lot. Good thing the bus we need to get home stops running at 11:19. Jerks.


More tomorrow. Goodnight!

And again

Still, no hot water.

I made bacon and eggs and toast for dinner. Apparently Russian bacon is even more salty than bacon at home. Like...almost unbearably so.

I have heated up water on the stove in which to wash my face. So there.

Not the Vodka Museum

Today we were going to go to see the Cruiser Aurora, since it was supposed to be a nice day. Since it looked like it was going to rain, we decided to go to the Vodka Museum today instead of tomorrow, and just could not find it. We walked around for a good long time and it was nowhere to be found. We think it may have been closed because of some construction? But we don't know.

So we came back here. Uneventful. Buffy's on again.

And now, for some geeking out. Girly-style.

I was so excited to come and get some makeup with Russian on it. Super excited! But as far as I can tell, all the good brands are imported. I might be able to find some really low-end stuff, but I'm trying to convince myself not to waste the money. They've got a Sephora-like store that has the same kind of stuff it has at home (Dior, Lancome, etc.), but I do want to go in and see if the prices are better.

And another geeking out point - is the perfume. Apparently Russian women love musk. At home, girl's perfumes are all light and flowery and overly clean smelling (like soap, to me). The only time I've smelled that here was on tourists. Here it seems to be the guys that wear clean-smelling colognes, and the girls are all musked out. Which is awesome, because it means that if I can smell someone's perfume, there's a good chance that I like it instead of getting a headache.

Not really much news, other than that. Excited about the ballet tomorrow, really want to take a nap. I keep not napping so I can sleep at night. Maybe I just should, because it's not working.

Still no hot water. Crap.

Where has all the hot water gone?

Apparently, they go around turning off the pipes in the summer so they can clean them. To be honest, I'd rather have hot water. The water isn't safe to drink, and the brownness always goes away after a couple of seconds, so why bother? The moral of the story is cold showers are cold, but after two days I couldn't put off showering any longer.

Today we had class, mine was the reading section with the Wednesday teacher, who has just these stunningly ice-blue eyes. All of my teachers (there are 3) are such Russian ladies in very different ways. Apparently Wednesday teacher isn't going to be our Wednesday teacher anymore, which is a shame, because I really like her. But I like Monday and Tuesday teacher as well, and she's taking over Wednesdays. So all is well.

We read a story today in class about a little girl who is terrible ill, because she simply must meet an elephant. And so she does, and is healthy. There's a lot more to it, but that's the idea. And then we made up dialogues, and titles for the chapters, and it was just silly, really. Still no banana pastry in my hungry little paws at break, tragic.

After class we toddled over to Imperator, a crazy fancy restaurant that we remembered had "Business-Lunch", for 190 rubles. Literally, визнес-ланч. Say business lunch with a Russian accent, and there you go. Originally they seated us on the fancy side, with the brocade chairs and woven table cloths and fancy napkins, and excruciatingly delicious-looking menu. I said to myself "Alas, self, I don't know if I have enough cash for this!" as soon as I saw the table setting. "But wait, I have my credit card if there's an emergency!" (I was hoping there would be a food emergency, in my mouth. I want one of everything on that menu). Menu told me, "Sorry, lady, no credit cards." John went and asked about business lunch, and they rerouted us to a different room that looked a bit like a dungeon with a bar. Much more comfortable, much less expensive. And business lunch? You sit, and they just bring you food. I assume you get your own drinks at the bar, but we just went thirsty. They brought us bread, Olivier salad, yummy soup, and then mashed potatoes with what I think was mackerel. It was all plain, and it was all delicious - which makes me want to try the fancy stuff even more, because you've got to be a good cook if you can make plain and simple food so amazing.

The Kunstkamera lines were still massive, so we went to the Zoological Museum instead! It was...a whole lot of dead animals. Some were neat and well preserved, and some have obviously been there since before the invention of modern taxidermy. It was all pretty cool, though. I think the Blue Whale at the Whaling Museum is bigger (haha, take that, Zoological museum!). I put up a few pictures, but my camera is getting low on battery and I wanted to make sure I saved it for the goofy stuff. Like that rodent with his party teeth on, and the touching sign that is now my desktop.

On the way back, I mentioned that I may or may not go on a killing spree if we had to eat downstairs at the cafeteria again. I was a little surprised when everyone agreed. So we stopped at the Park Inn (fancy hotel with an ATM that doesn't charge) and pretended like we belonged and got some rubles, and then the grocery store for some vittles. And then came back here and fell over. And then went over to the market next door for some more vittles. So I made ramen noodles with added veggies fried in butter, we bought a whole rotisserie chicken for the equivalent of $5, and had a feast. And then since we don't have an oven we fried some bread in butter on the stove and put honey on it. It was immensely pleasing after a week and a half of only restaurant food. And apparently, Papa, I have learned how to carve a chicken (though not very neatly) after all these years of watching you do it ^.^ I was also loathe to throw out the carcass thinking I should try and make some soup, but the boys were threatening to fling it out the window (for some reason they really want to do that) and I thought it would be safer if it just went into the trash.

And now I'm just hanging around, making Skype calls and bothering people and wishing we had hot water. I really, really wish we had hot water. Because a lukewarm shower I can manage, and swimming in cold water is refreshing, but there's just something about sticking my head under a faucet of ice water that's not nice. Alexandra had the right idea and ran up and down the stairs a few times before she tried it, but she's been doing that anyway training for soccer. And I uh...I don't run. Unless it's a safety issue.

