This Day... This Day is the Worst Day.

Holy Moly what a freaking day.
So I’ve spent ten hours wandering Moscow today. 10. I had one half hour break I think, and whatever breaks come from scoring a seat on the Metro. The excursion this morning was just a walk around Moscow’s Second Ring, pretty much just to get a feel for the city and get some air. It was pleasant. Hot, but pleasant. I learned a couple cool things – when McDonald’s opened in Moscow, working there was so prestigious that you had to know someone in the government or mafia pretty much to score a job. The excursion ended at about 12:30 (just seeing that time written down is boggling my mind considering I’ve JUST NOW ended my ill-fated post-excursion stroll.

Basically, I have two friends with birthdays coming up, and considering the Russian mail system is really sketch, I wanted to get them presents today so I can send them into the great unknown as fast as possible. Katrina and I wanted to check out Old Arbat, the famous souvenir district, after we swung into the Church of Christ the Saviour (SO SO BEAUTIFUL AND ORNAGE OMG). We grabbed some Sbarro and went in search of the one store on Arbat that our director told us was by far the cheapest on the street. We did succeed in finding this place – indeed, the prices were low, and I’ll definitely be back. The store is great, the sales staff, well… So Katrina and I were checking out these cool wood wall hangers painted with famous Soviet era propaganda posters (friends, don’t be surprised if you end up with one of these for Christmas. As Russian students, we were super interested to know what they actually said. I had my phone-dictionary out and we were working them out when suddenly the shop lady who had been watching us came up and scolded us. In Russian, she said something close to “Ladies, you should buy these because they are pretty. Don’t translate them! You should not take these seriously, they are not true, so it’s not important what they say. Don’t translate them!” Um, I have no idea what this woman’s deal was. Yeah, Katrina and I were speaking English, but I can’t imagine we looked like such clueless Americans as the woman who was downstairs trying to buy a Samovar (which are illegal to export) with US Dollars in huge denominations. Did she think we wanted to get these little posters to finally expose that Russians still believe in GodLenin? Seriously, lady.

I left without buying anything, mostly because I feel weird buying something in the first store I come to on any given shopping trip. John turned out to be right. A lot of the other stores had prices double those at the store he recommended (most notably, a $40 talking Cheburashka doll.) Katrina and I made it to the end of Arbat, where we parted ways – she went home, and I decided to try to find the street market we saw on an excursion last week. I headed down into the red line Metro and had my experience with Drunk Russian #1 of the day. He was dirty and old and drunk, but came up and politely asked me where a certain station let out with remarkably unslurred speech. I used my Drunk Russian Avoidance standby protocol of just saying “Ya ne govoryu parussky” (I don’t speak Russian) but he wasn’t letting that fly. Probably because I said the sentence in perfect Russian. But then he just started asking me why I was in Russia if I didn’t speak it, to which I replied “Ya izuchayu” (I’m studying), and this pretty much entirely blew my I-don’t-speak-Russian cover. “’Izuchayu!’ You don’t speak Russian, what a joke. Do you like it in Russia?” “Yes, I like it a lot.” “But America is better?” “No, I don’t think so. I like big cities, and Moscow is beautiful.” He then looked taken aback that I would like Moscow as much as America, and then asked me what station I was going to. Then I sort of remembered myself and said I forgot, and that I was pleased to meet him, and then scuttled down the crowd to get on a different wagon than him. Though I must say, of all the Drunk Russians to accost me today, he was certainly the nicest. If I didn’t have this crazy pre-conceived notion about homeless Drunk Russians, I’m sure he would’ve been a delightful conversation partner.

