Persimmons

Well, after 2 weeks of traveling, I don't know which highlights to write all about here.  I'll just start from the beginning, a very good place to start.
Moscow was fabulous as ever, except for the horrible rainy and windy last day.  We had so much planned that we didn't get to!  But that's ok, we had lots of fun anyway.  We wandered through Izmailovsky park, which was a favorite relaxation spot of Peter the Great.  The birch woods here are incredibly beautiful, especially when they are all gold in the fall.  Lindsay had brought her trail mix to ward off the inevitable hunger that occurs when you are surviving on a diet of bread, cheese, and yogurt, but it also turned out to be a valuable tool for attracting squirrels and chickadees.  Lindsay got some birds to land on her hand, and all of us had encounters with the squirrels, which are SO much cuter than US squirrels; they have ear tufts!  Adorable.  Then we went to the souvenir market, where we were pretty much the only customers, and bargained us some deals.  Then we got some honey!  There was this lady selling honey in the lobby of a movie theater out of giant tubs.  We got to taste all the different kinds, and I ended up buying a kilo of honey.

We met some pretty great people in our 10 person dorm room at the hostel, as I've mentioned before.  None of them spoke or read a word of Russian.  I was amazed at their courage for coming to a country where so few people speak English, and which refuses to put English on many of its signs.  Of course, before coming they figured more people would know English, you know, like the entire rest of Europe.  Boy was that a surprise!  Anyway, Sarah and I ended up being the personal tour guides for two guys from Denmark, which was a lot of fun.  Even if we managed to lead them to the Pushkin literary museum and not the Pushkin Fine Art museum.  Oops!  Who thought to put two such closely named museums on the same street anyway? We ended up going to both, plus a church.  That's a lot of museums.  Sarah and I were quite loopy from aching feet and food deprivation by the time we entered the art museum, and therefore could not take it seriously.  There sure were some great pictures of fish in there though.  The others found and patronized Starbucks that day without us, after they went to the Kremlin.

The next day I didn't do much.  I got my traveler's checks cashed, which was hard. DON'T take traveler's checks to Russia.  Hardly anyone cashes them!  There was a fancy FAO Schwarz type store next to the bank, so of course we had to visit that.  It was 4 floors of overpriced children's paradise.  A Barbie doll that is $20 in the US costs $150 in Moscow.  RIDICULOUS.  I totally would have gotten the book Cats: and Nothing Else Besides Cats if it hadn't have been $50.  Then we were supposed to meet the Danes at the Sculpture Park, but it was horrible rainy weather, so that didn't happen.  I did manage to find a hole in my boot though, that's exciting.  We did pass by Gorky park from the other side though, and I saw the BURAN!!!!!  They have it parked in their amusement park in the middle of Moscow!  Weird.
That evening we went to the Tretyakov Gallery.  It was a nice museum.  I found my favorite Russian painter: Grabar, a post-impressionist.  No one wanted to go to the Georgian restaurant that night :(.


Off to Sochi!!!!!!  25 hours on a train, and then jumping off the moving train onto the platform, and we arrived in Sochi.  There really is no way to know where you are on a Russian train.  No one announces it, there aren't any helpful signs on the platforms; it's so frustrating!  Turns out our hostel was in Adler, not Sochi, and we had to take a $100 taxi there.  If only we'd known how to use the vans that will take you there for $1.50!
Oh well.  Adler/Sochi was really great.  Sooo relaxing, and so warm.  It's about 18 miles from Georgia, so there's lots of Georgian food, and the climate is tropical, so we had fresh fruit everyday.  The tourist season is rapidly ending down there, so most things were closed, but it was nice that the place wasn't crowded with tourists.  Plus, a lot of the things they sold in the stores were silly little things made of shells and stuff made in China, so I didn't feel like I had to own any of them.  Except an Olympics shirt, of course.  The winter Olympics will be there in 2014, and preparations are well underway.  Most of the events will be in Krasnaya Polyana and Adler instead of Sochi proper, so there was lots of construction going on.  Cranes EVERYWHERE.  We didn't do much in the entire week we were there except relax on the beach or the roof of the hostel, wander around Sochi, wander around Adler, and go to McDonald's in Sochi for the free wi-fi.  It was nice.
But I'm glad to be back in Novgorod where I don't have to buy and prepare my own food, and where I know where I am.

Moscow

Yay Moscow! 
We got here at 5:30 am on Saturday, tired as all get out.  The wind here is quite windy, but definitely not as bad as being here in January.  We walked down to Red Square and around Kitay Gorod in the morning, and then walked back and watched 1 and a half of the National Treasure movies in the hostel lounge.  We couldn't check in yet, so we were just lollygagging.  When we finally could check in we met all the really nice people in our room.  Instead of napping we talked to all of them for 3-4 hours.  At that point we were so hungry we could faint, so we went to someplace that had Hofbrauhaus signs all over it.  It was NOT a Hofbrauhaus, they only had a few Hofbrau beers.  SO disappointing.  Then we finally got some sleep after about 36 hours straight of no sleep.  Maybe some people can sleep on a train with lots of snoring people that stops every hour, but I couldn't.  It got really warm in there, душно, as we say in Russian. 

