В Принсипе

So remember how I said I'd write on say, Wednesday? (Note that it is now Friday.) Today's lesson in Russia: the concept of "in principle". In principle, Russia has everything. In principle, we had an hour of internet time on Tuesday. This is how things ACTUALLY worked out:
EVIL HEAD TEACHER: Everyone going on the mosque trip needs to be downstairs in 10 minutes.
STUDENTS: But the schedule says it doesn't start for another hour!
EHT: That's nice. Ten minutes.
STUDENTS: But, but....
EHT: *stony silence*
Please note, in principle doesn't really go both ways. I may be able to use it in order to turn my diary in on Monday instead of Friday (it was due on Friday in principle), but gosh darnit, they're still going to have get it, even if they have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. (This is, in fact, more related to such things as theoretical academic progress, but I'm a touch bitter that I just got the darn thing back today and it's due again tomorrow...)

Only one week left of classes! Finals are on Thursday. Of course, said finals may or may not be actually related to what we've done to date, but what can you do? It'll be nice that come up to a period of final exams that I'm not stressing about, since as far as I'm concerned, things are as they are.

As alluded to earlier, we went to a mosque on Tuesday. It was pretty cool - we got to talk to the imam and the guy who runs the school at the mosque. The professor talked the same we do - English and Russian run together (except he threw in Arabic from time to time, just to be special). Nothing of great import was said, though we did learn where to find halal meat in Astrakhan, should you ever need this vital information.

After the mosque, we had tea with a Tatar (nationality in Russia) family, which I enjoyed. Our director summed it up as "Classic Russia - lots of little babyshkas running around, tossing meat pastries down your throat". The highlight was definitely the honey cake, which several people announced that they would do just about anything for. The one downside was the heat - we had quite a few people crammed into a rather small room, and since we were eating with all the important people, all of the girls had to stay veiled. The guys got hot, the girls with scarves simply tied over their hair got hotter, and since I was wearing my scarf hijab-style (it's what I'm used to, my shirt was kind of open, and my scarf's too big to tie any other way), I melted. When the important people left, the babyshkas told us we could unveil, the comment, "Poor dear, you must be so hot," was definitely made to me.

For everyone who thinks Russia is all snow and balalaikas, I hereby invite you to Astrakhan in the summer. It's hot. And there's no A/C most of the time, since Russians are convinced that A/C causes illness. How hot is hot? It's supposed to be up to 40C today - that's 104F, and there's been rumors that it may get as high as 50F before we leave (that would be 122F). So enjoy your nice air conditioning for me, okay?

That's about it for the moment - I'll be home in half a month! Stay cool!

Me, Crazy? Never!

So, long time, no post. You can blame the folks who write our schedule for that - there was absolutely no internet time last week (trust me, this is much more tragic than you think). You can also thank them for the fact that I'm writing right now, instead of learning my Russian folk dance. You see, dance club was supposed to start at 4, but the meeting we had with the rector (head of the university - he's the President Lilley of ASU), was also supposed to run until 4.30. Thus, when we arrived at clubs at 4.30, the girls who teach had decided no one was coming and left. I felt terrible, but the lady in charge of stuff like that theoretically explained what happened. Argh!

Russia remains Russia. School is driving me more than a little crazy. The grades on my midterm sheet say I have learned diddly squat thus far, which I have simply decided is more a reflection of the exams than me (otherwise, unbearable depression would probably result). I sincerely miss the concept of the rubric, which might at least give some indication of *why* grades are what they are. This, of course, is too much to ask. I'm also still trying to figure out how, exactly, I have a grade for a reading midterm no one took... Oh, Russia!

In other news, we had an interesting excursion this weekend. We rode 4+ hours each way on a bus in order to see the largest Buddhist temple in Europe, which is somewhat randomly located in the middle of Russia. Kalmykia is Russia's only Buddhist republic, but they seem to be doing pretty well at it. The temple was gigantonormous and Buddha himself was big, too - 2 stories of gold Buddha! He also had a decent-sized army of tiny golden minion-Buddhas. It was interesting to see, but on some level heart breaking - there were all these food offerings left to this huge statue, made by nothing but human hands...

Lecture today (if I haven't mentioned it before, lecture is a special level of hell reserved for us after lunch...) was supposed to be over tolerance. No one, Russian or American, read the article (I read enough to declare it funny and then watched West Wing* instead), and thus it was a lot of "Well, I think..."

