I've gotten out of the daily-updating habit.

Sorry if that means you're bored at work, but it gives me more time to actually do things here.

Though I don't really know what I've been doing over the past few days. A lot of walking around the city. A lot of sitting on benches watching people. Yeah, I guess mainly people watching. Some things I've seen since Monday that I was entertained by:

I saw a bride emerging out of a port-a-potty by the Church of the Spilled Blood. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it's a tradition in St. Petersburg that when you get married you and your whole wedding party travel around the city drinking champagne and taking photographs at all the major landmarks. So seeing a bride by the Church of the Spilled Blood was not an unusual occurrence, but seeing one come out of a port-a-potty was a change. Especially with the fact that her white dress was so enormous that it exploded out when she exited the little green plastic box. I don't know how her whole dress fit in there, let alone how it remained white.

I also saw this blue VW Bug that Sasha had seen earlier and told me about. It is baby blue and built into the roof are two enormous rabbit ears and on the hood of the car a rabbit face is spray painted on. I didn't quite believe her until I saw it, moments after it sped by the bride who was still getting out of the port-a-potty. That was a weird few minutes.

And the other day I was sitting on a bench by the Bronze Horseman and across from me there was this man with a large, furry brown animal that I thought was a large dog for a while. I then began to wonder why tourists kept crowding around him and taking pictures with this animal, so I squinted and realized it was a baby bear. My bad. It was kind of upsetting as the animal was clearly drugged and his little tongue was hanging out and he looked so sad, but I kept hoping one of the many brides getting their pictures taken by the Bronze Horseman would stop to have her picture taken with the bear too. No such luck.

What else.....

Well, on Tuesday our excursion was to the Museum of Political History. That's a fucking huge museum. I mean, clearly. Russia has a lot of political history. It was one of the weirdest museums I have ever been in though because it had absolutely no logical flow to its exhibits. There was one room that contained the portrait of the czar that was slashed with soldiers' bayonets when they stormed the palace, a typewriter that Lenin once used or something, a cowboy shirt belonging to another politician, and a video camera that someone else used in the 1980s to record something important...... oh, and also a book that was given to Catherine the Great as a present...... ?!? I definitely missed the logical connection between those items. Sasha and I kind of lost it a bit by the end of the museum because we were in there for so, so, so very long and so all my pictures from Tuesday are of Sasha with various weird objects that we thought were really funny. I'll get them up soon. My favorite involves her and Stephen intently studying a suitcase.

Actually, this whole week has been full of weird museums. I also went to the State Photography Centre (not on an excursion) which is more of a three-room gallery near St. Isaac's that is really difficult to find as it is broken up amongst different buildings and on the third floor of a poorly labeled building and it has no permanent collection but a rotating exhibition kind of thing. I really liked a lot of what I saw though, especially Aleksandr Maslov and Sergey Kochetov. Examples of their work (and my favorites):
Aleksandr Maslov
Sergey Kochetov

And then today on our excursion we went to the most ridiculous place ever. It's called the Horrors of St. Petersburg and I thought it was some kind of museum about terrible things that happened in St. Petersburg but...... nope. It was basically a haunted house. In a mall. With these young kids who probably just graduated from theatre school dressed up in period costumes pretending to be pirates or characters from 'The Queen of Spades" or "The Nose" or all this stuff about Rasputin's murder...... Ahhh it was so crazy, I don't think I can do justice to it. It was all projections and fog machines and soundtracks of screaming women. The whole time I just kept thinking, "Just when I thought I couldn't have a weirder experience...."

I think I am going to have that thought a lot in my time here.

Blue Monday.

Not actually blue, more gray. I just like that New Order song.

In poetry club today, Philipp, Sasha and I read a famous little poem by a guy named Федор Иванович Тютчев (Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev). It goes like this:

* * *

Умом Россию не понять,
Аршином общим не измерить:
У ней особенная стать -
В Россию можно только верить.

28 ноября 1866

And is translated something like this:

You will not understand Russia with intellect
Or measure her with a common measure
She has a special figure
It is only possible to believe in Russia.

This poem a pretty famous little guy, and the first line is frequently quoted, especially amongst ex-pats when they can't comprehend how something is works in Russia: "Умом Россию не понять!" Apparently Bryan says it all the time, according to Philipp. So now I know.

So then I had another package at the post office today. I think that everyone who works in the Smolny office thinks I am crazy because I get so much mail. Or maybe that I only know crazy people at home. It's been six weeks and I've already received two package slips, three postcards and two letters. I never realized quite how much all of my family and friends enjoy taking full advantage of the various postal networks of the world.

Anyway, this time I stood in the right line and so I didn't have to wait as long. But when I handed my slip to the woman she flips it over and looks at the back of the form which I had filled out with a green pen and she proceeds to give me a ten minute lecture on how "this isn't a children's school" and how I have to use the same color all around and next time "only blue pen! only blue!" She then grumpily sighs and gets me my package, which was from Nunni, of course, and hands it to me grudgingly. Умом Россию не понять.

And today was a milestone day. I finished filling volume #52, my first journal that I finished in Russia. So, now I begin with volume #53 which is going to take place in my lovely red and gold journal that was a present from Kristina. Don't worry, Erin G, your recycling journal is up next as volume #54. Then I'll have to find a good place in St. Petersburg that sells journals.

Photos updated!

New digital stuff from various events I wrote about in the previous entry.

New film stuff from a black and white Holga roll and a roll of color in the Supersampler.

And, as usual, some new self portraits, as it has been a few days.

So it's been five days.

To quote my dear brother, a shit ton of stuff has been going on.

On Wednesday I went to my first concert in Russia. It was a pretty great start. The show was Gogol Bordello at this conference center arena place called Lenekspo, located not too far from Smolny. I had wanted to go to this show because I liked Gogol Bordello a lot back in high school and always wanted to go to one of their concerts but they usually play at 21+ venues in Boston and their shows don't start until midnight, so that was never happening.

I probably would have not gotten my act together to get a ticket and go though if Melanie (the 30-something Berkeley professor who is also in my Russian class because she is married to a Russian man and wants to learn Russian so their baby will speak Russian and she can communicate with her in-laws) had not invited me to take the ticket of her husband who was supposed to go with her but was in Moscow on business. I met up with her outside of the weird looking, Soviet-style building -- met up with her and Jonathan P..... yes, our academic program advisor. Yes, this was weird for me initially, being at a concert with an authority figure and a mom, but as we all sat outside and drank beer together in between the acts and talked I realized that they are both the same age as Sara and Chad. So not weird at all. Plus it was Melanie and Jonathan who were the ones who got really excited about making sure they were right in the middle of all the sweating, moshing, jumping Russians surrounded by the energy of the concert.

And there was a shitload of energy at that concert. The Teenagers opened -- they are this highly attractive French band (seriously, everyone in the band is beautiful) who plays fun, vaguely-poppy songs. I found Malina and her Yale people while the Teenagers were playing and hung out with them during that. And then we got separated during Gogol Bordello and I stuck with Melanie, but oh my god, it was insanity. Gogol Bordello is one of those bands that you might not like that much when you just listen to them on their CDs, but they put on such a fun show. Even if all of their songs sound kind of the same and they didn't play my two favorite ones, whatever, it was energetic and alive and it made me want to go to more concerts in Russia. I'll definitely be working on that in the future.

Thursday was just kind of normal -- class + cultural excursion. We went to Pushkin's apartment which was definitely the largest, snazziest apartment I have ever seen for a writer. Otherwise it was just your generic historical house visit. But I did buy a fake quill on which they replicated Pushkin's signature and a little cartoon portrait of himself he would draw. Maybe I'll be inspired next time I write in my journal.

And on Thursday night I met up with Erin's friend Masha. Masha and Erin met through Erin's roommate and they became good friends as Masha is an English student and liked hanging out with Erin not just for her company but for her language skills. Anyway, Masha and I met up at Fidel and talked a little bit. It was funny because I had been confused about why she was so persistent on insisting we see each other this week -- I kept telling her that I would be here all year, that we had plenty of time -- but when she seemed to really need to meet this week I went along with it. Turns out she thought that I was joking when I said I would be here all year. Ha. Anyway, now she knows the real story so we can hang out with less urgency.

Friday involved another meeting for Cool! English after school. William and I recorded a podcast which you can hear here as soon as William puts it up. They try to do these podcasts weekly to give something to entertain their readers in-between issues.

