Wooo.

Classes almost over, tests done, crazy teacher crazy, all well.

All sitting around in a friend's kitchen having a pre-party party, talking linguistics and Russian culture.

Love you all!

Take me home!

Well, I have been informed that I do not win the heat battle. I tip my hat to those of you living in New Hades, formerly known as Oregon. I hope all of us get cooler weather soon.

So ready for this crap to be over. One more day of classes, and maybe a little mini class on Friday, but I'm not really looking forward to it because it's all testing and the mysterious mass media revenge scenario, whatever that turns out to be. I have failed so far in organizing presentations or gifts, and I am rapidly running out of care. ARGH.

These last few days are going to be full of stupidity, not learning. Wah.

On the other hand, Polly, my amazing teacher from St Petersburg, has agreed to hang out on monday, so that's going to be awesome. Woo!

If I don't die of heatstroke on the way home, I'm going to hike into town and try to buy plates today. If I do die of heatstroke, I'll probably stay in bed with the fan on high until I come back to life. No guarantees.

Oh, you'll also be intrigued to know that today I'm documenting our daily life- I took photos of my walk to school, and the classrooms and cafe and things. I'll have to wait until I'm home to upload my photos- it's almost impossible here- but they'll be on my flickr in a week or two.

Well, TTFN my buddies.

Don't you tell me you're hot.

Okay, you folks complaining about the weather in Oregon can just quit it. It is now roughly 94 degrees, there is no shade, and I do not own shorts. At eight AM I was at the kitchen table, while Ilkam fried us up some breakfast, with sweat literally rolling down my back under my pajamas. Then I went to school to sit in close, un air conditioned, nigh windowless classrooms for six hours. So let's conclude, very generously in my opinion, that we are at least even on the broiling heat front. :-P (Also, let us conclude that I really need a shower.)

After lunch I had a few minutes free, and I ran down to the main drag and bought a fan for a dollar from a souvenir stand. Best thirty rubles I have spent in Russia- the afternoon auditorium is an OVEN. I was the only cool person in there today, I think. Win!

Yesterday was fairly pleasant. An old student of Ilkam's came by for a chat, so I made small talk with them for a little while, the passed out in my room. Then, that evening after dinner, I translated the pertinent parts of a kids' music textbook for Ilkam. Or, we did half before I pleaded that I HAD to sleep. We'll finish it tonight.

It's coming up on that wonderful time when we all have to figure out what the heck we're buying for all of our teachers and hosts as parting gifts. We are a very disorganized lot, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to end up running it all. Same goes for our presentation in St Petersburg. Argh. I'd just let everyone else deal with it, but I actually care if we seem ungrateful and uncooperative.

As far as my gift for my host family goes, I'm thinking plates. There's been a lot of breakage in the last few weeks, and now there's a bit of a plate shortage. I'm going to run over to the mall that has a china store, and see if four plates is going to cost an arm and a leg, or just an arm. (cheap china is beyond hope here, but if it costs less than $50 I'll count myself successful.)

If china is too hard, I'll buy flowers and caviar. The thought will count, at the very least. Ilkam loves to find fault with things, though, so I think plates are safer... she'll probably hate that they're made in china or something, but she'll love that I went to the trouble, somewhere in there.

I hear all the dirty details about all her other students, and what was good or (mostly) bad about everything they did, said, or gave to her, so I am constantly followed by the warped and abridged ghost of myself that is going to remain behind me when I go. She's probably going to talk about how I never 'strolled' (wandered the streets half-drunk with a pack of russian youths... it's a big cultural thing here), always wore long pants, and didn't EAT. Oh, and loved to commit suicide by sitting in drafts. What else, I can't guess. She really likes me though, and says she's really going to miss me when I'm gone. We get along nicely. :-)

Ugh. Grammar test tonight. I was planning to review for it tonight, but the teacher decided to give it to us a day earlier, so I guess I'll review and take it on the same night. There goes my nap. At least it's multiple choice, but really I can't guarantee that I'll get anything like a good grade on it. My brain is overflowing with Russian, and it's a little bit of potluck whether the right info comes up or not. We're all having terrible word and grammar confusion the last few days- it will be such a relief to speak English again, when I don't have to think about four or five grammatical or lexical points to do with every. Single. WORD.

Well, time for me to toddle home, take a shower, and get cracking on the old homework. Woo!

Tick tock

Woo. There's a lot going on over here, and we're all going a little more nuts than usual.

I don't know about anyone else, but the last few days before I leave- on either end of a trip- are always really hard for me. There's the usual push/pull of wanting to go and wanting to stay, but there's also the simultaneous madness of getting ready while keeping normal life going. If you add the two-part leaving process- leaving Kazan, then spending three days in Petersburg before going home for once and for all- and the fact that we have amorphous and disorganized finals this week, then you get a little bit of the stir fry that is the collective CLS Kazan brain.

We have all of three days of classes left here. They were going to make us have classes on Friday, but we all decided that it was moot because by then we'll have done all our tests, and we have our farewell banquet on Thursday night- waking up (probably with hangovers) to hobble to school on short sleep to see all the people you just said goodbye to seemed like an ill use of our antepenultimate day in Kazan, even to the teachers.

