Butterflies and holidays and birthdays, oh my!

Lots to discuss! First of all, I did a Life Club to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Eric Carle's The Hungry Caterpillar last month.  It was adorable, and it also led me to the realization that I am a hungry caterpillar, because I am always hungry (bet you couldn't have guessed that one).  Moving on.

I also went on a trip to Yaroslavl in February! My friend Nina is from there and invited me to go back with her one weekend.  We left work on a Saturday night and got back into Moscow on Monday morning before work.  Yaroslavl was amazing; the air was fresh, the streets were less crowded, there were beautiful churches everywhere, and I got fed a whole lot by Nina's parents.  I also got sent home with a few kilos of homegrown potatoes and onions from their dacha, as well as some homemade pickles.  Yaroslavl is a fairly large city, with around 700K citizens, so I didn't get to see nearly all of it.  What I did get to see were the aforementioned churches, the Volga and Kotorosl rivers, and every monument featured on the 1000ruble note.  It was a really relaxing/refreshing trip, and we both came back recharged (and with fresh haircuts, courtesy of Nina's friend Misha). 

On February 23 we celebrated (but were not given a day off for) Defenders of the Fatherland Day (aka Men's Day) by giving our men cookies and chocolates and things (the holiday fell on a Saturday, but none of the boys in my Saturday group showed up so the girls and I were left to eat all of the sweets on our own. Tough life).  Then, on March 8th, we celebrated International Women's Day, which resulted in a Friday off and flowers and chocolates at school from some of our students.  I took the day as an opportunity to walk through Gorky Park (which I am falling deeper in love with after every visit) and relax.  And eat cake (duh). 

This week is the beginning of another holiday: Maslenitsa.  I've never experienced Maslenitsa in Russia, but it's centered around eating pancakes and playing outside and burning an effigy at the end of it all, so needless to say I'm quite excited. 

In addition to Maslenitsa's culmination on Sunday is my most favorite holiday of all: St. Patrick's Day! I'm not Irish, but for those of you who don't know: THIS IS MY BIRTHDAY.  And my dad's birthday.  But more importantly, my birthday (hi dad).  I don't yet know how I'm going to celebrate...the initial idea was to visit Jackie and all of my other St. Petersburgers, but the universe is trying to prevent that from happening. First there was a problem with purchasing train tickets where the booking site took my money but gave me no ticket.  Then, Raiffeisen decided that my 356rub purchase at the grocery store was suspicious, cut off my card, and when I visited the branch yesterday cut up said card and told me they would have a new one in SEVEN DAYS. And there's a tariff for withdrawing cash from a teller.  So I am for all intents and purposes moneyless despite just having gotten paid, and it is tragic and will probably result in a delayed Petersburg visit.  But I shall prevail. Wish me luck!

Thoughts I sometimes think

Ironic that New England is a snowed-in, unmanageable mess right now due to blizzards while Moscow is a toasty 0C/32F and our snow has been cleared. Although that's not because it hasn't been snowing.  In fact, this has been the snowiest winter in 100 years, and we were racked with heavy snowfall just last week.  The difference is that even while traffic was temporarily disrupted, the city still functioned.  Work drummed on, classes happened, and no one was snowed in.  It already looks as if there were no blizzard thanks to the speedy sidewalk clearing that happens every time.

This brings me to another observation, though: owning a car in Moscow seems like a huge pain.  I had a car in the US for all of one winter, only drove it a few times a week, and was still fed up with clearing the snow off of it.  I vowed that whenever the time came for me to buy a home/condo/whatever, I would 100% have a garage (and then use it for my car, not for storage like most of you crazies out there).  Cut back to Moscow, where it snows from October to April and regularly reaches subzero temperatures....talk about inconvenient.  There's also the massive amount of traffic in Moscow, where a 15min commute by metro can easily become a 1hr commute by car.  This seems absolutely crazy to me, but all of the Muscovites I've talked to insist that the comfort one gets out of driving one's own car is invaluable...agree to disagree.  And let's not forget about parking, which is a nightmare in big cities (this summer was parking ticket city for me...whoops).  This is offset by the fact that people just park on sidewalks here, and I'm pretty sure there are no (or only mild) repercussions for doing so.

What else have I noticed about living here? It sort of resembles 1950's America at times.  Our flats (I say 'flat' instead of 'apartment' now because that's what happens when you move abroad...your English mutates) have 50s-esque wallpaper, furniture, and decorations (except for some of the remodeled ones, which look like an Ikea catalog).  I can get a loaf of bread for 30 cents.  It's still acceptable to go up to strangers and yell at them for not wearing a hat, or to yell at someone else's kid for misbehaving and then tell the kid's parent, who will also yell at him.  It just feels as though the fabric of society is more intact, despite the creeping effects of living in such a huge city...maybe this is just me, but that's what I think.  However, the 50s weren't all apple pie and Beaver Cleaver.  The downside is that there's still a lot of blatant racism in Russia.  I've seen Asians get slapped in the face on the metro for not being Russian.  I've led classes where, in response to "Who works outside?" (answer that followed the worksheet about after-school jobs: car washer and newspaper boy), my 8 year olds answered "Tajiks" while laughing.  To the question "What are some problems in Russian society?" the answer "Too many Tajiks are moving here" is not uncommon.  People complain that no one speaks Russian in Moscow anymore.  Actually, this can be compared not only with American racism of the 50s, but of today as well (a la "Too many Mexicans are moving here to steal our jobs, and none of them speak English").

Speaking of problems in America...what the hell is going on over there? Maybe this seems amplified from abroad, but it looks as though things have gone from bad to worse.  I've read about more school shootings in  2 months than in the past 10 years combined.  Hilary Clinton and David Petraeus are no longer in government.  Politics look particularly gridlock-y.  Most of you were more concerned with Beyonce's performance than Obama's speech (don't pretend you weren't, I saw your Facebook statuses).  The weather has been downright apocalyptic.  What has become of my home??  Does it look this bad from within? Someone explain this to me.  For now, I'm going to go continue reading my book (The Scarlet Letter, in case you were wondering) about simpler times. 

Alive

I don't really have anything to say, but people have been questioning whether I'm alive so I guess it's time to write something.  First, YES I AM ALIVE.  And still in Moscow.  And still in love with Moscow, which is quite toasty at -4C.  And not in love with figuring out loan repayments from across the world.  I've been working quite a bit more lately (actually working, not just being lazy) since a bunch of new students have gotten added to my schedule, but that just means that I'm no longer ridiculously under hours (though it was nice while it lasted since we have a set salary).  Oh and one of my kids won our grant project, which means she gets 6 free months of study and I get a cool placard thingy.  Like a boss. 

Russian winter isn't freezing right now, but it has managed to destroy my less-than-2-month-old boots (from the salt) and provide amazing sledding and impromptu snowball fights (best snow usages, obvi).  There also hasn't been a day without snow on the ground since it started...whenever it started.  So long ago that I can't remember, but I'm not tired of it yet. 

I also have a question for America: when is the last time you were in a hotel without internet? Not a hostel, not a motel, but a hotel? Jackie and the other Petersburgers visited for a few days this week to attend their midyear Fulbright conference, so I went to stay in the hotel with them in order to maximize hangout time.  The downside was that not only were we without wifi, but internet all together.  And they didn't understand the concept of amenities like extra shampoo or...anything.  Not letting this get us down, we spent most of our free time either traveling to food or eating food as any good vacationer does/as Jackie and I do.

As far as returning to the US, I don't know when that's happening or for how long.  I might live here during the summer and just visit home for a few weeks, or I might resign a contract but have the entire summer off (and no idea what to do with the apartment), or I might go somewhere entirely different for the summer; everything is up in the air and will be for at least the next couple of months.  That just means you guys will have to get your acts together and visit Russia, I promise it will not disappoint!

Slacking

You know you're slacking too much when several people (including but not limited to my mom) call you out on your lack of blog posts.  Anyway, a lot has been going on around here:  -28C weather jumping up to +2C and then back down again to -17C; Christmas stuff; New Year's stuff; VACATION in St. Petersburg; realizing I have to be a real person and return to working for a living. At least I've got all of this youthful energy or whatever it's called to help me handle all of it.

The cold finally got to me, and after walking around for almost an hr in -28 weather which caused me to get a little sick, I broke down and bought a coat.  A real, puffy, long, behooded, Russian winter coat.  My life improved immediately and I can't believe I was that stubborn for that long.  Actually, I can believe it.    

