First day of school, etc.

I don't think I ever thought I would spend my 20.5th birthday in St. Petersburg, but that's what I did today.

Even though Olga does not like mornings, she was awake before I was to make sure I was up for school, and she made me an omlet before I set off at 9:15am for my commute (Sheesh, Mom, way to go handing me a piece of bread for the road when I commuted to Nobles). It's a fairly straight forward route: I walk to the Vladimirskaya metro stop, take the red line to Mayakovskaya station where I switch to the green line, and then I ride the green line to Vacileostrovskaya where I walk to Smolny. Pretty simple except for the about a million people who are also following their simple little commuter routes. When Bryan told us we would have to be aggressive and pushy to get on and off the metro, I had no idea exactly HOW aggressive and pushy. When I got myself onto the train on the red line, I didn't even have to hold onto a bar because everyone else packed into the train around me kept me standing upright, and then on the green line I barely had to even try to get on the train because everyone else pushed me on. Well, one thing is for sure, Mom's complaint about me never being assertive enough in life will definitely disappear after my time in Russia.

So then there was that whole "school" aspect of my time here. It was actually pretty good. Both of my professors are young, friendly women who are quite approachable. One studied in Seattle and when she speaks English she has a little Midwestern twang going on. I'm in the 202/301 class, group #2 out of 4 (there's also 201, 303 and 401.... I don't really understand who is in 303.... I think they all have also only 2 years of Russian but are better at it than I am). Anyway, I'm definitely in the right section for my level (I might even know some things over other people.... maybe I'll look better at Russian than I actually am in comparison? At least for the beginning?) and my class is fun. The group is: Noah (UChiago), Louis & Emma (Oberlin), Kalinda (Barnard), and three Bard girls -- Erica, Rebecca and Hannah.

I must say though that only speaking Russian, while being extremely useful in terms of my learning curve and all that jazz, basically made my head explode by 4pm when I could leave. After class I just walked by myself in the sunshine slowly back to the apartment, letting my mind recover before I went home to attempt more poor Russian speech. While walking I saw my first pair of Russian lesbians, nuzzling on a bridge. Of course they were nuzzling on a bridge, that is all couples do here -- make out in parks or nuzzle on bridges. Every time I see such PDA I want to shout "NO TOUCHING" and I think of Meri. I also stopped at Дом Книги ("House of Books") to buy some paper and notebooks for class. During all this, I practiced trying not to look American. Right now I am going for German since I definitely can't pull off Russian. Tactics I tried:

1. Not smiling at people I do not know.
2. Being assertively pushy, aggressive and impatient, passing old women who are walking too slowly on the sidewalk.
3. Looking disinterested, or just ignoring everyone and everything. Also I looked at tourists with disgust (but I'm used to doing that from living in Lexington).
4. Wearing sunglasses so people can't tell when I was looking around at buildings and such.
5. Being aware of where my bag was, but not too aware. Not clutching it to my stomach like someone who is certain they will be robbed at every corner. Only foreigners do that.
That's all I have for now, but I'll be sure to add as I discover more things.

And my evening was low key. Mom called as surprise and my brain freaked out at suddenly speaking so much English all at once. I felt like Bryan Billings or Jonathan Platt was going to come out of the wardrobe and yell "REMEMBER THE LANGUAGE PLEDGE! STOP!" I then had dinner with Olga, during which we watched the Russian version of Law & Order: SVU (Rosie!! I thought of you!!), followed by..... homework (?!?!??!)..... and then looking through all of the family's photos with Katya explaining things to me. Olga also made these little pastries filled with chocolate (she just told me the name and now it's gone. of course) and I drank my 5th cup of tea for the day and then showed Olga, Misha & Katya pictures of ALL OF YOU PEOPLE READING THIS BLOG. Well, the people I know who are reading this blog. Dave Santos, if you are reading all this, who are you? Anyway, they enjoyed the pictures (MOM, should have squished in the photo albums..... OOPS. It's okay. I had the ones from Nunni's 70th birthday slideshow). And then we watched "Without a Paddle" dubbed in Russian. So, this is my life. Oh, and Misha helped me sign up for Russian Facebook which is called "vkontakte" and looks identical to Facebook but all in Russian.

Oy, I still just can't believe I'm actually here, living here and being here. It was such a massive effort to get here, from the decision to come in the first place to packing to getting on the Lufthansa plane to Germany, that it feels like I shouldn't be here yet.

Two last things:
1. My favorite moment of the night was when I was doing homework in my room and I suddenly heard music coming from the room next door. I knocked and went in and said to Katya, "Я тоже люблю.... Radiohead" ("I also love Radiohead") and she laughed.
2. COMING SOON: first round of pictures will be up on pbase. But give me time.