So I took the train down to Universitet where Katrina told me the street market was, but I quickly got alarmingly lost and I returned the way I came back to the Metro as damage control. My backup plan was this giant flea market that they hold by Sportstivna station, so I took the Metro back two stops to find that. After taking a really roundabout way, I ended up at the market at 4:05, and evidently they shut down at 4 because I arrived in the square amidst a whirlwind of dislodged mannequin limbs and carts piled about 9 feet high with bags, pushed by shirtless men (Drunk Russians.) Feeling now slightly dejected, I decided a last ditch effort to check out Respublika, the big Borders equivalent near my school. Managed to get to the right station (a miracle, by today’s standards,) but then proceeded to get quite lost trying to find Tverskaya from Belorusskaya Station. This is seriously really pathetic, as any of my Moscow friends reading this will realize. Seriously, Tverskaya is Moscow’s biggest boulevard. I could see it. But I couldn’t get to it for the life of me. I started muttering English swears under my breath and stomping around a little, but I finally found the right street. I then became thoroughly convinced I was on the wrong street anyway. I was feeling pretty steamed until I FINALLY saw it on the other side of the street. I spent about a half hour there, and found some potential b-day gifts, but again decided to keep looking, since they had the right category of things I was looking for but not quite the right selection. Respublika is a chain, so I checked out  their location map and found one on the street where I live. Deciding to check out one more store today, I went back through the perehod (underground crosswalk) and had my encounter with Drunk Russians #2. These ones were a crowd of 3 or 4 street musicians that were packing up. One came at me shaking a knit hat full of coins and saying, “Beautiful girl, don’t you want a musician as a husband? We make excellent husbands. Come along with us, we are much more talented and romantic than your boyfriend.” This Drunk Russian was unfortunately pretty cute, so I was blushing against my will, but maintained a quick stride and snooty posture, not looking at him, though he still ran after me blabbering about our happy future until I got to the stairs on the other side. Fast forward to the Metro back to my street… I was sitting next to a man reading a Kindle, and on this Kindle I looked over to see the cover of a magazine called “Wood Мэстер», or “Wood Master, a magazine about carpentry. I am unfortunately secretly a 13 year old boy, so at the title “Wood Master,” I unfortunately laughed audibly, and this Not Drunk Russian looked at me super pissed off, and literally moved down the train to another seat to get away from me. Oops.

This Respublika on my street was still 9 blocks away… ouch. However, after coming that far I wasn’t about to let up, so I trotted the 9 blocks and successfully found it… only to find that location didn’t even carry the category of things I was looking for. At least the shopkeeper, who looked like a Russian Dillon Doyle clone, was super nice about it. Pissed, I came back out to the street and was quite promptly accosted by Drunk Russians #3. Oh my, were these Drunk Russians drunk. The drunkest. A crowd of 4 super wasted, like arms-around-each-other’s-shoulders-and-staggering wasted, who stumbled at me crying “Ах, Красивая девочка (pretty girl,) bluhbluhblahblehbelchblah” I directly gave them a disgusted look and literally jumped over a small trashcan to run away from them.

And so ended my adventures of today… I won’t call it the day from hell, but….

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about Drunk Russians #4… I opened my window to toss my modem onto my windowsill (the only way I get a signal,) and these Drunk Russians in the park (About 16 years old, classy) spotted me, and every few minutes I can hear them yell “Oi, Rapunzel, c’mere, why don’t you?” I seriously must have accidently showered in Drunk Russian pheromones today…..

6 AM Hookah...

Last night was a bit of an epic adventure... We started out, the 7 of us, (6 Americans and one Russian girl, Stella) at the movie theater, pretty much not caring what we saw since we were pretty much just in it for the language anyway. We ended up seeing this American/Indian film called "My Name is Khan," which was a very cheesy movie about a Muslim Indian Asperger's dude who inexplicably marries a total hottie and then teaches America a valuable lesson about tolerance. yeah. But, I understood all of the Russian in it! Good to know my vocabulary matches that of the mentally challenged.

I will have to preface this (especially for my mom! hi mom!) that if you miss the last train at 12:45am, your options are to either stay out all night or take a cab home, and cabs are not only expensive but there's no guarantee you won't be robbed or kidnapped, so really, staying out is the best option!