We bought our first ballet tickets, today! We're going to see Le Corsair at the Marinsky on Friday, and I am vair excited. I don't know if it's a "good" ballet, but hey. It sounds like there are sailors and pirates and maidens and harem girls, and also the Kirov ballet - how can we go wrong? The boys don't want to go, but when I mentioned that maybe they might want to escort us home for safety purposes, they basically said "Duh, we were going to do that no matter what," and looked at me as if I were a fool. Which is comforting.

Also, as a mass thingy: Thanks for the comments, everyone who commented!!! I'm reading them and loving them, but I can't figure out how to comment so that I'm replying to you and not to myself. When I figure it out, I'll be less of a bum.

Today...

Was a bit of a down day.

On the way to class, we ended up on the most crowded bus I've ever been on. We usually take the little marshutkas to class, because they run more frequently and I think make fewer stops. But on the one this morning we were so crammed in that people had to get off to let people off at their stop, and then hop back in. For most of the ride I was holding on to the ceiling like I was in the flipping Matrix.

Then we had class. Class was good, uneventful. By the time we had our break, there were no more banana pastries left. I nearly cried. I did have a Super Fruit! Iced Tea, though. It tasted like iced tea with lifesavers. Nomnom.

After class, we went to the weird kebab restaurant for lunch. Nice and cheap, and the meat was easier to eat when it was in a sandwich and I repeatedly reminded myself that there were almost no parts of an animal I would refuse to eat, so what's the point of asking myself that question? After that, we walked along the river, intending to go to the Kunstkamera (Peter the Great's collection of bizarre stuff), but the line was immense. So we decided to go to the Zoological Museum, which was closed. So we got on a bus and came back here. I got some tea and some honey and that made my day, easily. I might have another cup before bed.

So we spent the afternoon watching TV (Bones, Buffy - season 5, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch all dubbed into Russian! Awesome!), and I spent a lot of time knitting, and realizing I had screwed up, and unknitting and reknitting. Then dinner, an adventure to get Charlie some headphones, and back here. We made a more extensive evil plan (John drew a calendar! what a fabulous idea!), and then I came back here to call people. But everyone's busy. Slackers. I should start calling home at weirder times, I guess.

We're already planning what we're going to get at the Chili's in the airport during our three hour wait in Chicago. It tastes delicious. But from what I've heard, it might take us three hours to find our own faces in the Chicago airport.

Yesterday and Today

Since all I got around to yesterday was telling you about my spider woes, here is yesterday:

We went to see the Bronze Horseman! It's a huge, statue on a huge rock, and it is a little bit badass. I wanted to link to the poem, but I can't find a site with a good translation. We wantered about and saw St. Isaac's Cathedral, which was vair neat, and then toddled over towards Nevsky Prospekt. It rained on us, and everyone was very concerned about melting (and I love the rain). So we ducked into a Souvenir shop with everything from nice cheap stuff, to nice crazy stuff. The sales girl in the back fancy room was really pushing the Faberge eggs for tens of thousands of rubles, made of real egg with pearls and crystals and all sorts of jazz I would love to have and gaze at.

And then we toddled along some more, found an ATM, went to a bookstore for notebooks - and I got a couple post cards too - but how can stamps? And how post office? I have to figure that out. And then we backtracked and ate at the Greek restaurant.

I said "Hello, four please" to the hostess in Russian.
She said "Of course, right this way. But we have no alcohol, only beer," in English. Apparently my accent is very obvious - I'm not surprised. It was kind of her to warn us, but we wanted FOOD and not booze at that time. I had...meat things. I don't know what they were, but they were pretty good. They had the most amazing brunch spread, but it was like... 660 rubles, which is around $20 something dollars, and we've all gotten so used to Russian food prices that we whine about having to pay actual money. Toddled about some more, came back here, I posted about spiders, had some dinner when we got hungry.

Then we went to the 24 hour store - which is sort of like a real grocery store! I prefer to get the real fresh stuff from the place next door, but it's really hard when you don't speak very well and don't know what things are. I like to be able to pick stuff up and read the package and figure it out before committing to buying it. We got some groceries, and came back here and lazed.

AND THEN, I was actually so excited about this that I ran down the hall to tell the boys like someone deranged. THEN I turned on the TV for some Russian background noise for my knitting? And guess what was on. Guess. Can you guess?

Ok, in case you're not obsessed like some of us, that's Dr. Venture. From the Venture Brothers. One of the best shows ever. That I like so much I have the DVD with me. The DVD this episode is from. I brought two things to watch, and this was one of them. (The other is Milo and Otis, because Tillie is a thousand kinds of awesome.) So the Venture Brothers was on, dubbed in Russian (rather poorly, Hank and Dean don't sound nearly stupid enough, but Dr. Girlfriend still had a man's voice.) And then we watched House for a bit. And some movie with Meg Ryan and a kid with a bowl cut, because apparently Russian's prefer American TV?

No spiders got me last night, thank goodness. Our roommate still slept elsewhere, and I'm starting to worry she hates us. Or something. Maybe we smell.

And then today, we went to class. Tra la la, four little schoolchildren are we. Class was good, and I had the most amazing Banana pastry during the break (they make snacks there, that are awesome), and some instant coffee that tasted like heaven. We watched the Ugly Duckling in Russian today, and it was awesome. But Russian poultry are even harder to understand than regular people.

