Entry 5: September 15, 2011
A whole week at LUNN finished now. I'm starting to make more contacts with people. Having a cellphone really helps a lot. I got to hear the lovely voices of my parents and my wonderful boyfriend Thursday morning thanks to the ability on Skype to call phones. Even if voices sometimes lag a bit and sound a little funny, it sure beats silence.
On Thursday I met a girl named Katya who did a year of exchange last year. The poor dear, they sent her to Arkansas. Apparently to study abroad you have to apply at the Embassy, and you just apply to go. Students don't know where they will be going to, and they do not really have any say in the matter. Katya said she cried when she found out where Arkansas was. This year Katya is doing a practicum and finishing her last year of university.
(Sidenote: I know it sounds a little funny to the American audience to here things like “last year of university” or “she goes to university,” but over here on this group of continents the term “college” is not really used. “College,” when used, does not mean the same thing as university. Usually a college is more like a vocational school...not to be mistaken for a technical institute. Forgive my digression, but I'm sure that it crossed someone's mind that I was using a Russian syntactic construction there. If that did not cross your mind, you are free to skip the next sentence. If that was exactly what you were thinking, for your information “last year of university” is perfectly acceptable and grammatically accurate, it's only scarcely heard in American English (aka. retract that snicker). If you are British and wondered why I'm making such a hubbub, I sincerely apologize).
Katya invited me to meet up with her and a few other international students she recently met here in Nizhny. She said to meet her near the Kremlin at 6:30pm. I didn't really know where the Kremlin was, but I knew what direction to head in. I got Katya's phone number to call in case I felt lost. After I left the university for the afternoon I returned to my dorm to drop of my grammar books and grab my handy-dandy cloth shopping back to embark on my self-coordinated excursion to Eurospar...dramatic theme music crescendos in a moment of suspenseful anticipation...the grocery store!
Eurospar is more like what we Americans are familiar with. You can grab a basket or a cart, fill it to your hearts content, and then go to the check out stand. I'm going to probably have to make another trip this weekend, as I bought a lot of basic things like salt, pepper, oil, and sugar which are heavy and did not have room for a lot of more substantial food. I was also very happy to find a decent produce section there. It's all uphill from the store, and I was wearing too warm a jacket for carrying 20 lbs of groceries a mile uphill in four-inch heels. When I got home, I boiled some pelmeni (to refresh your memory, pelmeni is a sort of Russian meat-filled tortellini) while sauteing up tomato, cucumber, and onion. Once it was all done I mixed it together and added a healthy dollop of smetana (the “dollop” reference hopefully gave this one away, but, once again, smetana is sour cream, but better). The combination was altogether delicious and filling. It was good I had such a good dinner, because I definitely needed it for the evening ahead of me.
I didn't know how far I was from the Kremlin, but figured it couldn't be too far. I decided to wear my flat boots instead of heels at the last minute (my wisest decision of the week), and left my room at around a quarter past. I kept on walking and started to past some official governmental looking buildings. I was walking by an old church, behind which I could see a part with a large statue. I decided to walk towards the statue as it looked like something that would be near a kremlin. A brief digression: If you amazed at my walking from Nizhny Novgorod to red square in 15 minutes, let me clarify. There are many kremlins in Russia. The one we always here referred to in the media is the Kremlin in Moscow, but a kremlin is really just an older fort that also had a connection to the governing body of the region.
When I reached the statue I called Katya to try to get further instructions, but she was in a busy area and couldn't really hear me. She asked me to text her instead. I sent her a text, and decided to keep going down the street. When she texted me back, she said that I was right to go to the statue and needed to continue to the street after it. I had to do a little back tracking, but I found the river walk (made convenient to find by overlooking the river, go figure). After a bit more walking I ran into Katya and three students. The only guy in the group had to leave after ten minutes or so, but the four of us girls had a great time. The other two girls are from Sweden and Slovakia. They are both here studying Russian but the evening progressed in English as that was the language of the highest collective proficiency between us all. I'm not sure how long they have studied Russian. Every once in a while I'd help supply a word or translate a word from Russian, but they all have extremely good English. Once again I am humbled by how unskilled I am in languages. I feel I need to pick up at least two more at least. I'm thinking French and German will be my next two conquests.
We walked down the river walk to the Kremlin, and Katya told us about it's history. Unlike the Kremlin in Moscow, the one here in Nizhny is no longer being used for government. Katya said that the original Kremlin here was built around 1550, but it did not survive for terribly long. The current one was reconstructed during the soviet era in the 1920s-30s...but it's falling apart because no one took care of it. There were originally thirteen towers, but the reconstruction architects did not take the slant of the ground into account (the Kremlin is on the side of the Volga river), and one of the towers fell over and is no more. The lost tower divides the Kremlin into two sections. The western part is open for people to walk through, but it costs money and we didn't do that. The other section has fallen farther into disrepair and is off-limits.
To get down to the level of the Kremlin you have to walk down a few flights of stairs and then down a very, very steep path. If you've ever seen The Man from Snowy River there is that scene where he is galloping down that 45 degree incline. That was essentially what we were walking down. Not wearing heels was a really good idea. Katya said that one of her friends who was studying Russian made the comment that she did not fully understand the verb “gulyat” until she came to Russia. “Gulyat” translates as “to go walking” or “to stroll,” but truly we don't really have a good equivalent. People go out walking a lot in Russia, and you just seem to do more walking here than you would in the states. Compound a larger quantity of walking with the fact that the stairs are many and often larger than is standard and the paths maybe ridiculously steep, and you start to get a different understanding for “gulyat” than a simple leisurely stroll.