Post-cheesefest, we headed out to the clubs. Stella went home and another Russian girl, Marina, met us. After a brief pre-game, (as Paige put it, "I'm going to take a time out and just evaluate that I am drinking a Pilsner after midnight in an alleyway, in Moscow. This is my life right now.") we found a club called Karma Bar. I'll give this club a C+... the music was pretty much just dance mixes of American songs from the early 2000s (think "Jenny from the Block"), there were no cool lights or anything, the drinks were stupid expensive (I think I'm going to compose an index of how much a gin and tonic costs at every bar we go to as a reference. Here, 390 roubles (like $13...)) and the crowd was kinda old and a little unattractive.

At 2am, we exited Karma, mid-gamed in the same alley, and flew off to Teatro. This club definitely gets a solid B+/A-. WAY better music, a more attractive crowd (although there were admittedly tons of 16-18 year olds...) and cool atmosphere, complete with creepy giant python in a cage. I danced another hour, but by this point I was completely exhausted and my feet were killing me, so Lilia and I searched out a free booth and effectively had an hour long nap while the others watched a pole dancing competition. Jenny's shoulder was licked. That's all I'm saying there.

At 5, we nightcapped at a cafe called Etazh, which I give an A. Really awesome atmosphere with trance music and hookah, and totally reasonably priced. We had a pineapple hookah smoked through wine instead of water. Class, right? At 6 we headed out for the Metro, and I was in bed as the sun rose at 7. Hell yes.

Pictures!

With my horrible Russian internet, it's basically impossible to upload pics to this blog. However, you may see them in these public Facebook albums!

Из Москвы, с любовью: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067099&id=1077900116&l=207e149a44

Zoology and Socialist Revolution: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067831&id=1077900116&l=075ca8f724

Fair Warning: This post is somewhat graphic

Regarding the title of this post, I would actually advise those who don't want to hear something harsh to redirect their browser, so to speak.

Just to get it out of the way, everything with me and mine tonight was great - I taught tonight, wandered around the Red Square / Kremlin area with my peeps, had a g+t or two, accidentally patronized a hooker bar, and still made it home before the metro closed. So the troubling part of this post has nothing to do with me. Here goes.

So when we do orientation in DC, they basically tell us the cops in Russia are scum - avoid them at all costs, don't make eye contact, act suspicious or speak English near them, lest you be forced to pay a 'straf,' (basically a fee for being a foreigner) or be imprisoned. So needless to say, I thought nothing good could ever come from interaction with a Russian policeman.

This evening I got at least one example, though, of police doing what they were meant to - protecting people.

As I was making my last transfer tonight, I saw a blonde girl, my age, in a pink coat, completely smashed-drunkenly zig-zagging across the platform on the way to the stairs, and then literally vomiting over herself as she stumbled up the stairs. (this was the graphic part, and an image I won't soon be forgetting.) She was alone and clearly in pretty much the worst way one could be in. I stopped and watched her for a second, preparing in my head the Russian words I would need to help her get cleaned up, find out where she lived and take her home myself, when two young policemen came up behind her. I got even more nervous for her, and just barely turned the corner so I could watch without being watched back. I was sure the police would harass her, threaten her with fines or a ride to the station, or even try to take advantage of her. But instead, they both stopped and sat her down. They asked her where she lived, and told her she wouldn't be permitted to take the metro any further, but that one of the officers would take her outside and order her a cab home.

It's funny how shocked I was to hear this. I mean, in Denver, I would expect no less from a policeman who came across a black-out drunk 22-yr-old girl. I guess the lesson learned isn't necessarily that Russian police are all rainbows and sunshine, but that if one of their own (namely, a Russian as opposed to a foreigner) is in serious trouble, they will do what cops are supposed to and actually take control of the situation. So, cops.... well done? an ambiguous question, I suppose...

This tort is the best tort.

25 roubles. You don't even know.

Observations: 15 Sept 2010

- Mullets are disturbingly popular here.

- There is a boy who stands at the exit to my metro station handing out coupons to KofeHaus. I always try to think of the words to notify him that the coupons he hands out are actually expired.

- I saw my first female cop today. She was pretty. But I was still afraid of her, being a cop and all.

- Kefir is GROSSGROSSGROSS. Like, halfway between milk and yogurt but super gross.