And after class, we scampered across the bridge with the intention of going to the Russian museum. But by the time we'd taken a bazillion pictures of the Church of the Savior on Blood and walked through the garden and found the restaurant I had picked out (as kommandant of food, apparently I'm in charge of maps and planning now as well), it was too late to go to the museum. The restaurant we went to for lunch was a fusion kind of place with European, Russian, and Japanese food. I wanted to eat every single thing on the menu. Everything. Except the cow tongue. But everything else. I had lasagna bolognese, and I'm surprised I didn't melt right down under the table. And it wasn't terribly expensive, even if we are used to paying almost nothing for whole meals.
The ambiance of the restaurant was a little weird - British TV was playing, and it was all swanky and Manhattany inside, and there was a pavillion thing for eating outside. But as we were waiting at the crosswalk, someone in a sporty audi did that thing you see in movies. Where they come around the corner and peel out and lose control and get it back right before crashing into all the civilians on the sidewalk, like a TOTAL DOUCHEBAG. Like in that episode of Numb3rs almost. So we chose to eat inside. Apparently that part of town is where the "cool kids" (douchebags) hang out. We were un-chicly dressed and got some sassy looks and just seated ourselves when no one helped us (though for all we know, that's how it works). But the food was awesome.

So after discovering that it was too late to go to the Museum (it was 3:15 and it closed at 5, and we would have had to pay to get in), we wandered about the Field of Mars (and basked next to the eternal flame, it was a little chilly out today) and walked through the Summer Gardens and giggled about some of the statues (we are incredibly mature), and sat in the chair art installments. Unfortunately, I'm a big dork and forgot my camera, but everyone else got pictures so someday I will post them. There are pictures from yesterday, of the Bronze Horseman and all that.

And then, we went back the way we got there, after a brief distraction by ducklings in one of the canals. They're so fuzzy. And gave a lady from D.C. directions (she had a knitted purse with a FLAMINGO HEAD on the strap) towards the metro, even though she had already walked by it. She asked us for directions in Russian, and we were all "oh, you don't really want us to answer you in Russian", and she was all "oh, thank goodness." And Charlie's shoulder got pooped on by a bird.

Which is weird, because walking over the bridge to Nevsky my foot almost got massively pooped on by a bird. It just barely missed me. Charlie's poop was only a little one, but still a bummer. He didn't really believe me when I told him it meant he would have a good day.

And my fingers are tired from all this writing. We need to get more water, because we need more water every day. Because we don't want giardia, and I am a very thirsty person.

Alas, and alack.

So last night, I woke up to rearrange the blanket on my feet. I was super excited, because it was the first night I've been chilly since I've been here and flipped out and took apart my blanket (which was a wool blanket partially sewed inside a hot pocket of sheet) so I could sleep without melting. I love snuggling under warm blankets. Next to a warm fire. Knowing that it's snowy outside. But barring that, just being able to sleep with blankets is nice.

And then I noticed the spiders outside. We had left the window open, because it was so windy yesterday that I guess they stayed in their hidey holes until later than usual. "Alas", I said to myself, and skooted over to close the window. Once the window was closed, I snuggled back into bed. But as I was rearranging my blankets, I noticed something crawling across the ceiling.

"Alack," I said. Ok, that's not what I said. What I said is a few choice and naughty words portraying indignation, disgust, and the sort of panic I don't normally feel about spiders anymore. Something about working at the sail loft and being surrounded by all sorts of bugs at all times really takes away the panic.

But these are not normal spiders. Certainly, my picture doesn't do them any kind of justice. They're the big evil looking ones with sinister oblong bodies and long, pincer-like legs. And I hate them.

So, trying to stay calm, I put on my robe (to cover my neck! my exposed neck!) and put Bear in my pocket, so he wouldn't get eated either. And I got my flashlight, and we surveyed them from across the room.

Here were my plans:

1) Get something to kill the spider with, standing on my bed precariously close to the window and the SPIDER. Except there is...no way I'm getting that close to those PINCERS. And those leggy legs, and eeew.

2) Wake the boys and beg them piteously to rescue me. Offer to pay for the next meal if they weren't enthused. Or the next three. And maybe get them a kitten. But Charlie already warned us that he wakes up punching when he's really sleepy. And I don't know their new Australian roommate. And I would feel super bad for waking them up. And rude.

3) Find something longer to kill the spider, because there is no way my hands are getting anywhere near it.

Option three it was. So I looked about. And found the mop. And put the envelope from my new and unnecessary passport photos on the mop, so I didn't get our roommate's mop dirty. And then, I'm sorry to say, I squished the life out of that beastly thing. And then put the mop away. And calmed down. And saw another, smaller one. And tried to use the mop. And knocked it onto the floor, and used my shoe.

And eventually fell back asleep. The window is closed at night, from now on. Unless we find a huge screen to put in our window. But Russia does not believe in Screens.

Saturday, July 5th, 2008

Day off, wee!

Last night was a little alarming, because apparently the boys hadn’t heard that Alexandra and I were refusing to acknowledge the existence of the massive spiders outside our windows. So they came over to our room for a few minutes, and commented on them while they were here. Which makes it a lot harder to pretend they didn’t exist, especially since they noticed a few more than the ones we had already seen. So we’ve resorted to sleeping with the window closed, which leaves things stuffy, and makes my brain feel squishy and baked in the morning after sleeping in the sun. But blinky and toasty is better than eaten by spiders.

I’ve gotten used to the weird sunlight surprisingly quickly, and hardly ever have to sleep with my little masky thing on.

