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!
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The Rumors are True - I'm Still Alive...
Argh. Blogger just ate the start of this post. So, to recap, Hi, I'm here, I'm sorry it's been a while, and is H going emo, because I need to know if I should start looking for recipes.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was probably the most traditional non-traditional set-up I've been to. The university provided turkeys (which actually turned out to be of decent size) and some other bits, the weirdest of which was definitely the random inclusion of tuna. We pot-lucked the rest - most of the boys couldn't be compelled to cook, so they brought drinks, Lindsey managed to prepare a tub (literally- think RubberMaid) of stuffing, there were some vegtables, Laura managed pumpkin pie, and I made PinkStuff.
The actual name is GreenStuff, since when the recipe is followed correctly, the end result is a pale green. However, as I think everyone cooking discovered, trying to find ingredients in a foreign country is kind of complicated. I couldn't find pistachio pudding, so I substituted strawberry and I ended up crushing whole canned strawberries instead of having crushed pineapple. I'm really glad my hozhaika wasn't home while I was cooking, since she probably would've been kind of alarmed. I couldn't find a can opener (I found a few things that looked like can openers, but none of them would open the can...), so I found something sharp-ish and physically pounded an opening in the can. I'm sporting a nice gash on my finger from that. Then, I was substituting whipped cream from a can in place of CoolWhip, and the stuff wasn't gelling - it really kind of looked like soup. I ended up running out to another grocery store (my third-ish of the day) and buying more whipped cream. Final count, there were 3.5 cans of whipped cream in the dish (it was a double recipe, at least). But everyone really liked it, and I took home a dish licked clean, so all was well.
Thursday's cooking adventures also included long periods of time spent on various buses, since I never did find the original grocery store I was hunting. Part of the problem was my unwillingness to stay on the bus too long, since I'd already had a bus adventure on Wednesday night. You see, Wednesday, I went to English class with Sasha (son in host family) as a token exciting native English-speaker. More on that in a second. The class went on after my bit, so Sasha told me the numbers to get a bus going home. No problem, right? I've got the bus thing down. Except almost all of the buses home were marshutkas - essentially, a large yellow van that you have to tell when you want to get off. Not my cup of tea. So being my stubborn self, I decide to wait for the single bus that's supposed to run home. This resolve lasts until everyone else has left the stop and I'm freezing to death. Thus, I hop on a marshutka. However, I managed to screw up the numbers and climb aboard the wrong marshutka, which then proceeds to take me not home. I recognized where I was when I finally managed to get off, but it was a ways from home, so I went to wait at the bus stop for a real bus to take me back. The cold won again, as every bus that stopped was going elsewhere, so I gave in and walked. And thus it took me an hour to get home, when the direct walk is about 25 minutes. By the time I got home, my general reaction was, "I want America."
The English class was, um, interesting, if that's the phrase one uses to describe being simultaneously hit on by multiple teenage Russian boys. It was basically a question and answer session about me, the United States, and a foreigner's perception of Russia. Questions ranged from "Do you know any Russian? Say something!" (a. No, it's not like I'm studying it or anything, and b. way to put me on the spot. Thanks.) to "Do you know anything about Russian history?" (at which point I forgot everything I'd ever studied) to "What do you think of Russian-made goods? How do their quality and pricing compare to what you're used to?" (um, the chocolate's good?) on the normal end. Highlights of the weirder side include "Do you have a boyfriend? Do you want one?" (Creeper.) and "Describe your ideal man" (Not you). The overall vibe was pretty good, though, and the teacher did apologize that the boys were young and whatnot. Her English was kind of interesting; one of the other Americans teaches evening English classes and she's complained that the book encourages the use of crutch words to help speech sound more fluent, and that's exactly what the teacher did. Her favorite word was "well", but she'd insert it in places where it didn't make sense with the flow of the sentence. Definitely interesting.