We walked down by the Kremlin was Katya talked about it. Then we went back and walked almost to the end of the river walk. We were all about to share and laugh about situations you get into being a foreign exchange student. One of the girls is having a birthday on Wednesday, so hopefully we'll all get together and do something for that. None of us are really party people, but we're thinking it would be fun to do a cooking party. Katya also knows a lot about off-the-map or hole-in-the-wall sorts of places that she told us about. Hopefully we'll be paying visits to those in the future. All in all it was a really fun evening, and when I got back to my room I was contently exhausted. I at a few dried pineapple rings which I had purchased earlier at Eurospar, took a quick shower and then easily fell asleep around 10pm, very tired from all of the walking I had done.
Happily, I am now sleeping in until 6:30am! I got a phone call from my dad in the morning, and we tried troubleshooting why I can't get online at my dorm. I show that the connection is working, and I can ping out to google using the web address or an IP address without dropping any packets, but none of the programs or browsers on my computers will recognize the connection. It's very frustrating, but my fearless tech leader is troubleshooting at home, so hopefully, fingers crossed, by the end of the week I'll be able to connect from my room.
I went with Ludmila to one of her tourism classes this morning. She had asked me to talk about tourism in Alaska or American cities, and although that's where I began, I ended up showing my photo album and answering any questions the students could think of. They were pretty shy at first, but I had them laughing pretty quickly so they started to relax. Ludmila left after a while, thinking that they might be less intimidated if she wasn't there. They did open up a lot more, and we had fun together. Ludmila came back towards the end and somehow we got on the topic of 9/11.
They asked me where I was when 9/11 happened and what I remembered. I gave them my short story, and talked about some of the changes that occurred after the event. It was very interesting to watch their expressions when I talked about 9/11. The best way I can explain it was that I could see them empathizing with the horror of such a terrible event. I definitely was not really expecting the kind of response I received. I don't know whether the terrorist attacks last year in Moscow made it hit a little too close to home or not, but I was quite touched by the way they responded.
After the class, Veronika came to find me in the American Center to see if I wanted to hang out this coming Wednesday. We'll probably go to the cinema, and she may practice her tour guiding on me as well.
The Methods of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language lecture occurs on Fridays, and Ludmila went with me to see if the instructor, Natalya Petrovna, would be okay with me sitting in on her course. She said that would be fine if I could understand. Ludmila keeps insisting that my Russian is very good, while I feel it is adequate. However, I was pleasantly surprised that I had absolutely no issues following the lecture (this is 400-level class). Natalya Petrovna lectured on the realities of Russian vocalic reductions, stress, intonation patterns, and how to teach them. I realized that the Russian phonetics course I took at PSU very much followed the style she was teaching. It's interesting to see how Russians view their language, and I learned a lot of good insights into teaching practices. I had a nice chat with the instructor after the class when I went up to thank her for letting me sit in. I very much look forward to attending the class in the weeks to come. She also teaches another course on Wednesday she thought I might be interested in.
Later in the American Center I met Anton, who is heading up the different events coming up. The first of which is the Freshman Party which will be on the 30th of the month. Anton, like Ludmila, speaks flawless, only slightly accented English, and he has a great sense of humor. They both code-switch, i.e. switch back and forth between languages, often. Half of our conversation are in English, the other half in Russian. There is a special place in my heart for code-switching. Don't ask me why. It might stem from playing bilingual word association the first time I was in Russia.
I also learned that Anton's church here has done several musicals, and he has directed some of them. I guess one of the other professors at the school writes lyrics or translates musicals, and there is another man at the church who composes. Anton said the first production he was involved with was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which the one professor completely translated. My hat is off to her. Not only is translation complication, but to make it rhyme and fit within the rhythm of the music for that show...I am seriously impressed.
Eventually I made my way to the computer to check my email. I got a message from Jackie who is also from PSU and is at a different university in the city. We're going to try to meet up and do something this weekend.
Finally there was senior from one of the local high schools who stopped by the American Center. She went on exchange to Iowa last year and is now apart of an alumni association sponsored by LUNN. We talked for a good while while she was waiting for some paperwork. I may go and speak at her high school at some point.
Here I was thinking that I hadn't really done much over the last two days, but I think this is my most long-winded spiel yet. If you're still awake I hoped you enjoyed it. Brief commercial: If you didn't see the lovely blue letters I put at the top of the page, I've added a feature at the top of the right toolbar above the archive that lets you subscribe via email. Basically, you'll get an email every time I update my blog so you don't have to sit on pins and needles at the edge of your computer chair constantly refreshing the page to see if I've had yet another adventure. Also, if you have any questions about my life here on the other side of the world, feel free to ask them in the comment box at the end of the page or to shoot me a message via email or facebook. Well I'm sure you've had enough of me and my commercials for the day, though I suppose I won't get this posted until Monday, so for those courageous souls, there is probably a post after this by now if you wish to press on. If not, please go enjoy a cup of Kaladi's for me.
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