I'm still here...

Sorry for my long absence - I know y'all have just been dying to hear the latest from the Eastern Front, right? Actually, I spent last week on semi-vacation sightseeing in St Petersburg (Leningrad, if you're a Russian of a certain age...) Thanks to the loan of an adapter from Lindsey, I'm able to use my laptop for non-internet stuff, so I'm currently composing an epic entry on St Pete's, so for now it's just back to our regularly scheduled complaining...

School was a pain today. First Anatoli decides to give us a pop test. I asked if it was for a grade, and he muttered something about Americans and always wanting to know if things were for a grade. I'm sorry, but in America, we have these things called GPAs, and we tend to care about them. It was just a progress test, but I was annoyed anyways - who the heck gives a test without warning?

We also did a reading comprehension passage that I think must've come from the Russian equivalent of the National Enquirer - it was about some lady who passed out in school and when she came to, she could speak 120 languages. Her theory is that the languages came from 120 previous lives, and she talks about bits of past lives she can remember - see what I mean about the National Enquirer? :-)

Homework is from the Verbs of Motion book. I HATE verbs of motion in Russian - either you go, or you don't. All this complication is really unnecessary, if you ask me. AND my Verbs of Motion text (publication 1975) is missing the key in the back. It's supposed to have one, but the last 30+ pages of my text is missing. Argh.

On a positive note, I stopped at the rinok to buy yummy cheap bread and some cashews for lunch. I think I'm really going to miss the rinok and the people there - the bread lady always makes sure to pick out a piece that's good and warm, even though it's only 10 rubles (about 40 cents). The lady I buy cashews and pecans from remembered me - the last time Lindsey and I were there, she got all excited because we were conversing with each other in English. Voronezh doesn't see a terrible lot of foreigners, so they really do excited to meet innostrantsi. Anyway, she remembered that I was an American (actually, her first guess was Mexican, but I think that's because I always say I'm from Texas), and she wanted to know where I was studying and what. It was nice. Also, the heat in the city is on, so the radiator in my room is making an effort - it's a good place to put clothing to warm it up.

For a funny, I got mistaken for the mother of a 6-year-old at the gym yesterday. There were only three of us in the locker room - me, the little girl (complete with blonde pigtails) and her mother. The lady who does the children's classes came in and did the whole hands-on-the-knees, talk to the kid thing. She then looks at me and asks "Mama, da?" at which point I paniced and started pointing towards the mother's locker on the other side of the bank of lockers, saying "Nyet, nyet, ana tam" (no, no, she's over there). Fortunately, the mom decided to appear before they gave me the girl...

That's all for now, kids. Be good.

Of Gyms and Drugstores

So I went to the gym today. As I do many days. Because there's really not that much to do here, and since chocolate is one of the other major things to do here, I have to make things balance out. I'm going to pay for it tomorrow, I think, especially since today was weight-increase day for me, so I upped the amount I was lifting on most things. Maybe if I just keep telling myself I was a good girl for going, it'll be okay. At least the showers were fixed today - I went yesterday, only to be met with broken showers. I then had to run home post-workout and take a cold shower (hot water is hard to get during the day) so I wouldn't smell funny for church.

Church was fun - yesterday was a "club" for older kids in the local orphanage and for kids who've aged out of the orphanage. I still didn't understand most of what was going on, but the people are nice and the fellowship is good. Zhenya, who's about 13, I think, seems to have decided that I'm at least mildly entertaining in my attempts to follow what's going on, was kind enough to make sure I understood what I was supposed to be doing in the games and such. He's the self-declared paparazzi, so he's got a lovely shot of me sticking my tongue out. I shudder to think what's going to happen to that when he's done with the Photoshop.

Post-gym, I had to walk all the way to Frederich Engels* to buy a banana, so I stopped at the drugstore to buy some shampoo and conditioner. You know how you can stand on the hair products aisle for about an hour, considering all the various options, weighing the promises and the murky distinctions between brands and subtypes? (Ok, at least I can do that for a long time.) Now imagine trying to do that with an aisle full of products labelled in a language you have to concentrate to read. Fun times. What's up with the not actually labelling the contents of the bottle? It's great that's a new scent or for color treated hair, but what is it? Who at the advertising agency decided that the consumer didn't need to know if it was shampoo, conditioner, or some random concoction (and Russians love those) in that colorful plastic bottle? Seriously. On a random note, Palmolive (whom I mostly associate with dishwashing liquid) is a big name in beauty brands here, it seems. Then again, the company that makes my hairspray (or hair lacquer, as the can translates to) - Wella - also has a storefront on our street that sells paint products. Weird.