- It's a really strange sensation to be sitting in the middle of a group of conversing people and have absolutely no idea what they're saying. I mean, of course not catching everything is expected. But imagine that you, as I was tonight, are sitting at a kitchen table with three women, having wine, and one of them is telling a story, and the other two are animatedly asking questions, and you literally have to just sit there and stare at them. There could be nothing you could say that would be at all relevant (or likely even make sense.) You know you are an intelligent and interesting person, but the most these people will ever know about you is that your name is Kayla, (which they will pronounce 'KYEH-lee') that you're pleased to meet them, and that, no, you don't want more wine. Hence, my ultimate dilemma.

First Week of Classes

10 Sept 2010

I got placed in the second group. This, of course, makes me happy – even if you belong there, no one –really- is cool with being in the bottom group. 

Today I was supposed to meet my tutor and like hang out with her, but I barely even wanted to talk to her – SO wasn’t in the mood to be speaking Russian - I don't know what was wrong, but I just was in a shitty mood. I feel really bad about it actually, she seems like a great girl. I’m going to text her and apologize and set up a meeting with her for real.

Our classes are super intense. Strict about grammar, English totally forbidden. That pretty much sums them up, actually. It sucks that I’m SUPER interested in the history of Russian music class, but I really can’t understand what he’s talking about.

Polina and I get on really great. What we’ve worked out is that I usually speak Russian to her and she speaks English to me. I’m still getting practice, but we are both understood. We’ve talked about everything important to teenagers – internet, boys, school, home… everything!

Still haven’t had any foods I haven’t liked, except when my roll was unexpectedly stuffed with boiled cabbage (EW.)

And my internship. Basically, at DU they said don’t even bother with applying for the internship, because they just don’t exist. So I didn’t. But yesterday there was an interest meeting, where they said a Russian internship is pretty much making up a job that you’d like at wherever you want. I told John and Vika that I hadn’t thought about it (since I didn’t know about them) but since my Russian isn’t up to par, I’d best work with kids or as a volunteer. So John said ‘What about teaching English to kids?’ and I said good and Vika called me that night to ask if I could teach today. So I went. I was prepared for an interview, but basically the woman there (Helene) handed me some materials and sent me off to make a lesson plan and teach 10 year olds English for 90 minutes. I was pretty freaked out, but it really wasn’t different from teaching options – 10 yr olds act the same in any culture, I think. The class went by really well, and it was pretty fun.

After class I was invited out for drinks with two other teachers. Yeah, we were speaking English the whole time, but they are both fluent in Russian, so they helped me out with my flashcards, of all things. This is going to sound retarded, but I felt like such a grown up, teaching a class, going out for gin and tonics and dinner with two girls older than 26. We talked it up for like 3+ hours, good times were had.

Was my first time coming back late by myself on the metro… But I was never really sketched out at all. Laura and Katrina (the other teachers) did their best to dispel a bit of my ACTR paranoia, but it’s pretty deeply ingrained still.

Bed. Spakoini Nochi.

Meeting Host Family!