The mass media teacher may or may not be planning revenge on those of us who skipped. No one can tell if he's angry, toying with us, or just the regular sort of insane that he is most of the time. We're all worried, also, because we have no idea what we learned in his class, and therefore have no idea what might be on the test- facts about various dirty words? How to look at a website? How to take revenge on the managers of restaurants with bad soup? He taught us so much, how are we supposed to choose? If only I'd learned anything new about mass media in Russia.

(It's hard to write 'mass media,' btw, because in Russian it's an acronym, СМИ, which is prounced 'Smee,' like that guy in Peter Pan. I'm so used to talking about Smee all the time that I forget that it actually means words.)

I'm not pining for home like I was a couple of weeks ago- the wave sort of crests at seven weeks, I think. Last time, I went home in week seven, so it didn't have time to wear off. Now, I'm very ready to come home, and I'm thinking a lot about what I'm going to do there, but that seems more like a reaction to my departure than real homesickness. I hope this is so, since I'm coming back for much longer, if all goes well.

I think, if I win the year in St. Petersburg, it'll be a little easier on a few fronts. Here, it's hard because you don't have time to really put down roots, so you are perpetually a guest and a foreigner, not a resident. It's like the difference between a business trip and actually getting posted somewhere. Plus, this program is so jam-packed, because of the short time, that we're all run into the ground all the time. If I win the year in Peter (In Russia, people tend to call it Peter to save time and tongue knots), it'll be more like a regular school schedule, and there'll be more opportunity to relax, mingle, and set up a real life.

A lot of people have asked me if the degree of disgust with which I sometimes refer to Kazan is something special, or if I just didn't mention it in Petersburg. To be honest, I want to say that I dislike Kazan on a personal level, much as I loved Peter on a personal level, but it's very hard to say.

Kazan is an industrial city, and a very dirty one, and I came during a heat wave in a drought year during an economic recession. What, of the things that bug me, is permanent here and what is temporary? Who knows?

In Peter I couldn't relate to people as much, I wasn't as attached to my host family and I didn't do much by myself or with the people from my program in my free time, but the field trips were all great. Here I've got more friends and a closer relationship with my host family, but my hosts also drive me NUTS often, and the field trips are not nearly as fun as in Petersburg.

In Petersburg I was hit on and followed and actually threatened by men in various states of drunkenness on the streets in broad daylight, but the city was lovely and pleasant to walk in. Here, the streets are filthy and it's hard to breath and it's hot, but I've had no trouble from passersby. (The ethnic minorities and heavierset among us have, though.)

In Peter, the teachers weren't nearly as good. With the exception of our one insane teacher, all the teachers here are AWESOME. Absolutely amazing.

I think the conclusion I have to draw is that people are people everywhere, and that Kazan is full of nice ones, but if I had to pick a place to live on the sheer feel of the city, it would be Peter.

*********

Alright, enough philosophy. Time for adventures!

The Georgian restaurant was fabulous. It was cheap by american standards- we ordered insane amounts of food, and only had to pay about $15 apiece. The ambiance was great, and apparently the bathrooms were absolutely unbelievable. In a country where toilet seats are optional and toilet paper and soap are luxury, I am told that this restaurant had warmed towels. I will look next time.

Georgian food is served family style, and so we ordered two rounds of hachapuri, which is like georgian pizza, chicken tabacca, which is chicken squashed under a brick and cooked to perfection, and about a thousand other things. MMMMM. The service was amazing, especially for Russia, and we all had a fabulous time. We've decided that we friends are throwing our own goodbye dinner there next Saturday, and I can't wait. Mmmm, hachapuri.

We talked ourselves out in English, too, which was awesome. Lord knows what the staff at the restaurant thought, but since we weren't totally hopeless at communicating with the waitress, all seemed well.

Switching back and forth between the languages was very, very hard, and it was frankly a little bit of a relief to switch back to Russian Only the next day.

I met up with a couple of pals and we trolled the souvenir stands on the main drag and got ice cream at the Kazan McDonalds. I didn't really buy much by way of souvenirs- I've decided that I'm not really bringing much back. I don't have the time or the space, and you all know I love you anyway. Right? Right?

My family had left at six in the morning to go to the son's wedding in a village hours away, and weren't due back until Sunday evening, so I just made some rice kasha, napped, and slouched around until about midnight, when I remembered that I had to get up insanely early. So, I went to bed, got up insanely early, and hiked down to the port to get on a boat.

Actually, it was a hydrofoil, and it was to ferry us for 2.5 hours out to a ruined ancient Bulgar settlement, where we would pass the day, and then bring us back.

I slept all the way there, and we had a fairly nice and interesting tour of the foundations of some 800 year old buildings, as well as some tours of the actual buildings. Many of us were scandalized at the amount of reconstruction they're doing, but I decided that getting scandalized was a bad course of action. That turned out to be a good decision for the day.

We then had lunch- weiiird russian food in the great unidentifiable, mayonaise-based tradition of tourist cafes everywhere- and sweated on the beach for an hour until our meteor showed up, kind of late. We loaded ourselves on, settled down for a sweltering two and a half hour trip, and I dozed off.