All of my pictures from the Volgagrad weekend are now up. Captions and translations to come. They're publicly viewable via Facebook at http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2131471&l=0482c&id=9214311 and http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2132166&l=ccb6a&id=9214311 I'm planning to blog about the weekend, too, but that's going to have to wait until I have a lot of time and concentration, as I want to do all the war memorials justice.

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

*Yes, we have a Frederich Engels street - it's one of the main streets in the area. We also have a "Revolution", "9th January", "Karl Marx", and who knows what else. Oh yeah, and a huge statue of Stalin...

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.

They Really Like the Word "Excursion"

Hope y'all had a happy Labor Day and enjoyed the day off school and whatnot.

While y'all were sleeping in and relaxing, the hardworking students of Voronezh State University were in class :-P Actually, the real VSU students started school on Saturday (along with the rest of Voronezh). Since we're spoiled Americans, we still get a Saturday-Sunday weekend. It's nice.

So, the first day of school. Several of us got together and walked to school around 9.00 - classes started at 10.00, and it's a pretty decent walk. There are 15 of us all together, since the AFA boys got here - we're one of the largest, if not the largest, contingient of American students in the country (we tend to get curious looks when we travel en masse). We study in a rather run-down building with all the other foreign students. For the first day, we just met all the professors and had to go around the table and do the whole introduce yourself (in Russian) bit. After that, we took a nice, relaxing grammar test, which made at least one of my fellow students wax nostalgic for O Chem. Then, we got back together and listened to Tatiana lecture at length about the mountain-thing we went to for today's excursion. I did a lot of smiling and nodding...

We were done before two, so most of us went and grabbed a bite to eat. (Note: Russians do have fried cheese, but it's not the same kind, etc, etc). And then it was time to go to the gym and get sore, because that's what you do in Voronezh if you're bored. (Or at least, that's what we do).

We had an excursion today (more on that later, hopefully with pictures), and tomorrow we get to find out how poorly we did on the grammar test. Fun times.

Be good!

Last Day of Freedom

In answer to the first of Erica's bajillion questions (:D), I start classes tomorrow. At least, I'm under the general impression that tomorrow is Monday. Between all the travel weirdness and the lack of defined schedule, I'm a little out of the loop as far as normal times of day are concerned. Russia runs on the 24-hour clock, so I'm constanly subtracting 12 from times, too.

The WP kids had an assignment to complete after Saturday's jaunt around the city. We (the Baylor girls) kinda think we might have one, too, but since Ben only grabbed enough for them, we're pretending we don't.

I really wanted to upload pictures from my trip and from yesterday, but I put them on my USB, only to discover that this internet cafe doesn't have accessible USB ports. I'll either burn them to CD and upload from there, or I'll have to go to the expensive gaming cafe and use their USB ports. (On the gaming cafe - the boys told us it was so much cheaper, etc, etc, and we went rather out of our way, only to discover that if you're on the Internet, it's actually rather pricey...)

Laura and I went to the gym today - it's only about $40/month for full time access and full classes and all that - it's pretty nice. I know I'm going to hurt tomorrow, though. The showers and all are nice, so I think we may just start showering there at least part-time, so we don't have to feel bad about using the water or anything. They didn't have a squat rack, though. Who runs a gym without a squat rack?

I had my first moment of major frustration today. My transformer wasn't working with my laptop (BestBuy lady lied!), and there was an adapter laying out, so I just used it. Turns out it was Sasha the elder's, and I thought he was mad at me. I don't think he really was, but I was upset, and I kept trying to ask where I could buy one, and he kept telling me over and over that he bought it in China. I understood, but he wouldn't answer my question. It really didn't help that apparently what we call an adapter is not what Russian call an adapter. Argh! I was so frustrated with not being able to communicate (on top of major difficulties trying to get directions to the Catholic Church for Laura) that I just needed to get out (and to eat), so I went down to the street vendor and bought a pita. After a little food and a little space, I felt better.

One of the little stands plays music, and for a moment I thought I'd found an affirmative answer to the title question. Alas, I think it was actually the William Tell Overture, so no luck yet.

Take care and have a good week of classes, guys!