6 Sept 2010

I’ve now moved in with my host family! I couldn’t believe how nervous I was to meet them. It was like an audition, we were all standing on the other side of this wall from the families, and people were called one-by-one. I know everyone keeps saying ‘oh, if you have someone who speaks English it’s not as good, you aren’t forced into Russian,” but seriously, having Polina able to speak English has made everything better – I understand important info, like what time to be up, and when to leave, where the metro is, and also the conversation can keep moving in Russian since if I don’t know a word, Polina can supply it. I like her a lot – she is really into Anime and Russian Facebook – I can definitely get behind that. We talked about anime in general and she gave me a Deathnote Russian manga to read, I’m totally stoked. Olya is really nice, and helpful, but not stereotypical babushka (she’s too young!) in the sense of being crazy overbearing or anything. This morning she took me to school, thankfully, cause I never would’ve made it there by myself. The longest part of my commute is the walk from Belarusskaya vokzal (my metro stop) to the university, but unfortunately its pretty much unavoidable. So I need to be prepared for 20 min outside per commute leg.  We had tests to determine our placement – everyone was really nervous, but I never am on placement tests, since I wanna get placed exactly where I belong. The oral was way better than the written – I have such an easier time speaking than understanding, since any word that Polina Leonidovna taught me I remember super well, but she didn’t teach me crazy many words. At lunch I discovered two things – 1. Cafeterias are way cheap, 2. Russians eat really traditional Russian food at EVERY SINGLE MEAL. This morning for breakfast, I had a warm hard-boiled egg, tea, cherry yogurt and bread with cheese and kolbasa. For lunch, meat-loafy thing, mashed potatoes, bread, salad, and raspberry juice. Got super lost on the way home – at first, I realized I had forgotten my passport. Back to University. Next, I couldn’t remember where the door to the metro was at the train station, even though I’ve been there like literally 5 times. Next, I couldn’t find my line after the transfer. Then I couldn’t find anywhere to buy tapechki (house slippers) that weren’t hideous like in the first store I went to. I ended up having to give up on that, and I came home for my computer and went to Kofe Haus. Kofe Haus is a silly place – I paid $3.50 for 250 ml of stupid sparkling water (like half a pint) and forgot to buy the 2L bottle of bez gazom that was outside for 40r. Though, I guess if I think of it as $3.50 to use the internet for an hour… no, it still sucks.

First Weekend in Moscow

5 Sept 2010

Another day spent running errands and exploring Moscow. I was the only person in the group who has never seen any kind of subway or metro, so I took the Metro tour and tutorial very seriously. I know a lot of people have heard this before, but the Moscow Metro stations are so incredibly beautiful. Most of them I’ve seen so far are made of marble, have chandeliers, large silver letters engraved with the names of the stations. The system is really incredibly easy and reliable, probably one of the few things you can honestly say that about in Russia. The next event of the day was my favorite – buying our cell phones! My phone only cost 650 roubles ($21!) and it looks like a toy, which is actually pretty fun, and definitely a throwback to simpler middle school times when I had a similar phone. Russians, like Americans, love to text (called SMS here) so I’m sure I will be thrilled with cell phone culture. Following that, Matt, Jenny, Katrina and I got lunch at a street shawarma (sic) stand, which was crazy delicious and also quite inexpensive. We all passed out until it was time to use the metro (by ourselves!) to get to dinner, which we had with a bunch of Russians our age. I loved meeting them – all the Russians I’ve met have been really fun-loving, and some have even scolded me for being too serious, saying Americans care too much about studies and work and should just enjoy their free time. Our first weekend here happened to fall with great timing – last night was Moscow’s birthday, which from what I can tell is about as big a deal as the 4^th of July (though there are certainly more ‘4^ths’ to come- Russia has a lot more holidays than we do.) We walked in a complete circle around the Kremlin since Red Square was closed for the celebration, and ended up between St Basil’s Cathedral (the famous Easter-egg-looking one) and the Moscow river when smoke machines started up over the cathedral, the bells started ringing, and then tons of fireworks were shot up above the river. It was so thrilling, and a great “Happy Birthday” to the city! We waited out the crowds in Coffee Haus (where I again accidentally spent $5 on black tea without noticing, I really need to work out my conversion rates!) and then headed back on the Metro right before it closed. When I came up the elevator, Vika, Katya and Igor were there, and oh man, I’ve never received such a warm welcome from people I had met the night previous. Vika and Katya screamed “NINA!!” and Igor got up and hugged me (which must have been impressive, because Katya teased him that he liked me), and they asked all about our night and insisted I share my V Kontakte (Russian Facebook.) After messing around on the internet and listening to Beyonce with them for awhile, it was suddenly 2 am, which sent me trotting off to bed after another incredible night in Moscow.

Moscow:

-          Noisy

-          Dirty

-          Tiny kiosk shops line pretty much every main street, metro station, underpass

-          Has the most amazing clubs

-          Actually does have a drinking age (21 for hard a, though it seems you would have to look like you were 12 to get carded)

-          Is expensive if you do Americanish things, but you can also get a crepe with cottage cheese from a street vendor for $1.50 if you know where to look

Planes, and First Day in Moscow!

