I am alive

This is just a quiick post to let everyone know that I am alive and in Kiev. I'll have a much more substantal update to post once I make it back to Petersburg. Look for it Sunday or Monday. So far I love Ukraine, Kiev is a great city! :-)

Oh winter, thou hast come!

Yesterday I arrived in Russia. Or rather, Russian winter arrived in St. Petersburg. Getting home yesterday was a fun adventure as the streets resembled something similar to a blizzard – snow blowing sideways everywhere.

I made the trek on the metro out to the Gypermarket “Okay” in search of travel size toiletries for my trip – no such luck. When I finally arrived back at my apartment Seryosha was quick to reassure me that this weather was not normal. I asked if it was simply not normal for spring, but normal for winter. His words were that in all the years they had lived in Petersburg, they had never had such a storm. I wasn’t sure if that was in reference to how quickly it blew in, or just the rate of snow fall. At any rate, after braving the blizzard yesterday, and wading through the huge puddles of slush (I’m not sure drainage exists on the streets) to get to school, I feel as though I am finally getting a taste of Russian winter.

Yesterday, strangely I was happiest while wandering through the snow. I think simply because my day was overall not the greatest. I had 2 tests, and had to present an essay. Lots of stress in other words. Plus I got back an essay from a different class and my grade was not where I wanted it to be. I knew it wasn’t going to be great as I’d fallen asleep while writing the essay, but I didn’t think I’d get questioned from the teacher asking if I needed to learn how to write! I feel horrible about it. Thankfully she was understanding and has given me the opportunity to rewrite it.

Now for some positive news:
Saturday I went to the Menshikov Palace. It doesn’t look like much from the outside but it is BEAUTIFUL! It’s a part of the Hermitage collection, and is the most tastefully decorated palace I’ve been in, in Russia.

I also went to the Naval Museum. Though I forgot how to say the word “naval” in English and so in trying to explain to another student on the phone where we would be meeting my conversation was something like,

“We are going to the museum… war-sea museum. No, war of sea museum”

Other student “navy?”

“Yes, museum of navy! Umm… Naval museum!”

It was interesting, but at the same time I wish I could have understood more of the placards describing the exhibits as looking at row after row of model ships gets a bit repetitive when you don’t understand why all of them are important.

On Sunday I watched a production of Checkov’s “3 sisters” - the play is a bit difficult to understand as it is 3 sisters and their lives, and is more or less dialog based (i.e. plot wise almost nothing happens). Still I read it in English before coming to Russia so I was able to follow along fairly well. The production was staged in a rather comical manner, despite the depressing subject matter and was interesting to watch, even when I didn’t understand all of the lines being said.

Tonight I shall be taking the train to Moscow, and then on the 29th leaving for Kiev. I’ll have a large update to post after the trip so look for it in a couple of weeks. This will be my last update for a while.

Update from Ed: Of interest, Pres. Bush will also be in Kiev on March 31st and April 1st. I understand he heard Gwen will be there and thought he'd stop in for a visit. Or may be not quite that way but what ever.

Yesterday was a Russian day...

Yesterday, was a Russian day for me. Not because of the weather, or because of any particular cultural experience. Simply that for some reason, yesterday I appearently blended into to life here very well.

I was spoken to on the bus, on the way to school. At school, one of my teacher's used my hair color as an example for the adjective "russie" which is the traditional color of hair in Russian folk-tales and folk-songs.

I was twice asked for directions to places yesterday. Asked if the marshutka went to a specific stop, and in the produkti I was asked a location of something as well!


I was also exhausted. Both Irina Genadievna, and Tanya said it was the weather. Every one was sleepy yesterday. I felt like a little kid wanting to go to bed at 7pm. (I made it to 9pm!)

Today however, the weather is beautiful. I got back my phonetics test, which I did better on than expected. I also took a grammar test to do, which I think I did horribly on. However, it may just have been the last section that I did horribly. I'll wait until next class to find out. :-P

That's all for my life right now.

Some updates on my life.

Some updates on my life.

A lot has happened in the last few days. On Thursday I was just generally having a bad day, I think inspired by the weather and by a rather depressing and disorienting dream I'd had the night before. I have no idea what it had been about but it left me with a very out of sort and unhappy feeling.

It turned out to be a bad day all around. Seryosha's mother passed away on Thursday, I learned about it when I came home in the evening. I don't think I've ever felt quite so helpless. There was nothing really that I could do to help other than expressing my sorrow for my host-paren'ts loss and reassuring them that they didn't need to worry about me, only about getting to Novgorod and taking care of what they need to take care of.

