A Continuation (of sorts)

So, our internet is le sketchy here, and thus, I can't promise updates as frequently as I would like :-(



In terms of universities, Astrakhan completely trumps Voronezh. In terms of cities, Voronezh (despite being a large hunk of concrete) trumps Astrakhan major league. In Astrakhan, one cannot walk from point A to point B - one must always ride the marshytka. There are a smattering of buses, but for the most part, marshytkas rule the roads.



A marshytka, for those of you who have missed out on this lovely form of transport, is essentially a 16-passenger van, usually yellow, with a different arrangement of seats - a taxi-van, if you will. They run along set routes, but you have to signal from the side of the road in order to catch one, and you have to tell it where to stop when you want to get off. Amusing signs spotted in marshytkas include "This vehicle does not stop for "here" and "there"". Riding on a marshytka is, as a general rule, a near-death experience. (That said, marshytka drivers tend to be better than the vast majority of Russian drivers.)

Shelley (another girl in the program) and I live a few stops apart, so we always ride back from school and events together (our families think this is great). We also have an extraordinary ability to get on the right marshytka going in the wrong direction. The first time this happened, the driver drove down a random side street, stopped, and announced "The end" and kicked us off. We had to walk back to the university stop and try again.

Last night, we got out of a play kind of late. Not that big of a problem, right? Well, we were under the impression that marshytkas stop running completely at about fifteen minutes after we got out (they just seriously decrease in number), so we were panicing about getting home. We knew that we needed Marshytka No. 18 to get home, but we weren't sure which way, so we just hopped the first one that happened by. Turns out, not the right one. We, of course, did not discover this until we got to the far side of the city. Oops. The driver was really nice/had mercy and took us to a big stop, then walked us to the correct marshytka, put us on it, told the driver our stop, and that we spoke really poor Russian. We finally made it home about an hour after we started trying. Such is life. Considering how protective the host families here are, it's a wonder they let us go anywhere at all by ourselves...

The above story contains another thing I've noticed of late - Russians seem to really enjoy informing me of how poorly they think I speak their language. We saw "Kung Fu Panda" in Russian last week (as it turns out, everybody grunts in the same language), and another girl and I got to talking with a couple of Russian girls while we waited. Halfway through the conversation, one of the Russians turned to me and announced that the other young lady spoke Russian so much better because my accent was bad. I went home kind of sad, but my family reassured me that everyone in Russia has some form of accent, and everyone else feels the need to comment on it. Then, I definitely communicated with the driver last night, and I thought he understood us okay, but maybe not. Maybe I'm crazy for continuing to chase this language, but I guess crazy is just what I'll stay.

We're headed to Volgograd this Saturday - my favorite! I'm so excited, especially since the Battle of Stalingrad is one of the few things I actually know something about. I think I missed the class where they teach you everything there is to know about Russian literature and art, but you know, if anyone ever wants to read the ranks on the requisite WWII monument in front of the school, I'm there.

Hopefully this sufficient reading material for all of y'all who are hanging out, bored on summer vacation. If you need any more reading, I've got a reading list I could use some help with...