So, Christmas holidays have come and gone...I'm going to give you the Reader's Digest version because I'm still busy (again, read:lazy).  I like Christmas a whole lot, and since I was away from home I decided to go with the flow by celebrating it 3 times.  Once at the EF Christmas party on the 22nd, which was catered with Georgian food and included way too much wine/vodka...yes, still in Russia.  Once on Christmas Eve, when I went to a potluck that some friends were hosting (this is where the walking around in the cold came from...I struggle with directions pretty hard & therefore couldn't find the apt to save my life) to eat, drink, be merry, and get home on the last metro because I still had work the next day. And once more on Christmas day, which I spent working (by "working" I mean "doing Christmas worksheets and watching movies), going to (and being disappointed by) the Strausburg Christmas fair on Manege Square with Uliana and Vanessa, eating Chinese food like a Jew, and meeting some friends for a drink at the bar.  There was snow EVERYWHERE and I hadn't bought the coat yet, so that was...fun. 

Our holidays from EF started on December 29th, so there was a fair amount of chillaxing before the New Year celebrations began.  I planned to go to Red Square (like a crazy person. Every single Russian I know said DON'T DO IT and I was like BUT I WANT TO DO IT) and then go somewhere else, but I ended up staying at Nick's place with him, Lyuba, and Martin to celebrate and be comfy. This is the Russian tradition: watch the Irony of Fate (we did), cook olivier salad, eat way too much of everything (olivier, caviar sandwiches, potatoes, chicken, regular sandwiches, pickles, tangerines, chocolate...I feel like I'm forgetting something), drink champagne, and watch fireworks.  Not a bad way to bring in 2013!

On Jan. 2nd, I threw some things into a suitcase & boarded the Sapsan (fast train) to St. Petersburg to see my other half, Jackie.  Our vacation together basically consisted of eating, sleeping, and partying, as any proper holiday should.  Especially when it's the two of us, and especially about the eating part.  I parted from Piter on Jan. 5th at 645am (we didn't sleep that night.  Life is hard sometimes) and got back home around 1130am to be united with the roomie since he & Uliana had been in Riga for a few days before I left.  We started work again on the 9th, and I got a surprise day off today (1 student is on holiday in Malaysia, the other called and cancelled.  Happy late new year gift). I think that's everything important, so I hope this keeps you busy for now.  

Just go

This runs parallel to things like "If not now, when?" and the ever popular "YOLO."  This has also (to an extent) been my philosophy of late.  I will elaborate momentarily.

So, 4ish day weekend. 4ISH because I had to go to an EF at Ploshad Preobrazhenskaya on Friday to observe a Life Club...it was cold and dark and the school was a little hard to find so I had to call Sarah, who also didn't know where it was, but I eventually found it and everything went fine.  Also the people there were super cool, which made the journey worth it.  After the Life Club, I trekked to meet Masha, Ulianna, and Nicole for our slumber party, at which we did super girly things like drink mulled wine, bake cookies, and watch The Holiday.  All done in pjs.  Ulianna and I followed this up the next day by baking potatoes and watching Harry Potter 3 at my place while Chien had to work (muahaha).

I began my "Just go!"-ing that night by heading to the bar for English Social Club with my friends and ending up at a club until the next morning when the metro re-opened...you have to experience this at least once while in a big Russian city, in my opinion.  And it was harmless as I had both Sunday and Monday to catch up on sleep.  But I had caught up on so much sleep Sunday that I felt lazy and useless on Monday and decided to take a field trip (in the -20C weather). The challenging bit in this decision (besides convincing myself to brave the cold) was where to go because museums are closed on Mondays.  I originally planned to head to Gorky Park and walk around until I got too cold and needed to duck into a cafe, but none of this happened.  Instead, I decided to carpe diem and exit from the other side of the Park Kultury metro station to walk around looking at lights and buildings until I found myself at a women's monastery tucked away in an alley.  After warming up in the basement icon shop (and buying something so as not to be a total loiterer), I ventured into the church and found myself in a line, because I am a sheep.  Luckily the line was long enough for me to figure out what was happening and what was expected of me: bow before icon, get fragrant oil painted in cross on forehead by priest, cross yourself.  There was also supposed to be a kissing of the hand, but I missed that detail and stood awkwardly before the priest who looked at me strangely and expectantly but didn't miss a beat in his chant.  Then I wandered toward the back of the church to look at all of the icons dripping in gold and sit to think/reflect for about an hour before finally heading back home feeling rather satisfied.