When I woke forty minutes later, there were interesting sounds coming from the engine room. I went to the 'bathroom' (if you'd seen it, you'd understand the quotes), and while waiting outside the door, I had to keep getting out of the way of mechanics, who were running in and out of the engine room.

So we went slower, and slower, and there were interesting chuggings and buckings and exhaust smells. We finally limped up to a tiny dock in the middle of nowhere, where there were a few dachas and absolutely nothing else, where we sat for half an hour in the broiling heat, uninformed and unmoving.

The engine started, everyone perked up, we loosed ourselves from the dock, we chugged about five feet away from the shore, there were horrible noises, the engine died, folks on shore hauled us back. We sat.

Tempers were not happy with this, and food and water were not in great abundance. Those among us dependent on medications 100 miles upstream got twitchy. In the end, we did start up and made it home only an hour, hour and a half late. Woo! What a great last field trip!

Very, very Russia.

Then I went home, my host family came home, I got in trouble for not eating enough and they tried to feed me sausage that hadn't seen a refrigerator in god knows how long. Again, very Russia. (Food safety, or lack thereof, is a common peeve in our group.)

The wedding was apparently lovely, and Ilkam told me all about it. It sounded like a beautiful couple of days, and I hope everyone involved much happiness. The families were meeting for the first time, and according to Ilkam they love each other. (I think she has a crush on the bride's father, too.)

Woo. I'm gonna miss this place when I go, but damn am I missing America, too.

I've already decided that the first thing I'm doing in Washington is locating a double tall soy latte. Oh yes.

Quickly, quickly!

I believe that I only have about five minutes in the lab before it closes, so I'll try and think up something interesting to say really quickly.

Today we had a holiday! Or, are having it. Martin, our saintly organizer, has arranged for us to be allowed to speak English all today. Not in class, of course, but we can talk to each other as much as we want. Win!

Of course, there are mixed feelings. Some people have already decided that there are circumstances under which they will speak English, regardless of permissions, and others are defiantly refusing to speak or hear English, even today. I can respect both camps. For myself, I usually only utter a few scattered English phrases on any given day, mostly as clarification. I am, however, taking advantage of the reprieve today to gab a little with other people. Some of us girls are going to a Georgian restaurant tonight to eat and talk. Yum!

At lunch the cafe was divided, and everyone had to check what language the table was speaking before they could sit, for fear of offending someone. Politics!

Speaking of politics, last night my host family came home, and I had a very nice conversation about government and politics and things with my hostess. Usually, she just rants about minorities, but we were watching an american movie about the Vietnam War, which kept us on international and state level politics, and away from the jews and Georgians. It was very nice.

I'm wearing a dress today because all of my clothes are filthy and/or hanging out to dry. It's fine, really. Clean clothes soon!

Love you all, must run. <3!

Mrrr

Full of blah today. However, we had a rousing Russian Songs class, with the awesome news that we get an extra Russian Songs instead of a lecture next week. Woo! It was awesome, even if we had to sing the song from the russian cartoon version of the Bremen Town Musicians. The donkey in that cartoon freaks me the heck out.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we got to watch through the classroom window as a procession paraded an icon through the streets, complete with robed priests and censers and a little crowd following behind. Our teacher said it was the second time in his life he'd seen such a thing in Kazan- religious repression was exceptionally effective.

I slept late instead of going to mass media today, and I think it was a good thing. I feel really tired and cruddy, and I did not have to fake a cough when I ran into our organizers. Plenty of coughs to go around. Coughs for everyone! I'm going to go home, make some soup disappear from the refrigerator, and then sleep some more.

It's really freaky to think about, but in just two weeks, I'm going to be home! The math continues to evolve on my flights- I now suspect that I'm going to spend more than a day in transit. I leave St. Petersburg for the states at 6 AM, Thursday, which is 7 PM, Wednesday west coast time. I arrive in Portland at 11PM, on Thursday. So that means... 28 hours en route? Good god. Please, someone tell me my math is wrong!

Only four more days of classes. Jeez! I still speak like a child who is a little funny in the head! Noooooo!

I can't believe how hard and complicated Russian is. Just to give you an idea, here are a few tiny particles of Russian grammar:

The word for dog is 'sobaka'
If you do something to a dog, like feed it, it is 'sobaku'
If someone does something with a dog, it's 'sobakai'
If there is NO DOG at all, then it is 'sobaki'

Of course, if you do something to, say, a chair, doesn't change at all, it's just 'stol.' All words that end in a consonant don't change in that instance... UNLESS THEY ARE ALIVE. But plants don't count.

Last year on a test I said that a bunch of children dispersed and went home. Or, I thought I did. I wrote something like 'razbegali' on the test. This apparently meant that someone rounded up the children, forcibly divided them, and took each one home.

What was the word I should have written?

"razbegalis"

Yeah. So multiply that by about a million, and then weep for me, my friends. Weep.

Rain!

