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!
No comments:
Post a Comment