I asked Jarlath for advice on etiquette when I got to school on Friday, but the only response I got was to just be understanding, which in my view, is common sense.

Friday I was left feeling out of sorts, a continuation of my mood of the days before, as well as what had just happened with my host-family. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to choir, but as I'd skipped out on Tuesday in the interest of sleep I felt obligated to go. I am actually glad that I did. It was a part-night, and I ended up talking to a couple of girls during the time period. One of whom, Ella, I think she said her name was, was very out-going and friendly, and upon learning that I am from the U.S. was incredibly excited to talk to me. She's a linguistics major, and her focus area at the moment is the american dialect of English. I've offered to talk to her more, so I hope that the two of us will be able to help one another with learning each other's languages and cultures.

This morning I took care of a few household chores before setting off in search of a post-office. I found a post-office. It was however closed, which is puzzling to me, as the sign said it was open from 8am until 9pm. Perhaps postal service here does not work on Saturdays? I didn't see anything to that affect on the sign in the window but who knows. I might have just managed to hit a random break time.

I'm going to go out and see if I can't procure a ticket for a Rachmaninoff concert tonight at St. Issacs.

I've had a few other stresses hit my in the past couple of days, including a question as to whether or not I will be allowed to complete 5th year at U.W. and thus get a double -degree not just a double major. It's an issue of credits and if I have a strong enough argument to petition the registrar's office with. I'm trying to keep from stressing about it overly much though as it is not and issue I can solve at the moment. Though I think I will need to attempt to communicate with some sort of adviser over it. I think if I want to do the 5th year I'll need to declare a minor. Which I may not be able to do at this point in time. I have so much school stuff that I need to figure out before June... *sigh*

On a much happier note:
I have birthday wishes to send out to Kari and to Dad! Happy birthday to both of you!

Gwen has train tickets to Kiev and BACK AGAIN!!

As of yesterday my confidence in speaking Russian and being able to deal with life here has increased greatly. The group of us who are planning on going to Kiev wanted to buy train tickets. We'd found one place online that sold them but it was significantly more expensive than we'd had been expecting to pay.

Rauhley's host-mom however told him that we could buy tickets at a Kassa here in Petersburg. Yesterday Allegra, Chelsea and I went there and between the 3 of us where able to get information on train schedules, and prices, and then managed to buy tickets there and back again! And the price was half of what the online company wanted.

I also managed to carry on a bit of a conversation with Tanya last night, and again this morning. Most of it was fairly simple topics, but just the whole fact that we could talk to one another, and I wasn't needing to look anything up, and that the pace of the conversation could feel "normal" made me feel good.

This last week as a whole has been very busy, Maselnitsa and Women's Day, and a Russian-American Mixer, and another trip to the Hermitage and the highlights from the week.

Of Parks and Presidents

This weekend I and a few other students were invited to the home of one of our Professors, located in Noviy Peterhof, a suburb of St. Petersburg. She'd been on a business trip a couple weeks ago and hadn't been able to hold lessons, so this was her way of making it up to us.

Noviy Peterhof was beautiful. I greatly enjoy getting out of the city, and away from tourist zones. Irina Gennadieva took us on a walk around the English Park, and Alexandria Park, and we discussed the history of the different architectural styles of the buildings. Afterwards we went to her wonderful apartment for lunch, followed by lessons.

Apartments outside the city are larger, and hers was VERY nice. It felt very much like being in a small american house. We had borsch and blini for lunch, and she gave us a recipe to make blini, I'm definately making them for people once I come home. :-D So yummy!

Sunday was the presidential election here in Russia. My host family was gone for the entire day. My host-mom works for the district administration and was helping run a polling station, she roped Seryosha, Dima, and Dima's girlfriend Olya into helping her with it. I don't know how she made it through, she left at about 6:30 and didn't make it home again until after 11pm.

As I really had no idea what to do yesterday I spent several hours wandering around St. Petersburg and taking pictures of some of the sights. It was fairly pleasant out no snow or rain, but a bit windy.

As many of you I'm sure now know, Russia's new president is Medvedev, as was expected.
For the most part Russians seem very laid back about this, it was what was expected after all. There is one protest scheduled for later today in St. Petersburg, but it was scheduled as of several weeks ago, so I don't know how much is really in response to the election, and how much is just to have a political protest. In any case most students are planning ways to get home earlier in the day or avoiding that section of town just so we don't get caught up in it. (I'm not terribly concerned as it is not on my way home.)

Also, photos are up in my gallery. :-)


Train station




A big sign encouraging citizens to vote: