Saturday, June 30, 2012

A Day in the Lyfe: Weekend Edition


So Janet, if that last post chronicled just your normal school week, what exactly do you do on the weekends? We can’t assume you cease to exist on the most valuable two days of every week. Well, reader, I’m a little busy sitting here questioning the contents of my lunch (cabbage fried with hotdogs and ham?! Maybe?), but I guess I have time to answer your question as well.

And the answer to that question is that it varies. Every weekend here has been an adventure of sorts, so I think I’ll just recap them all here. Don’t worry, there’s only been like two. And a half. Since today is Saturday.

The first weekend
Friday: We took a boat tour along the Moscow River. It was a beautiful day. We got to see many of the main attractions such as the Kremlin, Soviet skyscrapers, bridges, Cathedral of Christ the Savior, more bridges, and the best thing, of course, St. Basils. Which I thought I was taking a ton of pictures of, but turns out my camera was lying to me so I only ended up getting one rather lopsided picture of half of it since someone’s head got in the way. Ah well.

After that we were led to some Monastery in a questionable area, and then our guide just kind of ditched us. So some of us wandered around and found a Chinese buffet. Which was kind of a fail since you have to choose which size plate you want and then you only get to fill it up once. I prefer the obese American way to do buffet. But maybe that’s just me. I don’t think we did anything interesting after this. Clearly not since otherwise I’d probably remember it.

View of the Kremlin from the Moscow River
Saturday: Our plan was to go to the Pushkin Museum. Which of course there are like three of. The one we found was not the one we intended on finding. We ended up at the State Museum of Pushkin, which was essentially a museum of all of his old junk. But I got to see the original copy of his short story “The Queen of Spades” (“Пиковая Дама“), which I wrote a paper on this year, so that was pretty cool. We also made friends with this little old babushka working in one of the exhibits, and although we didn’t understand what she was telling us to do, she was very helpful.

We found lunch after this at a little restaurant on a sad looking side street. From the outside, the restaurant looked rather questionable, but it was legit. Legitimately delicious. Plus they were playing the TV show Vampire Diaries, or Дневник Вампира, on the TV right by our table, dubbed in Russian of course. For once we didn’t mind our slow service, since that just meant we got to watch more of the show.

Sunday: I went with a friend to explore Gorky Park, which is probably my favorite place in all of Moscow. It was a gorgeous day to just walk around outside, look at nature, and explore. After this already long adventure, we headed to Gori Leninskiye, where you can see the entire Moscow skyline (after an exhausting hike up a steep mountain. “Gori” means mountains, by the way). It was a beautiful view, and it was impossible for any picture I took to truly capture it. A short walk away from this is MGU (Moscow State University), the oldest and largest university in Russia, so we walked around that for a while too.

After this extensively long day in the sun, I come home to be greeted by my host mom, who exclaims in horror about my sunburn, which had only just become evident. Instead of being like, here’s some aloe, like pretty much any normal person, she was like, we’ll just have to slather you up in sour cream! Luckily, the look of horror on my face put an end to that suggestion, and she scavenged out some foul smelling ointment, which probably hadn’t been used since Brezhnev’s time. Better than dressing up in condiments though I guess.

Last Weekend
Friday: Our excursion was to the Red October chocolate factory, which was by far the tastiest tour I’ve ever been on. We were literally eating chocolates by the handful as they came off the conveyor belts. And then even after all that, they sent us home with a gift bag of deliciousness. Not that I would actually know since I gave it all to my host family, being the wonderful guest that I am.

That night I went to see the ballet. But using the word “see” is kind of misleading here. We went as a group of students, meaning we got incredibly cheap, discounted student tickets, meaning we got the worst seats in the theater, meaning that we couldn’t actually see the stage from where we were sitting. This shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise though, considering the fact that “Uncomfortable seat” (неудобное место) was actually written on our tickets. But всё хорошо, что хорошо кончается, because at least now I can leave Russia saying I at least heard a ballet there. It’s kind of a required experience in my opinion.

With our new friends Sergey and Sergey
And then we went out for drinks afterwards so that was fun. We had been hanging out with this guy Sergey at the ballet, so afterwards we met up with Sergey’s friend Sergey and went to a bar. It was one of those places you never would have found had you not known a Russian. We had to creep behind a fence and walk to the back of a building and then go down a bunch of steps into a kitchen and the go through a doorway or two and suddenly we were in a really hip, hole-in-the-ground kind of bar. They didn’t want to serve us since our group of six people was too big (what?) but then the second Sergey had a quick word with the manager and we were suddenly sitting down, watching the futbol game, drinking beer (which was buy one get one free, holla!), and engaging in a mostly Russian conversation. It was a successful night.

Saturday: We had to wake up unfortunately early in order to attend our resident director’s mandatory lecture on the cross-cultural differences between Russians and Americans. It was four hours of him basically bragging about everything he thinks he knows about what he calls psychology, which is really just very biased sociology. And then the pizza we were all promised was never delivered so our whole group of students just ended up walking across the street to the Papa Johns and eating it there.

That afternoon was my first time hanging out with my tutor. We went to Kolomenskoye Park and wandered around there for the day. I got to see Peter the Great’s cabin in its unoriginal location. My one comment about that is that he was a really tall dude, and that doorway was too short even for me. This guy built a whole new capital city, you’d think he’d be able to get the dimensions on his tiny cabin right.

Sunday: Feeling behind on all my readings and realizing how overwhelmed I am by all the new words I need to memorize, I spent the day siting in my room drinking tea, eating chocolate, and making flashcards. And then studying my flashcards. And then napping. And then back to the flashcards. I will probably look back on this day as my first and last day as a productive student in Moscow.

This Weekend
Friday: Yesterday we had our excursion to MosFilm, Russia’s largest movie studio. Considering that I had only seen maybe three movies produced there, it honestly wasn’t that interesting of a tour. And I was improperly dressed to handle to surprisingly chilly and occasionally drizzly weather.

We later went to the Cosmonaut Museum and saw all sorts of space type things. Like the first Sputnik. Yep. And some stuffed dogs named Belka (Squirrel) and Strelka (Arrow), the first creatures from earth to make it to space and back (obviously they were not stuffed back then). We also had an encounter with a very rude museum lady, who yelled at us for taking pictures, although there were no signs forbidding it. Apparently to take pictures you have to buy a special ticket. After finding out we were American, she commented to our Russian friend, “They’re from America. They’re not poor. They can buy the tickets if they want pictures.” Yeah, because I want to spend an extra 200 rubles just to get a picture of your stupid display on space foods (actually, I kind of do wish I had a picture of that. They ate tubes of borsht in space!). But still. A lot of Russians have this terrible jealous hatred against Americans. Combine that with an already existing inclination towards bluntness, and sometimes it’s just really discouraging. But then we all got ice cream at a nearby park and felt a whole lot better.

Kasey’s tutor invited us to a party at her boyfriend’s apartment, so we bought a bottle of wine that had a cat on it and headed on over. I really like party etiquette in Russia. Guests all bring gifts to share with everyone in an unspoken agreement, which takes a lot of pressure off the hosts, who go all out anyways, since Russians, mean-hearted museum ladies aside, are really warm and generous people. This might sound kind of cheesy, but it’s true. When you’re a guest in someone’s home, the host typically puts a lot of effort into making you feel comfortable. This is usually done with food and overfeeding you, something everyone living with a host family on this trip experiences everyday. But the party was a lot of fun, since her boyfriend is actually an American, and his friend was from Australia, and there were really nice Russian girls and guys there. The conversations easily drifted in and out of Russian and English. Also we played charades, and I successfully acted out “illegal arms shipments.” That in itself makes for a successful night.

This party really made me happy to be here. I’d say in general I’m happy and excited that I’m finally living out this dream of being in Russia, but there are definitely moments and even days where finding the excitement to deal with yet another cashier or waitress or person on the street who despises you for being a foreigner is really challenging. Being at that party, and every time I hang out with Russian tutors and their friends, I’m reminded of why I’m doing this and why I’m here and why I love studying Russian.

And it’s not because I love to make flashcards.

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