The restaurant right near the dorm is, get this, called “NyamNyam”. In Russian, of course. But still awesome. I’ll take a picture, in case you don’t believe me. Unfortunately, though the bliny are pretty good, we’ve eaten there thrice and they’ve gotten our orders wrong twice. The first time they completely forgot about John’s food, and turned off the grill, so he had to get something else. And then tonight they gave Alexandra and I both the wrong thing, and gave Charlie one of what we had ordered instead of the french fries he ordered. Bizarre.

Today we went on a grand adventure over to Petrogradskaya (another island, this city is actually made up of about a thousand islands). We went to the artillery museum, which was cool but epic. My baby camera only holds about 10% what everyone else’s fancy cameras hold, so I let them take the pictures of the gazillions of weapons, and I’ll get them when we are slightly more...wired. Then we went over to the Peter and Paul Fortress, which is basically a massive tourist trap. We might go back to see some of the stuff there, but for some reason it makes us all grumpy to have to pay to go into a church or cathedral. What if we urgently needed to talk to Jesus?

One really cool thing over there was that in the canal that makes Petrogradskaya an island, apparently they have speed boat races on Saturdays. Not sure about other days, but by the time we left, they’d been making the rounds four almost five hours. As weird as it is to be in the city, being able to smell the ocean sometimes makes me feel a lot better. Anyway, the boats were super fast and it looked like an awful lot of fun. I hope everyone at home is boating for me, since alas I cannot.

In other news, there really isn’t much other news. Aside from the dreams in which I was fleeing from spiders, I dreamed that we were on the airport, and I was wishing I had more time here. I’m trying to convince myself that if it was time to go now that’s how I’d feel, but I sure would like to sleep in my bed (as well as about a zillion other things). I feel like I’ve been gone a whole lot longer than a week.

(New pictures up where the pictures live!)

Oops

Ok, I lied.

Sasha and I watched Beauty and the Beast in Russian. And it was AWESOME. If I come back with a suitcase full of Russian Disney movies, don't say I didn't warn you. Because this is a warning.

I get to sleep in tomorrow...I wonder if I can?

The Fourth of July!

Is totally not a big deal here.

We celebrated by having dinner at Pizza Hut and stopping for our first Russian beers on the way back. We all picked the same one, except the boys got big bottles, and I got a small one. I'm not very optimistic about my constitution score. It's pretty good (Balticheskaya Klassika, which I have read is one of the more popular beers in St. Petersburg), but I wish I had some cheese. The fact is that I always wish I had some cheese - I'm not ashamed.

Pizza Hut is actually transliterated as "Pizza Hat". Unfortunately not Pizza Gut. (For some reason, most English words that begin with an H begin with a G in Russian, even though the "kh" letter is much more like an H. Examples: Garry Potter, and Gamburger.) I was hoping for Pizza Gut, but Hat is good too, even though it is not the Russian word for hat.

The whole experience was very silly. Out waiter was either one of the most enthusiastic people I ever met, or he was really excited to have real Americans eating in a Pizza Hut. He said good evening when we walked through the door, and I was so surprised by the fancytimes setup that he thought we couldn't speak English. We talked to him in English and Russian the whole evening - his English wasn't very good, and our Russian wasn't either. You can get a pitcher of wine at a Russian Pizza Hat, which we thought was amazing. We refrained, though.

I don't know if Rachel is reading this, but I thought it might make her laugh. Stila transliterated? Like the makeup? In Russian is a word that means "shame". It makes me chuckle, and wish I could find the Russian Sephora to get some lip glosses with Russian on them.

Otherwise, nothing much is new. In my class today, which was supposed to be Phonetics, we learned vocabulary and made up stories to go with some very sexist cartoons. I'll bring them home with me and scan them. They're pretty spectacular.

I've been delegated the Food Officer while we're here. As a group, we can't seem to make decisions, and at lunch time we wandered around the same enormous block in one big loop trying to find a food establishment that someone would have strong feelings for or against. Eventually, we ended up eating at Teremok again. I wish I had gotten the Kasha, my chicken had weird fatty bits in it.

We made the big list of things we want to do today - where they are, when they are open, and how much they cost. It's a long list, but we have a lot of free afternoons. We were invited to two parties, an outing to a club, and a concert today by classmates, but we just weren't feeling it. Which is sort of a relief for me, because I really don't want to do any of that but the concert, and that not today. I was worried that everyone else was going to want to party, and I was going to have to tag along for the sake of babysitting (drunksitting?) and staying together.

The plan now, depending on whether or not I stop being a chicken about asking my roommate to borrow her DVD, is to watch the Flinstones in Russian. Hopefully it lives up to its potential.

Day 6, in which we eat Russian fast food, and it almost rains sometimes.

Firstly, my pictures are here.

I still need to figure out how much this is all costing (this internet business), before I post the rest of them. Oddly, the website is entirely in Russian, and the instructions I got only have the english names for things. That's the only time that's happened since I got here - usually it's all in Russian, so at least I can match things up so I know what they're looking for.

It was much chillier this morning than it has been, which was nice. Partially because I like the cold weather, and partially because I overestimated the cuteness and practicality of light sweaters in the summer. For me, they're almost completely impractical, and I look less cute when I'm annoyed with my sweater.

It was my conversation class today, and I wasn't really sure what to expect. One of the girls in class yesterday told me this teacher talked a lot faster, which was true, but she was just as nice as the other ones. She was much younger, and more informal, and teased me a little for not talking very much. I told her I might talk tomorrow.