Last night we were treated to a lovely thunder and lightning storm, from about eleven on. It started with big rolling crashes, and then proceeded to pour water in sheets, and then came the lightning. It wasn't a terribly active storm, with a flash and a boom every few minutes, but the clouds were low and even, and the lightning terribly bright, so that when it flashed- even if you couldn't see the actual bolt- the whole sky lit up a milky silver color and seemed to glow for a second before it faded. I turned out the lights, opened the window all the way and sat on the windowsill with my stuffed octopus, just breathing the clean rain-smelling air and watching the sky flash. The thunder was so loud that the whole building vibrated every time it struck.

However, it slacked off enough in the wee hours that I could walk to school today without having to leap puddles. Win! Now it's fairly cool and sprinkly. The not leaping puddles is important, since when it's actively raining the puddles can be six or seven inches deep and several feet wide, and are especially bad at all crosswalks. Since there are often iron railings preventing crossing except at the crosswalk, that can be a problem. All the women in tiny high heels just sort of scamper, picking their way as best they can, and the young men hurdle the puddles. I've seen at least one suited businessman look at one of the worst puddles, steel himself, roll up his cuffs and just wade.

I generally try to jump, if I have to, but if you misjudge, this leaves you standing in the middle of a puddle, wet to the knees and feeling rather foolish.

Whenever it rains during the day, it seems, there's a car accident at the big intersection near my house. The first time, a bus and a car both tried to use the same turn lane, pinning the car against the curb. No one got hurt, but bummer. The second time, some poor schmuck in a little old sedan didn't see the giant hole in the road because it was full of water, and therefore asphalt-colored. An entire wheel sunk in the pothole, and the driver was still making phone calls when I went by, while four and a half lanes of traffic poured around him, honking.

When they finally patched the hole about a week later, they didn't close the road, either. They just put up some cones and started working, and everyone just had to figure out where to drive so as not to hit them. It was pretty interesting watching buses and cars merge, unmerge, and turn- four or five lanes, depending how you count them- while a bunch of unprotected road workrs just got on with their business in the middle of it all.


The city is full of ruined buildings. They're kind of surprising when you find them- the road goes house, house, house, house, rubble, house, house, house... At least part of this is because of the problem with house fires here, and at least part of that is because of arson by greedy developers, it's rumored. It's also interesting to see what becomes of the lots, too. Some abandoned buildings just crumble in state, some descend into a jungle of stinging nettle, trees and grass, and others become garbage dumps. It's a little bit like looking at a dead animal in the woods- here, there's little interference with the decay process, and you can look at how the roof is falling through the rafters, which start to look like half-revealed ribs.

I'm filled with envy because one of my classmates got to eat herring in a fur coat. I've only had it once, but it was damn good. Here's a recipe and some pictures.

All in all, the food here is really good. Even the buffet type place we have lunch every day is pretty good, at least to me. It's tatar and russian food, which means you have to dig to find anything related to a plant that's not cabbage or a potato, and not wrapped in meat, but it's tasty.

However, the parade of "Any why didn't you eat THIS?" last night was a little over the top.

I admit that I took advantage of my alone time to basically live on rabbit food, but even if I had been eating only what was left in the refrigerator, I don't think I could have eaten both blocks of cheese. Or the soup AND the chicken. Gar. And now 'something has happened' at the dacha, so I'll be alone for a few more days, but I've had to swear several promises that I'll eat what's in the fridge. Oh well. Also, my hostess promised we'd wash my clothes when she got back. This would be the third or possibly fourth time I've had my clothes machine washed. It's out with the tub and the handwashing detergent tonight, though. *sigh*

No rest for the weary...

Well, the oomph has sort of gone out of the whole group. We're all making an effort, but it's hard to deny that we're dragging ourselves to class and barely hanging on long enough for the afternoon activities... if we are, that is.

I'm trying really hard, but I'm still sick, and I'm tired, and sometimes I think the program is just screwing with us. For instance, they've given us THREE HOURS of mass media class on Thursday. I don't want to go. I don't feel safe around the guy, I feel freaked out and uncomfortable, and he only actually -teaches- us for about half the class. The rest of the time we talk about prostitutes, details of our personal lives, plastic surgery and who doesn't need breast enhancements... yeah. Once he asked me what position I sleep in. The classroom is small and hot, and I sit in the front row. Fun times.

However, it is our last mass media class.

However, only one other person is going to go.

Until I found out that no one else was going, I felt pretty good about skipping. However, now that only Chad, who the teacher adores and who gets along with the teacher great, is going, I'm not sure whether to show up and get a full half of his attention for THREE HOURS or just to chicken out. I'm pretty sure I'm chickening.

Chad seems fine with the idea of three hours of talking to the teacher. I think I'll let him have it.

Lessee, on the rest of Russia front... not much happening. I have finally stopped waking up at the crack of dawn, which is about 4 AM at the moment, but more like 3 really. However, I am still unnerved by the midnight choruses of stray dogs. Once in a while, there's a woof or a yap, but sometimes that's followed by another, and another, until there are what sounds like a hundred dogs, of all different sizes, wailing and baying somewhere in the distance.