My 'lost day' of Thursday pretty much went as expected. We had an early morning with a very welcome and thoughtful speech from Dr Davidson, the ACTR head honcho, and then we basically went straight to the airport. While it’s definitely super stressful to be going through the motions in a strange airport, we still made it unscathed for the most part. Well, except for the fact that like 12 of us didn’t have real seats on the airplane. It didn’t make any sense until we realized that the flight was oversold, and they were looking for people to bump, and ACTR was their choice for the bumping. Instead of losing my seat, I actually got upgraded to a window seat on Economy Plus (Yay!). I got close to 8 hours of sleep, if not more. It was so incredible, the melatonin worked like a charm. Funny story: apparently at one point I fell asleep on my new friend Mikhail’s shoulder, and the Russian lady, assuming Mikhail was Russian, asked if I was his fiancée. He said no, and she said thank God, American women don’t know what they want, her son married an American and it was the worst mistake of his life, yadda yadda. She then proceeded to give him the phone number of her niece in Moscow and told him to call her up to meet. (!)

The Moscow end of the airport, what with immigration and customs, went pretty well too, as did Baggage Claim, to the best of my knowledge, no one lost anything. We did our best to switch to Russian as soon as the plane landed, but I’ve quickly realized I know next to absolutely nothing about Russian, I have a truly miniscule vocabulary. The weather when we got here was crap – raining and freezing, I was shivering down to my core. I was in a horrid mood when we got to the dorms, one that sadly remained as we made our way through town learning the layout, mostly because everyone seems to know exactly where they are after two days and I am always lost. I figured there was no way I would be able to function like a normal person. John took us out to change money and navigate a little, see the internet café and such. He left us then to our own devices for dinner. Jenny, Matt, Mike and I went to a restaurant called ёлки палки or something close to that. It’s sort of similar to the feeling of an Applebee’s. The others have really good Russian, but if they weren’t with me I would never have been able to function there. I understood when they asked how many, but not smoking/non-smoking. I understood ‘what to drink,’ but not when she asked me how many milliliters. I had a really delicious dinner – these little dumpling things in chicken broth, and you took the dumplings out with a fork and dipped them in sour cream. Very Russian and super delicious. My only regret was that I forgot I was allowed to order beer – the others got Baltica 7 and I was stuck with stupid Lipton Lemon Iced Tea. But everything else was awesome, and so so cheap! My whole dinner was about $8 with tip.

When we came back, we discovered that there is free wifi in the elevator lobby. Evidently this wifi covers most of Moscow, and you can get on either with a top up card or for free by watching commercials every 15 minutes. While it’s funny to see all of us jammed in the windowsill looking for a connection, it’s a really social spot, and we made friends right away with some of the Russian students at our university! All of them are from Moscow – there’s Vika, Katya, and Igor. It was so strange, they were smoking and drinking right there in the lobby – not something that would happen back in Centennial Halls or J-Mac, to be sure! When they offered us some, we knew we couldn’t pass it up, if not only for the story of drinking in an elevator lobby with Russians our very first night.