After that I hit up the ballet again. Ilana, one of my friends from the program who will also be here in the fall, is really into ballet, and she was disappointed that when we saw Swan Lake it wasn't the famous Kirov Ballet Company who performs at the Marinsky Theatre. So she wanted to see the Kirov perform anyway, and convinced me, Sasha, Erica, Amanda and Amber to go with her. We saw them perform three shorter ballets: Le Sacre du printemps, Prodigal Son and Symphony in C. If you want to know more about these go to the Marinsky website. I had thoroughly enjoyed myself at Swan Lake last Friday, but seeing the Kirov perform you could really see the difference in terms of quality. These dancers were amazing, flawless, and made everything look so damn easy. Oh, sure, everyone can kick their leg up above their head while standing on one toe. My favorite was the last ballet because it was just so stereotypically ballet with dozens of dancers in white tutus on a huge empty stage doing frilly jumps and twirls and being the kind of ballerinas they wanted to be when they were little girls. They just looked like they were having so much fun that I had fun watching them.

So clearly after the ballet we couldn't just go to bed. Boring. Please. So we visited our friend Stephen's apartment which isn't too far from Smolny. Stephen was having some people over to hang out because he lives on the 5th floor of his building and so his apartment has access to the roof. Everyone calm down. It's okay. I was very safe about everything, and we weren't doing anything crazy. Just sitting and looking at the view and taking pictures and Stephen had his guitar up there and at one point we had a sing-a-long to "Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies which was pretty damn cheesy but I enjoyed myself. It was the most surreal moment of my time here, for sure. Here I am, sitting on a roof, in the middle of St. Petersburg, in the middle of Russia. How did this happen? How did my life become this crazy? But I loved it. It felt really good. And it was just kind of a calming, peaceful thing.

On Saturday I was supposed to go to Vyborg, but I just couldn't do it. I woke up exhausted from everything else I did this week and felt I needed some time without everyone. So I slept a lot instead and spent time walking around by myself. I tried yet another one of Stolle's locations -- this one by the Chernishevskaya metro -- and just wrote and edited pictures and ate pie.

And then I got to see where Carly lived last fall. Sasha lives with Carly's former host mother, so I visited Primorskaya to see what that is all about and I met Simon, the most insane cat in the world. Oh my god, Nadejda picked him up for me and held him on her lap like he was a toddler. I wish I had taken a picture.

As for today, Sasha and I made up our own little cultural excursion to make up for not going to Vyborg. We basically discovered all these awesome things right near my house. First of all we went to the french bakery that Grace was obsessed with when she was still here, and we had what I guess would be called brunch. It's a great little place and really close to my house and somewhere I could go when I don't want to be around anyone.

We then went to the Arctic-Antarctic Museum which is located in a renovated church right by the Cool! English office which is right near my house. As much as I love art and looking at art in galleries, the Arctic-Antarcitc museum is of that breed of museums that I think is my favorite: lots of taxidermied animals, lots of elaborate dioramas and a generally, vaguely, creepy air about the place. You know, kind of like the Fishers Island Museum. Sasha and I had the best time looking at the taxidermied polar bear and wolf and all these other creepy things, all the while in this strange museum that used to be a church with an (alive!) cat wandering around the place. So good. Officially my favorite museum in St. Petersburg so far.

We also tried to go to the Museum of Bread but that didn't work out because they are closed on Sundays, so instead we got ice cream at this place that William told me about where they actually have flavors you can choose from that they will scoop into a cone. Quite a rarity in Russia. So Sasha and I sat eating little cone-cups of chocolate chip and cherry ice cream and talked about how the weather today feels like fall. Not that it was particularly chilly, but it has that crisp smell and a breeze that is not quite so lazy, and trash and paper swirled around in the streets like so many dead leaves. Fall is coming, I guess. I can't believe I've been here long enough already for that transition to start.

And since then I've been at home, watching "The Shawshank Redemption" in Russian with Katya, Stas and Misha and now I'm going to meet Malina for coffee as she only has two more nights here in Russia. I can't believe she is already leaving. That really sucks.

A few last things:
1. On the subway over the weekend I saw a pregnant woman wearing an oversized t-shirt that said "All I Need Is True Love." This might be the most depressing thing I have seen so far on the subway. But then, the next day, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said "My Love Is Tiger." I am not even sure what that means exactly, but I hope he and the pregnant lady find each other one day.
2. Breaking news about my country of residence, as pointed out to me by Ms. Ami Li: http://gawker.com/5028762/russia-loves-the-office-hates-emo
3. I will add more pictures later this evening while doing homework. Just you wait.

BUSYBUSYBUSYBUSYBUSY.

I'm still alive! Don't worry!

Rain and Sudafed, amongst other things.

When the Summer Language Intensive Handbook said that it rains almost every day in St. Petersburg in the summer I was sure this must be an overstatement, especially after I found out Bryan wrote the handbook and Carly says he is prone to exaggeration. But no, this is definitely the truth. I walked home this afternoon from the Sadovaya metro stop after my Cool! English meeting/recording session (more about that in a minute). I was listening to the Rolling Stones on my iPod as I walked, and just when "You Can't Always Get What You Want" came on a large amount of clouds rolled overhead. As the song began to build a few rain drops fell, and by the time the song hit its climax of all those choir boys singing away behind Mick Jagger it was pouring. It was perfectly timed. A soundtrack kind of moment. Though it would have been completely ideal if then the rain abruptly stopped at the end of the song, but alas, no, it kept on pouring and when I stopped to take a picture of the Gogol Bordello concert poster near my apartment I accidentally stepped in a small lake and by the time I got back to the apartment I was very, very damp.

What was funny though was when I reached my building and turned to walk through the archway into the courtyard. Usually under this archway is maybe one man smoking a cigarette or no one at all, but I actually jumped when I turned into the archway to find about 50 Russian soldiers crammed under there to stay out of the rain. That was a surprise. There are often large packs of soldiers or sailors or other uniformed Russian men walking up and down my street because there are some very popular banyas in my building that the armed services like frequent. But still, I wasn't expecting them all in this 30 square foot area. Also, as I weaved through this pack of camo print, I noticed how young most of these soldiers looked -- they appeared to be my age or younger, and I always think Russians look older than they actually are, so this means these guys probably were approximately thirteen years old.

Earlier on my walk home, before it started to rain, I stopped to take a picture of one of my favorite stores to walk past in St. Petersburg (the "Hip-Hop Pimp Shop") and some really intensely intricate graffiti next to it. While doing this I had one of those moments -- no, who am I kidding, it's not a moment, it's a continuous feeling -- where I wished I always had a tape recorder on my person that kept track of everything people say to me during the day and then I could go home and listen to it again and look in my dictionary and figure out what they said. It wasn't a big deal -- a man who was walking by said something to me, not yelling or anything, he smiled when he said it and might have even been a joke -- and at first I didn't hear it clearly because I had my head phones on and when I took one off and he repeated it, all I caught was "ne nada" which means "don't need to..." Don't need to what? Take pictures of graffiti? Appreciate the hilarity that is a whole shop just for hip-hop pimps? I wasn't sure and didn't want to ask him to repeat it a third time so I just did what I always do which is say "da, da, mhmm" and smile and walk away. I'm sure it wasn't important or vital at all, it just bugs me that I don't know what he said. I have one of these moments at least once a day.

Since apparently I am going backwards through today's events, I had a recording session for Cool! English after class today. Every issue of the magazine comes with a CD where about half of the issue's articles are read out loud, so the readers can listen to how the words are said along with reading them in print. This means though that once a month the editors and main writers of the magazine gather together in this recording studio in a converted apartment near the Sadovaya metro stop and read the things they've written out loud. Part of why William hired me was because he thought I must have a good "radio voice" from WZLY -- ha! -- and when he played back some of what I said I cringed. Ugh, why is it so painful to listen to recordings of your own voice? How do people every get used to it? He seemed to think it went fine though. Anyway, it was fun and at one point when I was standing in the little booth with foamy egg-crate spikes on the walls, wearing big headphones and reading the female part of a "typical U.S. bar chat," William said to me through the mic from where he was sitting at the computer, "I bet you never though you'd be doing this while you were in Russia." Nope, definitely not.

As for class today, normal as always, though I had one funny moment in conversation class that I want to write about specifically for Mom and Nunni. So in conversation class we got on this long tangent about what words you use to describe yourself when you are sick and this turned into a tangent about Russian medicine and doctors versus American medicine and doctors. We talked about how in Russia natural medicine is very popular and when you go the doctor he will often recommend a lot of homeopathic remedies -- herbs to drink and gargle, foods to eat, etc -- before giving you any medicine and only in very extreme cases will doctors even consider giving you an antibiotic. We then talked about how in the U.S. doctors are very prone to just writing everything off with a different drug without even thinking about other possibilities because they are paid by pharmaceutical companies to do so. My conversation class professor, Nika, who can't be thirty yet and lives in Seattle during the year where she studies in graduate school, told us then about a very bad experience she had with an American doctor. Nika said she is prone to getting dizzy with a vertigo-like problem, and when she usually goes to Russian doctors they take her blood, her blood pressure, her temperature, the whole works, and then they usually "clean out" her nose -- drain, I think she meant -- and sinuses and maybe recommend some herbs. When she went to this doctor in America, he looked at her, listened to her breathe three times, said she had water in her ear and told her to take Sudafed: "It was terrible! I didn't sleep for three days and I cried all the time and my friends were all certain I had taken some narcotic because my hands kept shaking and I couldn't stop twitching. Never again!" Ha. Oh, Sudafed. How true that is. Mom and Nunni, I thought you'd appreciate that one.