You pass the dogs in the day, and they pretty much ignore you. They come in all the strange shades of a mutt rainbow- beagleish and shepherdish and terrierish. There'll be a whole pack asleep in a square, or one or two snoozing in a garden. They're not usually awake, except maybe the odd one or two. God only knows what they do in the night. Whatever it is, it sounds like the devil is going hunting.

Well, I'll try and get back here with some crazy stories tomorrow.

That is, if I'm not in the hospital from having washed my hair this morning.

I liiiive...

Feeling quite a bit better. I spent two days in bed going "uurrrrrghachoohackwhine" and reading a very good book in ENGLISH. So there. Then I limped to school on Friday, regretting it almost immediately, but after that five of us girls trooped over to the mall and saw Harry Potter. Whee!

Well, that's not a very accurate rendition of the afternoon. I hadn't petted a dog in two months, I was drowning in sweat, and my morals were starting to scream every time I nodded and smiled at an inappropriate comment. I had just found out that I was in for a three hour mass media class with our crazy teacher. I was SICK of Russia and especially Kazan. I actually kicked the door of the computer lab when it turned out to be locked (I tried to get to you guys! Really, I did!) Sick of the racism, anti-semitism, sexism, filth, heat, food, water, language- I was going to SNAP.

I mentioned this to a friend, and she said that she was in the same boat. Apparently, another girl even yelled at someone on the street the other day. (For mocking her for her not unreasonable weight, which happens a lot apparently. I haven't noticed anyone mocking me, but with the scarecrows around here as contrast, few of us fare well by comparison.)

So we got to the theater and bought tickets. The showing (or seance, in Russian, which always makes me giggle) wasn't for an hour and a half, so we all went to the Schokoladnitza (Russian starbucks) downstairs, sat on the patio, got coffee, and talked in english for an hour and a half. We explained the full plot of the HP series, and then griped. And griped. It was wonderful just to complain to sympathetic ears. Then we compared the motley roads that led us to the study of Russian, explored our educational background, and discovered that we are all horrible dorks. Ahhh.

Then we watched the movie, which was very, very good and very well dubbed. I may just go see it again.

Then we left, hung around until someone called emergency services for the girl who had flopped out of the theater halfway through the movie (at roughly 5 pm... gotta love russia) with what seemed to be severe alcohol poisoning, though her friends just thought her unconsciousness was hilarious, then switched back to our iron obedience to the Russian Only Rule, and went home.

I felt much better after that, especially since that night I didn't have to listen to any more stories about 'the jews' from my hostess.

The next day was Saturday, and we had a lovely field trip to a village an hour and a half out of town, where the most famous Tatar poet spent his childhood. I'm not that interested in tatar poetry, since I don't actually speak tatar, but it was marvelous to be in the village. It wasn't that small- 1500 or so people- but everything was one story, with lots of green space, and many buildings over a hundred years old. There were cows and chickens everywhere, but though I saw dog tracks, I saw no dogs.

There was, however, a kitten in the museum. He followed us in or something, and the guide didn't know where he came from or what to do with him... so I scooped him up and cuddled a kitten for the entire tour. Every museum should have kittens. They should give them out like those crappy audio-tour things.

I set him loose outside, and later saw some of his siblings wandering around, so he must live somewhere near there. We had lunch at a sort of kitcheny/restaraunty place, good tatar food, and then I wandered through a little copse of birches until it was time to leave.

Sunday I felt like crap, so I slept almost the entire day, lying in a pool of sweat and coughing. It was fine, until my hostess's son came home and was horrified to find that I was sitting in a DRAFT, in my condition! Drafts are incredibly harmful to your health, you know, even if it is NINE HUNDRED DEGREES out. I'm forbidden to wash my hair, drink anything cold, sit in a draft, or swim. I am commanded to drink hot things and to cough louder. After all, colds aren't caused by germs. That's just supersition. They're caused by chills. Oh yes.

I shouldn't complain, not really. One of our number is diabetic, and she is constantly dodging leeches, water laced with silver, and anything else her family can think up. They've also put her on a diet. The russian idea of a diet is extremely interesting. For instance, milk is bad but cream is good. Sour cream goes on everything, ESPECIALLY if you want to lose weight.

No one knows what to do.

I just shut up and eat what I'm given, since refusing is a personal insult AND causes concerns about my health. Then, when everyone's gone, I live on fruit and nuts and yogurt, which is a vast relief after slabs of meat and nine kinds of milk product, every day. I'm not sure how to explain why I haven't eaten the entire pot of borscht, or the boiled potatoes, when my hostess gets back, but 'I couldn't eat that much in a week' probably won't go down well.

I forgot to mention that Saturday, when I was feeling particularly charitable towards the human race and was reminding myself that everyone was basically good at heart, a truck full of construction workers revved its engine at me as I crossed the street.

Grr.

Achoo.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am sick. It's just a cold, and I hope it's not going to be as bad as the one in St Petersburg, but boo hoo. I may stay home tomorrow; today I wanted to go to our lecture ("Russian culture." It's only an hour long. We're all excited to see how they manage that.) so I came, but Renata has informed me that I look awful and should go home. I'm staying for the lecture, but I'll go sleep after that.