So I'm really impressed if you're still with me after all that. Hopefully that's enough reading material for now, since I'm tired of typing. I come home in 4 weeks! Miss you all!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was probably the most traditional non-traditional set-up I've been to. The university provided turkeys (which actually turned out to be of decent size) and some other bits, the weirdest of which was definitely the random inclusion of tuna. We pot-lucked the rest - most of the boys couldn't be compelled to cook, so they brought drinks, Lindsey managed to prepare a tub (literally- think RubberMaid) of stuffing, there were some vegtables, Laura managed pumpkin pie, and I made PinkStuff.
The actual name is GreenStuff, since when the recipe is followed correctly, the end result is a pale green. However, as I think everyone cooking discovered, trying to find ingredients in a foreign country is kind of complicated. I couldn't find pistachio pudding, so I substituted strawberry and I ended up crushing whole canned strawberries instead of having crushed pineapple. I'm really glad my hozhaika wasn't home while I was cooking, since she probably would've been kind of alarmed. I couldn't find a can opener (I found a few things that looked like can openers, but none of them would open the can...), so I found something sharp-ish and physically pounded an opening in the can. I'm sporting a nice gash on my finger from that. Then, I was substituting whipped cream from a can in place of CoolWhip, and the stuff wasn't gelling - it really kind of looked like soup. I ended up running out to another grocery store (my third-ish of the day) and buying more whipped cream. Final count, there were 3.5 cans of whipped cream in the dish (it was a double recipe, at least). But everyone really liked it, and I took home a dish licked clean, so all was well.
Thursday's cooking adventures also included long periods of time spent on various buses, since I never did find the original grocery store I was hunting. Part of the problem was my unwillingness to stay on the bus too long, since I'd already had a bus adventure on Wednesday night. You see, Wednesday, I went to English class with Sasha (son in host family) as a token exciting native English-speaker. More on that in a second. The class went on after my bit, so Sasha told me the numbers to get a bus going home. No problem, right? I've got the bus thing down. Except almost all of the buses home were marshutkas - essentially, a large yellow van that you have to tell when you want to get off. Not my cup of tea. So being my stubborn self, I decide to wait for the single bus that's supposed to run home. This resolve lasts until everyone else has left the stop and I'm freezing to death. Thus, I hop on a marshutka. However, I managed to screw up the numbers and climb aboard the wrong marshutka, which then proceeds to take me not home. I recognized where I was when I finally managed to get off, but it was a ways from home, so I went to wait at the bus stop for a real bus to take me back. The cold won again, as every bus that stopped was going elsewhere, so I gave in and walked. And thus it took me an hour to get home, when the direct walk is about 25 minutes. By the time I got home, my general reaction was, "I want America."
The English class was, um, interesting, if that's the phrase one uses to describe being simultaneously hit on by multiple teenage Russian boys. It was basically a question and answer session about me, the United States, and a foreigner's perception of Russia. Questions ranged from "Do you know any Russian? Say something!" (a. No, it's not like I'm studying it or anything, and b. way to put me on the spot. Thanks.) to "Do you know anything about Russian history?" (at which point I forgot everything I'd ever studied) to "What do you think of Russian-made goods? How do their quality and pricing compare to what you're used to?" (um, the chocolate's good?) on the normal end. Highlights of the weirder side include "Do you have a boyfriend? Do you want one?" (Creeper.) and "Describe your ideal man" (Not you). The overall vibe was pretty good, though, and the teacher did apologize that the boys were young and whatnot. Her English was kind of interesting; one of the other Americans teaches evening English classes and she's complained that the book encourages the use of crutch words to help speech sound more fluent, and that's exactly what the teacher did. Her favorite word was "well", but she'd insert it in places where it didn't make sense with the flow of the sentence. Definitely interesting.
So I'm really impressed if you're still with me after all that. Hopefully that's enough reading material for now, since I'm tired of typing. I come home in 4 weeks! Miss you all!