We learned about beverages today, which is convenient since Alexandra's been craving milk, and we weren't sure how to order some. The stores are mostly a lot different here, at least the ones near our dorm. It's like an open air market, but indoors. You tell them what you want, and pay for it, and they give it to you. At least, we tell and mime and point at what we want, and they sometimes get annoyed with us for being clueless (but are also sometimes very nice) and then we pay, and they roll their eyes at our large bills (stupid ATMs), and we get our food.

So during our beverage class we learned all sorts of adjectives for drinks - strong, sour, cloudy, sweet, dry ("In Russia we don't really know about wine, we just drink it", our teacher said...in Russian, of course). Part of our homework was to try any of the drinks we haven't tried. So I went out this evening after we ate dinner and got some Kefir. She said it wasn't yogurt, but it is. But not sweet, and much more sour. I'm going to keep trying it, but I can't say that I liked it. It was suggested that I put some fruit in it, but I don't want to ruin the fruit. It tastes a little like sour cream. So that part of my homework's done.

As an aside, in other interesting gastrological news (everyone I'm travelling with seems surprised about my one-track food-based mind, how odd), I tried Russian hot chocolate at the Russian fast food place (Teremok) today. Russian fast food is much different - I had a blin with ham and cheese, borshch, and Russian hot chocolate, which is fabulous. Because a small comes in an espresso cup, with whipped cream, and also it's pudding. Yeah, you heard me. It's slightly less solid chocolate pudding, but also better than the jello kind. It makes you feel more like you're drinking/eating food, than something made of plastic and marshmellows and potential pig peds.

Next on the list is Russian beer and vodka, but I think we're all so intimidated by having to pick out the bottles and tell the devushki ("young ladies", but what you call any woman working in a shop, really) exactly what we want, that that might take a while. They give us dirty looks when we're just buying water, for goodness sakes. Such sass. Although, that might just be their faces. But the sass we've experienced is so much sassier in contrast with the lack of confidence in most American girls working behind counters. Russian shopgirls pretty much own you.

We did manage at one point today to outwit an ATM (bankomat, in Russian). Unless it thought it was outwitting us. John went first, and when a big wad of 100 ruble notes came out (instead of five hundreds, which are useless), it was like we had found the holy grail. So we all put in strange and tricky amounts, and got hundred ruble notes back. Definitely a good ATM to visit, and it's right near school. So when doing intellectual combat with robots, we're all set.

I lost it and gave in to depending upon the internets yesterday night. I've been trying and trying to figure out the pattern to the shawl I'm making since I got here, and it just wasn't making any sense. So I posted on Ravelry, and someone rescued me, and it's going much better now that I don't have to keep unravelling the whole thing.

We're feeling a little intimidated by the upcoming weekend, I think. It's been nice to have something to get up and do every day, and the afternoons to study and relax. The idea of a whole day of free time freaks me out a little, but we have a whole list of places we want to go. Apparently at the Zoological museum they have the only preserved Mammoth, and a blue whale. Some incredibly huge amount of species on display. And yet, in the back of my mind, I'm not sure if I do or do not want it to be like this.

I have one bug bite on each of my elbows. Do not ask me how this happened, for I do not know.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Day 5 – In which we find the internets, and now they need to find us.

I had trouble sleeping last night, but class was good again today. We had a new (to me) teacher, who was also very nice. Wednesdays are my reading class, so apparently we read and go over (very) short stories, and then talk about them. So far she just let me be shy today, though I wouldn’t have minded reading so much.

It’s a little frustrating to be switching brains. If I didn’t like the people I was here with, it wouldn’t be a problem. But everyone’s so silly and funny that to get the jokes out we have to talk in English. So I wake up with my brain confused, am in English on the way to school, switch to Russian after a few minutes of class, and then emerge back into English slowly and confusedly when we meet after class to get lunch and go wandering. I hope we can all just start talking in Russian soon, because I hate to let that brain place go, and it’s also frustrating to be switching. It took me five minutes after class today to remember the word coincidence, and it was maddening.

Today we went with a bunch of my classmates to a little kebab kind of restaurant down the street from class, that was pretty good. If we go again, I’m going to get one of the sandwiches, because it has the Greek white sauce on it, and is less prone to attempts at identification than the exposed chicken bits on my kebab.

From there, the adventure to find the internets began. We walked and walked, back down the Neva where we were yesterday to the main St. Petersburg State University campus (which is weird and old and lovely), and scampered about. Eventually we found the lady, and set things up after filling out forms that were entirely in Russian (and confusing). And she told us to go next door to the building with the Kassa, and follow the directions, and then go back to her. We were thinking a Kassa was an office, where we were supposed to give someone our money and sign some more stuff. The people whose directions we asked for thought it was the campus “bank”, really a bookkeeping office, and after determining that the bank was indeed open we took the longish trek over there to find that the woman in the office had no idea what we were talking about.

Apparently, a Kassa is a kiosk thing that we have seen every day since we’ve been here. There is, in fact, one downstairs in our dorm. You put money in for your internet or phone card or whatever, and it...does magic, supposedly. We discovered that because after all that losting about, we went back to her the original office to find that the girl after us in line really knew what she was doing, and she showed us. I put money in, got a receipt, got an Ethernet cord from the woman in the office, and we left. Woof.

