people

Caryn. Love her.

Andrew, Ruth (her husband Daniel is the only person

who I don't have a picture of), Ashleigh and Molly

My roommate Meredith. She keeps me sane.

Stephanie. The best voice and best laugh ever.

Danny. Love him.

Meredith, Caryn, Jenni, Leah and Randi

Leah and Danny, pulling one of his pranks

Dustin. He is the PNW's best kept secret.

Roma and Nikita, dancing at our welcome party.

Danny and Caryn

Stephanie!

Dustin, Joel and Stephanie

Me and Dannyboy

Leah, Adam, Andrew and Randi

Adam and I at Swan Lake.

Lica, our group leader. Love her to death.

Caryn and Randi

Joel, Ashleigh, Caryn, Leah, Randi and Stephanie

Mark. He's studying philosophy and theology.

Clayton and Jessica. They are engaged. And they are Okies.

places

The garbage at the end of our building.



The summer palace of the tzars.

An apartment building, part of the complex where the prostitue in...a famous Russian novel was supposed to have lived.

A signpost inside the St. Petersburg kremlin.

The Russian military in form before the Winter Palace.

Our Lady Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

The Bronze Horseman. It's The Great Pete, and Pushkin (Russia's Shakespeare) wrote an epic poem involving a young man cursing this statue. Good stuff.

St. Isaac's Cathedral, also in St. Pete.

Um... another cathedral.

It's a tradition in Russia for newlyweds to take pics at any significant place, so we see big white dresses EVERYWHERE, because we're in all those significant places, because we're tourists.

And this is the Church of the Spilt Blood. And it has a cool story which I will not tell you.

15.9.2007

We’ve spent a week now getting into the rhythm of the semester. Our group dynamics are becoming more obvious, people are finding groups within our larger group, and personalities are growing (or grating) on other ones. I’m sitting in my favorite spot, my window ledge. The double windows protect me from leaning against cold glass, and I can sit content looking out at the courtyard which has in the last week become a big puddle of mud with ditches in it. I think they’re digging around some of the pipes; but whatever is going on, all I know is that I have a view of green leaves and brown mud. If I didn’t have to wash them out by hand, I’d really want to go wrestle someone out in the mud. It looks about perfect for something like that.

We’re getting to know more Russian students. It’s funny because most of them are between 15 and 19, and we’re between 19 and…21 I think. The only reason that it’s funny is just that their faces look so much younger than ours; they’re definitely fun to hang out with. Today a Russian student mistook me for another Russian because I said ‘priviet’ so well. She figured it out pretty fast that I wasn’t actually Russian, but I’m elated that at least I’ve got one word down.

When we first got here I thought the food was delicious. Now…it’s the same food, so it’s probably just as delicious, but since we have pretty much the exact same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I’m afraid that I’m already tired of it. They’ve started serving us coffee at some of our meals, which is AMAZING, especially first thing in the morning. I haven’t really been sleeping much- not because I’m studying or partying, but just because when I lay down, tired, I can’t sleep. And I’ve been up by 5 most days. The smell of coffee in the morning makes it worth lying awake through the night. Well, close enough.

We had our second language teacher on Wednesday, and she’s way more energetic than our first teacher. She doesn’t sit down, she walks around the classroom, laughing when we don’t understand each other and trying to speak German to the student in our class who speaks German. At least, I think that may be what they’re doing. Her name is Yelena.

The babushkas who work in the profilec are my favorite people ever. It’s like having 20 grandmas everywhere, and I’m beginning to recognize them. They are always saying things to me, and I don’t know what it means, so I respond in English, knowing that they have no idea what I’m saying either. But there’s a lot of smiling that goes on, so I know it means we’re friends. Just before I sat down to write this one of them passed me in the hall and said something and patted my arm as she walked by. It made me feel at home, which made me really happy.

Today we finally got to go to the gym that’s next to the campus and play. It was wonderful. To bad we only get to go there on Saturdays! I wish it could be something we do at least every other day…oh well. Running outside here is a different thing altogether from running in Seattle. If someone talks to me, I can’t really communicate with them. I can’t just run wherever and read streets signs to be able to find my way back, because I can’t read the street signs! I think I should really invest in a watch, because I’ve been carrying my alarm clock with me when I run, which is kind of silly.
Last night we had our first weekly ‘art photo’ thing. People submit a photo (I missed this memo and did two) and then everybody looks at them and votes for their favorite. Guess who won the first week? Me! Weird, right? It was a silly picture of a car…I’ll see if I can post it with this.