One thing I thought about was how churches make me feel simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable.  Comfortable because churches are calm, quiet, welcoming, and smell nice (there's also a good 10 years of Catholic school in there, so church is basically home).  Uncomfortable because I know nothing about Orthodox traditions and am constantly afraid of offending someone and being asked to leave (didn't help that the security guard was intently watching me.  I was probably doing something wrong, but he yelled at someone else instead so I assume everything was ok).  Another thing was that I am genuinely curious as to why everything is dripping in gold and silver.  I'm not opposed to it; I'm not saying that it shouldn't be there or that it should be gotten rid of. I just wonder who came up with the idea and why.  Sure there's the standard complaint of "Why don't you give that money to the poor HMMM?" But there's also "Why do these inanimate objects need gold? Does it please them? Are they aware of their wealth?" And the also standard "Jesus preached the divestment of material wealth, this sort of runs opposite of those teachings." If anyone has any sort of thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear them. 

This post is already too long, but there are more exciting details: we've finally moved to our new school! It's mostly set up, all of our things have been located and unpacked, and it is adorable.  Adorable is also an appropriate word because it is smaller, but it's also next to a Starbucks so I think we'll overlook the size.  And the fact that the door is down a somewhat sketchy alley near the dumpsters and the entrance has "No Entrance" written on it.  And the fact that we have no water in the kitchen, no hot water in the bathroom, and no idea why the heating system makes some rooms hot and others cold.  Oh, Russia.

Last thing before I finish: shout out to my parents for loving me and sending not one but TWO care packages! I now have enough vitamins for my entire life, some warm things, candy (which was opened either by my mom before shipping or the postal workers in Russia...both are entirely possible. Hi, Mom), peanut butter, 5 boxes of mac&cheese (which comes in Ice Age and Phineas&Ferb shapes now? I love you so much, America. Don't stop what you're doing), CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (one of which I accidentally opened and the rest of which were hidden by Chien to prevent future such occurrences) and a few other things. I'm starting to worry about how I'll get this all back to America, so I guess I'll just have to stay in Moscow for a very long time! With visits in between, of course :) Kisses and hugs, everyone! 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...in both Russia and my apartment! There's snow everywhere and it's snowing almost everyday, which is a lot more pleasant than it sounds.  I actually enjoy it, due in no small part to the fact that it adds a bit of brightness to an otherwise dreary Moscow.  The apartment is decorated with garland and some ornaments, and while we don't have room for a full-sized tree, I'm planning on getting a mini tree for the kitchen soon.  There has also been a lot of Christmas music going on at home, and most of the stores have decorations up both inside and out.  We even have a tree decorated at work! This is all very exciting. While we work during real Christmas, I plan to educate my students by showing A Christmas Story in class.  Because Orthodox Christmas isn't until January, our vacation falls from December 30-January 9.  Not too shabby, eh?

Also exciting is the fact that at long last, we are moving to our new school location next week.  Even more cause for joy is the 4 day vacation this gives us while things are transported; as someone who normally has 1 day a week off, I'm truly thrilled. However, when I announced this to my Saturday class they sensed my excitement and asked with long faces whether this made me happy.  While I am happy to have a day off, I realized that I actually would miss them and told them as much, to which they replied that I should write on their class blog...if only they knew that they were occasionally featured in mine (to check out what they've written, follow this link.The theme is English in Our Lives, and I'm super proud of them)!  As for my upcoming mini vacation, I foresee a lot of sleeping, slumber partying, and perhaps a trip to St. Petersburg to visit Jackie.