And after all that, it turns out that what we pay for is the kilobytes of space we use, or whatever. Space, downloading, something. (Stop all the downloading!) So I’ll post some pictures and see how much it costs, and then maybe just post the rest when we get home. We’re all going to be using my computer, because the whole thing was so abstract and confusing that we could not figure out how it worked. And they needed my passport for all that business, which makes me wonder if they’ll somehow be attaching the trail of websites I look at to my permanent record.

So now I wait in the tall grasses for the internet to come by (I guess I just leave it plugged in?) and when it does, I will leap out and grab it by the tail and wrangle it with the threat of giardia and this broken chair.

Day 4 – July 1st, 2008

In which academics occur.

First day of class, woof. I feel like a bit of a jerk, but I seem to be the only person who enjoyed it. I feel ok with where I was placed (at least so far), and my brain didn’t melt too much after a while. The last time I was such a no-English class, it was French, and I honestly think I understand Russian a whole lot better.

It seems like basically, we’re all really under prepared. I know Drew is a great school and all that, but we have really been wishing that we’d been worked harder. We know very little vocabulary, nothing about the motion verbs (which are hugely complicated in Russian, and totally necessary when living here!), and have very little practice speaking. I think one of the problems was that we’ve had so many teachers that they keep teaching us the same things repeatedly. But anyway, I think I’m going to like my class (I hope!), and am a little disappointed that we only have three weeks instead of four (they need a full week to process our transcripts, and apparently don’t know how to use a fax machine). Probably I’m a big dork, but I’m really excited about all the learning.

After finally finding a map, some maps, a map that includes the part of Vasilievsky island we live on! We went to Nevsky Prospekt today – walked along the Neva from the University, and across the bridge into the square with the big column that Alexander put up to brag about beating Napoleon. It’s all really neat, and so many of the buildings are just gorgeous. Unfortunately, they’re surrounded by modern things, which I had sort of forgotten about with all the historical movies and old literature I’ve been learning from. So there are buses and taxis and stop signs and power lines in most of my pictures – alas.

On Nevsky mostly we just wandered. There’s a hats and furs store we want to go into later perhaps to get gifties, but it looks like that store from Pretty Woman, and we were feeling a little sweaty and disoriented. We decided we’ll get dressed up when we go. Then we went to the Dom Knigi (house of books!), where I had a notebook accident that only cost me about $5. Exchange rates are awesome, except that without the internet I have no way to check how many dollars (not rubles) I have in my account.

Came back to the dorm, collapsed and had lunch, and came back here to collapse some more. We spent a good amount of time chatting, and then went back to studying, sort of. Also, being silly and looking up silly words. Everyone else had a whole bunch of homework, and I just had to look over the papers I got. So I spent a lot of time being preoccupied with something outside in the Gulf of Finland (out the boys window) that looked like a flipped boat, or a whale, or a kayak, or one of those Jesus bugs that floats on water, but...huge. So I took a picture of it to find out what it was, but when I zoom in it just looks like it might be the Loch Ness monster. Probably, when I have internets, I will post a picture!

In other news, I took a real shower today. It was real in that the water was hot, it came out of the showerhead, and there was a little bit of water pressure. It was amazing. Of course, it is a little weird to have to be paranoid about not getting any water in my mouth. And the tradeoff was that I wanted to shower last night, and couldn’t get water to come out - hot or cold. I did have enough to wash my face and my feet, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

Tried calling everyone again a little while ago, but no answers. Hopefully I’ll be able to try calling Chris in the morning, or if I wake up in the middle of the night. I hope everyone’s good. It’s a little scary to not even be able to get news from home. I know I’m too dependant on the internet, but I’d like to be able to at least read that aliens haven’t invaded.

Off to study, and sleep sometime. Hopefully soon. Sweet dreams, all of you people who can’t actually read this. Unless you’re hacking my internetless computer, in which case

Привет, и очень приятно. Говорите по-английски? Потому что если нет, вам скучно...

Day 3, June 30, 2008

Anastasia has come and gone, alas. I certainly can’t blame her. I was tempted to turn around and run away, and she’s already been away from home in Italy for a month. So it’s just the four of us, but she left a ton of extra towels and toilet paper, and a box of cereal, like an angel.

Still no luck with the internet. Here is what we did today.

We woke up, got some fruit for breakfast, hopped on the bus! Went to pick up the pictures the Kodak store took of the boys yesterday, and went over to the University. Our silliness borders on hysterical, and we all try not to be too loud and American, but we just keep thinking of funny things. Charlie may or may not be getting a tattoo of Putin (probably not, but one never knows – the constant sunlight seems to make people crazy). At the university, there was a great deal of confusion. Boris, the Dean of the school we’re studying in speaks English and seems very nice. Alas, he took my last passport photo, so I resolved to go and get some more at the Kodak store after we left. Everyone else was reasonably surly. We wrote down what we thought was a quick test of Russian (not so bad!), and then went into another room where we took the actual test of Russian. Which was an hour long, and 170 multiple choice questions. All the instructions were in Russian. I won’t divulge the scores of others, but I definitely got a 61%, which I think is a reasonable accomplishment, considering how I’ve been feeling since I arrived (“HOLY CRAP, WHAT WAS I THINKING? WHO SAID I WOULD DO THIS, IT DEFINITELY WASN’T ME”).

After that, we waited in a very Russian line, at the end of which a friendly! Russian lady told us swiftly what we were doing tomorrow. We looked so blank when she finished talking and I started trying to write everything she said down. She laughed, and said she would write it. We understood that much. So we report for class tomorrow at 9:30.