More misadventures to come!

10.9.2007

So I think life is going to begin settling down into something like a pace. We are here at our host university in Nizhni Novgorod. I haven’t seen much of the city yet, because the day set up for our walk-about was crazy raining. I definitely hadn’t been dressed for the weather or I would have been up for exploring even in the downpour- us Seattle-ites aren’t afraid of a little water.
We live in a profilectorium, which I’m not sure how to spell. It’s the hospital/dorm on campus, where Russian students come for up to 3 weeks to rest and recuperate. The thing is, with enough money paid to the right people, healthy students can stay here too, and we’ve been told that these students come here to party. The Russians move in tomorrow (but there are some already here, I have no idea how this really works), so we’ll get to see the weird mix of people who really are trying to sleep and people with sleep as the furthest thing from their minds. Weird, right?

The women’s bathroom was pretty much out of commission since we got here. Somehow the toilets (which, by the way, do NOT have toilet seats) were clogged and running-over…so…there was poopy, watery pee, basically, flooding our bathroom all weekend. We have another bathroom, kind of. See, we have to wash our clothes by hand, so we have a ‘traditional’ bathroom (the one with toilets) and a ‘sinkroom’, which, you guessed it, has sinks in it. Sinks for hands, sinks for clothes, sinks for…I’m not sure, but not for going to the bathroom in, if you know what I mean. Unfortunately, due to the lack of sufficient communication, the last category of sinks were used for a purpose they weren’t supposed to be used for, so we had not just one but TWO poopy overflowing bathrooms. Now I’m not a person to charge ahead and plow over other people to get what I want in everyday situations (I hope), but when it comes to going to the bathroom, I’m sorry, but the women’s situation was just not going to cut it. So I took myself to the men’s bathroom, I don’t even care what the Russian guys here thought. Yes, sometimes I was in the men’s at the same time as men…but as far as I know they never saw me. Eventually the ‘management’ told us to use the babushka’s bathroom downstairs- big deal- but now the ones upstairs are back in working, non-smelly, non-wet order.

We have Russian language class for three hours in the morning. Our big group of 20 was split in two, and my class has this cute professor that I really love already. She laughs at us when we try to pronounce words, and makes us make sounds over and over and over again until we get it right. I think her name is Irina, and she wants us to call her Ira. Little sidenote: the Russians have the best tradition of names. People have a first and last name, but also a patronymic, which is like a last name, kind of, except you use the fathers name and add either a masculine or feminine ending. But that’s not the part I like. They have little nick names, I don’t know where they come from, but they’re super cute and people use them when they’re feeling really affectionate. I know we have nick names in the U.S., but these are just amazing. I love them, and I wish I had one.

So part way through our language class we have a tea break in the International Office, and today there were Russian students in there who wanted to hang out and talk with us. I’m beginning to like tea. Our cafeteria babushkas serve us tea (the Russian word for tea is chai, by the way) with every meal.
We have lunch during an hour and a half break between language and lecture. Lecture is in the afternoon with our director, Harley, who had a birthday this last Sunday.

Our meals basically consist of meat and potatoes. When they told me that this was what we’d be having, I was like, ‘Okay, but what are we eating?’ They weren’t lying. We have some kind of unidentifiable meat- usually actually quite delicious- and potatoes in some form. Once we had what’s been called ‘square’- well, the Russian word for square, but I don’t know how to spell that- and it was basically mashed potatoes, in a cube, with a layer of meat in the middle. It was kind of like Thanksgiving lasagna. Or we have fried potatoes. And there’s always some kind of mayo-salad, which I have yet to eat. Also, we get chocolate cookies with breakfast. I love this part of Russia. The food is good. What has to happen after the food (the bathroom) is not as fun, at all, but we put on our Soviet faces and deal with it. It’s kind of like the ‘grin and bear it’ mentality, only in Russian you don’t grin. Oh, Russians think it’s okay to be sad. If you can tell that someone is feeling down, no one expects you to try to cheer them up, and they might even be offended if you tried.