So. That was about it for today. I'm going to take it easy tonight because the rest of the week is busy, and I'm tired from last night because the movie was longer than anticipated so we got back late. Across the Universe was good. I don't think I loved it as much as Olga loves it -- she had already seen it three or four times before last night -- but it was such a nice break to watch a movie in English. My brain was very happy for once. Plus, Jim Sturgess is very attractive.

Now I'm drinking tea and eating олады ("oladi" are miniature blini, blini being the Russian version of crepes, and oladi are only maybe two inches big) with honey. These are my favorite thing that Olga makes, next to the little pastry dumplings that don't really have a name (I asked, Olga didn't know what to call them). Oh man, she made the little pastry dumpling guys with apple yesterday instead of the usual chocolate -- Dad, you would love them -- and they were so good. The reminded me of mini versions of those Pepperidge Farm frozen apple dumplings I used to eat at Nunni's house back in the day. Only smaller. And more gooey.

Oh, and here's a poem that I really liked from poetry club with Philipp yesterday. It is by Владимир Владимирович Маяковский (Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovskii), an avant-garde poet who was frequently photographed by the love of my life, Александр Родченко (Aleksandr Rodchenko), modern Constructivist photographer who I wrote my final research paper on for History of Photography this spring.

ЛУННАЯ НОЧЬ
(пейзаж)

Будет луна.
Есть уже
немножко.
А вот и полная повисла в воздухе.
Это бог, должно быть,
дивной
серебряной ложкой
роется в звёзд ухе.




My not-doing-justice translation:

Moonlight Night
(landscape)

The moon will be.
It is already a little.
And look now it is full hanging in the air.
This is god, it must be,
with a marvelous
silver spoon
digging through the fish soup of the stars.


And all my pictures are up from this weekend. And from walking home today. Hell yeah, hip-hop pimps.

That's it. Later.

Photo update #.... I've lost count.

Pbase is being a little bitch right now, so I didn't finish uploading everything from this weekend, but here's a start.

Damn, I just thought it was Tuesday.

No, only Monday. This is going to be a long week. A busy week, not necessarily a bad week, just long.

Today I had class and poetry club with Philipp and then Sasha and I went to this other amazing little used bookstore (there are about 500 of them near Smolny. It's so great. I can spend each afternoon in a different one). We bought ugly postcards from the 70s and 80s of different arrangements of food and then we sat in this vegetarian café nearby briefly that Bryan told us all about because I mean, seriously, a vegetarian café in Russia? What?

Anyway, now I'm home trying to finish things like my homework and my Counterpoint article for the September issue and shower before 10:00pm because finally tonight instead Olga, Misha and maybe Katya and I are going to go see Across the Universe. It's not raining tonight, plus I don't have a test tomorrow. Perfect.

EDIT: Now it is raining. Of course.

Mmmm so many long tedious entries.

I hope I am not boring you all to death.

This has the potential to be another long entry, but it's 10pm and I got home from Novgorod not that long ago, I still have homework to do, I'm tired and cranky. So there. Wah. So instead of a beautifully fleshed out blog entry about all the details of Novgorod, I'm going to list what I've been up to since Thursday.

SUMMARY: Novgorod was fun, but not as much fun as Pskov. Probably because the weather was shitty, the food was weird, and our tour guides were long-winded and boring or overly protective.

So.

FRIDAY 7/19/08:
-- School, as usual.
-- Hung around with Bryan and Philipp and Hart for a while at Smolny.
-- Went home briefly to organize my life.
-- Then went to the ballet for our cultural excursion to see Swan Lake at the Alexandercheskii Theatre.
-- Funny story: definitely saw this same version of Swan Lake in this same theatre on the Globus tour with Nunni, Puppy & Mom when we were here in 2005 for three days. There were so many tour groups. I don't think any Russians actually go see Swan Lake themselves.

SATURDAY 7/20/08:
-- Unfortunately early in the morning we left for Novgorod.
-- We ate lunch when we arrived which was the first time I had a problem with any food this time around in Russia. We had soup that consisted of half a hard boiled egg and a chunk of turkey floating in a "broth" that was basically water and fat. The best part was that we ate lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch again at this same restaurant all weekend -- the delicious and nutritious Cafe Люкс. Mmm-mmm.
-- We had a tour of the city. This involved a lot of walking and listening to this dry woman who spoke on auto pilot who every now and then would forget her speech and just be silent for several minutes as she tried to remember it. Odd.
-- There are a lot of skinheads in Novgorod. Nothing happened to anyone, but that was disconcerting.
-- Post-tour, we sat on the beach by the Novgorod Kremil and drank Novgorod's very own honey beer. Oh my god, most delicious thing in the world.
-- While drinking said beer, our other Novgorod tour guide, who actually wasn't a guide, but really just planned our tasty meals, hovered near by on a bench and watched us and then followed us to the restaurant to make sure we weren't late for dinner. AHH. How old are we?! We've just been living on our own in St. Petersburg for a month and a bit. This seems illogical.
-- Then there was dinner which consisted of a small microwavable pizza and tea.
-- Post-dinner, there was napping.
-- Post-napping, we returned to the beach. I went swimming, some people created a sand version of the Novgorod Kremlin, Adams made friends with the locals as usual.
-- Then it was late and I was tired.

SUNDAY 7/20/08:
-- The most important thing about this day is the fact that one of my most diligent readers of this very blog turned 20 years old today, on the 20th of July. So let's all give a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Ms. Ami D. Li. Also, Mom, she got the package. Good job on mailing that. Thanks.
-- This morning, breakfast at our favorite establishment. Actually, not bad. Eggs and tomatoes and such.
-- We hit up several monasteries. I wasn't really paying attention to what they were all about. I took about 50 pictures of a cat at one of them.
-- We went to a wooden architecture museum which was identical to the one we went to in Irkutsk last summer. No, really, if you are absolutely dying to see my photos from this place, just look at my photos from last summer. This makes me question the authenticity of how unique and old these wooden houses are. Even the souvenir fair was the same as Irkutsk.
-- One last meal at Cafe Люкс.
-- A long drive home. The bus was very warm but had a roof window which we kept open and then it started to rain and I got a little rained on. Fun.

Okay today wins for the most entries.

So now we are not going to the movie as the weather is disgusting and Misha really wanted to come to the movie too but he has to work late tonight, so we're going next week.

Also, one last thing:

Added more self-portraits and some random pictures.

How do you say "Book Goddess" in Russian? "Книжная богиня"?

<---- 7th grade, I think. At an awkward 12 or 13. You can't see it but my sweatshirt says "Book Goddess."

One thing I was thinking about while sitting at Stolle was my collection of books in Russia. This thought was spurred by the fact that Mom had included in her package two paperbacks from my huge pile of books-to-read in my room at home. So, I've decided, it's time to take inventory.... This may be boring for you, but whatever. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. I'm in the mood.

BOOKS I BROUGHT WITH ME IN MY SUITCASE:
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
St. Petersburg: City Guide by Lonely Planet
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris
The Best American Travel Writing 2007 edited by Susan Orlean
English-Russian Dictionary by Kenneth Katzner
Russian Minidictionary by Oxford
Making Progress in Russian by a lot of people who study Russian
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Black Earth City by Charlotte Hobson (present from the Swayzes)
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
Russia & Belarus by Lonely Planet

BOOKS GIVEN TO ME BY ERIN DOHERTY:
Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 edited by Dave Eggers
Russian Phrase Book & Dictionary by Berlitz
Евгений Онегин by Александр Пушкин

BOOKS I HAVE BOUGHT SO FAR IN RUSSIA:
Анна Каренина by Л.Н. Тостой
Мастер и Маргарита by Михаил Булгаков
Рассказы by Л.Н. Тостой
Бедная Лиза by Н.М. Карамзин
Русские Песни by some random Russian dude
Малина by И.В. Казаков (but that is a present for Malina)

BOOKS SENT TO ME BY KAREN BARTELS:
18 Best Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

BOOKS I HAVE FINISHED READING ALREADY:
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger (currently being borrowed by Louis)
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris (currently being borrowed by Emma)

BOOKS I AM CURRENTLY READING:
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
St. Petersburg: City Guide by Lonely Planet

.... and I wonder why I didn't have room to pack my winter coat....