This then was directed to immigration. Mind you, we didn't redirect it to immigration - the head teacher rather naively decided that we should talk about it. Things kind of deteriorated from there, since controversial topic (which I really wouldn't want to discuss in a large-group setting in English) + relatively simple language skills = um, yeah. It was interesting, if you wanna call it that.

I was forced to attempt to explain the influence of the job situation in France on racial tensions, and then the professors tried to ask further questions regarding my opinion on some policy of the French government on something (from what I understood, they were having difficulty with the whole concept of open borders for work under the EU - can't really help you there if you don't get it...). I just gave up and said that anything the French government said about jobs was a fairy tale - I'm not terribly well-versed in French policy in English folks! I was just trying to deal with the fact that there was more to the situation than people randomly going crazy and burning cars, which seems to be the Russian take. The joke is that we're going to talk about the war in Iraq next week, so we can just line up on opposite sides of the room and practice shouting insults at each other.

The internet is being problematic at the moment, so that'll have to be all. We're going to see mosques tomorrow, but there should be internet time the day after (emphasis on the *should*) or something like that.

*Oh Mother Dearest! Season 3 of the West Wing would be an awesome Welcome Home present... *looks innocent*

More Russian Bits and Pieces

Greetings from the lowest geographical point in Europe! This is not an exaggeration - Astrakhan is literally the lowest point on the continent. It used to be part of the Caspian Sea, as opposed to being located near the Caspian Sea. This would explain the near-routine flooding...

Today's the Fourth (duh), and thus we managed to get the second half of the day off (this was not the original plan, but apparently we complain pretty well). Of course, there was a writing exam (in which I may have permanently harmed the Russian language) and a vocabulary quiz this morning, but we'll take what free time we can get. There's supposed to be a get-together tonight, but it doesn't start until 8, which is only an hour before the marshytka system starts getting sketchy, and I don't know if I want to be left at its mercy... The original plan was to hit the beach (the Volga is apparently pretty decent, as large bodies of water go), so of course, the heavens opened up about an hour before we were due to leave, and now there's a beach of sorts on the streets...

Not much exciting this week, despite the high volume of blog posting. There may be nothing at all next week, since independent work/office hours were completely omitted from the week's schedule... (This was not anticipated, and I got the impression that the American side of the house had not approved the change, so the schedule may be revised...)

Other Experiences that make Russia what it is:

• Bizarre things I've eaten: Hands down, the winner is last week's pizza - ham and bread and butter pickles (the little sweet ones). I believe this officially establishes that the Russians do not properly understand the concept of "pizza" - it's either covered in dill or sporting pickles :-( I bought and ate a German brand of frozen pizza this week - I carefully checked, and the ingredients were all normal, but the pizza just didn't taste right, and there was pretty much no cheese to speak of. Apparently, frozen pizzas are also a strictly American thing (which is a shame - frozen pizza is a beautiful thing).
• Bathrooms: Oh, Russian bathrooms, where shall I begin? First of all, as is common in Europe, never assume that the bathroom is free. Even port-a-potties cost about 10 rubles. Second, one must always carry toilet paper in one's purse - every girl has a travel pack of tissues for this express purpose. Of course, you generally can't flush stuff, either. In addition, one can expect squattie potties (aren't you loving the vocab here?) with half doors - think Old West saloon. Bathroom visits are always adventures... The one we have here at school has apparently been declared foreigners-only, as we have a key and must lock and unlock the door upon entering/leaving. Ever tried explaining to someone that you are permitted to use this bathroom, but they are not? Yeah, it's bunches of fun...

There's certainly more (and plenty of it's funny - the more you can laugh, the better things are), but I'm tired of writing, so have a wonderful holiday!

Pieces of the Russian Life

First and foremost, we have an answer! Russians, do, in fact, play Sousa! "Stars and Stripes Forever," no less! There are not words for my reaction at the philharmonic yesterday when the chamber orchestra's pianist launched into "Stars and Stripes" for his first encore. I'm still excited about this :-) (I'm also still in shock that the pianist played no fewer than four encores, but that's a different subject...)

In other news, Russia is still Russian, as I am constantly reminded. How exactly is it "Russian", you ask?

