bangcuts, bars, and ballets

Wow - is it really Wednesday already? I guess I've been a bad blogger this week! Anyhow our holiday weekend turned out to be really great! I hung out with the American students visiting from Vladimir on both Saturday and Sunday nights and we had a really fun time trading stories and what not...

On Saturday I walked over to the center of the city without using any form of public transportation but my feet and I was proud. When I got to Nevsky, I explored this little mini mall across the street from Gostiniy Dvor and discovered this awesome little section that sold quirky, unusual Russian doo-dads, where I found something that was perfect for my mother (it was a wallet that looked like two hands pressed together with the phrase, "Всё моё" threaded on to it). Then I stopped in at Dom Knigi to buy a book in Russian (I picked one by Gogol) and took myself to the Russia version of Subway! That was a feat in itself because I had to order all my ingredients in Russian, but I was successful and got everything I wanted! I basically just chilled there and attempted to read my Gogol until it was time to meet up with the other students.

That night we first went to the local laundromat/bar, Stirka. I had read about it in my guide book, but hadn't been there yet so I was pretty excited - it had a very chill atmosphere: it was small, but there was a DJ, a disco ball, a bunch of hipsters with dreads, a couple of groups playing Russian Scrabble, etc. And best of all, I ordered Kirschenbeer, which is basically just beer with cherry syrup - yum!

Then we went to the German bar that I had been hearing a lot of good things about from my friends in the program. It's a tiny, tiny bar, but extremely welcoming - when you open the entrance door, the bartender, Sasha, immediately starts calling you to, "Come in, come in! Join the crowd!" and so on.. We met the Vladimir group there and got to see our friend from ND, Jeff, for the first time since we'd been to Russia. It seemed like their group had gotten really close - we definitely want to try and go visit them some time this semester if we can ever get ourselves organized to travel!

On Sunday, my family went out for the morning, so I secretly ran the stairs (they told me it might upset the neighbors, but I do it anyway when they're not around hehe) and, drumroll, I don't know what came over me, but I gave myself a haircut.. My host mother had cut my bangs for me the day before, and, while she had done a good job, I decided that I wanted them a little bit shorter. After I had overcome that obstacle, I started looking at my layers and decided, what the heck, and trimmed them too. I was surprised at how liberating it was! And it actually turned out looking pretty good, if I do say so myself. I may never pay for a haircut again!

After that excitement I went to Mega, the HUGE mall, but made the mistake of going to the one that is super far away, not realizing that there is actually one pretty close to my home. But I found a lot of really good sales (70% off!) and bought myself a new hat, earmuffs, and fluffy scarf, as well as a new, bright green towel from IKEA. I also got my host sisters some gifts for the prazdnik on Monday (pens with a windmill on top and phone keychains).

When I got home, my host family was having a dinner party of sorts with one other family that they had invited over. It was the first time that I had ever seen them pull the table out (they put it in the living/computer/girl's bedroom) and have a meal all together. It reminded me of Thanksgiving :-) . And I got to experience the Russian tradition of toasting (a lot! my host father kept trying to get me to drink vodka, but I stuck with my wine - I swear those Russians are tanks with their national drink!).

After dinner, I went out to go meet the Vladimir group one last time before they went back. I took them to Dacha to go and see my tutor, Sasha, DJ and I think they really enjoyed it! We ended up staying even later than Sasha works, around 2:30 or so, so I had to take a cab home, but it was worth it. I also got to hang out a little bit with some of the people that Sasha had introduced me to last week, so that was nice too. At one point in the night, I ordered the Vladimir group a round of shots and Sasha's friends were like, "Do you want to be drunk?" I think that at first they thought I was buying the shots just for myself, but I cleared things up haha.

Monday was a fairly chill day - my host sisters had a lot of fun with their gifts and they got me a really cute shirt with a flower on it. Later on in the day, I went out to go buy a hair straightener and bought my host mother some mimosas from the street (they are EVERYWHERE on Women's Day here!), which she also seemed to like.

Yesterday was a regular class day, but we also had our excursion last night to go see the ballet, Swan Lake, at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. It was soo beautiful - I don't think I've seen a ballet since "The Nutcracker" so it was really neat to watch and listen to! The theatre itself was gorgeous also... After the show, a small group of us went to a small cafe for a little while to celebrate our friend, Nina's, 21st birthday. It was very chill, but a nice way to end the evening.