Отличный день!

Seriously, such a great day. It feels like Friday. I am so relaxed. And you know why? Because I took time for myself for once. Hell yeah.

I didn't hit my 11pm goal last night but was asleep by midnight and got a solid eight hours, so for once I wasn't sleeping with my eyes open in class. It's amazing how much sleep helps. I was in such a better mood and felt like I was good at Russian -- well, not good but not atrocious, you know, I could understand what people were staying to me and could get across what I wanted to express and was really enthusiastic about writing down new words in my little notebook. My excitement about learning Russian came back. So that was a good start to things.

And then after school I ran out and ditched everyone and had time to be alone. I didn't even do anything exciting, I just wandered around Vasileostrovsky Island doing errands. But I was by myself for the first time in ages and so I just did what I wanted without having to consult anyone which was refreshing. I picked up some prints I had made at the photo store near the metro from digital images of the dacha to put in a thank you note for Ludmilia Evgenevna. I bought a pair of Russian high heels that don't look very Russian at all as they are very simple, black closed toe shoes, but now at least I'll feel dressier when I go out, and we all know that dressier = more Russian. I picked up my very first package at the post office on the 1st line. It was from Mom, of course, and it was so funny to see this Russian post office lady searching through these packages and then pull out a large white envelope with Mom's big, loopy, friendly handwriting in the middle of this small, hot, yellowing Russian post office. It felt so out of place, but was so welcoming. And then I just sat by myself in Stolle for an hour and a half, writing in my journal, drinking wild berry flavored tea, making my thank you card for Ludmilia Evgenevna and refreshing myself. And then I walked to the Sportivnaya metro stop on Petrograd because it is never crowded at rush hour and came home. Perfection.

Now it is rainy and gross and no one felt like going to the concert tonight because it's in this snazzy club and they'll be doing "фейс-контрол" (face control) so it'd be a bitch to get in and blah blah blah we're all lame. Plus, this weekend is going to be full of lots of no-sleeping. So, instead, I am resting now at home, doing some homework, maybe a quick nap, and then at 10pm Olga, Katya and I are going to go see "Across the Universe" at the Aurora movie theatre. Olga was horrified to hear I hadn't seen "Across the Universe" yet as it is one of her favorite movies, and I said it had gotten mixed reviews so I hadn't bothered. Now though the idea of seeing a movie in English with Russian subtitles (instead of dubbing, oh my god how much I hate dubbing already and it has only been a month), any English language movie, is so exciting.... kind of a vacation for my brain. So that's what I'll be up to tonight.

Hi.

I feel like I haven't written in a while. Even though it's only been about 40 hours.

The past two days have been uneventful. You know, school, then wandering around after school, dropping film off, picking film up, etc. Life stuff.

But things are going to get busy again soon, of course. I'm trying to have a calm night tonight before this weekend. The line up:

THURSDAY: potentially am going to a Noize MC concert with Bryan, Philipp and Sasha.
FRIDAY: am seeing Swan Lake ballet at the theater on Nevskii Prospekt.
SATURDAY: leaving at 9am for Novgorod and spending the night there.
SUNDAY: all day in Novgorod, returning some time late at night.

See? I'm still having a good time. I'm still doing lots of stuff. But life is slowly evolving into more, well, life. A routine kind of thing. I'm starting to feel like I am actually living here, not just visiting. I'm aware of this partially because the pure euphoria honeymoon phase is ending, so while I still love being here and love so many things, I'm starting to notice little things that bother me, just the kind of little things that you can find to annoy you anywhere.

Examples:

1. How you can't go to "www.google.com" when using a computer in Russia; it automatically takes you to "www.google.ru" which is a terrible version of Google. It can't find anything.

2. How on the metro I will have a middle aged man's back right up against mine and he'll be sweating all over my sweater and then this old woman will shove me out of the way with her enormous breasts and then this young girl will practically elbow me in the stomach to get out of the train at her stop -- but if your feet get anywhere near anyone else's feet, if you even look like you just, just, JUST might step on their foot, people on the metro freak out. I got the dirtiest look this morning from a young professional woman who I was practically spooning with while standing in the corner of the train, and all I did was lift my toes up and down a little too close to her foot. Do people really care about their shoes? I feel like that must be it because it can't be an invasion of personal space because these are the same people who have no problem standing two centimeters away from your face and breathing on you.

But those are really the only two things right now, and they are pretty silly. So no worries.

I think I'm going to go do my homework and aim to be in bed before 11 (HA).

Finalllllly!

All the pictures from the past five days are up. Check out pages 2 and 3.

I finished putting them up this morning as I fell asleep in the middle of updating them last night. Oops.

Off to school.

One month down, eleven to go.

June 14th, 2008 was my first official full day in the Russian Federation, and so today is my anniversary. Hurray. I've survived so far.

Some items of business:
1. Olga's mom's name is Людмила Евгеньевна (Ludmila Evgenivna) -- try saying that if you can't speak Russian. Or even if you can.
2. Our actor neighbor is named Илья Шакунов (Ilia Shakunov).
3. Today I finally sucked it up and learned how to use a Russian post office. It wasn't as traumatic as I feared it would be with all the windows and the old women getting their pensions.
4. I am updating photos like mad. Now up are pictures from the blockade museum on Thursday and various events in the park on Friday. I am currently working on the ones from Ludmila Evgenivna's house on Saturday and the dacha on Sunday. Also, I had to add page breaks in the album because there are SO MANY NEW PHOTOS. Enjoy. You better.
5. And, it has finally happened. My start-up disk on my computer is full. So now I am keeping all of my photos on just my external hard drive which makes me very very nervous. At least I am putting them up on the internet as I go so I will always have them in case of a fire or a flood or the end of the world.

So, this was a great weekend.

Definitely the best weekend yet. Probably partially due to the fact that I had no homework because of our exam on Friday. Damn, I wish I never had homework in Russia. It's not really that necessary in my opinion -- I think I might have learned just as much if not more Russian this weekend without it. I talked in Russian. So much. All the time. ANYWAY. Once again, let's do this entry in parts.

FRIDAY 7/11/08:
When I left you on Friday I was going to the good bye picnic. Well, when I emerged from my room after my nap and after writing that entry, Katya, her boyfriend Stas, her friend Timor and Misha were hanging out in the kitchen and Katya asked if I wanted to join her, Stas and Timor on an excursion to Krestovskii Island to rent a boat, coincidentally the same island where our picnic was taking place. So, the stars aligned perfectly and I went along with Katya & Co.

So, yeah, we went to Krestovskii Island and rented a boat and for whatever reason it was maybe the best time I've had so far in Russia. It was just the four of us dicking around and rowing into trees and the shore and eating little sandwiches and feeding ducks and at one point Timor fell into the water, but I had such a good time and it gave me hope that maybe I'll make friends who are Russian who will still be here even after my current foreigner friends all ditch me after four more weeks. Anyway, it was a great time and I took about 250 pictures.

Then Katya, Stas and Timor helped me find my picnicking people, which wasn't that difficult as it was the huge group of rowdy Americans playing Twister across from the yacht club. They left me with them, and I also had a good time, but in a totally different way -- in the way that you understand everything that people are saying and you get all the cultural jokes and references. So the picnic group was basically everyone in our program not from Bard, plus the tutors, plus Bryan, plus Philipp. We were just hanging out and eating weirdly flavored chips (a tradition at our picnics, apparently) and it was a good time. We were there until, oh, I don't know, 10pm? Time flies when it never gets dark. I took about 200 more pictures at the picnic.

So then our group kind of dispersed in various directions but I ended up going to that café by Kazan with Sasha and Adams and Hart to meet up with Grace who had left the picnic early to hang out with her host sister on her last night out in Petersburg. While there I got a call from Misha who said he was going out to a club with some of his friends and invited me to come along, so Sasha, Adams, Grace and I went -- after a lot of drama regarding our group because some people wanted to go to a different bar and other people just wanted to go home and one of the tutors was freaking out because apparently it is bad luck for groups to break up -- and joined up with Misha and his people. We went to a place called Сочи and I got to meet some of Misha's friends and once again I had that glimmer of hope. So that was all good.

SATURDAY 7/12/08:
I slept a lot and then around 2pm Katya, Stas and I went via metro and then bus (only an hour ride) to a town called Кировск (Kirovsk). This town is on the outskirts of St. Petersburg and Katya described it to me as a "Soviet administrative town." Olga's mom lives in Kirovsk in one of those stereotypical Soviet block apartment buildings. Olga visits her mom every weekend, but this week she went out on Thursday afternoon, so Katya, Stas and I met up with her there.