I spent the weekend mostly wandering around the apartment and the city. I bought a really, really terrible young adult vampire novel, in Russian, and have been giggling over it since Sunday. Not only is it ridiculously cute, I get to learn all sorts of handy phrases like "His head was almost completely severed!" and so forth. I'm actually learning a lot of names of body parts- finally, my shameful addiction has a purpose! Tee hee.

I didn't realize I was getting sick for a while because my allergies are so bad here anyway. I'm now taking benadryl and claritin, and still was sniffly before the plague came alone. Kazan was voted the filthiest city in Russia at least once. When I wash my clothes by hand, the water I pour off of the first rinse is the color of beer. Plus, there are no emission controls on cars here- some of the buses may actually be propelled solely by the force of the black smog they pump out. Add to that the mold-coated wall in the closet, and I'm in heeaaaven. Yes.

Everyone is getting excited about coming home, at the same time as we despair over how few classes we have left. None of us think we've improved enough; one poor girl was informed by her hostess that her Russian may actually have gotten worse since she arrived. (I think she's improved a lot, but who knows. I could have gotten worse at listening. >.< )

It seems to me that no one drinks water here. Tea, juice, soda, red bull- but not water. They sell bottled water everywhere, so someone besides us must drink it, but I finally resorted to keeping water in my room, since the communal well tends to dry up for days, leaving just enough to be rationed into tea and soup until someone remembers to order more. I lugged five liters up the stairs yesterday, to find that water had actually been delivered, but I've still managed to drink a quarter of it in just a day. That may seem a little weird, with a big jug of water in the kitchen, but it's pretty much frowned on to drink just water. I came home, frantically thirsty, and poured myself a glass of water. "Why are you drinking water?" my hostess's husband demanded, "There'll be tea in twenty minutes!"

They actually left me with no water that I would willingly drink, this weekend. There was water, which they claimed was clean, but one quarter-full jug smelled of chlorine (tap water=NO) and the other quarter full jug, pulled from a closet, was declared to be "very good for you" water. I will not touch any normal object that is supposed to be exceptionally "very good for you" with a ten foot pole.

In fact, I've learned that if someone tells you very firmly that there is absolutely no danger from such-and-such, it probably means you should be living in eternal fear of such-and-such. Gang violence, racism, bad water... if someone came up to me and told me that I had absolutely no reason to fear ancient Greek myths here, I would start looking for some minotaur repellent double-quick.

Gonna be late to the lecture. TTFN!

On a boat on a boat on a boat boat boat...

Well, I'm successfully returned from my venture on the great river Volga!

It was faaaabulous. I don't know how much I said about my last river cruise on the Petersburg blog, but I was fearing a repeat of that- strange smells, cramped quarters, inedible food, and eternally drunk and rowdy classmates.

Not in the least! The boat was clean and fairly spacious, the food was mostly edible and sometimes good, and everyone was perfectly pleasant the entire time.

We all met up at the river port at about five in the evening on Tuesday, after classes. I and our organizer Martin lived close enough that we took the trolley from home, but everyone else had to pack their stuff to classes and then wad onto a rather cramped bus together. We did have to wait on the bus with them at the port, though, for what seemed like an eternity. In the end, several packages of cookies and some bottles made the rounds, and an exhibition of road trip songs was improvised. We were finally ushered onto the boat, where there was a brief but bloody war over room arrangements, and then we got to do lots of waiting until we took off.

The weather was awful- cold and rainy and windy- so we stayed inside the boat for most of the first day. There was a disco on the top deck, and all sorts of interesting karaoke- and accordion- based entertainments scattered throughout the boat, and we availed ourselves of them before retiring to various rooms to either sleep or talk. I slept, until five in the morning when the sadistic and spastic heating/cooling system in our cabin decided that we had set it to Sahara, and I and my cabinmate were forced to get up and open the door into the hall and then lie, catatonic, in pools of sweat.

The second day was GORGEOUS and poor Martin got a terrible sunburn from sitting on the deck too long. I tried three different times to buy a kite from the souvenir shop, but the people who were supposed to be running it were having more fun at the events than I was, so I was sadly kiteless.

I played a few games of chess, and then my board made the rounds of our group. I chatted with a few russian people, which was my goal for the trip, and had a generally wonderful time. The river cruises are apparently undertaken by Russians entirely for the purpose of meeting people of the opposite sex. (My conversation teacher, when he mentioned that he was taking his wife along, was accused of carrying coal to Newcastle. Or, in Russian, going to Tupe with his own samovar.) My cabinmate, Desiree, was forcibly de-jacketed on the top deck by a grandmother who told her in alarmed tones that if she went around in a jacket all the time, she'd NEVER find a husband!

I didn't have any such problems, unless you count a young russian man named Alex, who was just generally and good naturedly lewd to everyone. I found him entertaining.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that our crazy mass media teacher was a) a chess enthusiast and b) our next door neighbor. Hijinks ensued, but not too bad of ones.

