This Sunday, exactly three weeks from the day I was supposed to move from the Petersburg dorms into my new home, I actually moved. It's been quite a week. It's hard for me not to think of this era as Alla Round 2, the sequel to my first semester studying abroad in Russia (hence the nickname "Nina Vasilievna: 2 Fast 2 Furious") but Nina is, of course, not Alla. (She is also neither fast, nor furious.) They have similarities though. I realized, when you request to live in a home with as few people as possible and end up living alone with one woman, they likely have volunteered their home because they are lonely and want company. Which is actually the worst situation I could possibly be in, considering that I wanted independence and alone time more than anything.

Nina has a sad story for deciding to start hosting American students, which is that her husband died last December of throat cancer, and she became very lonely. Over the summer she hosted a girl, and it was her first time hosting anyone. I'm her second student, and our time together will be the longest she's ever had someone in her home. I'll be with her during the one year anniversary of her husband's death. She can't even discuss him without beginning to cry. It's brought us closer together, and her strong emotions don't scare me, but I suddenly feel a great sense of responsibility to know that I am helping her get through her husband's death. Because that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm her cure for loneliness, I'm there to listen and to make her life that much brighter. Which is great, because Nina is a really wonderful, sweet and caring person. Her husband, from the sound of it, was also one-of-a-kind, and his death has left her devastated. According to her, they did everything together. Even just to go round the corner for groceries, they would do it together. He had many friends and everyone loved him. Nina has one son, 29 years old, named Alyosha. I met him briefly, and even then I could tell he is an unusually polite and lovely person. Alla was sweet but Nina seems to smile more, be more genuinely happy, sort of a sunnier person in general. She LOVES music, always has the radio on during all meals, and will sing along at various points, reminding me that she's a very modern person with a wide-ranging taste and impressive knowledge of all genres.

Whereas I never socialized with Alla outside of the home, and she never invited me to, Nina wants to go a lot of places with me. If I ever go to the ballet, she told me, I'm required to bring her along. Nina loves the ballet, more than anything else. Alyosha used to be married to a famous ballerina, though Nina didn't volunteer her full name. Nina loved her but they divorced, and now Alyosha is living with a woman that Nina really doesn't get along with. She told me all about it over dinner tonight, and looked very sad. In addition to her health problems, it seems that Nina's having a difficult time with life right now. I guess that's a lot of pressure to keep someone else happy, but apparently I'm already doing a good job. Nina told me tonight she misses me when I'm not home, and she's already become very used to me. She tells everyone that I'm a good person, and we sometimes discuss that we're happy to be living with each other. So I guess it's worked out.

On Saturday evening, we're all boarding an overnight train to Moscow to start our "mid-semester" trip. We'll spend half the day in Moscow, go to Ulyanovsk (where Lenin was born) and then get on a boat from there. The majority of our trip is a cruise down the Volga, stopping by various cities along the way, until our final destination of Astrakhan, which is a city on the Caspian Sea. After Astrakhan, we'll take a 2-night train all the way back to Peter. We're all pretty excited. I probably won't be able to use the internet for the entirety of the trip, but I'll make up for it with what I assume will be great videos after I return. And we'll be back on October 5th.

Anyway, I'm gonna try really hard to get a couple videos up before I leave on the cruise. There's a few in the works and I guess they're reasonably amusing. I'll be online less often in general since I don't have internet at home. Internet is much easier to access in Peter compared to Vladimir, but I just don't need to seek it out every day. I guess that's all I have to say for now so... hope all's well where you are.

Does someone want to do a study on the psychological damages of taking cold showers? That would interest me a great deal.

Anyway, I'd like to wish everyone* a Happy New Year today!

Yesterday in grammar class, we were going over Russian idioms. We got around to reading some phrase that means, more or less, something along the lines of "go to hell". At this point, Tatiana Aleksandrovna pauses, looks intently at me and, as I'm the only girl in the room at the moment, says "Laurie, Russian women never say this". I ask, "because it's too rude?" She says yes. It is a man's phrase. This coming a week after I take an interest in a movie Luke brings up during class, to which Tatiana Aleksandrovna replies that there's no need for me to watch it, the movie is a "man's movie", too violent, not for women. Then she calls Tyler a "grammar hooligan". I love this woman.