Olga's mother (whose name I can't remember because it was long and Russian and I now feel like an asshole for forgetting) was extremely sweet and hanging out at her apartment was such a typical-hanging-out-at-grandma's experience. I mean, sometimes I feel like I basically found my family but the Russian version. We drank a lot of tea and ate chocolate and watched television on the "Culture" channel which is all old movies and documentaries on actors and artists. I could have been at 38 Hutchinson Road. Not only that, but Olga's mom also has had her thyroid out -- I noticed her scar today at lunch and asked about it and she said she had a big growth on it so the took it out, but that was when Olga was 2 or 3, oh, 45 years ago at least -- and even old pictures look vaguely like ones in our family..... Katya and I both had the same white-blonde hair with bangs and wore a lot of big sweaters, and at one point Olga even had her hair dyed blonde in an 80s vaguely-Princess-Di-esque cut which looks kind of like Mom did. It blows my mind.

The weather was crappy on Saturday though so we didn't get to go out to the dacha. Their dacha is only a 15/20 minute walk from Olga's mom's apartment, just on the outskirts of Kirovsk, but it was raining like hell. The rain stopped briefly and Katya, Stas and I went for a walk along the Neva but of course the minute we left it started to pour again and the moment we got back it stopped. Of course. So we just sat around a lot and talked and ate and then around 9:30/10 Katya and Stas left to go back to Petersburg -- I hadn't realized that they weren't staying, that they basically had just made sure I got there ok, due to plans being explained in Russian. Of course. I really hope I don't ever misunderstand something really important like, "Watch out, a piano is falling out of that window and is going to kill you momentarily. Oh. Too late."

Anyway, the night wound down with Olga, Olga's mom and I watching "Calendar Girls" and then me sleeping a lot. Some would say that kind of thing was boring -- I personally needed that kind of quiet, restful escape after my busy week.

SUNDAY 7/13/08:
I got more quiet and rest today then at the dacha.

We woke up and it was kind of cloudy and the weather looked skeptical, but we decided to go out anyway. Olga's mom prepared breakfast which consisted of cheese, tomatoes, bread, green peppers, liver pâté, yogurt, ice cream and pineapple. Olga said happily that every Sunday she is a kid again when she has breakfast at her mother's, and it was all delicious. Actually, can we just pause for a brief minute and review the list of foods that I have been eating in the past month and actually thoroughly enjoying -- a list of foods that five years ago I think I would have preferred to die than consume:
1. liver pâté on crackers.
2. salad made of fake crab meat and potatoes covered in mayonnaise.
3. mushroom soup.
4. mushrooms in general.
5. an obscene amount of sausages.
6. green onions.
7. I am sure there are lots of other things that you would be so startled to know I've been eating and enjoying, but hey, I'm in Russia. Different mindset.

Anyway, we packed up some food and met up with Olga's brother, Kolya, and stopped at a hardware store to buy shellac for some murals Olga has been working on at the dacha and on her mom's balcony and then walked out to the dacha. This was my first time at a real, official dacha, though I was having déjà vu of Baikal. Just across the street from the apartment building complex is basically a huge, huge field and all in it are winding dirt roads and small, well-kept gardens and houses, some patched together with things like СССР beer crates. It feels so different from St. Petersburg, all rural and just like Bolshie Koti, but then again, at the same time, you can still see the block apartment buildings in the distance even from the manicured garden.

Of course Olga's dacha was extremely well-kept and had a beautiful garden. They have the dacha which is one room with a bed and a table, a banya which is where the bathroom is and also a sitting area/kitchen, and then a greenhouse. Don't worry, I took about 300 pictures today of my surroundings. Basically, the day was pretty dull to write about in terms of an exciting new blog entry but I did a lot of sitting and writing in my journal and writing postcards and reading and taking pictures. It was calm. And we drank tea and listened to Russian pop music on the radio (all parties agree it is pretty horrible) and the sun came out and then tonight Olga and I came home around 11pm.

On the way back to the apartment, Olga and I did have a nice talk. She said that the Swiss girl they had stay with them last time always stayed in her room and never drank tea or wanted to try to speak Russian and never would have gone out to a club with Misha and left after only one month, so she is very glad that I am here now instead. So, this made me quite happy. And then we came home and Misha and Katya were there and they looked through all my pictures from the weekend and we watched some TV and I took a shower and I called mom and we drank tea and then Katya and I exchanged messages on vkontakte (Russian Facebook) and then I went to bed. Basically, I am starting to feel really comfortable here, which I think is quite a good thing. What I'm trying to say is I'm slowly replacing all of you. JUST KIDDING. Love you.

Anyway....... TIME TO GO TO SCHOOL. Our group now only has about 20 people in it and there are only four of us in my class. WOOHOO.

Okay.

It's late. I have school tomorrow. You'll have to hear about my insane weekend later.

For now, I did a little uploading: film pictures from Псков and some more selfs.

Oh, hey, and I hear Jill had her baby. Good job on that. Hello, Lauren Ellen! Happy belated birthday!

Disgruntled Italians, exams & picnics.

This morning I somehow made it to school a solid 20 minutes early so I went to the café on the third floor to study with Grace before our 10am exam. We were speaking our usual mix of pigeon Russian with English words thrown in when the woman sitting by herself at the table next to us says, "You speak English?" We said yes and she then asks, "And you like it here?" We were confused.... where? In the café? At Smolny? What? No, she told us, in Russia, did we like it in Russia. And we said very much so, we were liking things a lot at the moment. And this woman replies, "Really? Oh I hate it here. I've been here six days and am supposed to be here nine more but I can't do it, I am flying home today. Everyone is so rough and rude here. No one smiles! I am from Italy, everyone is so pleasant all the time. And no one speaks English here! They resent you if you don't speak Russian!" Grace and I just didn't know how to reply to this. It was kind of funny because just yesterday Grace, Louis and I had this huge intense conversation about globalization and tourism and travel and colonialism and conquering shit and, well, you know all that liberal arts college students academia bullshit. So Grace and I are thinking, well, lady, what the hell did you expect? Did you think Russia was going to be just like Italy? Grace tried to tactfully explain how she felt that it was just on the street and in the metro and in stores where people don't smile; most Russians just don't bother with the insincere bullshit with people they don't know or care about. But when you do meet Russians who become your friends and who do like you and care about you, they can be the warmest, friendliest, most devoted people. The woman was immediately defensive, apparently feeling like Grace was attacking her after she just clearly wanted to bitch about Russia with some other foreigners, and said she was sorry, she never should have said her opinion. But then this other woman who was sitting by herself at a different table joined in the conversation, agreeing that it was really hard for her when she first came here. I forget where she said she was from, but she also complained that no one spoke English. Grace and I were just sitting there thinking how funny it was that the two non-native-English speakers were the ones complaining about no one speaking English. I, on the other hand, was just plain annoyed in terms of the time period -- six days? Really? That's not enough time to give anything a chance. And only nine more days? Sheesh, suck it up lady.

Though I could see some of the woman's points.... or at least where she was coming from. At one point in the conversation she mentioned she is now 43 and traveled all the time when she was younger and never once felt like this in a country before. I wanted to ask her where else she had traveled, but I also needed to look over my exam materials one more time so I let it go. But the fact that she's 43 and maybe she's here on business or whatever, that's a totally different experience. We were all transplanted into these families, who, if we get along with them, become good friends and allies and Russians that will smile and laugh with you. I was thinking about how I am especially lucky to have Misha and Katya in my host family. If I had ended up living with a babyushka and her cat as I once thought I wanted to in Russia, it would have been a lot more difficult to get to know Russians may age. But with Misha and Katya, their friends come over, we hang out, and I have a pre-made group of cool Russian people to hang out with.

Anyway, the exam was all fine. One might even say it... went well?! And now I am off to yet another picnic, this one up on Kristovskii Island, kind of a farewell event for our 4-week friends who are leaving tomorrow.

Oh, and this morning on the way to school I saw a Yorkie wearing a black dress with pink polka dots and a ruffle on the edge. Ami, I know, I know, why are there no pictures of this -- but I yet to have the perfect moment where I have my camera out just as one of these fashionable dogs is wandering by. Usually I'm also just so distracted by the fact that it is a dog in a dress that my reflexes cease to exist.

Thursday thursday thursday thursday.

First off, I heard about this story from Michael Patrick Broderick, all the way in Concord, Massachusetts, and apparently it happened right here in my city. Wild.

So I have an exam tomorrow because it's the end of the first four weeks. That's pretty lame. It's Thursday night. I don't want to be sitting in staring at a sheet about verbs of motion. I want to walk around. Lame, lame.

