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!