Monday, November 12, 2007
I'm Bored, Therefore I Blog
So I really have spent the past few days bored out of my mind and somewhat starved for human contact. It's probably a bad sign when you start missing dorm life (and I have a room in Memorial in the spring, woohoo). I do in fact live with an older woman and a 19-year-old boy, but Sveta only speaks Russian, so that's mentally taxing and Sasha's a pain, partially because he is very much a teenage boy. At the same time, my loneliness is kind of good - I'm about to spend a week with 20 other college kids in fairly close quarters, so this way, I'll last longer before I start going crazy. And then I can come back and enjoy my quiet, non-peopleness.
The weather here has been doing a crazy sine-wave type thing, so basically we alternate between slush and ice, or sometimes we get both in the form of slushy ice.
I've spent most of the weekend just chilling and getting stuff together for the trip to the Caucauses - knitting, reading (very slowly, a novel in Russian, among other things), buying stuff. The usual.
I'm excited for our trip tomorrow - it should be interesting. For starters, the train stops at the station we get on at for a whopping 2 minutes. Someone should take video of 20 of us hurling ourselves onto the train and post in on YouTube. We had a little 'orientation' at school today.
VSU's Rules for Travelling in the Caucauses:
1. Don't go to Chechnya. (or Dagestan, or Ingushetia, or North Ossetia, I'm assuming.)
2. Don't go to Georgia. (The country - I don't think they have anything against the state.)
3. Don't fall off the mountain.
I think there was some other stuff in there, too, but the above was really the important bits.
I have the distinct feeling that I really intended to be more entertaining in this post, but the sun's gone down and it seems to have sapped all my energy. I guess I'm solar-powered - who knew?
PS - I haven't made any reference to Christmas in this post yet, so CHRISTMAS! Have a nice day.
The weather here has been doing a crazy sine-wave type thing, so basically we alternate between slush and ice, or sometimes we get both in the form of slushy ice.
I've spent most of the weekend just chilling and getting stuff together for the trip to the Caucauses - knitting, reading (very slowly, a novel in Russian, among other things), buying stuff. The usual.
I'm excited for our trip tomorrow - it should be interesting. For starters, the train stops at the station we get on at for a whopping 2 minutes. Someone should take video of 20 of us hurling ourselves onto the train and post in on YouTube. We had a little 'orientation' at school today.
VSU's Rules for Travelling in the Caucauses:
1. Don't go to Chechnya. (or Dagestan, or Ingushetia, or North Ossetia, I'm assuming.)
2. Don't go to Georgia. (The country - I don't think they have anything against the state.)
3. Don't fall off the mountain.
I think there was some other stuff in there, too, but the above was really the important bits.
I have the distinct feeling that I really intended to be more entertaining in this post, but the sun's gone down and it seems to have sapped all my energy. I guess I'm solar-powered - who knew?
PS - I haven't made any reference to Christmas in this post yet, so CHRISTMAS! Have a nice day.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
How Time Does Fly...
Start music: Fleetwood Mac's The Chain (seems kind of fitting for the girl who's too lazy to update all that often...)
So October's almost over, and we passed our halfway point sometime earlier this week. It's weird - it seems like time has sped by being here, and yet it seems like there's so much time left to go. It doesn't help that a very vocal part of my brain is convinced that cold weather = Christmas and that it is, therefore, almost Christmas.
I'm all registered for classes today - thanks to Baylor weirdness, I have all 15 academic hours on MWF, running from 8 AM to 3.30, maybe? And since harp tends to fall on Mondays, I'll probably just be working on Tuesday/Thursday - crazy, isn't it? My schedule came out with: Principles of Microeconomics (04), Intermediate German (01), Fundamentals of International Politics (02), Russian Reading Development, Introduction to Slavic/Eastern European Studies, and Harp. Anyone have class with me?
Things I've done today: gone to the gym, gathered up my clothes for the wash, had a discussion with my hozhaika about the wash (which I think has probably resulted in everything - pinks, darks, whites, getting washed together...), had a discussion with my hozhaika about rent payment (she's decided she wants USD this month since she "already has Russian money". Because it's so easy to find USD in provincial Russia...), bought lunch at a kiosk (I miss Dr Pepper, and I'm going to miss 25 ruble pitas), and now I'm on the Internet (in case you can't tell).