Today we had our cultural excursion to one of St. Petersburg's many (maybe it's only two) museums about the blockade. I felt bad because our tour guide was this friendly Russian man who seemed very interested in what he was saying, but as a rule Russian men mumble even more when they speak than the average Russian speaker and so I had no idea what he was saying and lost interest in following the tour. Instead I wandered and looked at the sad crayon drawings small children had done during the blockade of people in the snow and tanks and bombs. I then resorted to taking abstract photos of the Russian letters on the walls because I liked the font and their shadows. Pictures will be up eventually. Maybe later tonight, when I am "studying."

And then, as usual, we had our post-excursion coffee hour. This time it was me, Grace, Emma, Louis, Emily & Bethany and we went to Stolle, but this time a different Stolle (gasp!). There are a couple Stolle locations all over the city -- at least three -- and this time we went to the one by the Marinskii Theatre. Naturally I am biased because I love our original Stolle because it is our original Stolle..... that first love kind of bias. But this one was also good and closer to where I live and they had more selections of perog to choose from. This time we branched out and had cherry and raspberry (malina!) instead of just good old strawberry.

So that was my Thursday. Yup.

Oh! And I got attacked by pigeons twice today!

The first time was when I was walking from the metro stop to Smolny. There is this place, kind of a pile of sand, where all these pigeons are always sleeping every morning when I am walking to school -- it actually brings me amusement every morning to see them lying in little balls on the ground like they all just fell out of the air and died. Then, I don't know, something happened and all of the sleeping pigeons -- maybe 50 of them -- immediately woke up and flew off, except they were all flying at a height of about 4 to 6 feet off the ground. Oh my god they all came right at me and seemed not to care if they plowed into me. I actually shrieked a little bit, quite out of character, and a Russian man walking by chuckled as a pigeon almost hit him in the head.

Then the second time was between classes and our cultural excursion. I went to the street near the metro to go to the Apteka to buy some more band-aids and tape for my blisters (this alone was one of those little victories because Aptekas are very intimidating pharmacies where everything is behind a glass cabinet and you have to ask for and explain exactly what you want. It is a nightmare for a non-Russian speaker). So then I wanted to sit somewhere to change my band-aids and I found a bench, right near where the pigeons had already once attacked me (I don't know why I thought this was a good idea). So I sit down and am adjusting my band-aids when I notice that the old woman sitting on the bench across from me is pulling some kind of bag of seeds from her purse. No sooner does she have a handful of the stuff in her palm when about 500 pigeons and finches come out of NOWHERE and are all over my bench, the old woman's bench, the ground between us, and coating the old woman herself. It looked like she was wearing a coat made of pigeon feathers. It was ridiculous. I decided that hell must be full of pigeons. I tried to get a picture that accurately portrayed the situation, but alas, no picture could portray exactly what it is like to be surrounded by about 500 dirty Russian birds. Oy vey.

A little groggy.

Wow, I just passed the hell out for almost two hours. I guess I was tired. That was a good nap.

Anyway, right before I fell asleep I was working on switching around my photo site a little as now I not only have digital pictures from Russia but film pictures as well.

So now the general summer gallery is the same but it has a film section and a digital section. And then, of course, as always, the self portrait project is the same. Or you can just start from the main Russian gallery and go from there.

I got my film developed at the photo store right near Smolny and the woman was helpful and everything went smoothly. They even develop black and white film, so I have a roll of that there that will be ready on Friday for me to pick up. It hasn't been a month and I've already established a friendly neighborhood photo store.

As for today, it was the usual. Phonetics was better this week -- I felt like I actually understood things, which is a nice feeling. And I listened to Beck this morning on my way to school which made everything feel more familiar as I thought about how funny it is that 10 people on the program or something like that are getting ready to go home already this weekend and have already gone through the cycle of euphoria/resentment/homesickness/regret to leave.... I feel that I have yet to experience any of these because my time here is on such a different scale. They experienced all that in 4 weeks; these 4 weeks are barely a dent in my time here. Though I am very glad I'm here for the summer before school started. It's so easy to be happy in a place and fall in love with it when the weather is nice. I don't know how Katie was able to come here in the middle of winter and still love it, or even Carly, coming in September when the pending doom of winter is already in the air... it seems that then it would be a lot easier to get homesick and hate things here. I, on the otherhand, have been enjoying all those great summer-in-Russia things which is awesome. For example, I think I am going to my host family's dacha with Katya this weekend for Saturday and Sunday. Typical, classic Russian summer stuff.

General musings in list form.

1. I feel like all the Russian tutors are so much older than I am, even though I know they are all my age or younger. This might have to do with the fact that I feel like Russians generally dress older than they actually are. This also might have to do with the fact I sound like a mentally disabled six year old when I speak Russian.

2. Also, I feel like all of the students I have met who were abroad here in the spring are so much older than I am, even after I find out we're the same age. I guess living in Russia for a year will do that.

3. A toast I learned in Conversation class that I thought was funny..... it might not come across exactly the same in English, but here it goes: "A turtle is swimming across a river, on her back stands a poisonous snake. The snake thinks: I bite -- the turtle throws me off. The turtle thinks: I throw the snake off -- she bites. So we drink to female friendship, which is able to overcome any obstacles!"

4. I saw what I thought was a dead bird crumpled on the sidewalk this morning while walking to school and as I walked by its mouth slowly opened and closed in the most pathetic, tragic heartbreaking way.

5. Speaking of animals, I forgot to mention the amazing dog I saw after I was at Stolle on Thursday. I was walking from the 1st line to the metro and on the corner of the 1st line and Sredni Prospekt was sitting this big fluffy black dog that looked vaguely like a Labradoodle but less goofy. It was sitting on the corner not exactly serious but almost thoughtful. There appeared to be no nearby human associated with this dog. He didn't look like all the other mangy strays I see, but he also didn't look like he belonged to anyone. He seemed like his own dog. He was just sitting on the corner with no intentions of moving -- he looked like he'd already been there a while -- not tied to anything, no collar, nothing. Just sitting and watching traffic. This dog made such a majestic impression on me that I felt like he could be the reincarnation of Dostoevsky. Yeah, I don't know, that was what immediately came into my head. Maybe not Dostoevsky, but someone human and equally thoughtful -- maybe Turgenev. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was too in awe to stop, too afraid I'd break the moment. I didn't want to disturb him.

6. Theories on wearing headphones while commuting on the metro: I haven't done it yet because I like to be able to hear what is going on around me, in general I like this even in familiar places because I like to eavesdrop and such, but here it's kind of an always-on-guard thing. But then again, most of the Russians aged 10 - 40 who are on the metro every morning listen to their headphones, sometimes so loudly I can hear the music 5+ feet away. This makes me feel that wearing headphones isn't so much a sign of not paying attention and being distracted and an easy target, but of confidence. If you wear headphones while commuting, it means you are so confident in what you are doing, you are so experienced and comfortable, you are willing to limit your hearing. So maybe I should start wearing my headphones, though maybe just without music playing, you know, to have the best of both strategies. Ha. It was a long commute this morning when I was considering all this.

7. I finished When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris today. So good. Go read it, right now. I'd loan you my copy but Emma has it right now and, well, it's in Russia.

8. Pictures are up! SO MANY pictures are up. Be thankful for all the work I just put into that. (Why am I complaining, clearly I like doing it or I wouldn't do it at all.)

9. Jeez, how often do you people check my photo site? Before I even added titles to the photos they each had one hit.

10. I watched part of "The Forgotten" in Russian tonight. Of course.

It's Tuesday again.

We don't have a cultural excursion today as last night we saw the opera of Gogol's story "The Nose."

That was interesting.

I enjoyed parts, like the set, though the whole thing was super absurdist and modern and strange, which, of course, is very Gogol and is fitting for the story, I just had trouble with it on a Monday night after a crazy long weekend. But it was at the Marinskii Theatre which was an experience itself, and the best part was the ticket was 400r ($16) which is wicked cheap compared to theatre in the U.S. so I definitely plan on seeing a lot of plays this year. Maybe some Chekov. He's more my style.

A couple more days added. I'm working on pictures from this weekend. There are a lot.

This is going to be an even longer one.

So, an entry in four parts.


PART ONE: Friday 7/4/08
День рождения Америки..... в России....

I knew Friday was going to be good from the beginning because when I arrived at the Vladimirskaya metro station a train was already there and I walked right on with minimum pushing and when I got to Mayakovskaya I only had to wait maybe a minute and a half and I got on the first train that came because I went to the 3rd door to wait and then I was able to cut by all the people coming off the 1st and 2nd doors and.... this sounds so banal and silly, but these are my little victories as a commuter student in St. Petersburg. Anyway, in summary, I got to school early (!!!) for the first time, instead of arriving exactly at 10am, sweating and rushed.