Then we went to the Kodak store, where I got in trouble for asking for pictures wrong, and John saved me by pointing to his and saying “this size, in five minutes” in Russian. Something about being in front of a camera leaves me petrified. And then of course, everyone proceeded to watch me have my picture taken. Super helpful. So we waited, and got them, and hopped on the (wrong) bus. But the (wrong) bus’ ruble collector was doubly kind – she pointed us towards the right bus, and didn’t charge us for the few backtracking blocks we traveled.

The right bus took us here. We got lunch, and headed on over to get our I.D. cards.

Where we had a uniquely Russian experience. Of waiting in line for two hours to show some ladies behind desks our documents, and sign our names thousands of times. So now we have I.D. Cards that fob us into our dorm, so we don’t have to be inspected by the man behind the desk any longer, Hooray. And it turns out they didn’t need a picture anyway – they took our picture there. So I am down 220 rubles for my unnecessary and terrible Kodak pictures – but 220 rubles is about $9, so I’ll recover.

After melting and whining about all the waiting, we tried to go see Grumpy Keys Lady. I feel bad for calling her that, but she didn’t introduce herself, and has never been anything but rude to us. She was very busy (at least ten people waiting in the hall outside her office), so we went back to our rooms for a bit, before getting antsy and going out again. We needed to find an ATM and didn’t want to make the sketchy walk to the metro, so we toddled on down the street, where we saw a dead pigeon (remind me to tell you the rat in the parking lot story), and went up the granite stairs and into the air conditioned, home-like lobby of the massive Park Inn which has an ATM in it. And a bank, and a restaurant, and a room with a working shower with my name on it, let me tell you. I am well aware of how spoiled I am, so I’m not ashamed to say that our standards of living here are totally bizarre to me. I look out the window at the few yachts and the projects surrounding my dorm, and it’s more than a little surprising. And the lobby of that hotel just made me want to curl up on a couch and nap where I wouldn’t be worried about the massive spider outside my window or the firecrackers being set off somewhere outside.

But I didn’t, because I would have been rousted for being a vagrant.

And so we toddled onward, after cheating the system and getting 700 rubles out instead of 100, 200, 500, or 1000. Because 100 rubles is about four dollars (not useless, but not super helpful), but if you hand over a 500 or 1000 people will literally turn away your money because they can’t make change. How dare you.

We stopped at the nifty shop next door for some breakfast for tomorrow (groceries and all sorts of things – incredible fresh fruit for cheap, I’d have pictures but I ate it all too fast). Then we came back here, and stopped in at GKLady’s office, where we waited for about twenty minutes. She came out and asked something we didn’t understand in Russian, and looked at each other for a little while. She said “What do you want?” and we asked about the internet, and she said “Go to the eleventh universitetskaya building, and pay.” Very helpful, Grumpy Lady. Thank you. Where is the eleventh building? Who do we talk to? Could you draw us a map? And that is why all of these posts will be on the same date, whenever the miracle of the internets is granted to us.

Then we came back here and flopped over some more. And then we went out for food – there’s a yummy bliny restaurant next door (like crepes), and they have smoothies that may or may not be alcoholic that I’ll have to try sometime later. They translate directly as “frozen cocktails”, so I’m not sure what that means but the pictures make them look like milkshakes and I could really use one of those. And a snuggle from some dogs, and a dip in the ocean, and to flop over in my own bed surrounded by my own family. But I’ll take a milkshake, since that’s what I can get.

Russia is certainly not lacking in dogs, and I thought it was weird once when Cesar Milan said on the Dog Whisperer that American dogs mostly never got the chance to be dogs, but in comparison it’s remarkably true. There seem to be no leash laws here, but all the dogs I’ve seen are well trained and happy, and the body language is just so doggish. Though I did see two in our parking lot today that may very well have been coyotes. No one else batted an eye, but we gave them a wide birth. I saw them later ranging around somewhere else. Bizarre.

In other news, a man came and fixed the lights in our bathrooms today, so I may get to take my first shower without a whole lot of darkness and mystery. It’s possible the mystery would have made it better, as Alexandra reports that we have no hot water tonight.

I finally got a phone card, having given up on the internets for now at least, and having been reassured that they do in fact work (not like the one I had in Ireland, that was useless even though the instructions were in English). And I called my poor Christopher incessantly until he finally took my call during a meeting (sorry!!!), but it was so nice to hear his voice. I left a message at home, because apparently everyone’s slacking over there :P

And now, I must get ready for bed, because I have class in the morning. But bed and morning are relative terms. It’s 2230 here, and...well...I’ll post a picture. And by the time I woke up at 8 this morning, the sun had been heating up for four hours and I was tanning in my bed. I’m going to have to work on that, or turn my bed away from the window. And my bed...not so much of a bed, as beds go. I'm pretty sure it was around for Stalin.

Poka, dahlinks. Spokoinoi nochi.

Day 2 – 29 June 29, 2008

After nearly 12 hours of sleep, things are definitely looking up. And looking around confusedly, wondering where they are but definitely up.

At 1015, we met Masha downstairs, who cheerfully (finally! someone cheerful and friendly!) orientated us. We found buses 7 and 147 which will take us from our dorm to the University. We found the nearest metro stop, which is not near, and the route to walk there is fairly sketchy. Masha suggested we not take it late at night, but even if she hadn’t I think we are unanimously in favor of not being there alone or in the (relative) darkness. The escalators at the metro are epic, like the awful one in D.C. My vertigo was not impressed, though it still is not and that may be because I should just be waking up. Not even, because it’s a Sunday.

