Entry 9 -September 28, 2011
For those of you who think I'm overusing alliteration in my titles and have dreaded opening a new entry to find yet another repetition of English Phonetics, I hope it makes you feel better to know that I am similarly suffering from such a streak (alliteration here unintentional). For some odd reason, it seems that my activities and adventures tend to group themselves into letters of the alphabet. If you are sitting there bemoaning the fact, be thankful I haven't caught Seuss or Shakespeare fever. I could be writing in couplets.
I believe I left you at the end of my adventuring on Saturday. Saturday morning was uneventful. I did some Bible reading on my own. I've been asked by some people if I have found a church here, and the answer to that so far is no. I haven't seen anything other than Orthodox churches, and I don't think the majority of them are actually functioning right now.
Jackie came over around lunch time and we made spaghetti. We had a Russian spaghetti, and it definitely had a strange sort of consistency to it. I had found spaghetti sauce and added onion and cucumber to it. I have been unable to get my hands on zucchini, and as a result, I have been using cucumbers in things. All of the cucumbers I've found here are smaller, no more than four or so inches. They're not quite as crunchy as ours and they have a slightly different taste. I have been using them in all sorts of ways I would never have previously cooked with a cucumber. After lunch, we talked about our project, and Jackie liked the legends idea, so that's what we've decided to go with. We walked to a different part of town, where Jackie is living. She's living in a hotel of sorts, associated with her university. It's very nice. She has a fridge, a bathroom, and a large room with a tv all to herself. Unfortunately, she has no kitchen, only an electric kettle. Therefore she's been buying a lot of precooked chicken and instant soups. Apparently earlier last week her kettle stopped working. The hostess went to see if they had any more, and they didn't have any new ones. She gave her one that has some wires sticking out of it, but it works. Jackie's just careful not to spill water on it. We talked briefly about how, back home in America, we would never even try that, but for some reason, being here in Russia, you end up being more daring and resourceful. NASA spent tons of money to create a pen that would write in null gravity; the Russians used a pencil.
I had brought my computer with me to Jackie's so it could charge. YAY! Power at last! So now I knew that I just needed to find an adapter for my poor little netbook. Jackie and I came up with a working plan for our project and worked on composing an explanation to be sent to our professor in Portland. Much laughing was involved as we joked around with grammar. When we were done, I still wanted to let my computer charge a little longer so we turned on the TV to see if anything was on that was either worth watching or amusing enough to hold our attention. Spiderman 3 was playing with Russian dubbing, and it was some where towards of the end of the film, we figured. Also, neither one of us had seen the film, so we didn't know what was going on, but we thought it might be amusing. We went and sat down on the couch and were confused as to why it seemed there was a song playing in the film and no more sound effect sounds. When an announcer voice came on, not matching the film, we realized the television was picking up a radio station. We tried switching the channel away and then back, but very soon after we did that, the radio station invaded again. The next station was playing one of the Harry Potter films, and we were immediately sent laughing at some of the pronunciations of names which pronounced a few silent letters. However, by that time it was getting dark, so I decided I should probably leave.
Jackie was going to walk me back a ways, but she ended up going a different way and we were very lost. However, we kept walking straight, and ended up cutting the trip about it half. We're not sure what we did. Everything looks different at night. We also agreed that it was not a way we would have wanted to walk alone at night.
On Monday morning, I had agreed to talk in a class about American Health Insurance and general health in America. One of the professor had approached me and mentioned that the students had read some information about our health and insurance system and were confused, so she asked if I would come and talk about it and answer questions. I did my best, and I was just glad that no one asked me about the specifics of Obamacare as a knowledge of health insurance is not really one of my specialties.
Later that day I planned out my next Idioms session. This time, instead of having students try to think of what the different idioms may mean, I'm going to give them a list of idioms again, and pieces of paper with the definitions on them. They are going to have to work in groups and try to match them up as best they can. The catch is there are two extra definitions from last week. There will be some sort of bonus for the person who can name the idioms those two definitions fit.
One of the instructors has been concerned that I do not have enough to do, and she asked me to come to her office for a minute. She says that there is a Medical Institute here where the instructors would like to be able to practice their English with a native speaker. There was a representative from the school there, and they said they would get in contact with me to set up some sort of meetings with the instructors. I still have not heard anything more about it, but it may be very interesting. I don't know what sort of things they'll want to talk about. I just hope they won't be as interested in Jack London as were my host parents in Vladimir a few years ago. There has also been discussion about me speaking at a high school, and I am waiting to learn more about that as well.
I was checking my email when two students approached me to see if I would want to hang out with them. Naturally, I said I would love to do so, and I figured that they would want to plan a time for later in the week.....and in such thinking I was wrong. As soon as I agreed to do something, they asked if I was free right then. It was around 3 o'clock so I figured it would be ok for me to leave. I told them I'd need a moment to gather my things, and I told Ludmila I was going.