I hung out with my tutor yesterday, mostly just going over vocabulary in various coffee shops. At one point her fiance, Yuri, comes to join us, and we begin talking. Nastya asks me what Americans think of the whole Russia invading Georgia incident. I begin my politically neutral (though honest) explanation of my perspective, and notice that the entire time I"m talking, Nastya and Yuri are constantly exchanging glances. Then later I find out he served in the military for 5 years as an engineer working on rocket ships. So I tell Yuri he must be very smart and he gets shy, then I turn to Nastya and tell her she's smart, and she also gets shy.

I'll have some new videos up hopefully before our big Volga cruise, which starts next Friday. Enjoy the weekend.



*Jews

The date for moving out of the dorms keeps getting pushed back, which is why I haven't posted anything yet. But I'm pretty sure I will have information by the end of this week.

Today I spent several hours after school with my tutor, Nastya. It was the first time we have met and hung out since the river cruise where everyone met their tutors. In my opinion, we really click. I mentioned before she wants to be a speech therapist, but that's not entirely true. Her first major in college was speech therapy, and she's currently working at a hospital doing something with speech therapy. But she wants to eventually be a psychotherapist. I think her second major in college was psychology, and she's currently taking exams to hopefully get into grad school for psychology. Today she had to drop some papers off at the hospital and took me along because she thought I'd want to see it. It's the first time I've seen a Russian hospital. She told me it was considered one of the better hospitals because it's clean and has good machines. This surprised me somewhat because, from what I'm used to seeing of American hospitals, it looked considerably more shabby. But looks are deceiving, especially in Russia. I sat on a bench in the section of the hospital where they train people who have had strokes or brain injuries to relearn tasks like cooking and whatever. I'm not sure what the term is in English, or I forget. Like physical therapy but for the mind. We also saw a man walking back and forth down the hall, and Nastya explained that his injury was not physical, but mental. I wouldn't have known this just by seeing him. I'm SO glad she took me. We have the opportunity to see stuff like this over the course of the program, during excursions and whatnot. But it's always in a big group of Americans, so I feel like I'm just on a tour sight-seeing. This time I felt like I was really gaining insider access.

Later we went to a cafe because Nastya wanted my help for her last exam tomorrow. It's an exam on English, and I was really excited she asked for my help. I'm tired of constantly asking other people for help, it was nice to help someone else for a change. She went over a list of vocabulary, all technical terms regarding psychology. She said she wanted to practice pronouncing the words, and asked me to correct her. It was kind of funny to hear her speak English for a change. Then we started sort of talking linguistics. I asked her what her favorite word in English is and her answer was "washing machine" because of all the "sh" sounds. I realized that, having studied speech therapy, she must also be interested in phonetics and such, which is great for me. She said she tries to listen to English-language songs and understand them, but she can't. She demonstrated by singing "My Humps" and, needless to say, I was quite taken aback by hearing her try. I don't know, it was just a lot of fun.

At one point I asked her if it would be a bad idea to try the blintzes with red caviar at the fast food place I like. She said she didn't know cause she never had it there, but it was better to buy caviar in a store and make it yourself. Then later when we were discussing Russian movies, she said that I should come over to her apartment sometime so she could make me blintzes with caviar and we could watch one of her favorite Russian movies, Admiral. Personally, for me, it sounds like the perfect plan. She lives with her fiance and a female roommate, apparently. She wants to meet again on Friday to visit St. Isaac's Cathedral.

She just sent me a text thanking me for getting her fired up about the English language.

Walking down a street in St. Petersburg, discussing the functions and names of various parts of the brain in Russian with a girl born under the Soviet flag. As a 7-year old kid from Maryland dreaming of becoming a veterinarian, how could I possibly have seen this coming? There are just some moments that seem so bizarre you step outside yourself and think "is this really my life?" Those are the moments I live for.