• The Sex and the City movie contains a scene in which a character eats yogurt for breakfast from a bowl. The girls behind us began querying one another as to what that substance might be: ice cream? Smetana (Russian sour cream)?
• Russians, as a general rule, hate making change. This is one of those things that I continue to struggle to understand - ATMs generally dispense thousand-ruble notes (a little less than $40), five hundreds, if you're lucky, and yet I've never spent more than hundred fifty rubles at the grocery store ($6-ish). Change is a fact of life! And yet, handing over a bill is almost guaranteed to merit a grumpy look and a request for something smaller. (I admit it - I lie to shop girls when I need to break a big bill...)
• On grumpy looks, smiling in public places is not okay, unless you're with friends and clearly have something to smile about. Americans in good moods are generally viewed as being head cases - we're far to smiley. On the flights over, it was almost surreal - in all of the Luftansa literature, everytime a flight attendent appeared, she (or he) sported a Disney-big smile. The Luftansa flight attendents? Very "serious" types...
• Sexism, is on some levels, at least, still alive and well. Want to play soccer in gym? You better be male (my host father had trouble with the concept of all-girl soccer teams when I told him I'd played growing up. "But what do they wear?"). When magazines get handed out in lecture, the girls are supposed to take the "women's interest" glossies over the news. Climb over a desk? "Girls don't do that in Russia!" I can only imagine what they would've said had they seen Laura and I climbing on a tank last week...
• I'm also a terrible girl because I don't have any heels here, and would never consider wearing them if I did. Watching the poor Russian girls struggle up the side of a hill last week was persuasion plenty. I'll stick to my off-roadable shoes, thankyouverymuch. My family doesn't make much of a fuss about it, but at least one of the other girls is being made to wear a dress and heels every day. Not fun.

All of the above was not to give a negative impression of Russia, of course. It's just terribly difficult to express all the tiny things that make up this foreign experience. We're more Russian-ized on this program, I feel, and sometimes it makes life that much harder. (And they don't have tortilla chips here - how on Earth do people live without tortilla chips?!? We made the mistake of discussing American food (in Russian) this weekend, and now I'm craving chips and queso... Of course, I totally miss blinni when I'm in the States, so things balance out...)

Much love to you all!

Keep on Movin' Down the Road

So it's been forever (aka a week) since my last entry. I keep meaning to write more often, but last week's schedule kind of went out the window, since we had a visit from the head director. This also entailed much scolding in the days immediately prior, since we weren't supposed to speak English around said director. Said director *also* scolded us for being the city that doesn't speak Russian. Those of us interested in speaking Russian at school (wow, that sounds pompous) are trying to find ways to make it work, but some days you just can't. I dunno - things have been better of late, so perhaps the changes will stick.

I still have yet to determine whether or not Russians perform Sousa, but they certainly do play jazz. I went to a jazz concert at the philharmonic on Thursday night - "A Portrait of Duke Ellington", and it was quite good. The instrumentalists were excellent, especially the trumpet soloist. There were three female singers - I thought the first two did a beautiful job, especially with regard to what must be the considerable difficulty of singing English language jazz without accent and with proper diction and all that - I really enjoyed their songs. The third singer, who was by far the favorite of the evening, had a voice like, in my oh so humble opinion, an angry cat. She certainly proved that singing scat is an American art... The philharmonic's sound engineers apparently fell asleep at the mixing board, though - the balance veered between standard jazz-loud and downright painful :-(

Saturday's excursion was "interesting", if you want to call it that. It consisted of hiking up two hills to gaze at what was essentially central Texas in March, and two tiny museums that were somehow related to the production of fish products in Astrakhan. The most interesting part was definitely the fact that both museums had an entire room devoted to the USSR and collectivization/Lenin/propoganda/the color red. It makes sense, but the joke was that either Lenin loved fish or fish loved Lenin... I'm now very interested in the role of women in the WWII in Russia, as the shrines to the honored veterans of the Great Patriotic War frequently include photos of highly decorated women - I've never heard much on the topic, and thus have no idea if they were factory workers, some sort of equivalent of WAVS/WACS, or something else entirely.

Sunday was a lovely free day - two of the other Americans, Shelley and Laura, and I went to the movies at a local mall. As usual, we grabbed the wrong marshytka - it's our hobby - but it went to a familiar stop and we were together, so no problems. We saw "Sex in the Big City", as the "Sex and the City" movie is called in Russia. It ended up being really bizarre - the movie is so very American, so walking back out into a Russian mall after watching it (in Russian, of course) was a little confusing - I had to ponder which continent I was on for a moment.

That's all I can come up with for now, but all of y'all should take care - I can't wait to be home and see all of you!
PS - Mom, could you e-mail me "Stars and Stripes Forever" from the I Love A Parade CD in time for the Fourth? It seems appropriate...

Here We Go Again

Start music: Dream On (Live), Aerosmith

The bags are packed, the boarding pass is printed, and my mom's freaking out: time to go to Russia again. It's bizarre to think that at this time one year ago, I'd never been on a plane by myself or left the country. How things do change! And yet they stay the same: my single bag is overweight (I've resigned myself to being incapable of long-term international travel within weight restrictions), I'm still worrying that there's something forgotten, the dog is still terribly confused...