Today we are going to banya again (but we'll do it right this time ;-) ) and from there I have to go to work at my intership for a little while.. After that, depending on what my tutor says, I may be hanging out with her for a short time or possibly going to a karaoke bar for Nina's bday. Should be a pretty full day, but it's better than being bored...

Women's day weekend !

Aaaah another long weekend - thank you women's day! That's on Monday, so we get another day off. We were thinking about traveling some where, but our ND friends who are studying in Vladimir and Moscow decided to visit this weekend, so once again we remain in Piter.

All in all it has been a good week. On Tuesday we all went out to a bar since we didn't have class the next day and met up with some Germans that some people had met at the German bar a couple of nights ago. It turned out that they were going to the same hockey game that we were going to for our cultural excursion on Wednesday so we exchanged numbers and met up with them there for a little bit too.

The hockey game was a blast! We were right next to the super fan cheering section - i don't know how many times I heard the, "Только СКА и только победа!" (Only SKA, only victory!) The team we were rooting for ended up winning 6 to 4, I think. After the game, we all went to Dacha for a little bit since it was one of the student's 21st birthdays.

The next day we went to go and see Alice and Wonderland in Russian and I really enjoyed it, despite not really being able to understand all of the dialogue. But we saw it in 3d so the visuals were still really neat and Johnny Depp made for an entertaining Mad Hatter (Шлаппик in the russian version ;-)) .. Then I walked home with my friend Kolya and he ended up walking me all the way up to my apartment since I was kind of lost (surprise surprise). But he said something that kind of boggled my mind when we were talking about our apartments - I was telling him how my apartment was pretty small and old and there were just 3 rooms in addition to the kitchen and toilet. He then said that during Soviet times, there were probably 3 families sharing my apartment - 1 in each room! So an entire family could have been living in my tiny little room! Nutso... but really interesting!

Then Friday I gave a presentation on Woodstock for my conversation. I had been up pretty late finishing it up the night before, but I think it turned out pretty well - I played a piece of Jimi Hendrix's improv Star Spangled Banner and showed some pictures along with my powerpoint. Kaitlin did her presentation on Titanic and showed some of the dubbed Russian version of Titanic - that brought me back. And Brittany did her presentation on the Olympics.

After class I went to my internship with the film company, Lenfilm. When I told my host father where I worked, he told me that Lenfilm was like the Hollywood (but he pronounced it like Gollyvood, so I didn't understand at first) of St. Petersburg! Basically I just corrected the English part of their website and some letters they were sending out to English-speaking film makers about their summer film festival - very chill. But when we were getting ready to leave, they saw that my laptop was kind of sticking out of my purse and since they were worried about me having it stolen, they gave me a laptop bag to keep! I was sooo excited - I think they were pretty amused that I was so excited about it because they kept laughing at me when I was thanking them - but it's a really nice bag and I didn't have one here!

Then, last night after I congratulated mother on her bday, I went to a goodbye party for the Germans at one of their flats. The apartment was so cute - we all just congregated in their little yellow kitchen - it looked like a typical hipstery, city apartment with maps all hanging up on the walls and tons of homemade food everywhere! It was refreshing to go to house party again, and totally bizarre for me because I could hear Russian, English, and German all around me and kind of understand the gist of what everyone was saying! Made me feel pretty proud ;-)

And now it's a lazy Saturday morning again, going on the afternoon now actually. But my family always sleeps really late on the weekends, so I end up just relaxing a lot on weekend mornings and end up eating breakfast at like 12 :)

Today we should be meeting up with Jeff (our friend who's been in Vladimir) - he's apparently staying right across from the dorm! And I'm supposed to get together with my tutor some time tonight - yay! She wanted to get together on Thursday or Friday, but I was totally booked at that point. But I had an awesome time last time we hung out so I'm sure today will be fun too...

That's all for now - let you know how the weekend went soon!

yay 4 кошки

I was informed today by my grammar teacher that today was not only the first day of spring, but also the international holiday for cats (hence the title). Russian language isn't the only thing that you learn at Herzen...

So I've been super tired all day because we only really had a one-day-weekend, since we had class on Saturday. On Saturday night we went out to celebrate Cheryl's 23rd birthday at an American restaurant/bar, The Other Side. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I'm pretty sure she had a good idea that we were planning something. I bought her a birthday crown from Dom Knigi and some birthday candles - my host mother was making me feel really guilty because I wasn't planning on getting her an official gift. I told her that we'd probably just pay for her dinner and drinks and such, and she kept saying that that stuff should go without saying and, if it's her birthday, you have to give her something. But she seemed satisfied when I told her later that I got her the crown and candles.