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As a sidenote: there comes a special time in every blogger's life where he/she realizes people are actually listening to and caring about what he/she is saying. Stemming from this pleasant and initially humbling realization, the blogger understands the power inherent in having a voice. I'm about to abuse this power. The following is intended neither to educate nor provoke thoughtful consideration of foreign cultures. Indulge me.

1) What is Kanye West's problem?

2) I've been listening to this guy's album on repeat for the last week. The artist is A.A. Bondy and the song is "Black Rain, Black Rain". I can't not share.

At home in America, at home in Russia, or in the Russian dorms, it makes no difference. Wherever I'm living, some lady is inevitably going to come into my room and clean it without my permission. I wasn't really aware this would happen in the dorms, but I was very surprised to come home today and see that my bed had been made. All valuables are safe, and I guess I'm just amused. As always.

A few quick things to mention: I somehow forgot to say I went to the Hermitage on Saturday for the first time. We didn't stay long but it was a good introduction. I'm guessing there will be many more trips. Host family thing should be resolved, and I should have a permanent home (wherever that may be) by the end of the week, so I'll update then.

Also, here's a shoutout to my Grandma for being so cute.

Gina's MacBook died today. I'm writing about this because it just reinforces my point: when you go to Russia, things will not work out the way you planned. You may be thinking, well, this could have happened in any country. It was simply a bad turn of events that has nothing to do with Russia. You're wrong. However, Gina just so happens to know a young man of a nature geeky enough to fix the problem. Which reinforces my other point: don't worry, because things will work out anyway. Maybe I am the only one who sees the connection between hard drive failure and the Russian Federation, or Matt Parelman and a determined faith in the successful resolution of life's problems, but you're not the one with the blog. So don't worry about it.

The following videos are a bit longer than the last and I regret to say lack flow as well. But, in my opinion, they’re more entertaining and interesting. For the first video, the first girl you’ll see is my tutor, Nastya. She’s from a small town near Moscow, I forget the name, and is getting married in October. She’s 25. All of the students and their tutors were on a little boat tour of the city. It was beautiful and fun. Nastya is very nice and studying to be a speech therapist, so she’s perfect as a tutor. We get along well.

The first video has more scenes from the city. The second shows some friends. I had a bunch of people over to my dorm room for drinks before we went to the jazz club. Everyone you’ll see is studying here in my group, except for two. Eric introduced himself to us after walking past us on the street and hearing us speak English. Benny is the German I mentioned in my previous post. Enjoy.

I love studying abroad because, no matter what you’re doing at any given moment, as long as you’re speaking Russian while you’re doing it, it becomes an intellectual exercise. This is why, when I woke up this morning and remembered starting a conversation with the Russian stranger standing behind me in line for the bathroom at the jazz club last night (after perhaps one too many vodka tonics), I could be proud instead of embarrassed. All I really remember of the conversation is that she was born in St. Petersburg and I told her my life story. I’m amused to say that I genuinely do feel proud. I also feel proud for stealing a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom, but not because I was speaking Russian while doing it. Danny and I just needed some for the dorm.

The jazz club, called The Other Side, had a blues band last night. But as it was a Russian blues band, the music had a unique twist to it. I’m used to listening to Russian bluegrass, and there are just certain genres of music that, when sung in Russian, just sound completely different from what you’re accustomed to. It was still awesome, so we returned again tonight for some acoustic Cuban music and have plans to go back next weekend as well to see a band that the bar describes as “post folk”.