That evening, we got off in Nizhni Novgorod for our three hour tour (I had horrible Gilligan's-island based forebodings the whole trip, believe me) and were led at a whirlwind pace through the Kremlin and downtown, through an artist's gallery, and back to the ship. The guide was a personal friend of Martin's, and very good at his job. He had a magical umbrella that stopped traffic, so we all crossed the street together with great efficiency.

That night was much more pleasant, since we had all found out that if you asked at a front desk you were given a wrench with which to open the window. Much more livable. I talked to Lenar, another very nice Russian man, on the top deck for a while, took some breathtaking pictures of the sunset on the Volga, and then joined the party on the third floor.

We had all brought a little food or a bottle of something, so we wadded a full half of our group, plus Martin, into one tiny little cabin and had a fabulous time. By the time I arrived, with my contribution of mass amounts of dark chocolate, the evening had hit the point at which singing is mandatory. We went through everything we knew in Russian, and after the crowd had thinned a little, we just sat around and talked and sang (in over 7 languages, by my count, including Latin, Latvian, Japanese, Afrikaaner, Chinese, Old English, English, and Russian, and probably more that I've forgotten) until 2 am. Then I went back to my cabin and talked to Desiree for another hour.

On the third day, I succeeded in buying a kite, which I flew for 20 minutes and then promptly lost in the Volga. We were all very tired after the previous night- which had been later and had included more alcohol and dancing, for many- and so there were massive naps and lots of quiet time. We disembarked in Kazan via a boat that could have been the dark, smelly twin of my last cruise ship- just to prove that I hadn't been exaggerating- and then all went home, where it seems that everyone passed out for about ten hours. My hostess and I decided afternoon naps were in order before dinner, and when I woke up to use the bathroom at midnight, she was still sleeping too. It was just that sort of day.

I'll upload photos monday, if I have time. I'm going to see Giselle, and I'm not sure how long I'll have in the lab if I'm going to make it to the show. For now, I'm going to walk home, perhaps buy some ice cream on the way to eat among the fountains, and then SLEEP some more.

Love you all!

Blarrrrgghhh

This could be a post ripe for nothing but complaining, but all in all nothing but piddling little things have been going wrong (knock on wood and spit), so I'll just pause briefly to shake my fist at a week long headache, an allergen-induced runny nose, and a triple (or possibly quadruple) canker sore that caused me to wake up looking like I'd been kissing wasps. I've upped the allergy meds, and I'm going to stop by one of the dozen pharmacies I pass every day for some aspirin, and life goes on.

There hasn't been much going on here, besides the normal exhaustion and breakneck pace. On Saturday, we visited the Raif monastery, one of the oldest monasteries in Russia, but of course nothing but the stones was more than ten years old; it was seized in the thirties, gutted, and used as a prison, torture chamber, tank storage, and young-criminal-retraining venue until the nineties.

The monks have done an amazing job bringing it back; in some places, you can hardly believe that such ruin could have been visited on the buildings. Their main cathedral has better acoustics than the concert halls in the area. It is also home to the smallest cathedral (church? translation is hard, but you get the idea) in Europe; it holds exactly seven people.

We had a great guide, who was filled with faith, grace, and a lovely sense of humor. We only got an hour tour, but it was really fun. He answered questions, sang the praises of those who had gotten the monastery back on its feet, told us all to pray to the icon of Mary because she helps everyone- even Buddhists!- and regaled us with the tales of the frog miracle.

Anyway, that was all... wait, what? You've never heard of the great frog miracle of Raif? Where have you been, under a rock? Okay, America is almost as bad, but really.

It seems that when the monastery was first founded, on the shores of a pristine lake in the middle of an evergreen forest in the untouched countryside of Tatarstan, the monks prayed every night. However, all of the frogs in the lake croaked (or, since they're russian frogs, kvacked) so loudly that no one could concentrate. Finally the abbot prayed that something be done about the pesky frogs so they could all get down to some serious praying, and lo- God shut the frogs up, for good. In three hundred years, give or take, there's been nary a kvack from that pristine lake. As our guide says, man may forget something he did after a day or a month or a year, but God always remembers.

But that's not the end of it! It seems that some french people decided to see what was up with this silly silent-frog legend, and brought some good French frogs to Raif to see what was what. They listened, and of course there was not a kvack to be heard, except from their tank of french frogs. So they poured a little lake water into the tank, and their French frogs issued not a peep. Totally silent.

So that satisfied the French, but not the Italians. They came, listened to the silent lake, and this time packed a few Raif frogs back to Italy with them. There, presumably inspired by the mediterranian air, they kvacked up a storm.

So there you have it. If you love nature but the kvacking gets you down, come to Raif.

I also finally managed to buy a chess set, which I had been trying to do for a week, so that I'll have something to do on the boat. I asked our student ambassador where the heck one is supposed to buy a chess set around here, since I hadn't seen any. She looked surprised, and said very matter of factly, "In a sporting goods store!" Then she gave me directions to one and I left, disbelieving.

Then I asked our conversation teacher, who is an awesome guy and it turns out a minor chess enthusiast. Where can you buy a chess set? "Why, in a sporting goods store!"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, chess is a sport here.