The food so far is good, and we’ve only eaten at the dorm. Of course, I am notoriously unsqueamish about strange foods. Poor Sasha is finding it a bit of a trial to be a vegetarian.

Strangely, our entire trip was planed through the internet, and we have none. So all those phone numbers we should call if we have questions are unreachable, as well as maps, city info, translation tools, and communication and news from the outside world.

Hopefully, we will get some internet access tomorrow, from the Kommandant, as Masha called her. Otherwise known as the grumpy lady who assigned us our rooms.

I borrowed Jon’s international blackberry to text Hannah, and ask her to text Chris. Hopefully she gets the message, and sends it along. I think I was overly optimistic about the ease of connecting to the internets here, considering we’re miles away from any internet cafes, and the internet situation in the room is unknown. I tried to plug our roommate’s chord into mine, but all I got was a LAN connection that helped me not at all. The wireless nearby is entirely secure, and passworded. Alas.

Day 1 (Still. Sort of.)

in which our brains are squishy, and no one knows what time it is.

We have been travelling for some hours. I would call it a bunch, or perhaps a gaggle. Possible even a flight. (Haha, see what I did there?)

It is almost 1100 in St. Petersburg, and 1000 in Stockholm, where we are. Unfortunately our internal clocks are reminding us that it is almost 0300 at home, and what on earth is wrong with us?

The first flight was uneventful, aside from screaming children and the apparent likelihood of a Scandinavian Air attendant assuming you speak Swedish if you are blonde (rough estimates are at 101%).

I watched Calendar Girls, before the epic fail of attempting to contort into a comfortable sleep position that did not include lying in the aisle. Jon laughed at me, quite rightly, when I crammed myself entirely into the seat, sideways sitting in the fetal position. I just can’t seem to sleep sitting up. It may be my fear of public drooling.

Newark airport was in fine form when we left it – signs charmingly lead you astray trying to get there, and when the fire alarm goes off for nearly twenty minutes they offer no instruction or explanation during or after the unbearable noise. Clearly, nothing serious was wrong, with our plane at least.

The Stockholm airport is a little like being in Ikea, but with tragically fewer beds. The floors are hardwood or stone, the architecture clean and industrious, ad the sandwiches neatly arranged and difficult to identify.

Sweden’s policy on liquids in carry-ons is the first sensible one I have yet encountered. “You have bottles?” Says the one man at the uncluttered, uncrowded x-ray machine. “Yes, two water bottles,” Alexandra says. “Can you taste them for me?” He asks. We all looked at each other as if to say finally, finally someone will allow us to keep our beverages as long as we prove they are not poisonous or explosive.

My brain is like a pot of under-cooled jello, and I must muster the energy to find Hannah some Swedish gum.

Gum found, plane boarded. Somewhere in the Stockholm Arlanda airport, a Sperry Sails sweatshirt is having a great adventure. Free advertising! The only cost is my body heat, which is rapidly diminishing.

St. Petersburg...looks like any other city with funny signs, aside from the fancy famous landmarks. Silent driver brings us flying through the streets in the kind of van one tends to see on crime shows. Babushka at the front desk says “Go to floor two,” in Russian and is very concerned that we understand the number two. We understood the number, but not so much about the cryptic directions. Floor two is a hallway with two doors, one unlocked. We go through the unlocked door and wait, expecting someone to be on their way to us, which may be a little presumptuous, but sensible considering how brief our instructions were. We wait for fifteen minutes, and the boys go ask. The dorm is much like a warehouse, with creaking elevators and less than clean hallways. We find the magic door, where a surly lady is in her office and gives us our room keys after filling out paperwork. We also take some papers that we must have with us at all times. I’m beginning to think I should have brought a briefcase, for all the things I must carry with me, or else.

Alexandra and I, and Charlie and Jon are rooming together. Not all together, but two and two. We interrupt our new Korean roommate’s year long single room. We all speak a little Russian, but no other common language. Conversations are brief and silences slightly awkward, but silly. It’s apparent that she wasn’t expecting roommates, and while she’s very friendly, one of her friends asks us (almost subtly) when we’re going back to America. When we say in a month, she gives our roommate a look as if to say “It’s not that bad, then.”

The facilities are less than stellar. There is a closet with a toilet (that moves. Literally tips, and is only tenuously attached to the floor), and a closet with a sink and shower that share a faucet. Neither has a working light. The bathroom has no toilet paper. The shower is...special.

Fear not, the details of my showering experience will not be alluring or romantic. There is no hot water at first. Or second, or third, but halfway to a million it warms up. The showerhead can only be activated by diverting the stream from the sink faucet by pressing a button. The shower curtain is unstable, to put it mildly, with violent tendencies. It doesn’t play well with others. It falls on me when I try to hang my towel on it (it’s difficult to see by the light of my flashlight that it isn’t attached, just pinned between the two walls), and then again while I am struggling with the shower. The most efficient way I found to bathe is to swivel the sink faucet over the tub and contort whatever part of your body you want to get wet until it is under the tiny stream of water.

This is lunacy, and I am going to be here for a month.

And the boys, by the way, have their own room, hot water, water pressure, working lights, and a tropical view of the gulf of Finland.

It’s nearly ten at night, 2200, and it looks to be about four in the afternoon. I could go tanning.

But instead, I am going to bed.

Testing, 1 2 3

Check check. Check. Checkcheckcheck.