Tonight I went to dinner at an Azerbaijani restaurant with a few friends from the program and a few new ones as well, Benny and Kostya. Benny is a German also here studying Russian. We met him in the dorms when he was also asking for help using the internet. Kostya, Benny's roommate, was born in Tajikistan during the Soviet Union but lives in Germany now, so he speaks fluent Russian and German. Since Kostya doesn’t speak English and Benny doesn’t speak Russian well enough yet, all three languages were being spoken at various points during dinner, depending on who was talking to who. Kostya is a very interesting guy and impressed us all by drinking an endless amount of vodka during dinner. I’m happy with how many friends we’ve made here from outside the ACTR program. Russians and international students alike. That also didn’t happen (for me) in Vladimir. It’s amazing to me that I could have a delicious dinner with wine and friends, having fun and, again, since I’m speaking Russian, I end up learning as much as if I had been in class that whole time. I came out of dinner with some new vocabulary and explanations of Russian cultural habits, courtesy of Kostya.

I was really excited about posting some new videos but I’ve been having some problems uploading them and am too tired to deal with it right now. I will try again tomorrow. I did manage to get one online, which is very short. I just happened to catch on video the happiest moment of my entire life:




Tomorrow I will probably do homework and maybe another solo walk around the city. My first impressions of Peter have held up: it definitely feels like home.

I guess I should post, it's been a few days. Honestly though the past few days have just felt like more of the same. Except for that I know all my teachers now and have met my peer tutor. Her name is Nastya. I like having the videos explains things for me. It just gets tiring trying to convey all these details with actual words. I will have a new video up probably tomorrow. Again nothing very interesting but you will get to see more people (proving I have more than one friend here), some scenery, my tutor, my dorm room and various other things. In the meantime I can say that I love all my teachers. Big surprise. When do I not love all my Russian teachers? My classes are speech practice, grammar, phonetics, politics/modern Russia and an elective. I chose a syntax class, as it came highly recommended by my friend Bridgett who studied here last semester.

I don't know why it seems as though I understand Russian speech significantly better than when I was here in the spring. I think it can simply be attributed to an increased level of confidence. I don't freeze up every time I hear a single word I don't know. Everything is just smoother. I do feel that classes are in actuality easier than in the spring but I have been enjoying them so far. The university building is much nicer than the one in Vladimir. The teachers are very nice and very good here but the teachers in Vladimir really were a lot more maternal and familiar with us. So I miss them of course.

Tonight I am going to a jazz club and tomorrow probably Peterhof so we can see it before the fountains are turned off. There's so much to do here. And it really doesn't feel like school, more like a really long vacation. I mean, studying Russian is fun, so really where's the work?

St. Petersburg does not feel like Russia. Or at least the Russia I came to know earlier this year. I am enjoying myself and have ample opportunity to practice my Russian, but I am feeling a lack of Russian cultural education. No offense to Peter, I love the culture of this city, but it is so western. Occasionally I feel something lacking in Peter that I expected to find upon my return to Russia, but I can't really explain what. Again, I resented it when politicians used the term "real America" during last year's election and I don't want to say that Peter is anything other than "real Russia". But it is different. I now know why all my friends in Vladimir chose to stay in that city after their initial stays in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Being in Peter, even more than Moscow, makes me realize how rich my experience was in Vladimir. The next time I am in Russia, under whatever circumstances and for whatever reason, I think I should aim to live in a smaller town again. (Though if I were to choose a city in which to live, based purely on personal preference, St. Petersburg is an easy winner.)

I'm far from an expert, but at this point, having now been to all 3 locations of ACTR study, I am in a much better position to recommend where a student should study their first semester. St. Petersburg would make a much easier transition from one culture to another, but you won't fully know Russia until you've been elsewhere as well, so I wouldn't really recommend it to those seriously interested in Russian culture (by culture I mean behavior and norms, not the arts. Peter might actually be a better place for artistic culture). Vladimir might be the most immersive and authentic experience, but if you're like me and get bored in small towns, you'll have to be willing to make that sacrifice. I've never actually lived in Moscow but based on what I know so far, I think it's a good compromise between St. Petersburg and Vladimir, if it's your first time in Russia. If it's not your first time in Russia, go to Vladimir. Period.

Oh also I should mention that on Wednesday I ate dumplings filled with chopped up cow hearts. Really good.