On Sunday, I went to mass and then bought an umbrella, because it was raining! It's finally starting to warm up a little bit, which is exciting, but with that comes this mondo-city-meltdown. One of my friends compared walking around in Piter to walking around in a mud-flavored slurpee. Yum yum. Definitely need to buy some boots ASAP - this morning my host mother picked up my knee-high boots (which were not made for a Russian winter) with all their holes and said, "You need to throw these away." Lol. I said, "Yes, I agree."

Brittany and I also bought tickets to go see Alice in Wonderland on Thursday - it actually comes out in Russia a day before it comes out in America! I'm stoked. Then I went home and played some games with the girls, talked to my parents, and finished up my homework. Then I went out to meet my tutor at 9 pm at the bar where she DJs, Dacha. That totally made my day. We just sat and talked for an hour about random topics (my banya experience, American TV shows, music, torrenting, age differences, etc.) until her shift started. Then she introduced me to some of her friends that were my age that come to Dacha a lot. One of her friends, Anya, took me under her wing and talked with me for the entire night, introducing me to all of their friends and such. She was also really cool - she's studying German and English (kind of like a Russian version of what I'm doing) at a small university right now and she's half Armenian. She told me that she would invite me to come play poker with her group of friends if I was interested, so I was excited. Then when it got to be 12 and I had to catch the metro, Sasha (my tutor) had her two of her guy friends escort me to the metro, even though it was super close. I didn't get back home till around 12:30 and I was pretty sleepy in the morning, but it was absolutely worth it!

Today was a really long day because we had to make up a class that our teacher had cancelled last week today after the normal class day. Then right after that I found out that I had to meet with the people at the film company where I'm going to work for my internship! They are organizing a film festival for the summer and they put on old American movies with Russian subtitles at in Indie theater every week. It looks like we're (my friend Max is also interning with me) probably going to be working on Mondays and Fridays, editing English translations of things and such for now, but if we get to stay for the summer we'll get to do a lot of really cool stuff since that's when the festival is held :-).

Now I'm SUPER tired, so I'm going to sign off for tonight - probably next time, I'll be writing about the Russian hockey game we are going to on Wednesday!

Ой

Where to begin...

So yesterday was our excursion to the banya. Everyone had pretty high expectations for this one because of the crazy stories we'd all heard about past semesters' trips to the banya. For those who may not know, a Russian banya is similar to a spa, but the main feature is the sauna. Typically when you go to the banya everyone sits in this unbelievably hot sauna and then after you have had a sufficient sweat (it doesn't take long!) you jump into a pool of cold water (which, in actuality, is a fairly pleasurable experience). Then you go back and do it all over again. In short, heat, rinse, and repeat.

There's also this weird tradition at the banya called париться веником, which involves being beaten with birch branches while you're in the sauna and is supposed to be pleasurable? Or maybe just good for your health in some way? I had it done to me, and I don't know if I would want it done all the time, but I guess it wasn't really uncomfortable either...

Anyhow, there may have been an assortment of напитки there. And I may have slightly overdone it. In fact, the title of this blog post may have been the soundtrack of my evening last night. But despite a slight headache and a hearty feeling of embarrassment in the morning, I felt normal again in class today.

Yesterday was also the first day of our lenten pact, пост, not to speak English until 6 pm every day. I was actually surprised at how difficult it was for my brain to switch back into English when it got to be 6 o clock. All of my sentences were really fragmented and Russian phrases kept popping into my head - it was kind of bizarre...

When I got home today, my host mother's sister was visiting so I briefly got to meet her while I was eating my dinner. Then later after we had all had some чай, my host father uttered the phrase, "мы поидём go lay down." It made my night.

Oh! I almost forgot to write about Leila's judo competition! It reminded me a lot of my brother's old wrestling matches, but it was surreal to see such young children competing! And Leila was the only girl in her division! She won her first match, but ended up losing her second two. Nadya told me later that this was the first time that she didn't win anything, so she was pretty bummed, but I was still really impressed! It lasted a pretty long time, but it was interesting for me, since I'd never seen a judo competition before. And I think Alina appreciated my iPhone games when we were passing time there, because she got me up to level 9 on Fling - she assured me that I could tell all my friends at home that I did it myself ;-)

Tomorrow is Friday, but it doesn't really feel like it because we have a regular class day on Saturday - in Russia, you apparently have to pay for your holidays. Это жизнь...