All day everyone was very excited about it being the 4th of July. When I say everyone, I mean everyone who was not American. In both of my classes we talked more about ways we celebrate the holiday in America and our plans for celebrating it in Russia, and then at lunch they prepared food for us that was reminiscent of an "American summer cook out." We had hamburgers and hot dogs and pasta salad and apple pie and corn on the cob..... except.... not quite. Almost, but not quite. It was American food with Russian flair. For example, the apple pie was actually perog with a really intricate lacework of the crust on top, and the hamburgers were those gray patties that I think are actually made from pork or some other non-beef meat, and the hot dogs (which Noah kept referring to as "жаркие собаки" -- a joke that is only funny to people who study Russian and English) are actually those very long and thin, pale sausages. It was also funny because it was the most stereotypical idea of American food there was, as instead of the juice we have every day we had bottles of Pepsi. Ha. But it was sweet that they made the effort, even though American students who study Russian are generally artsy, liberal, apathetic and not at all Patriotic.

And then because it's gorgeous out, I decided to get off the metro early at the Gostini Dvor stop and walk back home via a new route by the canal. I was on a search for a prop for today's self portrait (you'll see) and had minimal luck with it, but then my out-of-the-way route turned out to show me the best thing ever...... as I approached my apartment from the back entrance instead of my usual way, I noticed a little used bookstore right across the street from the courtyard of my building. Oh. My. God. It's perfect. It's so me. It's.... it's so I don't even know I can't believe I didn't find it earlier, it's just the kind of place I love to find in new cities. To enter the store you walk down about four steps so it is set slightly below street level. It is one room, about 50 square feet total and feels even smaller because the place is crammed with old books. It is also clearly a popular neighborhood shop because it was packed to capacity with shoppers -- about five other people. But the most amazing things about it were the facts that, one, for being so full of books it was the most logically organized bookstore I have been in yet in Russia -- even more so than the big Dom Knigi chains -- and, two, the owner of the bookstore actually asked me if I needed help with anything. I could not believe it. No one who works in a store in Russia actively pursues assisting customers. Maybe if you are proactive and ask them a question they'll answer it half-heartedly, but this woman, clearly the owner of the store, actually asked me if I needed help finding something. So, naturally, I asked her if there were any copies of The Master and Margarita as I have been looking for a Russian copy/replacement, and she seemed genuinely upset to tell me that, alas, no there were not. But then when I went to browse the Russian literature section, right there up front was an old, worn, well-loved hard cover copy of Anna Karenina in Russian. 50r. $2. Done and done. This whole experience made me so happy, if you know me at all you'll know exactly what kind of a great mood I am in right now because of it. Anyway, basically, I have found a new place to browse every day after school. This means I'm going to have about 6,000 pounds of books to ship back to the U.S. next June, but maybe by then I'll be best friends with the owner of the store too, so who cares. I love it.

Then Friday night we had a little ex-pat picnic in that same park near Bryan's apartment. There was the usual group of summer program kids and kids who are still around after doing the spring program and the Russian tutors and then various other friends who tag along. We tried to live up to American stereotypes by playing baseball, eating chips and drinking beer. Except we didn't play baseball, just wiffle ball, and the chips were mushroom flavored (only in Russia, right?) and the beer was pretty non-American as well. There is this crazy place right across the street from the park that has about 20 - 30 different beers on tap, all from little microbrewery places in the area, and you pick which one(s) you want and then they bottle it for you on the spot. So you can get a 0,5 liter bottle, a 1,0 liter or a 1,5 liter, and as we were getting enough beer for everyone to have a taste at least, we got five 1,0 liter bottles that looked like they should hold soda. Only in Russia. But the beer was actually not at all sketchy and pretty good, and we were all even a little louder than usual, further living up to American stereotypes. And then, to complete the stereotypical fourth of July celebration, some people I may or may not know, may or may not have purchased some little fireworks, and they may or may not have set them off in the street outside the park, perfectly legal activity in Russia.


PART TWO: Saturday 7/5/08
Getting to Псков.

Well after our not exactly early night out celebrating our American holiday, Sasha slept over at my apartment as she lives far away in Primorskaya (with Nadejdya! Carly! Sasha knows Simon! I'm going to meet him!) and then we woke up at 6am (ужас!) to get our asses to the Mosckovskaya metro stop where we were meeting the group behind the statue of Lenin to board a bus to Pskov.

The ride there was uneventful. It involved sleeping. A lot of sleeping. And a lot of reading of David Sedaris' new book (oh my god, Dad, it is so good. Have you started it yet?). We arrived in Pskov around 2pm and ate lunch at the hotel and then went on a little walking tour of the city. Pskov is an old little city with its own little Kremlin and a church that is bright turquoise and so naturally quite appealing to my taste. After our tour we had time to ourselves which we, of course, used to eat ice cream outside of the church. Nathan had a bar of ice cream that was orange and mint flavored. Interesting. And then I went back to the hotel to rest a little bit and take a shower and wash my hair with a bar of soap because I forgot my shampoo (it worked pretty well, actually, in case you were wondering).

Saturday night we had dinner as a group in this cafe that is in a mall and oddly set up so we felt like we were in a fishtank or a terrarium. We had a leisurely dinner because all of us felt like we were on a mini vacation which was fun, and then after dinner some of the tutors -- Vika, Liza, Marianna -- took us to a favorite club of theirs right down the street. It was called "R-16" and before we went in, Becky decided to buy a bottle of champagne from the supermarket next door for the group to share and when she opened it there was such a ridiculous out-of-a-movie moment. Becky struggles for a couple seconds working the cork off; she finally gets a hold of it, the cork shoots off, goes up through a tree on the sidewalk, bounces off the window of the car parked below the tree, and the car's alarm goes off. We ran. Clearly.

And the club was fun. We didn't stay super long but it was that typical European club scene -- girls in glittery short shorts and stilettos and a lot of techno music. There was some dancing that I was involved in briefly, but, of course, me being the klutz that I am accidently stepped on the foot of a mildly intoxicated Russian woman who was dancing near me. I apologized in Russia and the woman looks at me, says something along the lines of "now I get to retaliate" in Russian, and then gently but firmly steps on my right foot and then dances away. I enjoyed this moment because a similar thing has happened to me before when dancing in the U.S. Maybe this means I just shouldn't dance in crowded areas.


PART THREE: Sunday 7/6/08
Activities in and around Псков and our return.

So, since the Smolny program is really into waking up early, we were eating breakfast at 9am and on the bus by 10am for today's activities.

The activities began in a bizarre fashion. We picked up a local tour guide and she was talking a lot on the bus and no one was paying attention.... it takes such effort to listen to people speaking Russian and to make an attempt at understanding what they are saying so at 10am on a bus it is very easy to space out instead of listen. So then I noticed the bus is slowing down and the tour guide is saying something and then the bus is stopped by the side of the road next to a field and the tour guide is ushering us all off the bus. So then there are 37 people standing in a field and the bus drives away. I was certain that this was some kind of Pskov-ian hazing or practical joke, but we started walking along a tiny little path in the middle of the field and tried to piece together what the deal was with this field. Someone suggested a battle had been fought there (???) but it just looked like some dude's farm. So we are walking along in the middle of this field, just the people in our group, and then we come over this little hill and all of a sudden we are on the top of this huge shelf of a field that is looking over this huge panoramic, idilyc Russian countryside scene. There also were about six other tour groups up there, which was funny after we were certain we were alone in the middle of the wilderness.

So we wandered a bit and enjoyed Russian nature. The whole experience was reminiscent of my time at Baikal last summer, and it reminded me about this whole other huge part of Russia -- the majority of Russia, in fact -- that is not Petersburg or Moscow or Soviet block apartments and is just beautiful and undeveloped and calming and pristine. I forgot how well I know and love this part of Russia, and it made me excited to travel by train throughout the Russian countryside.

So we wandered and there is also an old white stucco church up on this cliff and behind it is a tiny cemetery. I had one of those typical life affirming moments in the cemetery where I was enjoying how the graves were placed around where the trees had already been growing and I loved how un-conservative and not reserved the bright, plastic flowers were decorating all the tombstones . I also liked how overgrown and natural the cemetery was instead of the crisp, creepily manicured style that is so popular in the U.S. -- you know, enjoying a place full of death also being full of life, right

We went down a little path that was also just like the paths surrounding Baikal -- about 5 inches wide, dusty, rocky and totally precarious -- to the pond and the springs there. The springs at this pond are supposed to have healing and magical properties -- one spring is for love, one is for health, one is for happiness, etc. You're supposed to drink from your spring of choice to help you in that area, but Philip and Hart both said that in the years they did the summer program before everyone who drank from the springs got kind of sick, so I hung back. So much for the "magic water" bringing you health.