Katya (who introduced herself as Kate) I had seen in a class I had spoken to, and she introduced me to her boyfriend Sasha (who introduced himself as Alex). They asked if there was something I wanted to do, and we decided on something cultural. Thus we went to an art museum in the Kremlin. They said it was free for students, but we didn't know whether or not they would accept my student ID from PSU as it looks like a credit card. I suspected the cashier would protest and was correct in my assumption. However, Alex argued for me, and she ended up letting me in for free with a student ticket. :)
There was a school excursion that we followed along with for a while to learn about some of the pieces of art. Alex didn't realize at first that I spoke Russian, and I think they were surprised to see that I could follow along with the tour guide. It's not a very large museum, and a lot of the paintings there are copies of original copies that hang in the Tretyakov in Moscow, but it was still interesting. They had one painting which I really like where a young Russian girl is seated in traditional costume looking into a mirror. You only see her face in the reflection. There was an old story that girls believed that on one night (maybe All Hallow's Eve) if a girl dressed up and looked into her mirror she would see the man she was going to marry. There is a story based off of the painting that the girl saw the man she was going to marry be shot and killed in the war. I can't remember what she did after that, but it was quite sad and tragic. The painting is called Svetlana Guessing at Her Future and you can see it on this website: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/karl-bryullov/svetlana-guessing-on-her-future/ The colors are more dull on the website, but you get the idea. If you’re really interested and/or intrigued you can search for it on google images. The light used by the painter and the girl's expression are phenomenal.
After an hour or so in the museum, we left and decided to go get something to eat. We ended up going to a sushi restaurant. From what I have learned from other students since then, apparently the one we went to is not really that great, but the sushi I had definitely tasted different from the California rolls we have in America. At dinner we talked a lot about movies, and I think I disappointed Alex in all of the films he knew that I had not seen. Katya is pretty quiet so most of the conversation was between Alex and I.
After dinner we went and walked around. They took me to one bridge where you could look over the other part of the city. The lighting at the time was very beautiful, but it was also super windy in that area, making walking uphill an additional challenge. We kept walking and walking and got a little bit lost. By the time we had figured out where we were we were pretty cold, so we decided to go get coffee. We went to a very classy cafe on Bolshaya Prokovskaya. You check your coat at the door, and there are bird cages on the window side of the cafe creating natural music for your dinning pleasure. When we got there Alex asked me if I wanted a water pipe. I didn't know what he was talking to and he pointed to something that look like hookah. I said, thank you, but definitely not. We each ordered something warm to drink and enjoyed the atmosphere. I would have been more appreciative of said atmosphere if people weren't smoking cigarettes at nearly every table, but oh well. I ordered a caramel latte (as that was the only latte they had), but after a few minutes the waiter came back and said they were out of caramel and would I like a different flavor. I said I would be fine with just a straight latte. A few minutes later he came back again to ask if I would be alright with a cappuccino with chocolate. The poor kid seemed so distressed, and I didn't really care, so I said that would be perfectly fine. It was dark by the time we left the cafe. Katya caught a bus by the Kremlin, but Alex walked me back to the dorm as he was going in the same direction. The only downside to the evening was that my mom called me when I was walking back, and I didn't want to be impolite so I didn't talk to her. I had told her earlier that she could give me a call, but that was before the unanticipated excursion. Flexibility is my motto while traveling abroad.
When I got home I used the USB modem to get online. I tried to voice skype with D-dad in Texas, but, unfortunately, the connection was not good enough and just kept dropping. The girls who lent me the USB device told me they had tried to call the ISP help for me, but the person they needed to speak with was unavailable so they would try back the next day. The did bring me a piece of cake they made with squash. It was unusual but absolutely delicious.
Tuesday was relatively uneventful. I worked on homework during the day, Alex stopped by to chat, and then at 3 o'clock I went to the Tourism group's celebration of “The Day of Tourism.” Each student had to come representing a country with information about their respective land. One girl represented Northern Ireland and taught a few Irish dancing steps; the girl representing Egypt brought a roll of toilet paper and we nominated the only guy there to be our mummy (there's a picture on facebook); Veronika represented Canada, and she had a list of amusing Canadian laws; and so on and so forth. I was representing (surprise!) America, but I tried telling them something they wouldn't know. I asked them what the official language of the United States was, and they were surprised to find out that it was a trick question as we have no official language. Ludmila was leading the event, and she had trivia questions about the smallest countries of the world, the 7 wonders of the world (of which there are also several different lists), the most popular countries for tourism, etc.
When everyone had presented their country we had pizza. Pizza is very, very, very different here. Instead of a tomato sauce there was a sort of alfredo sauce with mozerella, a few slices of tomato, and LOTS of mushrooms. After we ate, the students wanted to play mofia. I don't know why that game is so popular everywhere. I've never really been a fan of it. I ended up being the leader, and we had a pretty good time. Both times we played the mofia picked the doctor to kill on the first go around, which was pretty amusing.
During the party, Katya (the one who went to Arkansas, not the Katya from the day before) brought me an adapter for my computer. She is such a wonderful person. When I got home I was pretty tired, so I just read a book until it was time to go to bed. I don't know why I get tired so easily here. Maybe I'm not getting enough nutrients, despite the fact that I'm taking vitamins consistently for the first time in my life. Thank you, person who invented adult gummy vitamins. The last time I took vitamins regularly was when they came in the Flintstone variety.
Two final notes: 1) As you might have noticed, the blog lied when it said it would send you an email update. Sorry. I have no control over the application. You'll have to go back to waking up, running to the computer, and jumping with glee when you find a new update. :)
Yay for gummy vitamins. I've taken those before :)
ReplyDeleteHave you got to write any during your downtime? which there seems to be very little of :)