спасеб's for long weekends

home!
the kitchen/bath
at dacha

Well, I did not join a gym. The level of my indecisiveness this past month has been off the charts.... Despite wearing my tennis shoes to school and packing my purse with a sports bra and shorts, I nevertheless decided to buy a yoga mat on Friday at lunch instead of going to buy a gym membership. I actually ran stairs on Saturday morning when the family was out at Leilah's judo competition, but when I officially asked Nadia yesterday morning if I could run stairs, she said it wouldn't be a good idea because the neighbors would think it was strange. So I guess it's yoga, pilates, and Billy Blanks until the snow melts!

This weekend is super long because of the holiday on Tuesday (it's kind of like a Men's Day/Veterans Day mash up), so we were going to travel to Pskov as a group, but we kind of ran out of planning time, so we all just decided to stay here and relax and take in the city. On Friday night we all went to this place called Zoom Cafe for dinner and I had tongue salad - and it was actually quite tasty! I also had some tea with a flower in it.

After that we went to a pretty big bar called СПБ where you could get pretty cheap beer and had a fun time just hanging out together. The next day we went to the Hermitage and saw what we could see for about 3 or 4 hours - which was probably only a miniscule fraction of everything that is actually on display there - it's HUGE! But so cool - I can't believe that people actually used to live there - I would get so lost!

After that I stopped home for a quick minute and then headed back out to go to a blues club where a Russian band played and sang American blues songs - they played "Can't Buy Me Love"! A bunch of also made a pact that starting Wednesday we would give up speaking English until 6 pm for Lent - which if you think about it isn't so bad - most of that time we're in class speaking Russian anyway so it just cuts out lunch and a couple hours after class. Totally doable, but still challenging.

Then yesterday, I somehow ended up playing games with Alina, my host sister for the entire day while the rest of the family went grocery shopping. So I guess essentially I was babysitting and just didn't realize it.. We played Candyland, Guess Who?, hangman, MASH, hide-n-seek, tag, and then she taught me a handful of her own games, which involved traversing the room without touching the floor, naming colors and finding them before you get tagged, and a card game that I somehow won at, without ever fully grasping the rules. I finally got a break to finish putting on my makeup (we started playing games RIGHT after my shower) when she became entranced with the puzzle games on my iPhone. I'm not going to lie - I was a little exhausted.

Right after dinner I met some of the girls to go see Valentine's Day (in Russian) at a movie theater in the center. I felt like I understood the main idea of the plot pretty well and I really liked listening for the slang/idioms that the Russian voices used to say some of the things that we don't learn in class. Then after that we went to the club, Dacha, to see my tutor, Sasha, deejay. She was sooo amazing!! She has really great taste in music, so I'm really excited to get together with her so we can swap...

We ended up taking cabs home last night because the metro closes at 12:15 or so, and we had gotten kind of a late start because of the movie. But I got home fine with no problems, so it was fine. It's been SOOO cold this weekend though - I think I heard somewhere that the wind the past couple of days has made it feel like -15 degrees Fahrenheit! People's boogers and hair are freezing all over the place, and you have to concentrate really hard on every step you take so that you don't slip and fall on some ice or get impaled with a gigant-icle. But today it was a little warmer, and it wasn't so bad :-).

Today I slept in late and met with some friends to do homework at the cafe in the museum near school where I saw the exhibit on mirrors. It has a pretty chill, hipster-y atmosphere and really enormous tables, so it was a nice place to study. It's also looks right out onto this balcony-outdoor spot where it seems like they're always doing fashion photo shoots. I swear, it's like 15 degrees outside and there will still be some gorgeous Russian girl out there in a sleeveless mini-dress.

Now I'm back home and I think I'm going to have a chill night because I told my host family that I would go with them tomorrow to watch Leilah's judo competition and we're leaving around 7:30, I think. I'm excited to see what it will be like! Apparently, she's pretty good - she was the only girl at the competition on Saturday and she got 3rd place!

On Wednesday we get to go the Бания, which is like this very Russian spa-type place, where apparently they hit us with birch branches and we jump into extremely hot and cold water for the health benefits. Should be very interesting..... I'll keep you updated.

"crazy beaches"

We got to wear these lovely accessories on our feet in the palace...
Church of Spilled Blood
A taste of home..
Sushi with Nina and Jessica
My Bento Box

My host father is listening to "Du hast" by Rammstein in the next room. Lol.