And now for a few life tidbits. One of my favorite parts about post-grad life is that I actually have time to read things, stay current, and do research if I so please without the pressure of classes and deadlines and pending unemployment weighing down upon me.  I've read several books and generally kept up with the news.  I've also spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be foreign in Russia, what some major differences are between Russia and the US, and whether every foreigner walks around thinking about how they're foreign and wondering whether other people notice (spoiler alert: they don't unless you open your mouth).  This has led me to realize that I've been studying Russia(n) for so long (language, history, politics, literature, film, food, art, culture...I damn well earned my degree) that I have absolutely no idea what is general knowledge and what isn't.  For example, I thought it was common knowledge that Russia is no longer communist (and hasn't been since 1991. Please, for the love of God, read a book or even newspaper once in a while, guys).  Nor did I realize that most people are aware of the word babushka and know what borshch is.  This makes selecting things to tell those of you back home a serious challenge, so know that I'm doing my best and that if you want info about specific things you should ask in no uncertain terms.  On a related note, Jackie showed me this article earlier today and it does a really good job at touching upon some of the small differences that come together to build the dichotomy between American/Russian life - check it out!  

 

All Russia, all the time

After my mishap the other day, I finally made it to the post office to buy stamps for my postcards (for those of you who provided addresses: get excited) and have successfully sent mail! I feel that you'd be missing out on some serious Russian culture if I didn't share my experience with you, so here it is: going to Pochta Rossii, the Russian Post Office, is like being in an American DMV (most of you will understand exactly what that means).  I got there and took my place in line, which turned into a 40min wait. To buy stamps.  During this lovely wait, I got to sit next to a guy who looked like he wanted to shoot everyone, listen to a babushka arguing with the woman helping her ("Girl, can't you move any faster? I have things to do. This is taking forever. Blah blah." "Calm down." "Blah blah some service!" "That's right, what service!" etc etc), and have more people come in and ask who was last in line.  Then some jerk and his wife came in, looked at all of us waiting, and cut right to the front. I WAS NEXT, so I said excuse me sir you aren't next. He tried to tell me he only needed an envelope, to which I replied "That's nice," and then he ignored me, repeated himself, and ignored my "Yeah? And what? I only need stamps!" I wanted to say rude things to him, but the next window opened up so I just got my stupid stamps and left.

Since this blog has been more about my inane thoughts than about the culture here, I'll give you some more Russianess in this one.  This weekend, a friend of mine threw a get together to celebrate her birthday.  A big difference between Russians and Americans is that while Americans expect to just get things from people on their birthdays, Russians give things to people (ex. Americans expect to get cake on their bdays, Russians expect to give cake on their bdays).  So for her birthday, Nina had a few of us to her apartment and fed us a bunch of food as we enjoyed each others' company and played games.  For the party, we prepared 3 different salads (1 with lettuce/tomatoes/peppers/cucumbers etc, 1 mayonaise-y kind with fish/eggs/onions/cucumbers, and 1 less mayonaise-y kind with fish/avocado/I forget what else), chicken, mashed potatoes, sandwiches, oranges, grapes, peanuts, and 3 cakes. And sparkling wine and juice and tea.  In general, if a Russian invites you to his/her house, he/she will feed you.  I love this tradition and definitely plan to participate/already have snacks in my house specifically for if guests come over.

I'm so used to living here that I forget I'm still a tourist and haven't seen most things yet. I remembered this when someone brought a visiting Brit to Nina's, and so I decided to join him for sightseeing on Sunday (after finally buying some winter boots. Significant life improvement).  After passing it 3 times and seeing a monkey wearing a fur coat sitting on a motorcycle (I can't make these things up), we made it to the Cosmonaut museum! This was super cool and reminded me that I need to get to more museums while I have the opportunity to live in this amazing city. 

Aside from my new-found touristness, I still happen to be a teacher and had the most rewarding moment of my very short career the other day.  At the beginning of our session, my student told me she'd had to write a letter at work to a company her office deals with.  She read it to me and asked about several things she wasn't sure about, but in each case she made the right choice. The last thing she asked about had to do with articles: "Should I have said 'We received the Invoice #12345, or we received an Invoice #12345, or we received Invoice #12345?" I said no article, she exclaimed "I AM A GENIUS!!" because that's what she'd done.  Everything we've been working on over the last month was at play in that letter, and she got it all right! It's clicking! We high-fived, and I finally felt like a good teacher. Also, sidenote, the twins with the pigheaded father who detests drawing from the last post had them switched to a male teacher, and they are a nightmare for him as well. So it wasn't just me, which is nice to have validated.  Th-th-that's all, folks!