And then I was sitting with Louis and some people on a bench by the pond, watching Russians strip down to their underwear and throw themselves into the pond and Louis says, "I think I'm going to go swimming," and then very matter of factly empties his pockets and goes to the little dock in the pond where Emma, Adams and Erika had also decided to go in. Sasha, Grace and I were basically the moms -- Grace held everyone's clothes, I took pictures to remember the occasion, and Sasha yelled at them when they swam out too far. It was fun to watch until Grace accidently dropped Adams' camera into the pond, but even then it was rescued and might, hopefully, maybe, still be okay, we'll see, and the weather was so beautiful nothing could kill our good moods.

We also went on the top of this old fortress or something (my God, I don't understand shit on the tours when they are in Russian and I am happily distracted taking pictures) which had a 360 degree view of all the countryside we had just wandered through and it was pretty awesome. Especially when Adams decided to lay out his wet underwear and camera to dry.

We then came out the other side of the fortress and found the "wilderness" abruptly ended with a parking lot, complete with our bus waiting for us, and about two dozen vendors selling souvenirs. Of course. I was reminded of Puppy's story about his near-religious experience when visiting the monastery in Italy or something and then at the end there is a little table selling plastic figurines of the pope. Kind of ruins the vibe. But I bought these really thick, warm socks there -- they are made from a mix of wool and dog hair, actually. I guess I won't get Mom or Nunni a pair as a souvenir, imagine how much your feet would itch.

After that we went to this monastery and walked around a bit but by that time I was totally out of it and distracted by how the windows on the towers were actually not windows but just painted on, and then after that we had lunch, and by that point no one was even trying to speak in Russian because we were all so tired and giggly.

And after that..... we spent about 6 hours on the bus trying to get back to Petersburg because, of course, there was a three car accident full of glass and smashed bumpers that held everything up. Lame. But over all the weekend was so much fun and it really felt like a mini vacation.


PART FOUR: right now.
I wrote all that last night and just copy and pasted it all into this new post as the internet is down at home and now I am sitting outside my classroom at Smolny because I have class in 8 minutes. Somehow I managed to get here 15 minutes early this morning and all I did was leave 5 minutes earlier than I usually do.... ??? Reminds me of driving on 128 in the morning. Also, I saw a dog wearing a maroon body suit while walking down the 8th line. Really, a full body suit.

This is going to be a long one.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY.

Don't think that I don't miss you all, I just don't have time to miss you.

SO. YESTERDAY. The love affair with phonetics is over. Yesterday was one of those days when the whole love affair with the Russian language feels over.

Phonetics was just painfully hard; our professor was explaining really complicated linguistic and phonetics stuff in Russian, clearly using a lot of technical language we had never heard before, so naturally we had no idea what she was talking about. She was making some gestures with her hands which we figured meant your tongue and the roof of your mouth or something. Finally she gave up and just said it to us in English, but it was still so complicated that I didn't completely understand it and then there was this whole thing with pronunciation where she just exclaimed, "You sound French! You are making your tongue work too hard! The French are all skinny and work too much, while the Russian are a little bit fatter and work a little bit less, so their tongues are more relaxed." What....?! No wonder we don't understand anything?!

And Wednesdays are just the days when I have three classes, so by the time I got to our Conversation section after lunch my brain was shot and it was about 35 degrees C in the classroom and I couldn't focus anymore. I was out of there the minute class ended at 3:45pm. I just needed to walk by myself.

And I did walk by myself, to my meeting with William, the general director of "Cool! English" magazine. I didn't want to mention anything before, for fear I would jinx things, but Misha is friends with William and William was looking for a native English speaker to be an editor and so I had an interview last week and low and behold I will be working there in the fall. So the meeting went so well it made up for the shitty day and made me feel that even if my Russian isn't great, at least I'm not bad at English.

So that improved my day and then my day improved even more when I went on a mini "picnic" (we had bread and chocolate and juice) with Grace, Abby and Malina. We went to that garden near Bryan's apartment, the name of which I always forget, but it's really chill -- you know, the one with all the little dogs wearing clothes. Oh, wait, that's every park in St. Petersburg. We just sat and talked about life and that was nice, and then Abby went back to her hostel and Malina, Grace & I met up with Adams to study in a café right by Kazan Cathedral. So that was good, but I got back late and was tired and then I was talking to Olga and I realized that I had been confused before, but Olga was born in 1960, not 1959, so she'll be 48 in August. Sorry, Mom, I know you were excited about me living with a '59er. And then I couldn't stay up anymore and I went to bed.

Then this morning I wanted to wake up earlier to shower before school but then I fell back asleep for 40 minutes and then scrambled to get my life together in a shorter amount of time than usual -- I was so scattered I made it all the way to Smolny before I noticed I had only put in one earring. Yes, it was one of those mornings.

But the day was fine -- I felt better about Russian again (it's such a bipolar rollercoaster of language learning here) -- and then this afternoon we had a cultural excursion to Кунсткамера. How to explain Kuntskamera....? Well, it was the first museum in St. Petersburg, founded by Peter the Great. But.... it doesn't have art, exactly.... it has Peter the Great's collection of "rarities." Basically, to put it bluntly, deformed human babies in jars. Where the hell is Erik Peterson when you need him? After his RISD drawing project of animal fetuses from the biology library, he would have loved this shit. Actually, he told me to go here while I was in Russia. Anyway. It was.... definitely the most bizarre experience of my time so far here in Russia, and that says a lot as I have had some pretty bizarre Russian experiences. First there is the fact that you are looking at fetuses in jars, then that they are human fetuses, and some are human babies, and then there is the fact that most of them are severely deformed -- two heads, fused legs, one eye, no brain cavity, etc. -- but then most bizarre of all is when you realize that all these fetuses are basically 300 years old and have been sitting, preserved, almost perfectly, in jars of peppered brandy since the 18th century. WTF. And all this is right across the river from the Hermitage, one of the greatest art museums on earth. Quite the juxtaposition. Also, definitely not the place to go when your sister is pregnant. Oh, god, Genny, if you are reading this, please don't think your child is going to be born with a headless parasitic twin attached to its chest. Though that was all I could think about as I was looking at our group of healthy, almost fully grown, adult students and thinking, "how the hell does anyone actually get born correctly???" It was a weird experience. Especially how the rest of the museum is a very tame and kind of boring collection of artifacts stolen from other cultures around the world. And the lamest part of it all was that I paid 50r to take photos ($2) and then the only room where I wasn't allowed to take photos was the fetuses-in-jar room, of course, and I wasn't into taking pictures of creepy mannequins in kimonos. So, I took no pictures on a cultural excursion for the first time, but if you really want to see the fetuses, check out these other people's (illegal) pictures.....
NOT
FOR
THE
FAINT
HEARTED.

Yeah, so after that clearly we needed to decompress. So a group of us -- me, Sasha, Adams, Noah, Grace, Louis, Emma, Bethany & Emily -- went to Stolle for coffee and met up with Abby. It was nice, we just sat and talked about how Abby's brother does improv and how most of us don't want to be professors but fear that's what everyone who goes to liberal arts colleges ends up doing.... though the whole time there was a small, adorable Russian boy toddler sitting next to us and I couldn't help imagining his head in a jar. Thanks, Peter the Great.

Eventually everyone left.... Noah went home for dinner; then Sasha; we thought Louis went out for a cigarette but then he just didn't come back, as he does; Emma, Emily and Bethany left en masse to go home; Adams went to try to buy sketchy Russian fireworks as tomorrow is the 4th of July. Then it was just Grace, me and Abby and we did some homework and talked about Fullbrights/Watsons and bread and our families. And then it was 8:30pm and I needed to go home to do various things like write articles for Cool! English and update this and sleep, you know, so Abby and I parted ways officially as she goes back to Moscow at 11:59pm on a train. We realized it was perfect though because the first thing we did together in St. Petersburg was have coffee at Stolle a week ago, so things came full circle and that is appealing to both of us.

So. Back at the apartment. Class tomorrow, complete with two tests. Then I think we're having a picnic to celebrate the 4th of July (planned by Bryan & Phillip), and then on Saturday morning we have to be at Lenin's Square at 8AM (yes, 8.... in the morning....) to get on a bus to drive 4 - 5 hours to Psckov where we will be until about 9pm on Sunday night. So, don't expect to hear much from me this weekend.

I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday and going to the FI bike parade and all the usual stuff. Love, love, love you all. Don't blow off your fingers on fireworks.