Sunday we got up at about nine and headed back to Red Square to have a chat with the dead body of Lenin.  Boy was that fun!  I hadn't seen him before, because his mausoleum has strange opening hours.  It was a really weird experience.  We had to wait in a huge line, check our bags (which we had to pay for), walk through metal detectors, and then through this maze of walkways with guards pointing the way at every corner.  The mausoleum was very creepy.  All the stone inside was black, and there was weird low level lighting.  Lenin's glass coffin (just like Snow White!!!) was surrounded by red velvet and velour roses.  We had to walk by him slowly, without stopping.  You're not allowed more than, say, 7 seconds to look at Lenin before a guard comes and taps you on the shoulder to get you to move on.  Livi discovered that you're not allowed to have your hands in your pockets while viewing Lenin either.  The guard was very adamant about that.  Lenin just looked fake.  He gets a new chemical bath every 18 months, and he is bathed every 3 days.  He looks like he's covered in shellack.  It's just so weird that they still have him here, so blatantly against his wish to be buried next to his mother in St. Petersburg.  They are considering moving him to St. P though. 

After that we tried to find a Starbucks.  The rest of the world seems not to have discovered the joys of drip coffee; all they have is espresso and instant.  But Starbucks, that's another story.  They DO have drip coffee, just like America.  Anyway, we settled for Shokolodnitsa, which turns out to also have American coffee and French press.  MMMM.  We ate lunch at the baked potato stand- cheap and filling!  Then, the highlight of my day:  THE SPACE MUSEUM!!!!!!  I finally got to go!  I tried to go in January, but it was only open for tours, weirdly.  Anyway, it was awesome.  They had the stuffed forms of Belka and Strelka (who were adorable doggies), Michael Collins' space suit (how'd that happen?), and a bunch of other cool stuff.  Cosmonauts used to wear suits on the space station that looked like they came right off the set of Star Trek.  We then took the metro to Gorky Park, but it was not exciting, so we went back to the hostel and ate giant bowls of buckwheat for dinner. 

Today we're going souvenir shopping and to see a new Russian movie in the evening.  It's a 3D movie in which there is a demon stronghold in Moscow State University.  I think it sounds hilarious.  We also might go wander around Patriarch's Ponds; try to strike up a conversation with the Devil (Master and Margarita reference.)

Cat Envelope

I am so TIRED!  It seems like I can't recover from the St. Petersburg trip this weekend.  And we have a lot of work to do this week because it's the last week of school before our vacation.  Blergh.  But, we leave for Moscow on Friday!  So much to do!  Laundry, print out tickets, packing, obtaining money, planning things to do, oh, and homework.

Today we had a test in Leksika class.  The whole point of this class is to teach us minute differences between very similar words in Russian.  For example, there are two words that mean whole, or entire: весь and целый.  They are almost interchangeable, except for very stupid circumstances.  If a whole watermelon is sitting on a table, it is целый арбуз.  But, if you are eating the entire watermelon, it has to be весь арбуз.  Our teacher thought we'd come to this understanding naturally, even though she'd never told us this weird distinction before the test.  The explanation for this usage is sooooo convoluted, I don't know if I can even attempt it.  It has to do with watermelon being a food, but if no one has eaten any part of it, it is still whole in a container.  Russian is so WEIRD!  So anyway, we had a 6 page long test to fill in these types of words in sentences.  Before the test our teacher said that she knew it was a lot, but that we shouldn't have to think about it very hard.  By now it should be intuition.  PFFFFTT!  It might become intuitive after a long period of acquaintance with these words, and hearing them used all the time, but that is just not the case.  It took us way too long to do that test.

Well, St. Petersburg was awesome, thanks for asking.  It is so much better when it's not -100 degrees and windy.  The sun was even shining on Saturday, so it was beautiful.  We spent more than 3 hours wandering around the Hermitage, and boy did that wear us out.  It was just too much to take in!  Every room of the Hermitage is decorated differently and more beautifully than the last.  We would walk into a room and our jaws would literally drop open in amazement.  They also have such great art there!  It probably has the best collection of art anywhere in the world.  They have Da Vinci, Bernini, Van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Degas, Rembrandt, El Greco, and basically any famous artist you can think of.  Plus, they have a huge collection of ancient statues and art.  I discovered that actually seeing a painting in person is much better than seeing a print of it.  Especially for Van Gogh.  His paintings have so much texture. I had always liked them before, but now I really know how awesome they really are.
After recovering from all the excitement of the Hermitage we went to Dom Knigi (House of Book).  It really should be house of books, but the name literally means house of book, as in one book.  It should be Dom Knig.  It's the best bookstore in the world.  It's located in the old Singer Sewing machine company building, which is gorgeous.  It still says "Компания Зингерь" (singer company) above the door.  I have now accomplished my goal of buying some Russian literature in Russian.  I got some short stories by Pushkin, and A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov.  Oh, and I musn't forget my purchase of HARRY POTTER IN RUSSIAN!  So excited to begin the long process of reading that book.
We went to Shokolodnitsa for dinner.  MMMMMMM.  I had some melted chocolate in a cup.  Not really, but that is what their hot chocolate is like.  It is so powerful that they give you a tiny espresso cup, and also a large cup of water.  I think it is the most delicious thing on earth.
We went to a Czech pub that night, after shopping at H&M, because it was Lindsay's birthday and we had to celebrate.  I had some Czech beer, which was pretty good.  I can admit that some beer is tasty, but I still don't prefer to drink it over other things.  It's just kind of weird-tasting.