Things I'm excited about: the cookie thing in my purse, going to the grocery to buy water*, the bookstore that sells both English novels and Star Wars books in Russian, the ballet in a few weeks (I'm going twice in the same week), the upcoming trip to the Caucasuses, the fact that I got my box from my parents yesterday (!) (Erica - your birthday book made it all the way to Russia - the 'rents mailed it to me, and it made me glad), the fact that I've actually cast on and started knitting a sweater (it's about two inches long at the moment...), and who knows what else.
My brain's kind of scattered at the moment, so apologies for the correspondingly scattered blog post. Tell me about what's going on with all of y'all at home - I miss you! Have a Happy Halloween!
*The grocery store is an actual Western-style supermarket. I can't recall if I've blogged about it before, but trust me, it makes my heart glad to go and wander up and down the marked aisles, where you can pick up things and examine them for yourself and look in the freezer cases and all that. It's funny the things that end up being comforting...
So October's almost over, and we passed our halfway point sometime earlier this week. It's weird - it seems like time has sped by being here, and yet it seems like there's so much time left to go. It doesn't help that a very vocal part of my brain is convinced that cold weather = Christmas and that it is, therefore, almost Christmas.
I'm all registered for classes today - thanks to Baylor weirdness, I have all 15 academic hours on MWF, running from 8 AM to 3.30, maybe? And since harp tends to fall on Mondays, I'll probably just be working on Tuesday/Thursday - crazy, isn't it? My schedule came out with: Principles of Microeconomics (04), Intermediate German (01), Fundamentals of International Politics (02), Russian Reading Development, Introduction to Slavic/Eastern European Studies, and Harp. Anyone have class with me?
Things I've done today: gone to the gym, gathered up my clothes for the wash, had a discussion with my hozhaika about the wash (which I think has probably resulted in everything - pinks, darks, whites, getting washed together...), had a discussion with my hozhaika about rent payment (she's decided she wants USD this month since she "already has Russian money". Because it's so easy to find USD in provincial Russia...), bought lunch at a kiosk (I miss Dr Pepper, and I'm going to miss 25 ruble pitas), and now I'm on the Internet (in case you can't tell).
Things I'm excited about: the cookie thing in my purse, going to the grocery to buy water*, the bookstore that sells both English novels and Star Wars books in Russian, the ballet in a few weeks (I'm going twice in the same week), the upcoming trip to the Caucasuses, the fact that I got my box from my parents yesterday (!) (Erica - your birthday book made it all the way to Russia - the 'rents mailed it to me, and it made me glad), the fact that I've actually cast on and started knitting a sweater (it's about two inches long at the moment...), and who knows what else.
My brain's kind of scattered at the moment, so apologies for the correspondingly scattered blog post. Tell me about what's going on with all of y'all at home - I miss you! Have a Happy Halloween!
*The grocery store is an actual Western-style supermarket. I can't recall if I've blogged about it before, but trust me, it makes my heart glad to go and wander up and down the marked aisles, where you can pick up things and examine them for yourself and look in the freezer cases and all that. It's funny the things that end up being comforting...
Friday, September 14, 2007
La La La
Happy Saturday everyone!
So my first full week of proper classes is now complete (OK, sans Monday since I stayed home, but that's only one class). Grammar is boring (big surprise), even though it is mildly entertaining that the professor continually apologizes for the Russian language. Practical Speaking is mind-numbingly basic at the moment, but I'm holding out hope that it'll get better. Phonetics is aggravating more than anything, but we get to laugh at ourselves and each other, so whatever. I really like Russian Regional Culture so far - it's all in Russian, but it's understandable. The first class was really interesting, as we talked about the derivations of various names and how most names people think of as "Russian" are actually derived from other cultures. Russian Military History is cool, and I like the professor. I need to do my homework - a three-minute speech on Chechnya (in Russian). I kind of need to find a military dictionary to use - it's on today's shopping list. History of Voronezh is ok - we have it with the Estonian kids, and the teacher speaks more to their level than to ours, so part of it goes over our heads. And finally, Russian Folk Songs is great. The professor is entertaining and he has a great voice. It's actually really quite fun to sing together like that.