Other than that, not much to report... Today was an excursion day to get our metro passes (yay! no more buying zhetony!!) and to Yusupov Palace (Юсуповский дворец) and it was really cool. These people were apparently loaded - just about every room had a different theme. One was all made of oak, one was all dark blue, one was in the style of the Romans, etc. And there were different floors for men, women, and children. I think my favorite part was the stairs. I really like stairs. And they would just pop up in the most random places in this palace, sometimes curvy, sometimes diverging into two, sometimes with a carpet down the center...

And the chairs all looked pretty comfy too, but you weren't allowed to sit on them, which was a bummer because we walked A LOT today.

We also got to see where Rasputin was murdered and a life-like model of the actual Rasputin - very attractive...

After the excursion, I went to have coffee at the dorm and then stopped at the mall at Sennaya Ploshad to buy a new purse. My mom said she was sending one with a zipper, but from what I hear, it could be a very long time before that package makes its way to St. Pete. And this one was a reasonable price. And it's big and red.

The other big news is that we have a 4-day weekend coming up - we get Monday and Tuesday off for what I THINK is like "Men's Day"? Or something? There seems to be some confusion about what this holiday is actually celebrating, but I'll get back to you when I figure that one out... Anyways since we have such a long weekend, we are going to try to take a little mini-trip. The peeps were talking about a place called Pskov, but plans are still uncertain. More to come about that soon, I hope...

Tomorrow my goal is to go and buy a gym membership. It's kinda pricey, but I think it will be worth it, since it doesn't sound like I'm allowed to use the treadmill... I kind of subtly brought up that I wanted to exercise because I used to run every day at home, but all Nadya said was, "Did you look for a fitness club with your friends?" SOO. I think that better be what I do.

I also had a pretty entertaining conversation with my host parents today about the importance of correct vowel pronunciation in the word "beach."

Here's some pics from today - I had sushi for the first time here nom nom nom...

tongue!

salty snacks from the sea!

mega-ginormic store


me and the mega mall

the mall

As you can see from my last post, I finally got my modem to work – hooray! I had to go back to the store again and sit for about an hour while Alexei, aka my hero, tinkered around with my computer until he got it to work. Meanwhile, he got out his MP3 player and had me try to transcribe an English techno song for him, without much success by me, I might add. He spoke English pretty well though and wants me to help him learn better English when I come in.


After I came home, I went with Nadya, Nazim, and Alina to a huge mall (Mega) – it had an IKEA, an H&M, a bunch of typical mall stores, a food court, and a giant Sam’s Club/Wal-mart/grocery store-like store! I bought a couple of basic shirts for layering and a little mirror for my purse. And at the grocery store we bought sooooo much food! We all got ice cream after shopping there and then proceeded to stop at yet another giant grocery store to get more food! I had a really good time though just looking at all the different foods and things that they sell there – I took a picture of the section for tongues J and I was so excited to see the dried raw fish snacks that they bought me some dried calamari. Num num num…


Today I went to church by myself at a Roman Catholic church (I think St. Catherine’s?) on Nevskii. The mass was in Russian, but the priest spoke slowly and clearly so I felt like I understood the vast majority of what he was saying. And the singing and the acoustics of the church were so beautiful that I thought I was going to cry! I definitely think I will add that to my weekly routine.


When I got back, Nadya had lunch ready for me – mashed potatoes, carrots, bread, and best of all – chicken heart! I was eating it and she was like, “So do you like the meat?” And I was like, “Yeah, tasty!” and she smiled that smile of hers and was like, “It’s heart of a chicken!” I was like, “Oh wow!” But honestly, it was pretty good, kind of the same texture as mushrooms. During lunch we talked about the Olympics. Nadya said that America always does well in running because we have a lot of black people. And she thinks that Michael Phelps takes steroids. Lol. Oh, Russia. I also found out that Nazim is from Azerbaijan and got to hear him speak a little bit of Azerbaijani, which I enjoyed. Apparently they visit his family there – it’s about a 3 and half hour plane ride away.


Today I don’t really have any major plans, so I guess I’m going to try and catch up on grant apps and my essay on our excursion for this week. My tutor texted me on Friday saying that she wanted to get together after 5 on Saturday, but then she never called, so I don’t really know what’s going on with that. She should be working at Dacha at 10 tonight though, so we will see what happens there.