I made my way to the TSUM (central universal store), which is basically a mall, and there, crammed into a store with a bunch of hockey, basketball, darts, and soccer equipment, was a staggering display of chess sets. I bought one of good quality, with a backgammon board on the inside. I'll give it to my teacher when we go- I couldn't bear the idea of three days sitting on a boat playing with plastic pieces so light that they'd blow away in the breeze. Quality in all things, and that means wooden pieces, thankyouverymuch. *snobsnobsnob*

Aaaand I know that I haven't explained about the boat yet, but I was saving that for last. As our big field trip, we're all taking a three day river cruise on the Volga, to Nizhni Novgorod. We'll only get a couple of hours in the city, since the point of the entire endeavor, to russians at least, is to spend a bunch of time on a boat. We're all a little put out by this, but we're stocking up on goodies and magazines and games, and rejoicing that there will be no classes on the boat.

We're all... so... tired. Last friday, a full half of my class (including me) was late. Even our teachers are getting worn out. Thus, the boat will be for chatting and relaxation. I'll spend some time playing chess with my conversation teacher, who is a fascinating man, and chatting with him, and probably spend an equal amount of time attempting to steer clear of our mass media teacher, who is kind of scary. (All of us are highly entertained by him, since he seems to be a jovial madman, but he's also quite sexist, and a bit lecherous for comfort. His classes are very informative, but usually we're all too mortified to take it all in.)

So, that's it. We're halfway through with our time here, and I'm already starting to feel like I've been wasting all my time here. On what, don't ask me, but clearly I have not been doing enough, because I sound like an idiot! Yeah, I know, I'll always sound slightly brain damaged in Russian. I must have improved, but it's such a hard language. So hard. So many things to go wrong. Yarrrr.

So I'll be back on the interwebs probably on Friday, though there's a slight chance I'll post something tomorrow before we go or Thursday after we get back.

Miss you all! Mwah! (Happy fourth, too!)

I'm back!

I honestly didn't want to go silent for that long. Events conspired, as they say.

All is well, however, and life has been moving along at a breakneck pace, or at least too darned fast for me. We're nearing the halfway point on our stay here, and we're definitely out of both the initial period of ungainly confusion, and the honeymoon. Oh well.

So nothing in itself amazing has happened to me in the last few days. I got half of Sunday to myself, and spent most of it doing things like hogging the shower, running around in all modes of undress, listening to music and reveling in not having anyone popping in to tell me long stories or feed me things. I also did a big fat hunk of my jigsaw puzzle, which lasted all of three days. I have now purchased one so large that I'm being forced to actually assemble it in small sections on the slide-out keyboard tray, because the spread out pieces have consumed the top of the desk entirely. That should last a while longer. (It's also one of those with a devilish water-reflecting-everything motif. Bwa ha ha.)

My hostess's husband is back from the hospital, where he had been for the last twenty days, having an operation on his leg. He's walking much better now and seems to be feeling great. I love having him around, since he's a nice guy, very intelligent, and he cooks on my kind of schedule- dinner is now at seven, whether Ilkam is around or not. Heaven. However, he has a Tatar accent, and tends to look in other directions when he talks to me. Quietly. Therefore, I don't understand him. This has given him the impression that I don't understand Russian, and he translates the simplest things into heavily accented, ungrammatical English. I must get him to stop doing this, since it bugs me for the next half hour every time.

So on to my favorite theme, what is weird in Russia. The Engrish, as always- my new favorite shirt was a collection of disembodied animal heads, tinted bright colors, with "Ahoy, me Hearty!" written underneath in sparkly silver.

I have to say that what takes the weird cake at the moment, and possibly forever, is the public service announcements that play at all times in the halls of the university. They're silent, but there are tvs mounted in all the hallways and lobbies, so you can't escape them.

They just got- or are just now advertising, I'm not sure which- national emergency services here, like 911, only 01. So, apparently in the hope of getting people to actually call the number, the TVs play an undending stream of short reenactments of terrible, terrible things happening to people, and then a reminder to a) not do that and b) call 01 if they do.

So I stand, transfixed, during my breaks between classes as children are crippled for life, people are crushed in their cars, stampedes crush people, elevators cut babies in half (this one is only hinted at), lovers burn to death in their bed, which caught on fire from a badly-tended post-coital cigarette (this one ends with a heart-rending shot of the red rose on their nightstand fading into ashes) and so forth. And since there's no way I can just stand there and watch it all, I go back to class wondering what the hell could happen to the nice old lady ironing clothes while her husband reads the newspaper a little too close, or exactly what the guy with the hacksaw on a pole was planning on doing with those powerlines.

Then, just when I think I'm used to this unending stream of horror, the management realizes that the anouncements are spreading more terror and despondency then wisdom, and the rising suicide rate apparently prompted them to change their tact, because I came in one morning to see lapping lakeshores and lovely sunrises with phrases like 'It's darkest before dawn' and 'things may seem bad now, but the sun will rise again.' These are now regularly interspersed with the death and affliction.

Woo.

Also, our Mass Media professor? Complete madman. I'll have to write about him in more detail later.

TTFN, you lot!