Props to everyone who just waded through that big block of text - it's good practice for the real world, right?
It's been raining all week, which really stinks if you don't have an umbrella or a rain jacket (namely, me). I did buy a pretty blue fleece yesterday to add another layer and keep warm, so that makes me happy. It's just chilly and windy here today, but it's really not bad at all without the rain.
Today, we're going to be doing some shopping and looking to see if we can find the Baptist church. Sasha the elder drew me a map, so we should be okay. For shopping, Voronezh is described by Russians as a "small city" (because 1 million people is definitely small). However, I think one of the WP boys was right on when he said it's really like living in a New York neighborhood. The shops are all along the fronts of the streets and apartments are either above them or set back off the street on an alleyway sort of set up.
There are lots of little boutique-type shops on the way to school, most of which have very few clothes that cost quite a lot of money. We've now found another yarn shop right around the corner from us, which is very nice. I've got the scarf I'm working on, and then probably another. After that, I think I'm going to try my hand at a sweater. Then I can wear said sweater and be slightly less cold.
There are also several open air markets within easy walking distance of us. At least one extends for several blocks - it's just row upon row of little stalls selling shoes, hose, shirts, purses - anything and everything. Everytime I've been, it's rained, so I'm hoping to get to go when I'm not primarily concerned with my falling body temperature.
Hopefully that's enough reading material for y'all. Enjoy the weekend!
So my first full week of proper classes is now complete (OK, sans Monday since I stayed home, but that's only one class). Grammar is boring (big surprise), even though it is mildly entertaining that the professor continually apologizes for the Russian language. Practical Speaking is mind-numbingly basic at the moment, but I'm holding out hope that it'll get better. Phonetics is aggravating more than anything, but we get to laugh at ourselves and each other, so whatever. I really like Russian Regional Culture so far - it's all in Russian, but it's understandable. The first class was really interesting, as we talked about the derivations of various names and how most names people think of as "Russian" are actually derived from other cultures. Russian Military History is cool, and I like the professor. I need to do my homework - a three-minute speech on Chechnya (in Russian). I kind of need to find a military dictionary to use - it's on today's shopping list. History of Voronezh is ok - we have it with the Estonian kids, and the teacher speaks more to their level than to ours, so part of it goes over our heads. And finally, Russian Folk Songs is great. The professor is entertaining and he has a great voice. It's actually really quite fun to sing together like that.
Props to everyone who just waded through that big block of text - it's good practice for the real world, right?
It's been raining all week, which really stinks if you don't have an umbrella or a rain jacket (namely, me). I did buy a pretty blue fleece yesterday to add another layer and keep warm, so that makes me happy. It's just chilly and windy here today, but it's really not bad at all without the rain.
Today, we're going to be doing some shopping and looking to see if we can find the Baptist church. Sasha the elder drew me a map, so we should be okay. For shopping, Voronezh is described by Russians as a "small city" (because 1 million people is definitely small). However, I think one of the WP boys was right on when he said it's really like living in a New York neighborhood. The shops are all along the fronts of the streets and apartments are either above them or set back off the street on an alleyway sort of set up.
There are lots of little boutique-type shops on the way to school, most of which have very few clothes that cost quite a lot of money. We've now found another yarn shop right around the corner from us, which is very nice. I've got the scarf I'm working on, and then probably another. After that, I think I'm going to try my hand at a sweater. Then I can wear said sweater and be slightly less cold.
There are also several open air markets within easy walking distance of us. At least one extends for several blocks - it's just row upon row of little stalls selling shoes, hose, shirts, purses - anything and everything. Everytime I've been, it's rained, so I'm hoping to get to go when I'm not primarily concerned with my falling body temperature.
Hopefully that's enough reading material for y'all. Enjoy the weekend!
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