Matt and I had heard back in the states that that night Infected Mushroom was playing Moscow. We were quite obligated to attend such an event! We were crazy lucky- the club was pretty much across the street from the dorms. We got a liiiittle lost, but eventually found it, pretty much by following the ground-rattling bass from the club’s music. Let me tell you, everything you might have heard about the Moscow club scene seems to be true. I can’t even describe properly how incredible the lights were. Lasers galore, with a huge telescreen with changing light patterns and pictures that made the djs into silhouettes. The music sounded phenomenal, a DJ called DNA opened, and I’ve never danced for someone’s entire set with as much energy as that! Other myths proved true – expense… $50 to get in, $13 for the Red Bull and vodka I ordered at the bar. Definitely didn’t do any conversion rates in my head for that drink… though, it was my very first drink from a bar, so I guess it’s okay. Another fact – they really don’t close. At 1am, I looked expectantly for Infected to come on, since I’m used to clubs closing at 2. Niet. Another (mediocre) DJ came on and played… until 2:30. Longest set EVER, and I was ridiculously tired. There is nowhere at all to sit in that club. As cute and Russian as my new heeled boots are, they are NOT foot friendly for 4 hours of dancing. The club doesn’t close until the last person has left, and that was evident when Infected Mushroom started playing (finally) at 230 am. Luckily Matt and I got huge second winds, and they completely tore it up. The show was totally fabulous, I’ve never been so excited in my life! Unfortunately, waves of dizziness and dehydration were taking over (we Americans could sadly not partake in the water fountain, and water bottles ran like $6) so we had to leave before Infected was done, but all in all I have no regrets about our experience. We hobbled back to the dorm at 3:45am, to discover… the door was locked and the lights were off in the lobby. We couldn’t remember if the dorm had a curfew or not. A little wave of panic hit as Matt and I considered how best to sleep on the street, when we spotted a high doorbell which awoke a grouchy guard who made a big show of checking our resident cards, visas AND passports, and who only became more grouchy when I needed the key to my room. However, I indeed made it back in one piece without being pickpocketed, which means in my mind the night was a total success!

Day 2: DC Orientation

1 Sept 2010

Today was really hard. The whole day was full of meetings and speeches and talks that seemed specifically engineered to talk me out of going. “Don’t expect to be fluent after the year. You’re going to forget it once you’re back in the US. Russians are impossible to make friends with. The food is freaky. Your language skills suck. Don’t expect to have internet access, and if you talk to your loved ones at home you won’t learn Russian so don’t do it.” Every time I have a meeting with my Resident Director I feel terrible, he scares me so much that I have almost cried every time I’m in a talk with him. Everyone’s Russian is so much better, and they seem to know exactly why they’re here. Why am I here? It should be an easy question, but isn’t this program really just a 9 month interruption to the parts of my life I really care about? This pretty much led to me again considering going home and dropping my Russian major. I talked to my mom, who said there was no shame in changing my mind, which, while true advice, wasn’t really what I needed to hear then. I had been avoiding telling my friends here how I was feeling because I didn’t want to scare them, but when Katya and Natalya asked me what was wrong I couldn’t hold it together and I totally broke down. They gave me a really thorough pep talk though – they said if I’m at the bottom of the language abilities, then it only means I have the most to learn from the program, because no one is going to leave before they’re fluent who’s staying the AY. Feeling better, I went to dinner late with Natalya.

My friend Matt from high school ended up being in my same program, even my same city. We've gotten to catch up and get excited about painting the town red in Moscow. We walked up the row with all the embassies and planned to hit up Infected Mushroom our first night. It’s really nice, I'm so glad there will be a familiar face in that big city!

Vera and I walked to the Mall around 10pm, and it was so incredible and I’m so glad I did it! All the attractions live up to their hype (at least the ones that are outside and therefore ‘open’ 24 hours.) The White House was hosting Middle Eastern peace talks tonight, which was really exciting. The Washington Monument is epic, and the Lincoln Memorial was totally fantastic, WAY bigger than I thought and so so pretty! I am really glad I didn’t leave DC without seeing these sights. More than halfway back Vera and I gave up walking, and one $5 cab ride later, we were back safe and sound at the hotel, ready to pack and get ready for tomorrow’s big day!

Oh me oh my, so much to tell! Starting with Day 1

Okay. Needless to say, I've been here almost two weeks, without internet, meaning I have a LOT to catch everyone up on.

31 Aug 2010

Day1 commenced not-so-bright, but very early. We were on the road, the whole family, at 3:50 am. Unfortunately, I felt horrid. I was so sad, with Amanda sleeping on my shoulder, my mom’s 473589 questions were driving me bonkers, I was starving, and carsick. I still felt woefully unprepared even with everything that I had done the last week to get ready.