Ok, this is a completely different topic, but while I'm thinking of it I have to write it.  No one here wants to make change.  It is so annoying!  The bank-o-mats usually only give out 1000 ruble bills, or 500's.  But when you actually want to buy something, the cashiers look at your giant bill and ask you to look for correct change.  And when you say that, unfortunately no, you do not have correct change, they all sigh heavily and rifle about in the cash drawer to plop down your change.  Also, if you try to pay with a 100 ruble bill when your total was 67.87 or so, the cashier will always ask for a strange amount of rubles and kopecks.  Like, 23.13.  Plus, they talk very quietly and quickly, so a Russian may be able to understand the exact amount the cashier wants, but we most definitely cannot.  I usually just poke around in my change purse and then woefully say, "Nyet," when I should say, "No!  It's your JOB to make change!  So do it!"

I'm getting really tired of potatoes.  Come on now, not EVERY SINGLE DISH has to include potatoes. Seriously, what did Russia eat before they discovered potatoes?  Gruel 24/7?

Number One Fan

I learned a new word this week (well, not only this one, but it's the best): детка (dyetka).  It means babe, or chick.  This word comes from listening to the songs of Dima Bilan over and over again, as his is the only music I have on my netbook here, besides WAY too much Vysotsky.  All day long I am singing in my head, "Я твой номер один, baby, я твой номер один...знаешь!"  I believe I am becoming a hardcore Dima fan.  Look him up on Youtube.  He is pretty hilarious because he's a pop star, and boy does he know it!

Before I said that all of us love our literature class.  Well, maybe I have to revise that and say we have a love/hate relationship with it.  It is an excellent class because we read and discuss literature in Russian.  However.  It is an extremely frustrating class because we have to read and discuss literature in Russian.  Coming from a liberal arts college, we are frequently asked to analyze works of literature, philosophy, theology, etc.  Therefore we naturally jump to this method of thinking when reading something.  In this class, our teacher does NOT want us to do this.  We are asked simply to know what the text says, and answer very simple questions.  It's really hard to just describe who has six bulls pulling his cart up the mountain, and who has four, rather than our favorite questions: what does this mean?  Another note, it is very hard to tell who is talking in Russian literature.  They love to use pronouns instead of actually saying which "he" it is that's talking. Plus, you're expected to memorize the name, patronymic, and last name of every character and be ready to recognize about whom they are talking in the event they use any of these names to describe someone.  Sigh.  It doesn't help that our teacher thinks we're pretty dull.  She sighs and laughs at us all the time and doesn't give a lot of positive praise.  I would hazard a guess that the Russian educational society hasn't been introduced to the theory that encourages teachers to encourage self-esteem in their students.  There's no way any of our teachers would use a green pen instead of a red one in case red made us feel stupid.

In other happenings, we went to a lovely concert on Sunday, with three tenors.  Not the Three Tenors, just three individual tenors.  One was from Georgia (the country), one from Italy, and one from Mexico.  The Mexican was absolutely adorable.  He was so short and wearing a tux with tails, and he sang beautifully.  One of his songs was "Besame mucho."  One of the reasons he was so cute is because he was enjoying himself so much.  When he was singing he was intent, but after he was done he was all smiley and gave everyone lots of  thumbs ups.  He liked to drag the accompanist up to bow after each song, which I think the accompanist thought was annoying.  He seemed weirded out by the strange applause of the Russian audience, and I totally understand.  They all clap in unison.  It's so creepy and communist!  It's like there's someone (aka Putin) hiding in the walls counting "Clap, 2, 3, 4, clap, 2, 3, 4."  I refuse to clap with them.  I don't care if it sounds dissonant, I don't want to be caught up in the creepiness.  Anyway, he would bounce along with the beat of the clapping, and act like he was conducting us.  It was so funny!  I wanted to meet him and speak to him in whatever Spanish I could remember (mostly: Muchos Gracias!  and Que pasa, calabaza?), but unfortunately the singers didn't come out into the hall at the end.  But it was a great concert.  They all together sang Funiculi, Funicula!  It was one of their three encores.

I'm going to St. Petersburg this weekend!  Hermitage here I come again!  Maybe this time I will get to see at least half of it.
Пока!