First stop this time is Washington, DC, which is exciting since I've never been there before. We're not really getting time to sightsee, which is sad. Instead, we're spending all day in the ballroom, listening to presentations. I'll strive to be attentive, but don't expect much of a report ;-)

After a few days in DC, we'll fly to St Petersburg, which is awesome - I love the city and the weather should be much nicer this time around (I was last there in October). Rumor is we'll have free time there, so yay for poking around some more in the not-freeze-your-face-off weather. Ooh, and yay for blinni at Teremok - chocolate and banana, mmm.

From Petersburg my group hops first to Moscow and then to Volgograd (aka Stalingrad, my favorite Russian city). We then bus from Volgograd to Astrakhan, as the Astrakhan airport is currently undergoing repairs. We're planning to fly out of Astrakhan at the end of July, though. Having seen the massive sidewalk reconstruction undertaken in Voronezh last fall, it seems at least possible that the airport will be ready to go when we are, but we'll have to wait and see.

Classes start Monday, June 9. You know, I swore I'd never take summer school if I could help it, and now what am I doing voluntarily? Silly Sara.

I hope you'll come along for the ride with me - I'll post pictures and all that. Please take care of my parents - they're still adjusting to shipping me halfway around the world every few months. Have a wonderful day!

End music: Nobilissima Visione: II. Marsch und Pastorale, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (why yes, iTunes does think I'm crazy...)

Going Postal, Russian-style

So, today I spent 2.5 hours at various offices of the Russian postal service. And I am still in the posession of the parcel I was attempting to ship. Yes - after standing in lines, sealing and unsealing pacakges, filling out forms, and asking questions in broken Russian, all while wearing my heavy overcoat indoors, for TWO HOURS, I still couldn't mail the package.

Why? Because for some reason known only to the Russians, all printed materials must be mailed separately from everything else. The girl at the post office made me cut through all my taping and labelling and remove the three books packed in carefully with everything else and told me I had to take them somewhere else. As I was sawing through the taping with my house keys, the man next to me in line kept instructing the girl to give me a knife. She didn't - maybe she could tell I was beginning to consider using it on her... Then she told me that I had to fill in the weights for each object in the box. Since the point of the exercise was to clear out space in my suitcase, not rack up obscene shipping charges, I just replaced everything in the box and left, the very picture of a cool and collected young lady.

Ok, I actually sorta stuffed it all back in, as best I could, and then went outside to cool off and cry. One of the ladies who'd been in the office, too, came and found me and explained how I needed to take the books to one office, but that I could do everything else there, and that it was okay if I needed to ask them to repeat, and that I didn't need to cry. I'm repacking the box, so I couldn't go back, but I really did appreciate that kindness.

It probably wouldn't have been that traumatic, except the post office was packed, so everything was a bunch of hurry up and wait. See, it takes a week for mail to get from Voronezh to Moscow and vice versa, so anything conducted by mail has to be done well in advance. Thus, their Christmas/New Year rush has already begun. I think they may insist on wrapping my package in brown paper and string (hear that, Mom? String - your favorite!) before they'll mail it - we'll see. My personal favorite was the lady who appeared to be sewing a shroud around her box. I have absolutely no idea why, but she wiggled it into a tight white bag, and then she was sewing - needle and thread and all - the ends up like you wrap a present. Weird.

Anyways, don't mail stuff in Russia. Just don't do it.

Holy Updates, Batman!

So despite yesterday's marathon post, I feel the need to write still more. So consider it a gift for procrastination, or roll your eyes, pretend you read it, and go back to studying. Whatever floats your boat.

Part of this constant updating is probably partially my way of dealing with my lack of roommate these days - I have one-sided conversations with the great unknown Internet. I can't wait until I can go back to having two-sided conversations with y'all.

Other news from the Russian front: we went to the puppet theater on Friday to see a show. The theater itself is very pretty - it's in the Voronezh album (the clock with flying figures and the dog and all). The show we saw was "The King's Striptease", roughly. Of course, when our teacher was telling us about it, all we caught was "striptease", "Hans Christen Anderson", and "puppets", which left us with some interesting ideas, of course. It was a political satire with the rough framework of "The Emperor's New Clothes", but we didn't figure that out until the second act. It was done as a mix of live-action and puppetry - ie, you could see the puppeteers at all times. Overall, it was pretty interesting, but it would've helped if I understood more of the political references and such.