The goodbyes at the airport weren’t nearly as bad as I thought that they would be. Poor little Amanda was so tired that she gave me a few sleepy hugs at the car and then crawled back in to go back to sleep. The bag check lady was quite a grouch – although, I’m sure I would be too if I had to be working at 430 in the morning. Turns out my bag was ‘quite overweight,’ as she put it. I chalk it up to being in one of the world’s coldest cities for four months of winter. I kept my goodbyes with my parents light on purpose, much as I did with Chris, so that my mom and I had a shot at not crying hysterically.  It worked quite well – as soon as I pulled up to security, I was in quite a chipper mood, chatting away with the TSA reps. Some eyeliner and an Egg McMuffin later, and all my woes were solved, although I had accidentally come 45 minutes earlier than I had meant to. I slept all the way through my 7am flight to Dallas, though I do remember that I had the grouchiest flight attendant ever. She was this British lady, and at one point while I was asleep my binder fell over into the aisle, so she woke me up by standing by me and snapping “you really have to move this book or someone will get hurt!” and this was the first time she had said anything about it, I didn’t even know it was there. After a harrowing 20 minute layover in Dallas I made my connection to Dulles, and blissfully slept the 5 hours here.

At the Dulles airport, I was faced with the slight dilemma of making it to my hotel by myself. What a grown-up, haha. Unfortunately, as a Colorado girl I have never taken a taxi, so I had no idea what I was doing. This must have been apparent, because at the Taxi station I was approached by this heavily-accented, sharply-suited Indian man who asked “You need taxi? Come, I take you, where you need?” He had my two (very heavy) bags trailing behind him before I really said anything. My slight concern that I may have been getting kidnapped was replaced by slight panic when I saw he was taking me to this shwanky Town Car. “Great, this will be approximately $56342 dollars, I’m sure,” I thought. I even texted my mom to ask her if I was getting kidnapped / extorted. Turns out, Ahmed was a very nice man. He pointed out touristy things to me, and said I looked like a Russian lady because they are all so beautiful (although this comment made me slightly more nervous about the kidnapping thing.)

I got to the hotel almost 3 hours before I needed to, but I was hardly alone. I guess everyone was super excited, because the lobby was full of ACTR students for the entire 3 hours. I became concerned meeting these people though, because it seemed like almost all of them had studied in Russia before or had come from Middlebury, a famous language intensive 9-week Russian program that only ended two weeks ago. My Russian is definitely going to sound interesting next to theirs.

We eventually made it to orientation, though this is where things took a turn south. Basically, we had two meetings with program directors, one the overall director and one the Moscow Resident Director, and their speeches pretty much said “Russian is basically impossible to learn, you’ll never reach fluency, you will always be seen as a stupid American, any other study abroad destination is Disneyland compared to Russia where nothing is easy and everyone is out to mug and rape you.” I was not in a good place in these meetings. We had an activity to tell another person why we are studying Russia and coming to Moscow, and I honestly didn’t have an answer for her. I was ready to call Ahmed and make him take me back to the airport so I could catch the next flight to Denver.

Though as bad as I felt, I was so relieved when the Moscow group starting walking home together, and some brave soul piped up, “So, does anyone else sort of wonder what the hell they’re doing here after that meeting?” We all exploded into a panicky yet cathartic mess, which made me feel so much better knowing that we’re all in this together.

After the orientation, adorable GW student Katya took my roommate Natalya and I out to see the city. I really really like DC. Though humid and hot, (O.o), it reminds me a bit of Denver, in that it is a sizeable city where you can feel life and excitement, but you still feel clean and safe. Funny thing though, there is a law that no building can be taller or even a certain height close to that of the Washington Monument, so the lack of skyscrapers is pretty apparent. We met up with Katya’s Russian boyfriend Andrei and got delicious crepes (mine was banana, strawberry and honey) and checked out this sweet independent bookstore with a café and bar inside it. I’m so glad I got to see some of DC while I was here. Though I probably won’t see more touristy stuff than what I saw on the drive over, (the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument,) you don’t really get the vibe of a city until you’re shown around by a local. I guess that’s what I’ll have to do in Moscow then!