Life at the apartment has been interesting today. The hozhaika didn't get up until I was leaving for church this morning (technically, the dog woke her up, since he didn't approve of my leaving...). She paniced that I hadn't eaten, but I reassured her that I'd cut a piece of the apple pirog on the table, and then I bought a cinnamon roll on the street, too.

When I got home from church, after another round of bus-related fun (riding the bus is not difficult. I don't know what my problem is of late), I'd already bought two rolls for lunch, and I was only in the kitchen because I wanted to locate the butter and toast them, right? She instead informs me that she and Sasha had leftover fish from last night for breakfast (at this point I became very thankful that I'd missed breakfast), and that now I was going to eat some, too. It was not a "would you like some fish?", it was a "You are going to eat some fish" as she put it on a plate. This is, in fact, very common with the hozhaikas here - they are all determined to make all of us very fat. Refusing food or asking for a smaller portion requires a great deal of patience and determination - it's actually kind of funny.

I started Christmas shopping in earnest yesterday. The lady from whom I am purchasing most of y'alls presents already loves me, and I haven't bought everything yet. It's the beginning of a beautiful thing. The hozhaika probably thinks I'm crazier than usual, though, since I have all this random stuff stacked around my room (I'm going to try and put a box in the mail home tomorrow, so I don't have to make everything fit in my suitcase).

Russia's not far behind the US in commercialization, so everything's either decorated or in the process of becoming so. Since they decorate trees for New Year's, I've taken to referring to any decorate pine tree I see as a "Tree of Indeterminate Holiday", since I don't know whether they're for Christmas (in January) or New Year's. There are lots of Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) figures up to, all of which are basically Santa Claus. Actually, I think a lot of them are Western Santas that have just been renamed...

And that's all for now, folks. Much love!

I feel pretty...

Since none of you lovely kids are here to see me, and since this stuff isn't seasonal very often at Baylor, I feel the need to share that I look cute today (or at least I think so). I'm wearing a white tank under a cobalt blue v-neck with my brown linen skirt and my cowboy boots. At least one woman has actaully ogled my boots today (as in she stared at my feet with her jaw dropped when she walked by). It's actually kind of funny - at least one of my companions rolled her eyes at my boots initially, but it turns out that I'm the height of fashion here - cowboy boots are very "in" right now. Of course, most of theirs are metallic with about a four-inch heel, but that just makes mine that much cooler, right?

Fun facts about Russia:
-Russian door knobs don't turn. They're like cabinet handles or something - a flat disk on a stem.
-Russian women love love love high heels. (Ashley would fit right in) They are not detered by such minor hazards as lack of sidewalk, puddles resembling small lakes, and portions of the pavement that were probably nice and smooth when people still used the term "comrade".
-Don't drink the water. When buying bottled water, make sure it's still (that would be the light blue cap for my beloved Bon Aqua).
-You can buy American hot chocolate at street stands for under a buck, but it isn't available at the swanky places. What they call "hot chocolate" is actual, molten chocolate. What we call "hot chocolate" they designate as "hot chocolate milk" (which is actually kind of accuate, but whatever.)

I got stopped and asked for directions today. I understood most of the question, but I didn't actually know the answer, so I just told her I was sorry, but I didn't know. That was kind of cool, though. It probably helps that I do have Russian coloration, and today's get-up is kind of Russian (the usual jeans and a long sleeve t and sneakers is not so Russian).

I went to the gym again today, even though I didn't really want to. I got another correction in Russian-English. I understood him (plus I already knew what he was telling me - I shouldn't get lazy about my form when people are watching), but when I tried to fill in blanks in English (this trainer has been learning new English from us), he thought I didn't understand, so the explanation got longer and longer. Fun times. I also stopped at the chocolate factory and bought a 100 grams of a new kind of candy. I think I'm just going to work my way through in little bits, so I'll have an idea of what the really good stuff is, and I'll bring that back.

Can someone on campus tell me what happened that resulted in my getting an e-mail about not inviting political folks on campus? I checked the Lariat online, but it didn't have anything useful to offer.

A very happy birthday to Miss Hannah Madera today. Be sure and make her dance lots tonight. We're hoping to find somewhere to dance (at least one WP boy has agreed to it), but I'm not holding out a lot of hope. Then again, there was definitely a dance routine (jazz) to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's "Big Time Operator" on Day of the City earlier this month.

Sometimes I can't believe I've already been here a month, and other times Christmas can't come fast enough. I miss you all, and I look forward to seeing you.